Mabinogion Madness - Day 10: Tresor/Treasure - Rhiannon ferch Hyfaidd Hen
Belovedddddd!!!!!!!!!!
Once I'd birthed my son I sat there, dazed. It was not so much the pain which undid me, caused tears to sting my dry eyes, fractured every part of me into a roiling crucible and then reforged me into a sturdier, if sapped, whole, but the revelation of seeing the tiny babe I'd carried and murmured to every night for nigh on ten months. It was as if when I'd pushed him out, fingers gripping the underside of the hard birthing chair my maids had coaxed me onto ever since the contractions had begun two days ago, he'd uncorked the innate sensibilities of gleaming conjurings all us tylwyth teg keep bottled within us.
Those buttercup-beams, enticing trails who winked and fluttered aloft like a cloud of spring dandelions, whirled around the room in one great plume, until, at last, the sun dissolved them into a curious vapour that half-resembled smoke but mimicked mead in its consistency.
And I felt its thread snap within me.
Fire followed it. Scorched through my trembling limbs, my bloodied fingers - for in my delirium I'd somehow torn them down to the quick - my burning lungs. Every breath ached. For the first time I became acquainted with what it felt to be truly human, as, in that moment, humanity's sweetness and sourness coalesced. I became elated at that! I exhaled one rasping, shattering breath and then another until I barked out a laugh where joy and sorrow co-mingled. Odd, isn't it, when something as intrinsic to their condition is experienced in such an alien manner. Oh, I knew my husband's lord's disdained me, for they could not hide their sullen sulks, their darting eyes, and their strange silences whenever I entered a room well. In fact, I do not believe they ever hid them at all.
But I was quite inured to that. No longer could they mutter about using iron in their jewels settings as gifts for me, nor attempt to lame my horse afore a hunt. In contrast, I could no longer counteract their murky dissemblings. Yet, for the precious radiance of the babe who I now drew to my breast, whose grasping hands gently tugged on my daffodil-hued tresses, and whose soft mews were filled with an air of curiosity, well, I felt quite at ease. I had accomplished what they’d craved. When they'd urged Pwyll to put me away so he might have a child - "a real human babe, not one of those pesky changelings!" the arglwyddau had sniped behind their hands - he had stood firm, becoming my bulwark.
Cousin Arawn had sensed well with him. Humans talk of crowns being treasured, of torcs or rings or other insignificant things, but wits are for moreso – for us tylwyth teg, at least.
Or they were for me. Before my son.
But, to belabour the point, I did feel my being shift innately. My father had whispered to me when I was but 10 and had just used my magic to muck out my horse's stall with a flurry of pavonine wisps, that, “should you wish to take a human as your husband, wife, or lover, Rhi, then you are beholden to their world as you have pledged yourself to them and your blood and body will mimic theirs to compensate for the loss of our food and drink.”
I'd nodded, somewhat distractedly. Nia, my newest mare back then, my oldest and most-ridden now, had shunned the oats I'd placed in her trough in favour of mouthing at my hair. Yet I knew by the gravity with which my father spoke that his words were measured, steely, weighted with extraordinary import. Food and drink were the things with which we tylwyth teg sustained both our magic and our essence of self. To consume such mediocre victuals akin to the ones humans satisfied themselves with, in our eyes, was tantamount to death.
A severing.
“I cannot say when your magic will leave you, only that it will.” Clasping my hands, his grey eyes rested upon me with a forlornness hitherto unseen and he drew a sigh that carried with it sorrows’ breath.
“And from whence will this lover hail?” I had almost queried him bitingly, until, head bowed, an apology had trembled from his lips and and hereupon he fled from the room. Never before had I been witness to him in such dolourous torment. I'd mulled his words over ever since; until I was a woman grown; until Pwyll Pen Annwfn, he of the dark countenance and surpassingly black eyes.
I journeyed on my own errand that day and every subsequent one.
But, I'd deemed it a worthy trade: my magic for my babi bach. Beneath my fingers, I traced his cheek which was replete with velvet’s softness. Like my bird's wings, my heart quickened, goosepimples shivering over my skin. I did not know then what name I would yet bestow upon him, but I was suddenly struck by this: his hair was as gold as mine, his straight nose was all Pwyll's, and his eyes?
Grey.
How they resembled my father's!
And as I cradled him, murmuring blessings in a language of surpassing ancientness which no human ear could parse, I inhaled his milk-sweet scent and drifted off myself.
Such tranquility, the like of which would not greet me until my Pryderi was returned to me, was the thing I'd cherished above all others.
