Zero’s Welcome Pt. 2
The village was alive with preparation for the festivities. Sundown today would mark the beginning of Samhain, the dark-side of the year and the return of the soldiers from their travels during the summer. Village children alternated between tight-knit circles, carving faces into forgotten vegetables. The women continued their eternal toil at the fireside, while the remaining men got to the fields once again. The escape rate for livestock peaked at this time as the normally docile animals all became mysteriously aware of their fate.
The boys stole away beyond the outskirts of town and off to the nearby river. It was the safest place for Ferdia to avoid recognition by other nobles. He followed clumsily behind the much nimbler Oillín, before coming to the roots of a large tree some ways from the water. After one last look to ensure they weren’t followed, the duo tucked themselves in the mossy nook. The quiet of the reddening woods prevailed over all.
“Here,” Ferdia produced from his robes a small wrapping of cloth. Oillín hesitated before taking it. Inside was some kind of bread and a block of cheese.
“Honey cake!” Ferdia clarified with a cheerful smile. Oillín gave him a sheepish smile and a shy nod. He took a small bite, and his face lit up. Exclamation he held back, however, offering a humble thank you instead. The rest he tucked away in his pocket. When questioned, he admitted the rest would go to his siblings.
Next, Oillín got to work drawing shapes in the ground with a stick. A large circle denoted their village, with surrounding scrawls representing surrounding forests and rivers.
“The soldiers usually come in from this way, right?”
Ferdia blinked. “What do you mean this way?”
“From the front.”
“What front? The village doesn’t have a front.”
“Yeah it does! The entrance near Dubhuir’s farm is the front! They come over the hill from THAT way!” Oillín scribbled a little figure representing a cow by the village “front” with his finger.
“You mean, northeast?” Ferdia offered innocently. Oillín looked at him, perplexed.
“…Sure,” he shrugged before muttering something under his breath about nobles and their fancy language and lack of directional sense. How could someone know so much and so little at the same time?
“If they come from the front, and we’re about here, the trees’ll hide us, and we’ll be ahead of the village so we’ll see’em first, AND have the elemelent of surprise!”
“Surprise. Why?” Ferdia asked pensively. Oillín huffed a haughty grin.
“So we can attack! We know once Aodhàn’s at the village it’ll be impossible to git’im. For all we know some girl’ll jump right in his arms and kiss him with her tongue!”
“Ew! Like a dog??”
“Worse than a dog!” He leaned into his friend’s ear and told him something horrible.
“Gross!!! Stop making up lies!” Ferdia shoved him away.
“Am not! I seen it myself!”
The prince made a disgusted noise, and Oillín’s gaze creased into an amused leer. When Ferdia recovered his senses, he posed another question.
“So, why are we attacking Aodhàn?”
“Fairy do I gotta spell everything out for you?”
A pitifully ignorant look from the prince was enough. Oillín sighed and shook his head.
“Think about it. Aodhàn’s a soldier. Soldiers fight. You’re not a girl, so you can’t just kiss him, and you can’t be a baby cause that’s boring. You gotta impress him. And how’d ya do that?”
“… By hurting him?”
“By showing him what you’re made of!”
“But.. Aidan’s my friend…I don’t want to hurt him!”
“Oh fine you’ll not Hurt him! Just scare him a little. A farce to be reckoned with!”
“A force?”
“Maybe if you’re tough enough, he’ll take you on a hunt!”
Ferdia’s face brow shifted from excitement to reprehension, to contemplation, and finally settled on a determined furrow.
“Allright. What do we have to do.”
--
It was late afternoon when Oillín spotted the first of the saffron herd meandering over the horizon. He leapt to his feet, shook Ferdia awake and scrambled up into a tree for a better view.
“It’s them,” he confirmed.
“Do you see Aidan?” Ferdia asked impatiently.
“Not yet. We have to wait.”
The men in their furs and hides crept on as if ambling. In time, they passed a ways in front of the boys. If the two crept behind and bolted out now, they might be able to surprise them, but their target wasn’t among the flock.
“I…I don’t see him Ferdia.”
“Are you sure? Keep looking!”
Oillín counted heads. Brown, black, carrot, umber, cider and honey. All shades of hair and heights and girths and flesh of pale, pink and white, but none of the bronze and burnt auburn that signaled Aidan’s form. Oillín grit his teeth. They would have waited out here for nothing. The kern had passed quite far by and started to quicken pace towards the village. Some of the bolder townspeople were already running out to meet them.
Had they missed them? Did Aidan return with them at all?
Could he perhaps…not have made it back? It was common for soldiers to return as nothing but a brat and a brooch. He’d rather not think it, but the possibility pulsed with the heaviness in his head.
Ferdia. He’d have to tell Ferdia something. He stammered up an explanation.
“We might’ve missed him… but we can still cut him off at the village. “ He half-believed his own words. “If we go back now, we can-“
No one was at the foot of the tree.
“Ferdia?”
He looked out again. The brunet slinked his way alone into the great green. There he stood, staring into the maw of an unseen horizon. Oillín looked on in quiet helplessness. Perhaps he had noticed Aidan’s absence. What if he already had the same thought Oillín did? From the look on his face, it might be too late to convince him otherwise.
The wind rustled the branches and leaves with its whispered howl. Ferdia’s face, pink from the cool blasts was hard to read under the dance of his deep brown hair. By the time Oillín was halfway down the tree, he broke into a run.
--
Unable to decide between affection and attack, the child threw himself directly at him. Aidan saw him just in time to throw down his cane and snatch the child into his arms, flip him over on bended knee and blow a horrible bubbling noise into the pale underbelly. The child squealed and kicked, making no real move to escape.
“I GOT you! I GOT you didn’t I!? You were scared!!” Ferdia laughed.
“Got Me? I’m the one who got YOU! It was a trap and YOU fell for it!”
“You didn’t see me coming! You even dropped your stick!”
“What stick? Where? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Aidan looked around in mock confusion.
“Beside you!!!”
“Where, here?” Another bout of raspberries blown into Ferdia’s poor tummy. When he was finished, he raised his eyes to Ferdia’s. The darker pair trickled tears from the cold and the play. Aidan took a moment to read him. The boy seemed to be expecting something.
“You want a story, right?”
Ferdia’s chest swelled with an excited gasp. “Please Please Please!” he begged gleefully. At last, Aidan conceded with a sigh.
“Nope!”
With an impossibly sharp twist of his free arm, he snatched up the blond child behind him. The wooden cane went flying once more, this time from the boy’s hands. By the time Oillín got his bearings again, he hung awkwardly under the soldier’s arm. Confusion, frustration, and relief bubbled up inside him.
“HOW!!???” He cried.
“I’ve got eyes in the back of my head~” Aidan whispered while giving him an affectionate squeeze.
“LIES! You grown-ups ALL say that!!” Oillín thrust an accusing finger at him. “Ferdia! Did you tell him!?”
“No I didn’t! I spooked him I swear! That’s how you were able to get the stick! He was so scared he dropped it!”
Aidan rolled his eyes. It was true, Ferdia had told him, indirectly; Oilliín’s reflection was visible in his dark, watery eyes. He’d never give them the peace of that knowledge, however. Instead, he retorted with “I was not scared, my hand just slipped!”
“Can we go on a hunt? Pleeaassee??”
“Will you tell us a cool story?”
“Can we do a hog roast again?”
“Both of you wait please!” Aidan calmed them. “I haven’t even got to the village yet! I’m sure we can do all those things in time while I’m here.”
“So you’re staying this time?” Ferdia’s dark gaze was heavy. Aidan hesitated to give an answer, for even he wasn’t sure of his plans for the season.
“I should be,” was the uneasy reply.
The boys pumped their fists in excitement and scrambled to their feet, grabbing his cane and offering to walk him home. Aidan was exhausted. He let the warm welcome of the little ones console him on the way back to the village.