#rudus

[kystral]

[kothornoi]

Progress

[kothornoi]

Máire had been born screaming and choking and desperate.  She was the first, with a fiery feathery halo of hair and green, green eyes like her father.

It had been his hands who helped coax her from Brigit's womb, and it was his heartbeat that lulled her to sleep that first night together.  Máire remembered those hands—palms full of soft cracks in rough pads, fingers tapered with thick knuckles and tips dyed blue, backs covered in scars and freckles.  He smelled like the crackle and pop of herbs, thrown into the sacred fires on the first night of summer.  That was all she remembered of him. The rest had been given to her by her mother.

Her first word had been a burbling "Papa."  Brigit told Máire the story one winter while huddled under furs with her sisters. Papa had been gone for days.  He'd left to hunt rabbits, and then it had snowed.  When he didn't come home that night, Mama had cried.  He came back while she slept.  He was quiet as an owl whenever he entered a place.  It had been Máire cooing and laughing that woke Mama.  Reaching up for him, Máire mumbled, "Papa," and Mama had watched as he picked up his daughter.  Those hands had brushed her hair back, and he kissed her forehead—once, twice, thrice—between whispered prayers.

They were blessings, Mama had explained and then demonstrated.  Her lips pressed against Máire's forehead, and she whispered, "White Mother, make her words always true, so no man may ever doubt her heart."

She brushed back Beibhinn's curls, kissed her, and continued, "Green Mother, let her know when to speak and to act, so no man may ever doubt her wisdom."

Last, she pulled Medb close and left her lips above her daughter's pale brow as she finished, "Dark Mother, be kind to this babe of mine. Let no man ever dream of harming her."

Papa had disappeared before Beibhinn and Medb were born.  Mama, with her belly full to bursting, had gone back to her people, but they weren't her people anymore.

Beibhinn, with Mama's golden hair and clear blue eyes, was second.  The third was Medb, pale with grey eyes like winter skies and hair as dark as night.  She came after great difficulty, and she was born grey and cold.  They said she was dead, but then they said Máire's eyes had flashed grey.  Medb started wailing then.

They stayed through one winter, and when green came back to the land, Mama took them back to the little hut she had built with Papa.

[kothornoi]

5050.

He took each of their hands as the figure came up behind them. His eyes changed—their color deepening, light beaming out from them. The light spread, overpowered, and consumed all else. The hounds and the cloaked figure fell away. The whole of existence seemed to unravel and fold around the three. They were all alone; they clung to each other.

The light faded away. Bailey felt their insides lurch. Their head was spinning, and they struggled to see, to understand. Elliot was standing and shouting to a small group of guardians. Their faces were strange to Bailey, but the incense heavy on the breeze and the warmth of light surrounding them were both very familiar. It was only when the guardians rushed forward to tend to Cam that Bailey began to understand what had happened.

They grabbed for Elliot's arm. "Where are we?"

[kothornoi]

2345.

Elliot leaned up closer to Therinos.  His lips curled into a slight smile, and Elliot kissed those smiling lips.  They stirred beneath his.  He deepened the kiss and tasted the hunter's lips, his mouth.  Elliot was shaking.  His ears still rung, and now his heart beat a rapid rhythm beneath the sound.  His teeth pressed into the hunter's lip, and he gasped.  Elliot grabbed fistfuls of Therinos' shirt.  Elliot pulled and pulled even as he slid up into Therinos' lap.  With a desperate urgency, they pressed against each other.  They kissed.  And kissed and kissed.  As one would taper off, another would overtake it.  They lost themselves to it until Therinos pulled back.

Panting, grinning, he brushed fingers across Elliot's cheek.

[kothornoi]

926.

They had been lovers.  Fleeing from his brother, Lyaeus hid often with the watchers or in groves amid his mortal followers.  He blessed their lives as best he could, and they gave him their love.  Their love gave him hope and kept him brave. His brother was as cunning as he was insiduous.  Lyaeus could never linger for long and travelled in disguise. He introduced himself into the grove with a false name, though he would later reveal himself.  He begged his followers to address him only with his false name.  His brother would not know it, and as it had no power, he would not recognize it as being Lyaeus.  Over time, however, people would give that name great power.

But when he met the dark-skinned hunter, the name Kirkos had no power.

[kothornoi]

i got it.  it starts with a promise and a kiss.

it should start with them cutting each other's hair and vowing to take dougal back, to build a home together, to face the fear.  aislinge will say they must go to her family, that they will know how to find silvester.  marina will be unsure but will trust aislinge.

as we will, so must it be, she will whisper, and then marina will kiss her.

[kothornoi]

try to stay mad

"If I built you a home—somewhere in the country, whatever country you like—but would you live there with me?"

Roderick stared at him.  Shaking empty fists in the air between them, Roderick snapped, "I could fucking strangle you.  What is your problem?"

Jack sighed.  Nodding, he slipped a hand into his pocket and then a cigarette between his lips.  He turned away.  Roderick watched him pace off, smoke trailing after him.  Jack stopped.  

Coming back, he said, "I should clarify: I don't want—I know we must never be together again, or however you'd like it put.  I agree that we don't—that I hurt you.  You deserve better—"

"I have better."

Jack hesitated, taking a long drag.  "Oh," he exhaled.

Roderick frowned.  "What?  Did you think I might be as lonely as you?"

With a shrug, the old man mumbled, "Perhaps just in a position to be persuaded to...  Ah, this was foolish.  What am I doing?"  He shook his head.  "Well, go on.  Say what you'd like, and then I'll leave you be."

"It doesn't have to be this way.  You don't have to leave."

"No, I—I must."

Roderick waited, glaring at the old fool as he smoked.  His eyes were empty.  Roderick could feel the emptiness, like an endless echo, a stone forever hurtling down into nothing.  Jack did not explain, and he would never.  All the same, Roderick asked, and Jack only shrugged and mumbled nonsense.

"I must—I must!"

"Then fucking go."

Jack straightened, the muscles of his jaw tightening and trembling.  His hand shook away the last of his cigarette.  Stepping back, he slipped his hands into his pockets and nodded.  

Roderick watched him go.  Every time those empty eyes looked back at him, he would bite into his tongue, his cheek.  He wanted to stay mad.  Roderick always tried to stay mad at Jack.