{tales} Honesty
continued from this
With the blessing of saltwater upon his body, Airn's recovery became an enjoyable experience rather than an infuriating one. His healing process—while still slow and near mortal—now included healthy doses of both Rowena and the sea. Sometimes he had both at once, just like the first time. Those were the best days. The Gaelic healer still scolded and berated him, and even once or twice smacked him again when he really deserved it—in addition to one very solid punch, as threatened previously—but he didn't mind any of it anymore.
In fact, her rigid rules for his health now only made him smile and wink and grab stealthily for her hips or her hair. Rowena had glares that could make even the strapping castle guards swallow and shift on their feet, but the young Fomoiri relished the fire, loved to reflect it back to her and watch it burn pink in her freckled cheeks.
In this time, he also grew closer to Lady Calla, though in less of a physical sense than with Rowena. The lady of the house was busier than any woman he'd ever known—a bit unsettling since she was only human. He once followed her around for a full day. From dawn when she rose and said her prayers to near midnight when she sat writing and reading by candlelight.
Mornings were for reflection, she'd told him. For calm and quiet and setting one's mind right for the coming day. She read from a thick book she called the Word of God. First to herself, but when he'd asked what it was about, she'd read him aloud a passage or two. It wasn't quite a story with plot and characters, but there was a strange poetic quality to it that kept him silent and attentive, watching her soft features and the way her lips wrapped around each word. She explained the psalm she'd read was meant as worship of a creator-deity, written by a long-dead king, meant to be sung, though they'd lost the knowledge of its intended melody. She thought it sad they didn't sing them anymore.
Later, when he mentioned it, Rowena smirked and told him it wasn't proper for people to read this Word themselves. They were supposed to leave that to holy men who would interpret for the common masses. It was his first hint that the Lady Calla was not quite the delicate flower her name suggested.
By mid-morning she would order the gates opened, granting entrance to any villagers who wished to speak their minds to her. In the main hall stood an elaborate chair of finely-polished wood with gold inlay, precious metals embedded in the head. Calla never sat on it. Instead, she perched always beside it and down a few steps, on a simple high-backed chair from the dining table. She heard every request and complaint herself, at times giving immediate judgment, at others admitting she needed a respite to sort it out.
Sometimes this period of hearing lasted well into the afternoon. Sometimes she'd need to go into the village to investigate some claim. Even if no information needed gathering, she always went down to the hamlet next. Airn hated the village. With so many people looking, he needed to work that much harder to keep his glamour perfect. Besides that, they knew he was a survivor of the “curse ship” that they'd burned on the beach. No one was ever exactly rude, but they got quiet. They shied away. It made him want so desperately to drop the mask from his face and speak in ancient tongues. Just to watch them pale and faint.
But he didn't. Mostly out of respect for his benefactor. Calla moved among them like a gull skimming the surface of the water. Her clothes were fine, but not opulent, well made but plain. She stood out from the rougher materials of the working class, but never above them. She greeted children by name, remembered aches and pains of old fishermen, asked after couples planning marriage, insisting they have the ceremony at the castle's chapel. Airn couldn't fathom it. This was not a large village, but it was also not small like a ship's crew. That she cared so much and remembered so much left him both startled and unnerved. He became sure she fed off them in some capacity, for why else would she be so concerned for their health and happiness? But when he mentioned this theory to Zafi the sprite had snorted. He'd never snorted before and Airn got the message.
After moving through the village, the Lady Calla would return to the castle for dinner, but never alone. She brought with her those in the most need. Beggars who had nothing for their next meal. Sailors in port with nowhere to lay their heads until they shipped out the next day. A widow and her six children, still struggling to come to grips with the loss of a husband and father. And always, always, visitors to the area who had no family to house them. There was apparently a plan in the works to add onto the village inn. With Lady Calla funding all of it.
“How does it feel?” Rowena had asked him on the first night he'd been well enough to come down to the dining hall to eat with this unexpected crowd. She'd smirked at him slyly. “Knowing you're not the exception?”
He'd muttered swears at her, at the time, but now it perplexed him even more. No lord on Mag Mell behaved this way. No captain cared this much. Now it no longer surprised him that this woman had leapt from her horse and climbed into a ditch to keep him conscious until help arrived. Of course, it still baffled him, but it made sense to her character now. Her bizarre, charitable, razor-smart character.
After dinner, those staying the night would be given rooms and, if none remained, would be bedded down in the great hall near the fireplace with a servant given express orders to keep the flames stoked through the night. And Calla would retreat back to her quarters to jot down happenings of the day, reports made, what tribute was brought by grateful villagers and what had been dispensed back out to those who lacked. She kept a painfully detailed accounting, filling both ledgers and journals with a patience so calming it drove him mad to watch. She did not undress nor sleep until this work was done.
Watching her in the dark and flickering light of candle and fire, Airn thought she had transformed into another person. This creature bent over ink and parchment in the near-dark seemed so far removed from the ethereal being who read forbidden words in the straight-backed chair in the beaming light of morning. The mix of light and faith with this hidden intellect and exacting darkness drew the Fomoire by his very bones. When he wasn't adventuring out away from the castle or with Rowena, he was at Lady Calla's side, no matter where she found herself in her daily process.
In just an effort to be near her, he'd found himself a part of her charity, helping to carry tired children, dispensing blankets, and even sharing food. Zafi had arched an eyebrow at him more than once, but Airn pretended not to see. Boredom was a sailor's worst enemy and between his stalwart healer and his quiet hostess, it hadn't even crossed his mind.
Things moved so much slower with Calla. She was too busy to give him the attention he wanted from her. And she seemed immune to the goading he used on Rowena. So many times he cursed his iron-weakness, wishing he could just dip his fingers into her mind and turn her eyes to him. But, like he'd felt with Rowena's foul mouth and fearlessness, he got the sense she wouldn't be quite as much fun if she weren't moving through her life as she always had.
Still, there were countless garden walks. Conversations. Quiet moments by firelight wherein he perhaps sat too close but she did not pull away. And one night he'd told her she reminded him of his captain. Not the traitorous one but the one before. Fearghal. He spoke the man's name for the first time in a century. He told her how this captain had cared for each individual crewmember as family rather than weapons, how he'd practically raised him. How he'd loved him.
Like that was a floodgate cracking open, the rest of his story came rushing. Life on the streets as an orphan, meeting Fearghal, loving Fearghal, the mutiny, Corvan, fleeing to obscurity under a new captain, a bad captain. He caught her all the way up to the tale he'd already told of the shipwreck and she said not a word throughout it, only watching his face and reaching out to squeeze his hand when his voice choked around the telling of Corvan slicing open his captain's throat.
She even pretended not to notice his tears when he wiped them away.
If she had the spare time, she was with him. But always, always, at the end of the day, she'd politely request he leave and he did—to his shock—every time. He'd never seen her in less than full gown and jewels. Once, she'd fallen asleep on his shoulder, exhausted, and he'd only carried her to bed and pulled blankets over her, pushing for no mischief mostly because he didn't know how he'd explain it without glamour and the thought of being cast out of this place struck him as terrifying. To a paralyzing degree.
But he was Fomoire. And he was young. And he did push mischief in other areas. His kiss lingered perhaps too long against her knuckles. His hand strayed a bit too low on her back. When they were alone, he found comfort with her enough to stroke her hair and tip her chin and even kissed her once, catching her just inside the kitchen corridor as she went to fetch extra bread herself since the servants were all busy.
She'd done nothing more than blink at him when they parted, and neither'd had a chance to speak before the flow of traffic interrupted and then there was work to be done again. It hadn't changed anything between them afterward either. Except, perhaps, that she sat a bit closer to him. Flushed a bit brighter. At the meal, she even reached under the table to thread her fingers with his.
It was as slow and maddening as his ironwound's healing, but Airn enjoyed the hunt. For the first time in his life, he understood that patience could actually bring rewards. Of course, back then, he had almost none of it and it wasn't long before he caught her on her way from her rooms to the hall to hear petitions. Before she could finish her greeting, he had her pinned back against the tapestries with a peaking hunger. Even in recovery his body shifted fluid, like the wake of a ship or the roll of a sail in gentle winds. It was hardly a movement at all, he was just simply…closer now.
“Wh-What are you doing?”
Her hand fluttered up to rest against his chest, but she didn't push him away.
“Calla…”
His smile and tone would’ve been patronizing if not for the warmth. Like sunlight on shallow water. The way his voice pooled low, it almost seemed to slither through her body like a thing alive. He might not have had enough glamour to fill a thimble, but he was still fae. His head canted.
“I’m seducing you.”
He nearly kissed her trembling lips before he registered the dull ache pressing to his breastbone.
His curse and jerking backstep might've startled her even more than the iron had him.
“Are you alright?” were the first panicked words from her mouth.
“I...” Airn cleared his throat. “Just my wound. It pains me.”
It did. Constantly. But where at the beginning of their relationship Calla might've offered her sympathies and inquired into his health, now she reached out a slim hand and laid it against his abdomen. If he'd had his wits and she hadn't been wearing her new jewelry, he might've turned the moment back toward seduction. But as it was, he could only blink at the woven metal lying so innocuously around her neck, draped over the subtle swell of her breast. At the end of the chain hung the simple asymmetrical cross shape he'd seen in the castle's chapel. He tried to affect nonchalance while still boring holes into her chest.
“That, ah, that's new, isn't it?”
Calla followed his gaze at last and removed her hand from him to close her fingers around the chain. With a smile, she lifted it to show him better. He resisted the urge to pull back again. He knew, in his heart, that it would only sting. That it could not hurt him beyond a little pain if it only touched his skin. He'd played in iron filings from the jewelers and the smiths like any Fomoiri child after all. But now the smell alone had him nauseous. His wound throbbed like it had when it was fresh and oozing.
“Yes, it is,” Calla said, oblivious to him for the moment. “Rowena suggested it. A simple cross. Made of the metal that would've formed the nails that killed our Lord.”
His breaths had shortened.
“Rowena?”
The lady nodded. Then tilted her head. “It's funny. I hadn't thought Rowena paid that much attention to the teachings of the Christ. We discuss beliefs quite often. I know she values the pantheon of her people most highly. Nature is more real to her than anything. Which I admire, to be honest. So few Christians value the earth we live... Oh, goodness, you look very unwell. Should I fetch her?”
Airn did, in fact, feel very unwell. Dizzy, hot and cold in the wrong spots, heart pounding. But it wasn't from the iron and it wasn't from his injury. His voice came out more threatening than he meant it to. Like it had in the beginning before he'd learned the limits of human fear.
“I'll find her.”
And he did. She had to know he would. And even though he approached with the dangerous sort of quiet that killed, she did not jolt quite enough to satisfy him when he grabbed her arm. They were alone in the airy woods on the verge of a field. A low stone wall ran the division between the two types of green and brown. No witnesses for miles.
His lip curled as he looked down over her body.
“What? No iron for you?”
Her pale skin paled more, making the spatter of freckles across her face stand out darker. Her free hand slipped around behind her and she backed away. He let her go when she wrenched her arm free, but moved with her, keeping the distance close. His head tilted too quick, too alien, and she made a soft noise of alarm, pulling her hands back around in front of her, now both wrapped around the hilt of her little plant-cutting knife.
“Stay back.”
Airn laughed, deep and mad and from his gut. He might've been weak enough even a Fomoiri child could take him down, but this girl and her little sliver of metal did not frighten him. Funny, despite the sharp iron, he didn't feel the same sickening dread as with Calla's necklace. Maybe because he was angry now.
When the little healer feinted forward a bit to try to make him retreat, he caught her wrist and pulled, twisting, sending the knife bouncing away and yanking her against him. Her voice came out in a rush, like he'd crushed the words from her in the move.
“I know what you are.”
“Do you?”
“We have stories, you know. We're not stupid.” She was angry now. The fire had returned, flushing red through pale cheeks. “The sidhe steal children and corrupt minds into mush so they can play—”
His frown deepened with every word until he talked over her. “Rowena—Rowena. I am not sidhe.”
“What else could you be? You skirt around your Name, you listen in threes, and you nearly died of iron poisoning.”
He studied her confusion. She knew he was not human. She even knew enough to pick out what would harm him. And rather than attack him, she'd simply used it to protect her ladyship. What did he have to lose by the truth? He felt more concern that she'd think him one of those filth than any desire to protect secrets that seemed so unimportant now.
“I'm Fomoire.”
“Fomoire.” Her tone darkened with disgust and she pushed away. “The demons that came from the sea?”
And just like that he absorbed all of her confusion. “Demons? From the sea?”
“Oh gods, you're some horrible beast under that skin, aren't you? Have you got fishy parts?” She whined high in her throat, paling, shaking her hands. “What's been inside me?!”
With a building snarl, he dropped the glamour from his appearance like wrenching a curtain open. Though sudden, the differences were subtle. His bones were shaped smoother and sharper. He stood differently, his weight held in new patterns. Inexplicably inhuman, taller than he'd been, and more like a predator. His features changed the most, sharpening to an alien beauty. He knew for a fact the whole picture was quite accentuated by the seething irritation in black eyes. In some lights, to some people, he would look nearly demonic.
Rowena's legs gave out and she half-sat hard on the stone wall and stared, unbreathing, frozen like a rabbit in tall grass. After a few heartbeats, she teetered in her seat and reflexively took a short breath to avoid a faint. Seeming to snap out of her shock a bit, she moved closer again. Airn remained very still, watching her approach. She lifted a hand to touch the accentuated line of his cheekbone where the fresh pink scar had taken a strange new twist. She withdrew quickly, as though his skin were just this side of too warm to remain in contact. Another long pause.
“You're beautiful.”
“Beautiful?”
She squeaked in surprise. His voice pitched lower in this form, echoing larger and deeper somehow. It was still his. The same tones and rhythm and mysterious accent. But there was an Otherness to it now, beyond its depth. As though he could command cowards to stand and the hopeless to fight.
“Maybe...beautiful isn't the word. I...I don't know the word. Majestic, perhaps.”
He snorted, completely shattering the image of some sea-god come to her forest. Rowena laughed, a sharp sudden bark of mirth and the tension evaporated. She covered her mouth as if to take back the sound, but her fingers slipped down to reveal her usual grin. Strangely, he felt almost none of the rage he'd burned with before, but his smile slipped away again.
“This is Fomoire, Rowena. I hate the sidhe. And I love you. Even if I had the power to crush your mind, I never would.”
Her grin faded as well, down to something almost smug. “You love me?” Before he could even start to splutter, she'd curled her fingers around his wrist, pulling him to the stone wall to sit beside her. “Could we...? Well, I mean, could you...stay like this?”
“Not in the village.”
“No, just for now. I want to...”
She leaned up, kneeling beside him, to investigate the subtle point to his ears and he let her, trying very hard not to smile too wide.
“To see?”
At her hurried nod, he chuckled.
“Not like that!” She smacked his chest hard. “Well, maybe like that. But I want to know how you work. I spent a week keeping you alive and you were hiding this from me! I could've helped you sooner if—”
“No, you couldn't have.”
“Well, I might have.” She squirmed closer, all at once childlike. “Which stories are true? What can you do? Tell me everything about your kind. And you'll have to show the Lady Calla this, of course. As soon as we get back.”
“I think she might take it less well than you.”
“Less well than trying to stab you? Oh, aye. She's a vicious one.”
Airn studied her then, in silence. It took her a moment to focus from her own thoughts and meet his gaze and when she did it was still a little distant. She gave a cautious smile.
“What is it?”
“You gave her iron. To protect her.”
“Aye, that was the idea. Worked, it seems, as you're not covered in blood nor talking of her in the past tense.”
Airn fell quiet again, unsure how to ask, how to put it to words. Her care was such a subtle thing, not like Calla's feeding of the masses. Rowena fixed what broke and then turned around and smacked it when it was being stupid. She worked out theories and came up with solutions without any grand gestures.
This time she didn't wait for him to press again before continuing, her voice quiet, smile still small but no longer distant. “Remember, I loved her long before I loved you. If everything else slips your mind about we humble mortals, never forget that.”
He gave the intensity the pause it deserved before he grinned. An expression that, on his new face, made her breath hitch a little.
“You love me, Lady Jailer?”
She hit his chest, but she climbed on his lap and kissed him soundly.