#//Poor Deirdre is in this beautiful dress

[ilovetoxicfictionalmen]

RUNAWAY FROM ME - CHAPTER 2

Pairing - Tommy Shelby x oc

Summary - Deirdre ran from her life of misery for her own safety. However, she managed to run back into the arms of an angel she once knew, now known as The Peaky Blinder Devil. In which he has no intentions of letting her run away from him again.

Warnings - Dark content, non con, dub con, explicit themes, lovers to enemies to lovers, slow burn kinda, Tommy needs a hug.

Word count - 4.7k

The Garrison, Small Heath - Evening, January 20th 1915

Drunk, filthy, vain. That was Deirdre’s code for her carefully picked victims of her acts of deviance. Never the good, poor and innocent. Not that there were many of those around here in a town like this. 

Of all places to end up, she found her tired feet in the dust, muck and filth grounds of Small Heath. In between the brick walls of the city of fire, brimstone and smoke. A town in which all men had a life long sentence of being trapped in the working class. No thoughts and dreams in their futures, only merely hoping to make it to the next day. 

Deirdre was far from home. The furthest she had ever made it. It was a shock, wandering this far after many failed attempts. But her future entity being locked to a filthy man over twice her age pushed her to run. The window was quickly closing, Deirdre had to flee before she was trapped to another savage. 

Her home was a palace in comparison to here. The life that many would dream of replacing her absence in. But regardless of it all, she preferred Small Heath over being trapped between rough hands in Dublin. 

None of her father’s men would ever suspect her to end up in a place like this, she was free. Living day to day, nights slept in a ramshackled home felt far more secure than sleeping in a comfortable bed, underneath the roof of the man that abused her daily. 

It was another typical day of work. Here she was, sitting by the bar, accompanied by a drunken bastard whose hands got too touchy too quickly. Just a few more minutes, she’d let him finish his drink and then slide her small hands into the pockets. Always hoping for more than she’d actually grab. 

Deirdre did this a lot, she didn’t have any options for work. She had no papers, no identity, no proof of her existence. All she had was the two dresses she took with her and the pretty face that many desired. She’d pop into a random pub, she had to keep her appearances cautious. It was questioning how she’d been surviving off this for weeks now. But many men would give her a shilling just to smile at them. These were times of mayhem and anguish.

Most women would sell their bodies, a man’s shilling was far more valuable than their reputation in a town like this. There was no blame in it, but Deirdre refused to drop her innocence for anyone. Because in the back of her head, she heard her father’s gruesome threats if she ever committed such an act. It was traumatic, replaying those menacing memories. 

Tonight was a bad choice. Deirdre felt her heart thud against her chest as the older man’s hands roughly gripped onto her slim waist. It was as if he knew her ploy. Deirdre tried not to pull attention, her hands pushed against his, but it made no difference. 

“Sweetheart, going shy on me now aye?” the man grinned, a front tooth missing, the rest yellow. Before she could say a word, a man approached them.  

“Oi” a strong, intimidating voice boomed as his hand clamped over the man’s shoulder, it bent under his hold. The man turned his back to look at the younger man. He snarled and shoved his hold off of him. 

Deirdre had seen him, only one or twice here, in Small Heath. He had a shorter height than most, a small frame underneath his thick coat, but his eyes were captivating. His soft pale skin outlined his jawline. A slight undercut of his brunette hair. For a working man, he was beautiful. Deirdre had forced herself away from watching him in the swift glance. 

“Leave the poor girl alone, would ya?” The stranger threatened in an intimidatingly kind manner. His Birmingham accent was thick yet as smooth as velvet. 

“Who the fuck are you to-” the man paused, his blurred vision clearing as he stared into his blue orbs. The drunk’s sight flicked over to the table in the corner, the men in peaked caps watched him. With a snort, the man finished his drink and stormed out of the pub. 

Deirdre gulped to herself as she kept her sight low. She heard whispers of the men in the peaked caps. They swarmed at the opportunity of the war to build society as their own. Without a word, she slipped off of the barstool and went to turn her heel towards the door. 

“No” the blue eyed man opposed, his arm shooting out to gently grab ahold of her forearm. “Stay for a drink, my offer” he grinned softly as he turned his attention back to the barman. Deirdre was lost for words, simply nodded in agreement as he ordered two glasses of whisky. 

“I’ve seen you around here a couple of times. Always by yourself, your hands tend to slip into men’s dirty pockets and you’re gone” he chuckled as he slid a glass towards her. 

Deirdre laughed, she had been caught out. Finally, she’d be paying the price for her crimes. But he merely laughed lightly at her acts and took a sip of his drink. 

“What’s your name?” He asked as he sat on the bar stool and gestured for her to do the same. 

“Deirdre” she answered without thinking, she’d never told anyone her name out of caution. The paranoia was setting like paint on her skin. 

“Deirdre… The name of the broken-hearted, sorrowful and the wanderers” he nodded to himself, those piercing blue eyes of his lingered over her features as she slowly climbed onto the seat. 

She couldn’t help but to gently laugh at the accuracy. But he didn’t know that, he didn't know anything about her. No one around here did. 

“How old are ya?” He continued his questions and consumption of his drink. 

“Eighteen years old, sir” she nodded, her fingers traced the rim of the glass. 

“Thomas, but everyone calls me Tommy” he corrected with a gentle smile. A soft smile grew on her lips as she finally took a sip. “Where are you from?”

“Galway” she lied, a short nod. Her eyes struggled to remain still. 

“Is it green over there?” He hummed. 

“Very” she replied shortly. 

Tommy bobbed his head to her. “Come, sit with me mates. It’ll be more comfortable there” he suggested, or ordered. Deirdre couldn’t exactly tell.

But she knew that her stay was over welcomed, and all she wanted to do was disappear again. She knows the lifestyle of gangsters, traumatized by the brutal actions that can snap out of nowhere. Deirdre would be damned if she allowed herself into that again, even for a night. 

“It’s alright, I was thinking of leaving anyway. Thank you for the drink” she opposed, pushing the half full glass away from her. 

“No, no. We will have another after this one” he said in a determined and decided tone as he pushed the glass back towards her.

“I must reject your kind offer” she sighed softly. 

“I ain’t going to do anything to ya if that’s what you believe. I swear on my family’s name” Tommy swore, holding his hand over his heart. 

They did, have another after another. She sat squished between Tommy and another, his older brother Arthur. The table was surrounded by peaked caps, the room echoing the cheers and disputes between the men. Tommy watched her as she sipped on her liquor. None of the others dared to say more than a couple of words to her. 

His arm wrapped around her waist, her guard was down and she relaxed into his hold surprisingly. Deirdre had never drunk, her father would allow a modest woman to act in such a way in his house. The effects came onto her quickly for she had hardly eaten in days. Her head swayed lightly, cheeks reddened and an innocent smile on her lips. With one last swig, Tommy finished his drink and it clinked on the wooden top.  

“So, are you going to tell me? What brought you deep in the grime streets of Small Heath?” He questioned through a whisper, his mouth pressed against her ear. 

Deirdre chuckled lightly, this question was bound to come up. “Change of scenery” she answered calmly. 

“A runaway huh?” Tommy laughed, his fingers brushing over hers. “I know one when I see one” he stated.

It felt nice, a bit too nice for her. It was unfamiliar and it made her anxious, waiting for the punch line or the trap to be triggered. She never knew physical touch could feel so lovely, so calming, so affectionate. 

“Yeah you caught me” she breathed out, almost ready to wave the flag of surrender, prepared for her father to walk in at any moment.

He could see the trouble in her eyes, the despair, how badly she wanted to forget her past. There was no denying the connection he felt to that, how badly he felt the urge to help her overlook those thoughts. 

“Well, no one will find you here. Nobody suspects Small Heath as a new beginning. It’s a cursed city where men are punished with working their lives away. But I intend to change that for my family, I will end our line of despair. Put our family name in the good” Tommy promised, his eyes glancing over at his brothers in the room. 

Deirdre smiled at him, she admired his ambition. Many working men were cold and broken. But him, it seemed that his eyes were wide open to his calling, to charge at what was rightfully his. Or, maybe he was just so desperate to chase after a kingdom to free his mind of anguish. 

“Well, I’ll walk you home” Tommy said as they slowly walked out of The Garrison. 

A wave of embarrassment of him seeing the dump she confined herself in crashed over her. It didn’t matter how drunk she was, what would he think of her? Even worse, what could he do? 

“No Tommy, it’s alright” she protested, her hands raised in fear. 

His expression was stern as he slowly shook his head to her. Many men were still wandering the dark, minacious streets of Small Heath. Best believe Tommy would not allow her to walk those dangerous grounds. 

“Nonsense, a woman needs to be cautious. Especially in these streets” he objected, his tone dripping of order. 

“Please, I must-” she sighed, lowering her head in defeat and embarrassment. 

“Do you have a place to call home?” He cocked an eyebrow to her. 

“Not really” she mumbled. 

“How long do you intend to stay in Small Heath for? Better yet, how long have you been here for?” Tommy crossed his arms over his chest, leaning towards her. 

Deirdre scratched the back of her head uneasily. 

“I, I don’t know” she answered. Tommy slid off his coat and laid it over her shoulders. 

“Alright, come with me” he encouraged, gently holding onto her hand. 

They walked silently, her body leaning towards him whenever she saw people walking nearby. But they all remained away from him, the infamous man in the peaked cap.

They stopped in front of a door, the porchlight off. Tommy opened the door slowly and looked down to her. 

“Tommy?” Deirdre asked timidly. 

“Come in” he said quietly. 

With her silent protest failing, he led her into the dark building, and they went straight upstairs. The door creaked open and Deirdre stared at the unmade single bed illuminated in the moonlight. 

“This is my room” he made known. 

There was no shame in the size or state of his room in his tone. Tommy Shelby was still a working man after all, he had to make do with what he had. 

All was heard as a small exhale from her lips. Slowly, she looked up to him with doe eyes. 

“Uh, Tommy I don’t know” she spoke, her nerves stabbing at her skin. 

“Shh, it’s okay. I’m merely offering you somewhere more comfortable to sleep. I’ll sleep on the floor, or I can sleep in the kitchen if that makes you more comfortable” he offered as he slid the coat off of her shoulders. 

“No have your bed, I can’t accept your generosity” she shook her head. 

Tommy chuckled at her demeanor and leant closer to her. Gently, he took her hands into his as he tilted his head towards her. 

“How about we share the bed?” Tommy suggested. Through the dark, Tommy could still see her eyes widen and heard her lightly gasp. “You’re so shy” he chuckled as he moved slightly closer to her and brushed her hair to the side. “I don’t expect to have sex with you tonight, if that makes you feel better” he assured her kindly. 

Of course that was the first thought that crossed Deidre’s mind. It passed through the moment he told her to stay for a drink. In the back of her mind, she felt her father hold a knife to her back for even thinking of such a thing. But he wasn’t here, Deirdre needed to keep on reminding herself of that. 

Deirdre stiffly nodded and Tommy slowly led her to the bed. They both laid stiffly on the bed. Complete silence, except for Deirdre’s heavy breathing and rapidly heartbeat. Tommy looked down at her and sighed. 

“Let’s get more comfortable, eh?” Tommy told her as he shifted his body to the side

They turned around on the small mattress, his arms wrapped around her timid body and held her close underneath the thin sheets. Quickly, her stiff frame softened against his hold, a feeling she had never felt before, or at least remembered. Their bodies molded as one as she finally drifted off into a comfortable sleep. 

Eden Club, Soho - Night, 23rd July 1924

“You’ve been in my dreams, my love. Have I been in yours?” Tommy tilted his head, gun still pointed to hers as she slowly stood up and leaned against the desk in defeat. 

The tension was as clear as day, they both listened to each other's breathing as she slowly batted her eyes to the familiar stranger. All Deirdre could do was laugh at her predicament. There were no cards she could lay down. All options exhausted for the time being. Unless, she could get her hands on that pistol. 

“How are you Tommy?” Deirdre inquired, raising an eyebrow to him, her body leaning back over the desk as her eyes looked him up and down slowly. He set the pistol back into his holster and took one last inhale before flicking the stick away. 

Time had certainly changed him, despite his beauty remaining the same. It was beginning to age like the finest bottle of whisky. The softness of his skin had roughened. Those perfect blue eyes have darkened whilst his jawline grew sharper. He was a lot more built now, an old part of Deirdre tortured her mind to wonder what he looked like underneath. 

“I’m spectacular now, such a lovely surprise for you to visit me at my club of all places” Tommy smiled wickedly as he shuffled closer towards her.

His hands planted on the desk around her hips as he looked down to her, his mouth ajar open. It wasn’t known by either of them if he was trying to intimidate her or seduce her at that moment. Deirdre batted her lashes once more and went doe eyed to him. 

“Did you miss me Tommy?” Deirdre asked softly, as her body drew closer to his. 

“A part of me hoped you were dead” he admitted without hesitation, his hands resting on her smooth hips now. 

“That’s sweet” Deirdre bobbed her head, her teeth biting on her inner lips. 

Tommy’s hand rubbing gently against her cheek. A wave of remembrance of her beauty crashed over him. After all of these years, all he had was his memory of her. Her maturity aged like fine wine, and Tommy was currently resisting the urge to taste her. He miscalculated his belief that his urges would be restrained by his anger. 

The only card that has deemed relevance was to seduce him, tempt him, fuck him. The old Deirdre would never demean her body like this. But the world against her had turned her desperate. Her legs spreaded as she slowly lifted her body onto the desk. His body molded to hers as he pressed his crotch against hers. There was a few inch distance between their lips, she could smell the whisky on his breath and he could smell the gin on hers. 

“So, are you going to fuck me with your eyes or your cock?” Deirdre cocked an eyebrow to him. 

“Trying to fucking seduce me” Tommy huffed as his hand slipped around her throat. Gently he tested how firmly he could squeeze her skin before she reacted.  

“Would you rather I scream for mercy?” Deirdre shot back, a cheeky grin plastered on her. 

A firm warning squeeze was fired by his hand, Tommy’s head tilted as he gently shrugged his shoulders to her. 

“It doesn’t matter, it’s all the same” he spoke slowly. 

“Which is?” She asked.  

“You won’t run away again, you’re staying with me” he spoke firmly, nodding his head at the plan which was building in his mind. Deirdre couldn’t help but to pout towards him and softly shake her head at that idea. 

Of course he was holding onto the past. Thomas Shelby was always holding onto it, even though he pretended he didn’t care about anything. He couldn’t help himself, these things kept him awake at night, consumed his dreams and tried to bring down his ambition. 

“That’s so boring Thomas, for the both of us” she sighed. 

“That’s marriage” he countered. Deirdre responded back swiftly, a bit too without thought. 

“Where’s your honor to your dead wife?” she spat, irritated with his arrogance. 

Deirdre choked out as his hand tightened roughly around her neck. His free hand held her back in place as she tried to thrash in his hold. Even though her fingers were trying to claw underneath his, they wouldn’t budge. 

“Have some fucking respect” he spat by her ear before abruptly letting go. “Should have been you anyways” he snarled as he stepped back and spun around.

Tommy cursed to himself as he felt his erection in his pants. Shaking his head firmly, he blinked away the idea of her and brushed his hand through his hair. When he turned back around to her, Deidre was staring at the ground. Tommy opened his mouth to speak when there was a heavy knock on the door.

The door swung open with Arthur on the other side. “Tommy! She’s not fucking-” Arthur paused as he stared blankly at Deirdre. “Ah! Deirdre!” Arthur exclaimed as he rushed over to her and hugged her tightly. 

A heavy exhale left Deidre’s lips as she embraced Arthur, her arms instinctively wrapped around him for security. Tommy frowned at the sight before him, especially with how Deidre’s eyes shut with ease. Quickly his blood began to boil again. 

“Arthur get out” Tommy ordered, his jaw clenched, his hands on his hips.  

“Oh Deirdre!” John boomed as he entered the room, her belongings in hand as he strided over to them. “Your purse Deirdre” John offered the bag to Deirdre but Tommy snatched it so Deirdre could even reach out for it. 

Quickly, Tommy’s hand scrambled through the small bag and he tutted to Deirdre at the small vial he discovered. “Still up to your old games…” Tommy commented as he slipped the vial back in. 

With a heavy breath, she hugged John tightly, he hummed against her as he patted her back to reassure her. She had forgotten how badly she missed them. It was shocking to see how they were still the same men from before the war. For once, she felt a brief sensation of relief to see the brothers that she adored dearly. 

A dramatic sigh left Tommy’s lips as he slammed her purse onto the desk. “Ah, no papers yet again. No identity for Miss Deirdre” Tommy mocked, his teeth gritted as he stepped closer to her. 

Deirdre looked up to him as he returned in between her thighs. Those cold paws of his rested on her waist as his eyes analyzed every inch of her body. 

“Get out, I’m still talking to my wife” Tommy demanded, his blue eyes shooting from brother to brother. Arthur muttered whilst John remained silent, a stern expression locked on as he lit a fresh cigarette. 

“Tommy, it’s roaring out there. How about we all just enjoy the night how we intended to. Then tomorrow, we can-”

“Get the car ready” Tommy cut Arthur off. 

John frowned and leant forward, his arms crossed over his chest. 

“The car?” John butted in, his light hanging from his lip. 

“Yes John, the car” Tommy spoke dumbfoundedly. “We are returning to Arrow House immediately” he disclosed as he tugged Deirdre to her feet. 

John moaned out dramatically as he shook his head at Tommy’s desires. 

“Oh Tommy, you can’t be serious!” John argued. “This is our last fookin night!” He hissed, shaking his head in disbelief. 

“I won’t repeat myself” Tommy spoke firmly as John huffed in annoyance. 

John stood closely to Tommy, his lips near his ears. 

“Fuck off… I won’t be involved with anymore family affairs tonight” John whispered before abruptly leaving the room. 

Arthur gulped as his eyes darted from Tommy to the open door. Whilst Tommy stood expressionless as his eyes slowly moved to Deirdre’s. Arthur began to stammer as he awkwardly stood before the pair. 

“Go make sure he doesn’t do anything reckless. I’ll see you both back tomorrow” Tommy finalized as he harshly tightened his hold onto Deirdre’s arm and pulled her towards the exit.

Deirdre latched out for her coat and purse quickly as Tommy strided into the hall. A worker stood there with Tommy’s coat and cap. A firm finger pointed to Deirdre in warning as he slid on his coat and peaked cap, his eyes not even shifted an inch off of her. She kept her head low as they exited through the back door into an isolated dark alley, his hand still tight on her bicep.

Her eyes shot to the light to her left and she gulped at the sight of countless bystanders continuing on with their night. Unknowingly, she slowed in her steps, causing Tommy to frown and look back to her. A snort came from Tommy as he shook his head and leant close to her ear.  

“Don’t be foolish, my love” he warned as he tugged her into the darkness. 

Tommy opened the passenger door to his Bently and pushed Deirdre in. As he slammed the door, he again raised his finger in warning before he hurried over to the other side. Another cigarette was lit as Tommy turned on the engine. 

“Will you let me grab my belongings?” Deirdre spoke quietly, her head pointed out the window. 

Tommy’s head snapped towards her. 

“What fucking valuables could you possibly have” he commented, his tone dripping with irritation. 

“Please Tommy” she pleaded, her eyes glistening in the moonlight. 

Tommy muttered, wagging his head to her. When his eyes snapped to hers, he exhaled at her doe eyes accompanied by her anxious hands fiddling together. 

“It better be on the way” he grunted to her. 

As he parked the car outside of the hotel, Tommy was quick to jump out before her. His hand held onto the handle firmly as he yanked the door open for her. Deirdre muttered her gratitude as she slipped out of the car. 

Likewise to a prisoner, Tommy escorted her up to her room. With a shaking hold, Deirdre slid the key into the lock and opened her room. When she tried to slip into the room alone, his foot wedged between the door and frame. 

“Can I not have a moment of privacy” she pressed, muttering curses to herself shortly after. 

Deirdre let go of the door and walked away from Tommy. The door creaked shut as Tommy continued to watch her like a hawk

“You will not run from me again Deirdre…” Tommy reminded her through a cold glare whilst slipping out a cigarette. 

“We’re on the third floor” Deirdre countered with scrunched eyebrows. 

“You have your ways” Tommy murmured as he brushed the end in between his lips before lighting it. 

Tommy’s eyes lingered over the cheap room, his hands firmly on his hips as Deirdre quickly tried to pack up her belongings. Right as she was going to zip up the bag, Tommy nudged her out of the way and pulled it wide open. 

“Oh Thomas… You’re so immature” Deirdre bickered, her arms crossed over her chest as she huffed to him. 

The only response she got was a huff as his hands rambled through her clothing. Until he stopped when he felt something firm. Tommy frowned as he pulled it out, hidden in one of her dresses. Slowly, he lifted up a small piece of silver to her. To his surprise, her back was turned towards him. 

“Do you have a child Deirdre?” Tommy cocked an eyebrow to her as he dangled the shining rattle at her. The sound from the toy teased her, he knew it. 

“No” she swallowed, her throat instantly feeling like it was closing in on her. 

“Fucking liar” Tommy snarled as he dropped it back into the bag. 

“I don’t” Deirdre snapped back as her body spun back to him. 

“Sure” Tommy smirked. 

He watched the fire light inside of her as she walked up to him. It was amusing to him, seeing how she walked on a tightrope of emotions. 

“I don’t Thomas” she spoke firmly, her tone sending a warning to him. 

“Alright…” Tommy spoke quietly as he watched her body unknowingly begin to shake. The rattle fell into the bag as Tommy zipped it up. 

Without another word, Tommy led her back to the car. As if they were on a tight schedule, Tommy sped off down the quiet roads. When they were far from the city, the only sources of light being the headlights and moon, Deirdre looked over to him. 

“Where are you taking me Thomas?” She asked. 

It was ignored by him as his hands tightened on the wheel. 

Deirdre rolled her eyes and rested her head against the window. Slowly she fell into an uneasy sleep. 

She dreamt of her husband. Using his belt on her yet again. At this point, Deirdre laid hopelessly on the tiled flooring as he spat out every cruel word from the book to her. She was crying out, begging for mercy, her hands clenched to her stomach.

When she looked down, she screamed at the sight of blood pooled at her legs. Her body trembled, her temperature low as her eyes darted around for her husband. But he was gone. As she looked up, she saw Tommy, watching her with an emotionless face. 

Deirdre called out his name, begged him to help her. But her words were falling silent, her throat tight as she reached out for him. When she tried to crawl to him, her body ached and she fell back onto the tiling. Keeping her hand out in one last attempt of mercy, Tommy took a step back, gradually being consumed by darkness. 

“Deirdre” Tommy whispered. 

Faintly, the back of his hand brushed over her cold cheek. Deirdre mumbled out, but remained asleep against the side of the door. 

“Deirdre, my love… Wake up” Tommy urged, speaking more forcefully now. His hand tapped her cheeks until her tired eyes fluttered open. 

The remembrance of her situation pressed back onto her mind. Deirdre yawned out as she looked out to the mansion, lit majestically in the night sky. Tommy slid closer to her, his lips pressed to her ear as they both looked out. 

“Welcome home, my love” Tommy spoke faintly as she took in her new prison.

[nagaficat]

Deirdre's laughter, her delight as he presented her with the flower crown and even as it dismantled and surrounded her in a shower of blossoms, rang in his ears, infectious, a soothing harmony with his own laughter that once again reminded him that they were together, this was how it was supposed to be.  

"May you always be so covered in flowers," he said, and she pecked him on the chin, tucking a forget-me-not into his hair – a true match they were indeed, fitted together perfectly as they were, complimentary in every way. "May you always be my forget-me-not." 

As the cart attendant explains to them some qualities of the magnolia she offers, Deirdre perks up, taking over, and he was charmed as ever. "My lovely wife is so knowledgeable," he said, mostly to the attendant, but without taking his eyes from Deirdre. He did not recall that they grew particularly well in Chalphy, but in the capitol, surely, yes he remembered seeing them there many a time. 

"A boutonniere? I will wear it with pride. I shall have to craft a corsage for you to wear alongside your beautiful dress – please, excuse me," he said to the attendant, "I am certain my wife is more skilled with this than I, but I do believe I'd like your help." 

"Certainly, my lord. One moment, and I'll grab you some supplies." The attendant left and returned in a flash, carrying baskets of twine, small shears, and other little trinkets to add as filler or decoration. "If this is your first time, I can make one, and you follow the steps, all right?" 

And so they set about their work: the attendant carefully selected a magnolia with a sturdy stem- the better to hold everything in place, she explained – and plucked sprigs of forget-me-nots, intertwining them methodically with one another in a steady swooping pattern until they held fast, snug in their little bundle. Then she took the shears and trimmed all but an inch, braiding the remainder with a length of ribbon. 

"There," she said when finished. "Seem simple enough? Why don't you try it. If you'd like, we can add some adornments, such as these papier-mâché butterflies which I believe would serve as a suitable accent for your lady." 

Step by step, Sigurd focused intently on the bundle before him, selecting a magnolia, and wrapping a pair of forget-me-not sprigs on either side. After a moment, he considered, and at the behest of the attendant, attempted to attach a papier-mâché butterfly along the stem. Then as instructed, he trimmed the edge, and selected a length of ivory satin to braid. His fingers were not as skilled with this part as he had hoped, but the whole thing held together securely, and if he might say so himself, was quite fetching. 

"Not bad for a first try, milord. We'll make a florist of you yet." The attendant's eyes sparkled at the tease, and he laughed in return. 

"Perhaps if my work as a knight fails me, I will know where to turn next." 

Deirdre beams with pride as she is praised by her beloved husband. He loves her. He loves her so much. And she is his wife. Each time he speaks the word out loud, it fills her with joy and completes her. Without him she is nothing. But here, together, is where she was always meant to be.

She uses the moment the attendant leaves them to turn in his lap and steal a proper kiss. They have never shied away from showing their love to the world but she has tried very hard so far to not interrupt the poor woman with displays of her affection. It is difficult when her lord is so close but she has managed!

The attendant returns and Deirdre gives just one more kiss to the corner of Sigurd's mouth before returning to her flowers. "I will use your magnolia as well so we might match. Everyone will know that you are my lord and I am your lady. And butterflies! There are butterflies on my gown how perfect!"

"I would be surprised if you needed matching flowers to show that you belong together," the attendant smiles and offers Deirdre various crafting supplies for her own use. "There are many couples who come here to buy flowers for each other but I have never seen any who are so clearly as in love as the two of you. Have you heard of the legend of the Goddess Tower? It's mostly a superstition among the students at the academy but, if the Goddess is going to grant a wish on the night of the ball, I can't imagine she would deny it to you."

Deirdre's fingers stop wrapping ribbon around flower stems and she reaches for her husband's hand. "It is all my students have been talking about. Lord Sigurd, will you go with me? We have said our vows to the gods of Jugdral but I would sing to the Fodlan Goddess of our love as well."

And a wish! A wish that surely would be granted if they pray together on this special night! There is one thing she desires more than anything. One thing she prays for each day and each night. Two families whole and complete and happy together.

"I would like to make a wish with you, mu lord. It sounds so wonderfully romantic!"

[thenorthernrecords]

An Overdue Conversation

Those past few days had went by so fast. Not long after Slania and her friend Keiran emerged from the dark woods, safe and sound, they were soon all on Jacob Adair’s massive ship. When her son Benjamin informed her they were invited to a formal event on Blackwood territory, Fay declined. She was not someone who felt comfortable doing such events, and usually abstained from attending them. This was no exception, especially since she was not in Snow Mystic on a leisure trip. She helped her son get ready for the ball, biting her tongue when he mentioned Harper Maxson. She didn’t know how she felt about that situation. She knew how Katy must’ve been feeling, and could predict Levon’s reaction, but her own thoughts were all mixed. So, when Ben invited her to quickly meet with Harper that night, she told him they should all meet at another time. It was not only because it was wiser to meet with the young woman in a more private setting, but also because Fay wanted to actively think it over before meeting with her.

While the rest were at the event, Fay was strolling on the deck, stargazing. Then suddenly, they all returned with haste. Slania, dressed extravagantly in a beautiful maroon gown, quickly explained that there had been an attempted murder, and they were keen on getting out of there as quickly as possible. To Fay’s surprise, more people had returned with them, eager to flee with them as well. Fay was then told that they would to return to Wexford. Jacob’s patience was finally spent. He no longer wished to remain there. Fay felt a relief; not only did she complete her task and give Carolina what she needed, but her son, her sister, and her cousins were all heading back to safer terrains. 

One night, as the ship calmly sailed further away from Snow Mystic, Fay was in her assigned cabin, looking out the small circular window. She was dressed in her night gown, but she could not sleep. While she felt calmer as they sailed back to Wexford, she found herself wondering about Marcus Gazer. Had he sensed her and fled? Did he simply just miss her arrival? Logically, she knew it was for the best that they had managed to avoid one another. But somewhere in her, she felt a little sad about it.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. 

“Come in,” She called out.

Slania’s head appeared as the door opened first. “...Oh, you’re awake. Mind if I come in for a bit?”

This surprised Fay. While she and Slania were in somewhat friendly terms, they had also been somewhat distant since the death of their mother, Deirdre; a fact that Fay had bitterly come to terms with after their brother had departed from them. So, she hadn’t expected Slania to come looking to see her. 

“Yes! Of course.” Fay told her, beckoning her to enter. She sat down on her bed and watched as Slania closed the door behind her. She walked over to the bed and sat next to her.

“What’s going on? How is everyone?” Fay asked.

Slania let out a long sigh. “Better now, I suppose. Our guests are settling in for the journey. Jacob’s just eager to go home and Carolina, well, she just saw her brother bleeding and poisoned on the floor, so you can imagine how she’s feeling.”

Fay nodded. “Poor woman. I’m sure she’s feeling distressed. It’s no wonder Jacob did not want her to come here. He did not want his wife to keep suffering over this matter, that was for certain.”

“She just wanted to help her brother, and well, I think she’s learned that there’s just some people who can’t be helped,” Slania shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant. But soon, she softened. “I can understand why she still came.  Truthfully, no matter how much I try to deny it to myself ... I would’ve done the same.”

Fay frowned slightly, a wave of sadness washing over her. Their brother was long gone, but it was still a painful subject to them and their other sister Riley. His actions, and now absence, were heavily felt and would always be felt. It was all still weighing heavily upon them.

“Perhaps you and Carolina possess a same type of kindness that neither brother deserves, or rather, stopped deserving a long time ago,” Fay replied quietly, watching as Slania looked down at her hands on her lap, frowning sadly.

“Fay, I want to ask you a question,” Slania said after a bout of silence, in a somber tone that made Fay begin to feel weary right away. “I believe that you’re the only person who’ll give me a straight answer.”

Slania then looked up, looking her right into her eyes, making Fay very uncomfortable. Slania’s striking blue eyes, like their father Maxim’s, radiated a sharp intensity. It was as if they could see right through a person, right into the very depth of their most inner selves. Her eyes were identical to the eyes that looked upon her with rage and hurt the fateful day she and Maxim had their terrible falling out; the last day she saw him alive. Fay wanted to look away, to free herself from sudden strike of guilt she felt, but despite this, she kept her eyes locked on Slania’s. Her sister was asking something important of her, and after feeling like she had failed her before, she didn’t want to fail her again.

“You can ask me anything.” Fay finally told her firmly.

Slania took in a deep breath. She looked down, hesitating, her eyes unfocused. Then, she shut her eyes, as if she were about to take a plunge. “Fay, what was our mother?”

Fay blinked, caught off guard by the question. “...What was she? In what terms?”

“...Did she ever say she was something else other than human?” Slania asked, squeezing her hands together now.

Fay furrowed her brows, and now, she found herself trying to remember. Had Deirdre ever tell her directly she was something more than human? Fay could not think of an instance when she ever did tell her something directly. But ...

“She never said anything outright, but she used to tell us stories since we were very young -- stories of the Tuatha De Danann. At first, I thought they were just tales, but one time, she got poisoned by a stray arrow meant for Nichola, and survived. I remember that Larissa, Hana’s mother, said it was a miracle. Mother should have died, as the poison was of a magical kind. Uncle Clement went to see her soon after. Riley, Eamonn, and I overheard him say she was fortunate that her faerie blood protected her. I suppose we accepted that as fact, and it was an unspoken thing.” Fay said, watching as her red-headed sister glanced up at her. Fay’s gaze flickered upon Slania’s hands and she saw that she was squeezing them so tightly, they were turning white.

“Uncle said that?” Slania asked lowly.

“...He did.” Fay confirmed.

Slania scoffed bitterly, looking away, looking hurt by the confirmation. “She told me none of it was real.”

“What?” Fay asked, astonished.

She watched as Slania crossed her arms tightly over her chest, the nails of her hands gripping tightly onto her skin as she looked out the window of Fay’s cabin.

“...When I was little, I would go to the palace gardens all the time. Do you remember? I used to play there all the time. Then, there was humming, and I began to believe it was the very green around me doing it,  trying to say something.  When we fled to Connacht after Doar’s fall, there was a humming again, louder from the woods. The woods were speaking ... not in a language like the one that you and I using right now. It wasn’t audible. I felt the wood speak. One day, I wandered off, listening, almost making out what the woods were saying. When I returned much later than I wished to, I found mother frantic and beside herself. She was so angry at me,” Slania spoke distantly, away in a vivid memory. “I tried to tell her that the woods spoke to me, like they did with our ancestors, the Danann. She then took me by the shoulders and screamed at me that none of it was real. It was all just stories her Clan made up. She made me repeat over and over again that it wasn’t real, or else I would go mad like papa almost did once. And I did. I told myself I imagined it all.”

Fay stared, taken aback by what she was hearing. This didn’t sound like the mother she knew. Her mother never reacted in such a way. The Deirdre everyone knew and loved never would’ve mentioned Maxim’s mental troubles in such a manner either. 

“She... told you none of it was real? But, while she hadn’t told us outright, she had never denied it either. And father--” Fay began.

“For years, I believed her. When our Clan would say she was going to Mag Mell once she passed, I told myself it was just a custom to say that. No matter what was said, or done, I didn’t truly believe it, because I trusted mother’s word.”  Slania cut her off, an edge of anger in her voice. 

“When did you start believing otherwise?” Fay asked impulsively.

“When I met Keiran.” Slania said, and once she said his name, Fay saw her expression soften and her form relax for a moment, as if the very name brought her comfort. Fay remembered the way the giant of a man had his arm comfortably around her, looking at her sister with affection as they all returned to camp, and Slania smiled in a way she hadn’t seen in a very long time.

“As you know, he saved me.” Slania continued. “He was able to do so, because he’s actually a supernatural being.” She cleared her throat, obviously not wanting to get into that. “He tried to heal me and couldn’t, which was shocking to him because he had always been able to heal people. He’s a powerful healer. So, he had to use more drastic measures to keep me from dying. When I was recovering, he told me about it and that’s when I remember that when mother told me stories of the Danann as a child, she once mentioned that they were really resistant to magic, even the good kind like healing.  I told him that and that’s when I began to wonder if the stories were actually true. Then, when I came here, this woman Morgan said she could smell my blood, and that it was like mother’s. That’s why I was missing in the woods; these mindless creatures were after me because of my blood. I finally asked Keiran about it, and he didn’t outright tell me what I was, but... he sort of confirmed my suspicions.”

Fay didn’t know what to say. She knew Slania wasn’t lying, but she couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that their mother Deirdre had actually lied to the youngest of her children. Slania smiled humorlessly.

“Everyone knew but me. Keiran, the Morgan woman, those leeches, Layla, even Marcus Gazer. I tried to ask him what they meant about smelling my blood, but he told me to ask my family about my real heritage. It’s humiliating, Fay.” Slania’s anger was peaking. Her voice was louder, and taut.

“I can’t believe this...” Fay muttered quietly.

“ I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.” Slania snapped at her, turning to stand up, but Fay took her by the hand because she could.

“No, that’s not what I meant! I believe you, Lan.” She reassured her, squeezing her hand. “I truly do.”

Fay put her other hand on Lani’s hand, feeling terrible crestfallen for her. “As a mother, I could understand perhaps why she may have said those things. She was destroyed by father’s death and she thought Eamonn to be dead so she probably thought she was protecting you, the last of her children with her husband, by keeping you from the truth. Parents do things with good intentions, without realizing it could harm their children on the long run...”

Fay learned this fact after what happened between her and Maxim. Slania took in a breath sharply, and her eyes glistened with tears.

“I’m angry at her, Fay. I’m so angry at her for making me suppress this enormous part of me.” Slania said heatedly, looking torn up about that, “I can understand why she did it, but it still hurt me, Fay.” Then, she scoffed again, and Fay could feel that her hand was shaking. “And to think Clement said I’d never be as good as her because I have too much of my father in me --”

“He said what?” Fay asked incredulously, and when Slania went wide eyed, as if she had said too much than she intended. As she looked away, quickly wiping the corners of her eyes, Fay finally understood that this was why their uncle looked so guilty upon Eamonn’s last arrival in Connacht. It was why he looked so sad whenever someone mentioned her.

“I’m realizing that there’s a lot that went on that I didn’t know about. Because I stayed away,” As Fay said this, she felt hot tears roll down her cheeks, “I realize that you have kept all these things to yourself all these years, and I imagine that there’s more things that happened that you haven’t told anyone about. That must have been so, so lonely.”

Slania’s shoulders slouched, and her head hung low. She nodded gently, which made Fay take a hold of her other hand.  “I know I haven’t been present before. I was unable to face the grief of losing father and mother. But, I want to be there now. I’m sorry I wasn’t before, Lani. I should’ve been.”

“You had gone through so much after the fall out with papa, the whole ordeal with Levon, and you had to raise Ben for years without him. Riley was practically torturing herself over Svejn’s death, broke it off with the love of her life, and then, losing mother tore her apart. I didn’t want to trouble either of you.” Slania confessed truthfully, squeezing her hands. as she did. “I’m not angry at you for staying away. I just figured I’d deal with it on my own.”

“I know you have Jacob now, Carolina, and your friend Keiran, but Riley and I want you to regain your trust as sisters.” Fay told her tearfully, “When you were missing, I was so scared, Lani. We lost Eamonn. I don’t want to lose you either.”

Slania then reached over and embraced her tightly. “I’m sorry for scaring you.”

Fay returned the embrace and held her there for a moment. Fay could hear Slania sniffle, which caused her to rub her back as they continued their hug. As she pulled away, Slania wiped her eyes. 

“I love you, Lan. And I want you to be able to tell me things from now on, alright? Just as I will tell you things. When we get back to Wexford, I can help you figure out more about what you truly are. Does that sound alright to you?” Fay said earnestly, smiling at her.

“It does. I would like some help actually, especially from an intelligent person like you. And...I love you too,” Slania replied, returning the smile with a warm one of her own.

They sat there in a rather comfortable silence for a moment, both content with the new development of their relationship, which had stagnated since the death of their parents. Then, Fay eyed her, and narrowed her eyes.

“So, you and Keiran, hm?”

“Oh, gods. I knew you were going to go there!” Lamented Slania, dramatically falling back on the bed, a hand covering her eyes.

“Oh come on, do you blame after the way I saw his arm all on you? The way he was looking at you?” Asked Fay with a smile.

“...Well, it’s nothing concreate yet. We’re just  friends right now, but we’re both um...interested to see where it may go.” Slania told her, sitting up again, her ears beginning to become red as Fay nodded with raised brows.

“...Riley is going to freak out when she sees how good looking he really is.” Fay commented with a chuckle.

“Don’t remind me.” Slania replied flatly.

Fay wanted to ask more about her relationship with the man, but decided that her sister had opened up enough for a night. Instead, Slania told her more about the happenings in the woods, the previous events such as the dinner she and Carolina attended before, the way she and Marcus almost went at it in his manor... 

Then, Slania fell asleep, and Fay peacefully slept next to her.

[mor-beck-more-problems]

Fangs For the Gift || Morgan & Miriam

Morgan finally meets her new gal-pal, Mim!

Morgan drove herself to Dell’s Tavern, light on her feet with excitement and nerves. She needed a little boost in the business that she didn’t have to fudge with magic, and Miriam seemed nice...really nice, actually. There was something familiar about the way she carried herself in conversation that made Morgan feel endeared to her. Perhaps it was the story of her loss, or the way she seemed to guard herself against the world. In any case, it seemed like a gift to be able to meet for drinks instead of sending the decanter she had made into the world. It had cost even less than Morgan had thought. A walk around the University on Sunday morning yielded all the whiskey and whiskey remains she could hope for. It barely cost her any magic to bring them together, turn the glass into a honey-colored crystal, and shape it into something beautiful. It was all...too nice. Too promising. Would Miriam hate it? Would she not like Morgan in person, after all? Morgan sweat with anxiety as she pulled up a seat at the bar, the decanter in a bright paper gift bag on her lap. The more right everything seemed, the more she wondered what was going to go wrong. 

Miriam had spent most of the day doing bookkeeping for the store, outside in broad daylight. Or, well, night light. She’d been beyond thrilled to receive a call from her panicked assistant saying that the “fucking sun’s out, Ms. Flemming. Like, what the hell” and, after telling the poor girl that it was probably fine, she’d gone outside to enjoy it. It wasn’t the same as being in the sun, but it was pleasant to be outside before seven pm. She wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, and who knew how long it would last. She needed to take advantage of it while she could. Perhaps that’s why she walked into Dell’s with a spring in her step, hair perfectly curled and dressed to kill. And she was. Going to kill, that is, if Morgan really was a witch. The other woman clearly knew her stuff, far more researched than any phony Miriam had ever encountered, and she just seemed so damn earnest. Pleasant, even. Maybe a part of Miriam, the still human part that wasn’t obsessed with the hunt, hoped that the other woman wasn’t a spellcaster. She’d been lovely conversation, even if she had so gently pried information out of Miriam that she’d have never given up otherwise. Miriam kind of liked her, but she knew how spellcasters were. No matter how lovely, they would always harm. Always. Miriam looked around the room and saw a woman with a gift bag at the bar. There was her girl. She put on her most winning smile and walked over. “Morgan?”

Morgan jumped at the sound of her name, too startled to hide her eager expression. “Me? I mean, yes?” Her eyes settled on the woman behind her, stunning and warm and cold at the same time. Mim. It had to be, right? Morgan didn’t know whether she should wave or hug or simply invite her over. She seemed pleased, even excited to see her. Did this make them friends? Actual grown up magic friends? Morgan wasn’t sure which answer she should hope for. The balance of the universe was swinging in her favor a little, and her arms could barely fit around the people she already wanted to keep close, or close-adjacent to her. But a few drinks wasn’t that big of a connection toll really, was it? “You must be Mim,” she said, beaming. “It’s so good to put a face to a name! And such a pretty one, too, if you don’t mind my saying. I have your decanter, but do you wanna sit with me? Or grab a table maybe?”

Pleased, Miriam smiled a bit wider. “That’s me. Oh, it’s so lovely to meet you, Morgan.” Yes, she was very pleased. Morgan seemed so very pleasant and eager, easy to draw in. If she was a witch, Miriam had no doubt she could lure her in, hook, line, and sinker. And, if she wasn’t, well, Miriam was a people-person, and, as it turned out, completely out of people to talk to in White Crest. That’s what happens, she supposed, when everyone you’d ever really been close to was dead, either by your hand or nature’s. “I must say, you have a lovely face as well.” She shifted closer, as if to get a better look at the bag, while also getting a bit closer to Morgan, to put her hand on the back of the other woman’s chair. “Darling, I’d be delighted to sit with you. Bar, booth, or table. Whatever you want is fine with me.” She allowed her smile to turn just the slightest bit sheepish. “I must admit, that’s why I asked if you wanted to meet, instead of just sending me the decanter. I’m still getting used to being in town, and, between work and cleaning up my house, I haven’t had time to get out and enjoy another person’s company as much as I’d like. When we were talking online, I just knew you’d be such wonderful company.”

Morgan puffed up a little to see Mim turn sheepish around her. She had made her usual effort with her hair and makeup, not the good lipstick, but a nice matte shade of pink nonetheless. “Oh! Well, thank you,” she fluffed her hair back from her shoulders, smiled brighter. “Why don’t you jump up here next to me then?” She shifted the bag onto the counter and shifted to face her guest better. “And I know that feeling well. It’s so hard making friends in a new place. I’ve been really lucky with the people I’ve managed to meet here so far. And now you! I don’t know what it is, but I do feel kind of endeared already. I hope you like the decanter, by the way. It’s from your husband’s favorite whiskey bottles, but it’s crystal now. It should last you a good while.” She was babbling, juggling the excitement with the nerves with the desire to have more, even more for her life. For her days. Another witch, or someone like one at least, with no complicated ties to her family or other circles, was something Morgan hadn’t even thought to want, even just for an outing or two. But Mim made it so tempting. 

Miriam perched herself at the bar next to Morgan. “Oh, Morgan, that’s so lovely. I take it you’ve met other people here that are,” she glances at the bag, “like yourself? How marvelous!” How marvelous indeed. Perhaps she could hold off on Morgan until she got a bit of information out of her. Just enough to find other witches that might be lurking around town. There had to be quite a few; populations tend to run rampant when the natural predators go away, and Miriam was asleep for such a long time. “Darling, I feel the same. I just knew there was something wonderful and endearing about you when we first started talking. And I’m certain the decanter is marvelous. And,” she put on a conspiratory, joking grin, “I’m sure it’ll be used soon and frequently. I go through bourbon quite quickly, these days.” About that time, the bartender came by. Miriam ordered a bourbon, knowing that it’d hardly get her buzzed. Liquor was best in copious amounts of coming from a drunk person’s vein, these days. She turned to Morgan and smiled. “What’ll you have, sweetness? My treat.”

“Oh, not really, not so much like...that,” Morgan said nodding towards the bag. She didn’t know the Vurals very well yet, but it seemed safest, kindest, to protect them the way she tried to protect Deirdre, by completely omitting their existence. She hated it, because maybe Mim could join up with them, be their friend too, But she would have to check with them first, if this even went that far. “But other supernatural...sorts,” she said softly. “This is the first place I’ve found that has a real community like that. Back home, it was mostly just me and my family.” Morgan flashed a bright grin to the bartender and ordered an old fashioned for herself, turning to Mim with a sweet murmured thank you. She was flirting, she knew, but it was either lean into the simplicity of things, the hope of things, or run straight for the door with her fear. And Mim had seemed lonely when they spoke. Morgan didn’t relish the idea of bolting without a better reason. She couldn’t tell her about the curse, and she didn’t want to break anything before she really had to. “Not the most daring, I know, but if we stay for another round I could probably go for one of the cocktails. Something sweet, you know? And what about you? I—don’t think you’ve said if you’re anything other than human, but it’s probably hard no matter what, I’d reckon.”

Miriam was very careful not to let her disappointment show when Morgan didn’t name any names, but she wasn’t too upset. If she couldn’t get it out of Morgan, she’d find another little witch to get it out of at some point. “This town’s just brimming with supernaturals, I’ve come to find,” she said. She grinned when Morgan ordered and said her thanks. The last thing Miriam wanted to do, though, was scare the other woman away when she was so very, very close. “I’m glad you’ve found a home here. I’ve always found it a rather lovely place to live.” Miriam’s feeling a little wistful now, thinking about growing up in White Crest. She’d really, truly never wanted to leave. How wonderful it was that she never could. Their drinks came. “An old fashioned’s classic, sweetness. Nothing wrong with it at all. I’m the girl over here drinking straight bourbon. But something sweet might be good later. Like a Fuzzy Navel?” She laughed a bit at the name. Miriam took a sip of her drink, contemplating how to answer Morgan’s question. “Theo was always the special one, the one with supernatural gifts, in our relationship. I’ve always been positively average, human.”

Morgan grinned at the encouragement from Mim and sipped her drink with a dimpled grin. “Sounds like a delicious choice for round two,” she hummed. “Sign me up, Mim.” She watched her intently as she thought, almost reached out for her arm in assurance. Was she scared? Nervous? But then Mim explained. “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with being plain old human. I don’t think any species has a monopoly on being interesting. And at least unlike some normies, you actually appreciate what’s different about the world. That’s rare enough to be its own power, you know?” She hesitated a moment, searched Mim’s face sympathetically. “Is that why you’ve had trouble making connections here, because you’re just kind of--in between?” 

Miriam grinned back, latching onto this line of conversation. She took another sip of her drink, enjoying the smoothness of it. Dell’s wasn’t classy, not really, but they had good drinks. “I think you’re right, Morgan, about why it’s so hard here.” She paused for a minute before letting out a slight, self-deprecating chuckle. “It’s hard, being both in and out. ‘In’ in all that I know, all that I love and appreciate. I adored Theo’s family, his friends, when they let me. But even with them I was on the outside. Theo’s normie wife with nothing but money to make her interesting.” Bastards, the lot of them. Even Ginny, with her kind and sisterly words, was a liar. It was all about what could be done for them, wasn’t it? The money, the prestige. Still, Miriam smiled. “And a pretty face, I suppose. You’re the first person i’ve really been able to connect with here. Someone who knows and understands and appreciates the differences in the world. I can’t go back to not knowing about magic, but I’ll never fully belong to that world, either.” She shook her head. “Can’t deal with people who deny its existence, so I suppose I’ll just work myself to death and occasionally get drinks with pretty witches to bide my time.”

Morgan couldn’t help but touch a hand gently to Mim’s sleeve. She was so lonely, it was starting to make Morgan feel guilty. She couldn’t possibly endanger her on top of everyone else. Even if she understood, and she might well understand, she couldn’t even defend herself. “Don’t work yourself to death, Mim,” she urged. “There’s so many better things to do with your time. And there’s other people here who’d understand. You just need to get out there more.” She gave her sleeve a little tug and downed the rest of her drink. “Have a little faith in the universe, you know?”

Miriam cocked her head to the side, just a bit, before she let a grateful smile slip over her features. “Thank you, darling, really.” She patted Morgan’s warm hand, hoping her fingers weren’t too icy. “I’ll try not to work myself to death. I think it’d be a bit hard to do, anyway. I have a strong constitution.” It was hard not to laugh at that. “I suppose I do need to get out a bit more. Things have certainly gotten more exciting around here recently, haven’t they? I might have to take the day off sometime this week if it last, to appreciate an all-day night out.” If this no-sun thing held out, Miriam was going to have no problem hunting. Like Morgan, Miriam too finished her drink. “Perhaps you’re right. A little faith will do me good. Things have certainly been looking up recently. Now,” she looked at the bag, “I’ve been waiting in anticipation long enough. I’d want to see your lovely gift, and then we can get another round.”

Morgan was startled by the coldness of Mim’s touch. No one human felt that way, none that she had met. Was she a banshee, or a zombie? A vampire maybe? Her brow furrowed, trying to sort out the reason for the lie. Was it that hard to trust humans, even witches? “O-oh! Right!” She passed Mim the bag, folded her hands eagerly in front of her. “I hope it’s your style. I only had our conversation to go off of, but you seemed to be a lady with simple, but refined taste. And I can fix it a little more. You could even watch me, but we’d have to go somewhere less...visible, obviously.” She smiled sheepishly. 

“Sorry,” Miriam said, catching Morgan’s ever so slight startling. Damn, she should have found a way to warm up or avoided touching. But physical touch was a way of getting people to trust you, most of the time. Oh well. “Poor circulation.” Perhaps she should have just told Morgan what she was. It’s not like it would matter, in the end. Miriam opened up the bag, pulling out the decanter for inspection. It was truly lovely. Like Morgan said, simple but refined, nie crystal that her parents would have dropped thousands on to have in their home, if they’d seen it at an auction and it had the right name on it. “Oh, Morgan. It’s absolutely gorgeous. You did incredible work! I wouldn’t have you change a thing.” An idea formed. If Morgan wasn’t as receptive to flirting as Miriam would like, she’d try to appeal to the spellcaster in her. “Though, I would absolutely adore to see you work. Perhaps, once we finish here, we can go somewhere and you could show me?” Be eager, she told herself, but just enough. A pleasant smile, a look in her eyes, holding the decanter just so as to show her appreciation of it.

“Don’t be sorry,” Morgan said quickly. “I have a couple of friends who run cold. It just startled me. I kinda like it, actually” She touched her fingers to Mim’s, just loosely threaded, as a token of reassurance. She watched, eager, as the other woman opened the gift. She couldn’t help but swell with pride, even fluff her hair prettily to one side as Mim exclaimed her thanks. Yes, she was a cursed witch, but she could still be impressive on occasion. “I would love to show you,” she said. “We can take a walk, if you want? And we can see what looks transmutable as we go along, have a little fun?” From the look Mim was giving her, one little night of sort of connection might be something they both needed to move on better in their real lives. And Mim was a tough cookie, she didn’t seem the kind to miss a hint if she were ever given one. 

How interesting the other woman was, Miriam thought. Briefly, she wondered if Morgan’s other friends were also undead, or if they were actual humans or spellcasters with poor circulation. Knowing White Crest, it was likely the former. By the minute, Morgan became more and more interesting, and the part of Miriam that had once been alive and so fascinated with magic was beginning to really not want to kill her. It was too bad that the other part of her always won out. Or, really, not bad at all. Killing witches was not a bad thing. “I would love to take a walk. Would you like another drink or something to eat, perhaps? And don’t let me forget that I need to pay you.”

Morgan reached for her wallet out of habit before she remembered Mim had been kind enough to pay. She sat with it in her lap, considering all the non-options at home. “Why don’t we take a walk now?” She said. “I’m sure we can find our way to somewhere with better food than they’ve got here. And you can pay me whenever, really. At the end of the night, or now, while it’s still on your mind if it makes you feel better! I have venmo and everything.” She flushed, laughing nervously. True, the decanter hadn’t cost any money on her end, so anything would technically count as profit, but cash like this didn’t come around every day. She could get a lot of groceries with that kind of drop, or bake a lot of pastries, maybe get some supplies for spiffing up her wardrobe. In exchange, she promised herself, she’d show Mim a really nice time tonight. That would balance everything plenty, right? 

“That sounds lovely,” Miriam said. She paid the bartender for their drinks, and, while she still had her own wallet out, pulled out five hundred dollar bills. “I’ll go ahead and pay you now. I’m afraid I don’t yet have a venmo,” she’d have to ask Elle what the hell that was and if she needed a card for it, “so cash will have to do. I hope this is good for you? I feel like I’m cheating you for such fine craftsmanship.” It wasn’t like money meant much to her. Not with the amount that her parents left, and not with the amount that the business was worth. Besides, she could always get the money off Morgan later if she wanted to. She stood and offered Morgan her arm. “Shall we?”

Morgan tried not to let her eyes grow too large as Mim handed her the payment. They had discussed how she would make the decanter online, but she wasn’t sure if ‘fished from a frat boy’s bin’ was the local sourcing Mim imagined. Still. That money could be magic books from The Archive. It could be her next oil change on the Subaru. A bulk order of the good laundry products. Morgan took it with a bright smile and folded it away. She slid her arm into Mim’s, tucking herself in, however awkwardly, and steered them outside towards the sidewalk. “You know, the one thing I wish everyone could feel about magic is how much it connects us. It’s the stuff that binds all our energy, all that we put out in the world. And it’s true for everyone, in theory. You’re a part of magic too. Ooh--” She stopped by a streetlamp nestled in greenery and landscape rock. “Like this granite right here, can just as easily become--” She knelt down and touched the circle on her phone to it, made a bright, polished obsidian, smooth enough to see your face in. She opened herself up again and made glassy quartz. “What do ya think?”

All this talk of magic was making Miriam’s skin crawl. Perhaps magic was in everything, but, in the hands of humans, it always led to ruin. Always. No matter how pretty it was, someone was going to suffer. She’d learned, over the years, the price of magic. Equal exchange in all things. No creating something from nothing. No life without death. Spellcasters hurt others, either accidentally or on purpose, always, in the end. As Morgan performed her magic, turning the granite to obsidian and then quartz, it was beautiful. Miriam hated it. She felt her eyes go red and her fangs drop. She listened to see if anyone was around them, but all she could hear was Morgan’s heartbeat, her breathing. No more drawing this out, she thought. She’d make it quick. Morgan, it seemed, was a good person. She didn’t deserve a drawn out death. But she did deserve to die. She couldn’t be left to her own devices; she’d hurt someone eventually. Miriam was doing her a favor. “It’s lovely, Morgan, truly. You’re lovely. And so I hope you understand why I have to do this.” With inhuman speed and strength, she took Morgan and pushed her up against the nearest tree, holding her against it with one are and keeping the other woman’s arms pinned with the other.

Morgan never saw it coming. “Oh, Mim, I’m just--” And then her back was slammed against a tree. The woman in front of her transformed--eyes red, teeth elongated, but more than that, the loneliness she carried fell away and turned to hatred. That, more than the bruising grip on her body, terrified Morgan. There were a lot of things she could talk through, but hatred-- “Mim, whatever this is, you don’t have to--” She wriggled, squeezing her phone tight to keep her grip, if she could just touch something long enough to make something happen. “Whatever you think I’ve done, it’s just, I was just trying to--” And then it clicked and dread fell through her in a wave. “Oh, it’s you. You’re the hunter.” She hadn’t been making any connections to anything. She’d been lured, and trapped. “Do you always ask your witches on a date first?”

“The hunter?” Confusion filled Miriam’s eyes before she smiled it off, baring her fangs. “Aw, sweetness. Has someone been talking about me?” Well, she hadn’t been expecting this so soon, but it was fine. Anyone out there outing witch hunters couldn’t do it too publicly, not without outing themselves as witches or something supernatural. She gripped Morgan’s hands just a bit tighter. “Drop it,” she said, coolly, “and do try not to touch anything. If you struggle, darling, it’ll only make this worse. I rather find myself liking you, Morgan. I don’t want to make this hurt anymore than it has to.” But even as she said it, the other woman’s terror, her dread, was making Miriam want to twist and break, bring more misery. She refrained, barely.

Morgan whimpered as Miriam tightened her grip. She tensed her body and struggled harder. Pain shot up her arm from the effort and she gasped, dropping her phone into the dirt. Shit. Shit. Shit. This couldn’t be how she died, right? She would know if this was how she died, right? Or if it was, she’d done this so badly on her own fate didn’t even have to bother. Morgan swallowed thickly, speaking faster as she started to panic. “You kinda have a reputation yeah,” she said. “But you really don’t have to do this, Miriam--” She tried to press against her grip. 

Miriam sighed a bit as Morgan struggled. She simply snapped one of the other woman’s wrists, relishing a bit in the pain. “I kind of do have to do this, Morgan,” she murmured in Morgan’s ear, getting closer to the other woman. “I do. It’s in my nature.” Ever since she’d been turned, she’d felt like she had to kill, hurt, destroy witches, like she had to breathe. It was curious to hear her name coming from Morgan’s lips. So, whoever knew about the witch hunter knew that it was really Miriam Flemming. This wouldn’t do at all. She needed to fix this. Morgan was a small prize, harmless in most ways, though still dangerous. Miriam could hold off on killing her, the pain she’d caused the other woman already easing a bit of Miriam’s thirst. Yes, she could hold off, if Morgan did her a favor. “Or, you know, you could tell me who told you about me, and I can let you go. We can save this for another day, you know. I might even let you leave town, get a head start on me.” She pressed down on Morgan’s broken wrist. “Or we can keep going. Up to you, dearest.”

Morgan screamed. Her breath flew from her throat, burning on its way out. She trembled, fighting for focus, for speech. “No, please…” So pathetic, so desperate, and it wasn’t going to get her out of this. And then Miriam dangled an out in front of her. Sell out the Vurals. Nell. Her coven. The new coven she’d just found. They barely knew her, but they took her. Wanted her. Morgan reached down into the deepest part of her she knew, down the tree at her back, the ground, to the hunk of quartz by the lamp. “A-are you serious?” She asked. “You’d...you’d leave me alone? I tell you how I knew, and you just, you just leave me alone--” Morgan closed her eyes, gulping for air, and sent the quartz as hard into the witch hunter’s head as she could, let it slam and drop against her body. “Fat chance of that.” She reached deeper, clear and focused, with that house, that family, with Nisa and Nell around the table in her eye, and pushed against the world.

Miriam snarled as she was pushed away by an unseen force, her head pounding from the force of the quartz hitting her head. She landed on her back several feet away from Morgan and the tree. If she’d still needed to breathe, the breath would have been knocked out of her. As it was, she felt a bit of dull pain as her body broke and bruised a bit before it began to knit itself back together. She laid there for a second, considering her options, thick dark blood seeping from the wound in her head before it sealed itself. The easiest thing to do would be to get up, snap Morgan’s neck, and be done with this whole damn thing. That would be easy. But it wouldn’t be fun. There would be no savoring the hunt, the victory. Morgan had made things too easy, anyway. She sighed, long-suffering. “Oh, how you’ve wounded me, and I cannot get up. You’ve got about three minutes before my body is capable of harming you, so I suggest you run, Morgan.” They’d save this again for another day. She lifted her head a bit, looking to where the gift bag had been dropped on the ground. “Do leave the decanter, though. I paid good money for it, and if I can’t do what I set out to, I’d at least like something to make up from the failure of tonight.”

Morgan didn’t need to be told twice. She picked up her phone and bolted for the street. She kicked the decanter over out of spite, leaving it to roll away to who knew what fate. “I made it out of frat boy garbage you know!” She shouted back, and made for her car. She was lightheaded, terrified, maybe even delirious. She didn’t even stop to catch her breath when she turned on the ignition, but sped on towards the hospital. She had pissed off a vampire witch hunter. She had lived. And she had maybe made an honest to universe enemy who would do much worse if they ever met again, to protect the Vurals. Morgan squeezed her trembling hand over the steering wheel. She hoped to all she had that this would be worth the risk.

Still laying in the grass, Miriam laughed in spite of the circumstances. Frat boy garbage. And yet magic had made it look so pretty. It just showed her what she’d always known; magic had the capability to turn absolute shit into something truly beautiful, but underneath it all, it was still shit. Still something ugly and, in most cases, terrible. She appreciated the work that most have gone into it, though. As she sat up, groaning, Miriam smoothed her hair out and stood, legs not even shaking. She picked up the bag from where Morgan had kicked it, not too far from where it had been dropped in the first place, Humming, she headed back to her car, blood still matted in her hair. She got a few curious stares. Even if she hadn’t succeeded in what she set out to do, it was good to be back home. Let the witches know she’d returned. She only lived for their fear, their pain, their misery.

[four-loose-screws]

FE4 Suzuki Novelization Translation - Chapter 6 Part 4

If you would like to start from the beginning, read a missed part, etc., click here!

FE Game Script Translations - FE Novel Translations - Original FE Support Conversations - Ko-fi

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Chapter 6 - The Bard’s Introduction

Part 4

As Oifey feared, once Sigurd’s army captured Anphony Castle, Augusty Castle deployed their knights to attack Nordion.

The Kingdom of Augusty was famous for its powerful cavalry unit. If the entire unit attacked at once, they would probably capture Nordion. However, Chagall lacked confidence and decisiveness as a military leader. The moment he made up his mind to attack, all the potential ways he could lose came flooding into his mind. In the end, he decided to play it safe and keep the main unit behind, so he could keep a solid defense over Augusty even if he lost to Nordion.

As a result, they were driven away by Sigurd’s infantry unit, which had just returned to Nordion.

-

The moment the battle was over, Beowulf went to Nordion Castle.

He passed through the castle gate, and saw a beautiful young woman with blonde hair dressed as a soldier. She was giving out orders to the Nordionian Army.

‘Seems awful stuck up.’ He thought in response to her behavior and expressions, then asked one of the soldiers, “Who’s she?”

“Princess Lachesis, King Eldigan’s younger sister.”

‘So that’s his little sister, eh?’

He’d gotten a bad impression of Eldigan when he once traveled to Nordion looking for work.

-

While resting alongside the road, he met a group of cavaliers that would occasionally go hunting. The leader was well dressed, rode a white horse, and had perfect posture.

‘He looks like a pretty high-ranking cavalier.’ Beowulf thought.

He asked the knight at the end of the line who they were, and the man said with pride, “That man is our king, His Majesty Eldigan!”

Beowulf mounted his horse, and rode up alongside Eldigan.

“Your Majesty!”

Eldigan stopped his horse and looked at him.

“I am Beowulf, a mercenary. I would like to serve you, if you would please consider hiring me…”

“Sorry, but Nordion has no need for mercenaries. Excuse me.” Eldigan said, and continued on as if nothing had happened.

Beowulf simply watched Eldigan and his men walk away, unable to say anything.

‘That man has everything, and I have nothing.’

But that stark difference between them did not make him jealous, rather, he was relieved to be nothing like Eldigan.

-

After that, Beowulf asked the villagers about Eldigan every chance he had. They were always happy to boast about their king, and also told him about his half-sister, Lachesis, from a different mother. She was a beautiful, refined girl. But the envious villagers also told him that she was a little too close to her brother.

‘And those villagers were right.’ He thought, looking at her from the side.

‘She’s completely different from any girl I’ve ever met before. The difference between them and her is as great as the difference between Eldigan and I.’

Beowulf had very rugged face, which was attractive to women who liked such features. However, next to the princess, he felt ugly by comparison.

Suddenly, he was overcome by an impulse unlike anything he’d ever felt before.

Before he realized what he was doing, he was next to Lachesis.

She stared at him, and seemed to be on edge.

“So this is the princess of Nordion!”

“How rude! And who might you be?”

“Oh, sorry to bother you. I’m a mercenary. Name’s Beowulf.”

“Do you have business with me?”

“Yeah, I just wanna say one thing to you. War is no game. A chick like you would just get in our way! You should behave more like a princess, and stay in the castle.”

“Why you…! You have no right to say such a thing to me! I’ve done a lot for this army!”

“Ha ha ha! You really are Eldigan’s sister. You have a really strong spirit.”

“Huh? ...You know my brother?”

“Yeah, we were acquaintances a long time ago. He asked me to look after you, so that’s why imposed myself on you like that.”

“Oh, I understand now. I’m sorry.” There was nothing arrogant about the way she spoke her words. They were a genuine apology.

“Yeah, me too.” He panicked and thought, ‘What did I say that for!?’ However, he found his next sentence coming out as smooth as ever. “If you want, I can teach you how to fight in your free time. Eldigan would want me to.”

“Yes, Please. If you have something in mind already, we can start right now.”

“Really? Try holding your sword, then.”

If he didn’t know any better, he would have said she wasn’t in a battle stance at all.

“Alright, think of me as an enemy. Attack me.”

“But…”

“But what?”

“You don’t have a sword.”

“That’s fine. Just come at me!”

“Ha!” She put a fair amount of power into her swing, but he was easily able to dodge it.

“Good. Once more!”

“Hii-yah!”

Not even three minutes later, Lachesis was already out of breath.

“Alright, that’s enough for today.”

Lachesis sheathed her sword, then looked at Beowulf with a worried expression.

“That was an amazing first training session.”

Her face lit up at his words.

“But you still lack power. You look like a princess playing a game of fencing. From now on, we’re going to train every day.”

She’d never heard such harsh words before, not even from her brother. But she agreed with him. “Please.”

He could tell by the light in her eyes that she already trusted him.

‘No woman’s ever looked at me like that before. I’d never be able to betray her.’ He thought. ‘I’ll protect your sister while you’re gone, King Eldigan.’

ー

Sigurd gathered together the leaders of his army for a tactics meeting.

To reach Augusty and save Eldigan, they needed to pass through Mackily. And to do that, they would have to capture the castle. The only road to Mackily was a thin one between two plateaus.

However, on the right-side plateau were five ballistae, ready to shoot down anyone who tried to travel down the road. To make matters worse, the villagers told them that King Clement of Mackily was a mage with the ability to wield a Sleep Staff.

Deirdre offered to use her Silence Staff once more, but for her to do that, she had to enter the ballistae’s range.

“The ballistae are dangerous, but their accuracy is poor. If our calvary ambush them, we can minimize the damage done to our army. Several of them might be put to sleep, but I think it’s worth the risk if we can defeat Clement.” Eve, one of the Cross Knights, suggested.

“No, that plan is too risky for me.” Sigurd dissented. “Is there any way we can come close to Mackily Castle without entering the ballistae’s range?”

“It is possible. There’s a mountain path north of Evans. If we climb that, we can pass behind the ballistae. But that would take a week.”

“Yes! Then, we can avoid being seen by them at all! The problem though is the week of travel. Oifey, do you think anything might happen to Eldigan during that time?”

“I asked for information from the Cross Knights, and they said Augusty’s cavalier unit is extremely powerful. The group that attacked Nordion was only a fraction of their full army. However, it also seems that what I’ve heard about Chagall is correct. He is very indecisive. Therefore, I can say with confidence that King Eldigan is safe."

"What makes you say that?"

"If Augusty loses, then he can use Eldigan as leverage to convince us to agree to a cease-fire. He won’t risk losing that option.”

“Of course. Then let’s go with the mountain strategy. It will also allow everyone some time to relax.”

Sigurd put together the small unit that would go with him, entrusted Nordion to Quan, then left for Evans Castle.

-

When they arrived at Evans Castle, they saw a group of pegasi flying towards them from the north.

“What are Silessian pegasus knights doing here?” Sigurd wondered aloud.

Meanwhile, Lewyn rushed up to the top of the castle wall.

The pegasus knights shifted into a battle formation, but Lewyn took off his striped bard’s turban, and waved his arms, signaling to the pegasus knights. His bright green hair flowed in the wind.

He recognized their leader. It was Erinys.

When she saw Lewyn’s green hair, she gasped, and ordered her knights to halt the attack. She realized there was a chance the man might be Prince Lewyn, who they’d been sent out to search for.

They approached the castle wall, still cautious, and immediately knew for sure that the man was indeed Lewyn.

Erinys sped up her pegasus and quickly landed on the castle wall.

“Prince Lewyn, you’re safe!”

“Yes, I am. But more importantly, Erinys, why are you here? You even tried to kill me!”

“I apologize. But, you're wearing such strange clothing, that I didn’t think it was you…”

“This? Oh, it’s what a bard wears. What do you think? Looks good on me, huh?”

“U-Um, yes, it does.”

“Hmph! The look on your face says otherwise! Well, whatever. You still haven’t answered my question.”

“N-No, I haven’t. I apologize. Queen Rahna ordered us to go look for you. We went to Augusty Castle, looking for information about you, and King Chagall told us that you’d been captured by the Grannvalian Army, and were being held at Evans Castle…”

“You’re too trusting.”

“Huh?”

“Did you get a good look at his face? Didn’t you notice that he has the face of a liar?”

“Um…”

“It’s great that you’re so honest, but you’d never make it as a commoner. Someone would take advantage of you, and you’d end up like Sylvia…”

“Prince, Lewyn, who is… Sylvia…?”

“Oh, um… nevermind. So what are you going to do now that you’ve found me?”

“We’re going to take you back to Silesse, of course! Please come home with us! Queen Rahna is worried about you!”

“If I go home, then it will only incite civil war! It would do nothing more than make the people suffer. Are you okay with that?”

“But you are Wind God Forseti’s successor...”

“But I don’t have the Holy Mark!”

“You’re lying.”

“How would you know?”

“Because Queen Rahna told me that it might not have appeared when you left the country, but surely it would have by now…”

“So, are you going to undress me and look to see if I have it?”

“Uh… um…”

“I’m joking, I’m joking. I’ll do it. I’ll go home soon. But there’s things I must do here first.”

“Then please let me stay with you. I’ll go tell my knights that you’re safe.”

“I’d tell you not to, but I know you wouldn’t listen. I get it. I’m going to stay with Prince Sigurd for the time being. He’s an interesting man. Plus, his army is full of beautiful women. You should become friends with them! You could teach them a thing or two about how to be a proper lady.”

“Y-Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Hey, I’m still joking. Isn’t it obvious? Don’t look so scared. Jeez, you’re too serious. ...But, you’re also the cutest woman in the world. So don’t change. You’re perfect the way you are.”

“Y-Yes, You’re Majesty. ...I-I mean, no, I’m not…”

‘She hasn’t changed a bit.’ Lewyn thought at the sight of her blushing face. ‘But she’s grown into a fine woman since I last saw her, physically speaking.’

[killingthebuddha]

“All of us become pilgrims at one time or another, even though we may not give ourselves the name.” –Richard Niebuhr

PJ, who presides over Dublin’s dusty shop Sweny’s, has read Joyce’s Ulysses 51 times in 6 different languages. Over a dark pint of Guinness, with the mist from the glass melting on his fingertips, PJ speaks about the lines from the book that are making his pulse race that minute. He doesn’t try to persuade you of their sacredness or its genius. He just smiles slightly, revealing coffee-stained and wayward teeth, and nods as he cites whole paragraphs. PJ loves Joyce. To PJ, Sweny’s, the shop where Leopold Bloom bought lemon soap for his wife Molly in Joyce’s epic, is an invaluable relic of Joyce’s Dublin, and he would do anything to protect its legacy. Even as rent steadily increases, PJ continues to sell bars of lemon soap in the chemist’s shop, now cluttered with old photographs, various editions of Ulysses, and hundreds of small glass bottles. PJ says with a wry smile, “the soap cleans the body while the book corrupts the mind.” 

Every year on June 16, the same date that marked Leopold Bloom’s walk around Dublin in 1904, a host of literary pilgrims visit the city to pay tribute to Joyce. Sweny’s was a sacred stop on the tour for people I met last Bloomsday, people who came from Australia, Japan, Bosnia, South Korea, the United States, Germany, Spain, Argentina, England, France, and Switzerland. 

In the Catholic tradition of pilgrimage, a location that is considered sacred is often referred to as a “thin place,” a place where the space between heaven and earth wanes, and becomes rarefied or thin. Such places typically mark the site of a saint’s ascension, a miraculous act, or some epiphanic moment. In other religions, places may be considered sacred because they have been saturated with meaning by God. What might a thin place be in a conversation about literary pilgrimage? Perhaps where the distance between an author’s imagination and a reader’s lived reality narrows and eventually collapses. And where the human being who generated meaning in the place—the author, the artist, the genius—begins to acquire divine status. Joyce certainly seems to assume deific qualities every year on Bloomsday as devotees travel to Dublin and re-enact the events from Bloom’s life, visit the places he walked, and read excerpts of Ulysses aloud.

In the home I grew up in, we consider all books sacred, and one of my family’s South Indian traditions has become practically reflexive for me. When someone accidentally drops a book or grazes one with a foot, we place our hand on the cover and gently touch our closed eyelids. We thus symbolically ask forgiveness for treating a book with inadvertent disregard. My parents instilled in me a deep appreciation for written words. Literary pilgrimage provides an opportunity to reflect on that appreciation, and on what happens when it extends beyond an individual gesture to a collective expression of reverence. Why do people become dedicated to one author, or one text? And how does that dedication evolve from fleeting infatuation to persistent devotion? 

Last summer, on a quest to reckon with these questions, I attended the Bloomsday festival, which is primarily organized by the James Joyce Center on Dublin’s North Great George’s Street. Deirdre Ellis-King, the chair of the board of the James Joyce Center, notes that the center is committed to providing “different points of entry” into the text, be it “music and song, drama, costume, or food.” The entry points Ellis-King referred to are visible throughout Dublin on Bloomsday. As I walked down North Great George’s Street, people were dressed for the trends of 1904—most men sported black top hats, and carried walking sticks, while women donned petticoats, lace gloves, and parasols. One man even tipped his hat, saluted me, and said with a melancholic tinge, “what a shame, poor fellow, Paddy Dignam,” referencing the character whose funeral in Ulysses occurs on June 16. 

When I arrived at Davy Byrne’s, a central pub in the novel, I witnessed a joyful uproar of Irish anthems and songs from the book. There were productions of Ulysses all over Dublin, from the Abbey’s adaptation of the entire epic to the Bewley Café’s staged reading of Molly Bloom’s monologue, and her famed finale, “and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.” There were pub crawls across Dublin, not to mention food tours that took visitors down Bloom’s bizarre trajectory of consumption, from kidneys for breakfast to gorgonzola sandwiches and burgundy for lunch. All these events were meant to challenge the notion that Ulysses ought to be abstruse and abstract for readers. Bloomsday participants come with varying levels of Ulysses knowledge, but even if you haven’t read the book, you can still down a pint or digest a kidney. 

Sam Slote, a professor at Trinity College Dublin, who has organized an academic symposium on Ulysses, cites Joyce’s remark, “If I can get to the heart of Dublin, I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world.” Slote comments that in order “to get to the heart of Dublin, Joyce represents the city in all its specificities.” In this way, he “gets to everywhere else and all their specificities.” Deirdre Ellis-King agrees, remarking that “Joyce and Dublin are synonymous, it’s any-man and every-man, you could be in any city in the world and enjoy the same kind of experiences of the streetscape.” Paradoxically, by being so precise, the text becomes universal. This stylistic technique is analogous to the character of Bloom. “It’s not that every man likes kidneys for breakfast, but every man has his particularities,” Slote says. It is in this way that Ulysses speaks to any reader, any person in motion, any pilgrim—not in the specifics of every human being, but in the specificity with which any human being can be represented. No one is special. Everyone is special. Stephen Dedalus, the other main character in the novel, has a line, “every life is many days, day after day.” This could be the motto for not only the epic, but also the festival commemorating June 16—any day, in any life, could be Bloomsday. The annual convergence of time and place restores significance to every ordinary and individual encounter, to every overlooked dollop of time. 

Jessica Yates, who oversees the Bloomsday festival and manages the James Joyce Center, tells me she “converted” to Joyce (her word) because of Bloomsday.  Unlike people who embark on a pilgrimage to honor the text they love, Yates casually went out to a pub on Bloomsday eleven years ago without any prior knowledge of Ulysses. It was there that she met “someone special,” and they set out on a project to read Ulysses before their first anniversary. She says with a trill of laughter, “I got so into Bloomsday.”      

She recommends I sit in on one of the storied reading circles at Sweny’s. I do, and am struck by the variety of voices present. Some readers sit with a cane or walker leaning against theirs chairs, and others sprint over to the shop after class. As Joycean phrases echo in the small confines of Sweny’s, I hear accents from Argentina, South Korea, and France. One Dubliner named Paddy has been attending the reading circle on and off for about a decade. Paddy wears long trousers, a light blue button down shirt, and round reading glasses. He seems serious, but he also has a toothy grin. While some wanderers came into the bookshop after one or two beers, Paddy arrives early, eager to pour over the text he deems so valuable. He has read the book in 6-month cycles about ten or eleven times—he can’t recall exactly. He views Ulysses as a vessel through which he can access his own ancestors, a thin place with miraculous possibility. He explains, “I am from Dublin. My parents, my grandparents too. I have no non-Irish connections. I think I am deeply of Dublin, and there are few books deeply of Dublin. Ulysses is one of them.” He explains why the book resonates with him emotionally by pointing to its melodic qualities: “There is a music in the language, a rhythm in the speech. I can hear my parents who are now dead, my grandparents who are now dead, I can hear them talking, when I read it, I can hear their voices.” 

Yet another regular at Sweny’s is Finon, a former student at Trinity College. He has been attending readings of Ulysses for four years, and he loves how Sweny’s regulars move “in a loop,” how the book itself is like a “carousel, no fun unless you get to do the whole thing.” “After all,” he chuckles, “if you haven’t finished, it’s not worth the money.” Like many sacred texts, Ulysses contains philosophical reflections, surprising imagery, and beautiful poetry. And like many religious holidays, which draw pilgrims from all over the world to a holy site, Bloomsday too, according to Finon, becomes a “spawning day,” to which “a lot of people return.” Both re-reading and pilgrimage are rituals of returning.

Attempts to disavow the sacred aspects of the festival sometimes sound inadvertently religious. When Finon describes the goal of Bloomsday, he seems a bit like a defensive missionary: “The attempt to popularize the text is really an attempt to create an invitation into it. I mean nobody’s looking to actively spread it onto people, but to keep it as welcoming as possible.” Similarly, Jessica Yates says she wants to get people excited about the text, but she insists, “I don’t want to impose it on everyone.” They are enthusiasts who hesitate to proselytize.

Indeed, Professor Slote of Trinity College Dublin notes with a hint of smug amusement that many people were asking him what he thought of Bloomsday from a scholarly perspective and he was “about to say something,” until he realized, “I’m not going to be this guy.” It would be understandable, from an academic standpoint, to scoff at some of what unfolds. For starters, many of the most devoted participants have never read the book. Take John, the James Joyce lookalike who has stood outside the James Joyce Center every June 16 for the last seven years. He carries a cane, and wears a black top hat, a suit, a healthy gray moustache and a tiny square beard. He peers through large circular spectacles, and takes photographs with tourists. Originally a hat-maker, John grew up in Dublin. He explains the mass of people at the James Joyce Center in an assured tone: “People don’t have to be readers to enjoy Bloomsday, people just like the association.” When I asked John what he thought when he read Ulysses for the first time, his eyes stretched open, and he raised his brows: “Read it? I wrote it!” I smiled, and he conceded, “I’m afraid I didn’t read it.”

For Joyce, a writer who said that if “Ulysses isn’t worth reading, then life isn’t worth living,” John’s confession could be considered blasphemous. But returning to Professor Slote’s less judgmental perspective, it’s unnecessary to “be that guy” who reads and analyzes Ulysses in order to have a genuine relationship with the text. Slote analogizes criticism of Bloomsday to what “we have in America—the [rhetoric of the] war against Christmas … the secularization of Bloomsday is not a bad thing.” 

Is Bloomsday a sign that the religion of Joyce is somehow being compromised, challenged, thinned out in the public’s touristic, commercial and dangerously superficial imagination? Or is Bloomsday’s existence reaffirming the sacredness of Ulysses to its readers? After all, not everyone who travels to Lourdes has read the Bible, and not everyone who journeys to Mecca has read the Qur’an. The mastery of a text is not necessary, or at the very least, not a prerequisite for meaningful motivations. Pilgrimage provides a different kind of proof of faith.

As Slote elaborates on not wanting to be the Grinch of Bloomsday, he says, Bloomsday “is not a bad thing—usually it falls on nice, sunny weather,” and it’s “a pleasant excuse to have a bit of a lark.” He concurs with the organizers of the Bloomsday festival that it’s good to get people interested, and even though he says “my job is generally not to think about popularizing Ulysses,” he believes offering various points of entry for readers is noble. He elaborates on Joyce’s mission with Ulysses: “While it is a book that is studied at universities, it’s not just for those people. It has a wider audience. The way culture has moved, these things tend to be more academicized, [and] something like [Bloomsday] is a good counterbalance.”

Leslie Daugherty, from the North Side of Dublin, plays Leopold Bloom in the James Joyce Center productions of Ulysses, and he agrees that the so-called “secularization” of Joyce is a good thing. He describes the text as “a fabulous read,” but takes issue with some of the academics who treat Ulysses with the wrong kind of “reverence,” effectively “making Ulysses unattainable.” He objects to the notion that Ulysses is for “the posh people,” and shook his head as he said, in a throaty voice, “No. Ulysses is for everyone who has a mind of his own.” 

 Marty, a man from Donegal, Ireland, who is a marketing and events coordinator at the James Joyce Center, first encountered Joyce when he read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and he says with a chuckle that “a lot of teenage Catholic dudes in Ireland identified with it.” He describes being deeply moved by the part where Stephen is called to the priesthood but says, instead, that he is an artist. The tensions between religious tradition, devotion, expectation, and the inclination towards the life of an artist resonate with Marty. 

Leopold Bloom, Ulysses, and Bloomsday itself are all fraught with similar tensions. Bloom is a man who loves his wife and preaches love but deceives her and behaves disloyally. Ulysses contains styles that contradict and challenge one another—clean prose, experimental stream-of-consciousness, advertisement jargon, and saccharine romantic-novel satire. Bloomsday has attendees who have read the text 51 times and people who have never heard of Joyce. The idea of “literary pilgrimage,” too, brims with ambiguity. Are books meant to be read, or to be revered? And does a book find its meaning in an isolated experience, or in a collective celebration? 

In 1996, Jonathan Franzen revised an essay initially published as “The Harper’s Essay” and retitled it “Why Bother.” In it, Franzen laments the demise of a reading-culture, and describes his “despair about the American novel.” He writes about one novel he read in reverent prose, marking his gratitude “that someone besides me had suffered from these ambiguities and had seen light on their far side—that Fox’s book had been published and preserved; that I could find company and consolation and hope in an object pulled almost at random from a bookshelf—felt akin to an instance of religious grace.” The experience of literature, of reading as an act of worship, is often seen as an individual one, as it is in this passage. Indeed, the collection for which Franzen revised his essay is called How to be Alone. 

 Yet Bloomsday’s beauty is in its social activity. As many literary pilgrims have pointed out, Joyce wanted his text to be democratic. The point of Bloomsday is for “any man and every man,” and the text is about bringing reverence to our everyday. Ulysses itself, in various bodily and granular descriptions elevates the profane to an esteemed status. For example, in one instance, Joyce satirically describes a man seated at the foot of a large tower as a “broad-shouldered, deep-chested, strong-limbed, frank-eyed, red-haired, freely-freckled, shaggy-bearded, wide-mouthed, large-nosed, long-headed, deep-voiced, bare-kneed, brawny-handed, hair-legged, ruddy-faced, sinew-armed hero.” And just as Joyce plays with his characters, gifting them gallant qualities (albeit in a sardonic tone), so does Bloomsday toy with its visitors and their expectations, until people find communion in a collective, at times gimmicky, at times reverent experience. Ulysses motivates its readers enough that they want to change their physical circumstances, embark on an embodied passage, and develop another vantage-point—beyond the systems of logic and reason that we so often subscribe to. The book inspires people to find one another, to derive solace and soul, from an admittedly kooky community. This somewhat paradoxical combination of the sacred and the irreverent is what permeates Dublin on Bloomsday. There are pub crawls and exclamations of Joycean passages made shriller by grand glasses of Guinness. But there is also something reminiscent of what we see in churches and memorials—pilgrims, persons in motion—seeking answers, inspired by something that has no neat ending, maybe realizing as they wander, that they too, will never be complete. 

Despite all the ambiguity and insecurity that is present when one sets out on a pilgrimage, there is also a yearning. People embark on a pilgrimage in search of something, be it healing, obligation, or understanding. And whether it is religious or literary pilgrimage, we can discover havens in vagrancy the way we do in words. As Franzen puts it, “to write sentences of such authenticity that refuge can be taken in them: Isn’t this enough? Isn’t it a lot?” There are not often clear answers in literature, but when paragraphs protect you, it doesn’t so much matter, does it? There are not clear lines drawn between the drawbacks and merits of Bloomsday either. Tourist Destination or Holy Site? One could easily say that the merits of Bloomsday are inits campiness, its accessibility, and its rendering a “thin place” palpable to readers. Franzen ends his essay with the image of a character discovering in a broken ink bottle “both perdition and salvation.” He writes, at peace without real resolution, “The world was ending then, it’s ending still, and I’m happy to belong to it again.”

Finon, one of the regular members of the Sweny’s reading circle, also embraces contradiction in Bloomsday. He believes that the festival is meaningful, but remarks with a knowing smirk that “on Bloomsday people like to drink and eat strange meat … [but] no one’s really talking about metempsychosis” (a concept of great significance in the novel). Finon asks if I had read Station Island by Seamus Heaney when I press him on the benefits and caveats of literary pilgrimage. I answer that I have not. He is keen to explain, “it’s a poem about revisiting a Catholic pilgrimage site, a catholic shrine …based on the idea that St. Patrick had a vision of purgatory there.” Finon outlines the context of the poem. “He was revisiting the place as a secularized figure … returning to a place he no longer believed in.” This raises an interesting question within a framework of literary pilgrimage. Is it possible to have a jarring return to a place you have lost faith in if all you have lost faith in is the sanctity of the literature (and not, for instance, the existence of God?) 

In Heaney’s poem, various characters appear from disparate significant moments in the history of Ireland. And at the “dead center,” Finon narrates in a thrilled whisper, “he meets the ghost of the dead James Joyce.” Heaney doesn’t name him. He refers only to the storied image of Joyce that impersonators and photographers and readers and writers have memorialized for a century: a tall man with a cane, and the voice of a singer. Heaney writes that the figure held out his hand— “whether to guide or be guided I could not be certain,” because the man seemed blind. In this poem, an itinerant soul reckons with the loss of meaning in a formerly faithful location. That a hero of literature, a genius, artist, poet, is ambiguous in his leadership—that it is unclear whether he wants to lead or be led, demonstrates the deterioration and dismantling of Joyce as an idol, of Joyce as a God. Here Joyce’s hand is “fish-cold and bony,” and the onlooker knows him “in the flesh …wintered hard and sharp as a blackthorn bush.” This is a weathered, human being, a worn body, tired, old, nothing divine or eternal-seeming about him. 

In many ways, this encounter could represent the ultimate challenge, a revisiting and reckoning with the sacred ground on which a metaphorical shrine to Ulysses was erected. In Station Island the character of Joyce does not seem wholly self-assured. He says, “your obligation / is not discharged by any common rite. / What you do you must do on your own … You’ve listened long enough. Now strike your note.” In this imagination of Joyce, the source of Ulysses’s genius, is not, on the surface, a divine force, because he feels entirely human. Yet, isn’t there something god-like in the command to strike out alone, to stop “listening,” and to embrace a new “rite”?

Considering Joyce as a simultaneously godly and ghostly figure is pertinent to the paradoxes of Bloomsday. Finon notes some logical dilemmas he observed on June 16 every year: “It’s a strange map in itself. I came to the real pub where a fictional character didn’t set foot. I came to the place where nobody bought the bar of soap. (laughs) It’s quite odd.”

Nonetheless, it seems hard to contend with the fact that Ulysses renders Dublin “a thin place.” It is the destination for wandering minds and bodies to relish and find refuge in words that feel mimetic of reality: the ugly, disturbing, devastating, and remedial stories that make up most of our lives. Letting Bloomsday be a thin place extracts communal joy from that solitary act of reading (or even of not-reading!) which can at times be isolating, and that private worship of Joyce, which can at times be embarrassing. A shared human soul pieced together from infinitely complex and individual particularities. One may plumb the mundane for miracles. 

Niebuhr describes pilgrims as people “passing through territories not their own—seeking something we might call completion, or perhaps the word clarity will do as well.” I was passing through a territory not my own, and when I walked the streets of Dublin on Bloomsday, I felt both spiritual and giddy. 

My very first interview, in the early morning of June 16, 2018, was with a couple from Trieste, and it felt like a moment of grace. I saw them loitering by the James Joyce Statue on the main street of the north side of Dublin. They were smiling and taking photos. It turned out that the man had read Ulysses as a young academic forty years ago. He matter-of-factly stated, “It was the text that inspired me to become a professor of literature.” As he spoke, his wife started laughing. I turned to her quizzically. She said, “Oh I’m sorry, it’s just my husband is really downplaying what this book means to him.” I asked her what she meant. “Well, when my first son was born—when I went into labor, what does my husband take along to the hospital? The thick fat book—Ulysses! He read it to me for twelve hours.” I turned to the man, now in his late 70s, a small smile playing on his lips, while a plum flush spread across his cheeks in patches. “Well,” he stuttered, “it’s sizzling…and brilliant…and so human.” This man wanted the very first words his son heard to be those of Joyce. What better anecdote could I have to demonstrate worship of this text? Yet, when I asked if he believed visiting Dublin for Bloomsday would lead to a more intimate understanding of Ulysses, he said, as his forehead creased slightly, “that would be too much, too big a claim.” His wife nodded knowingly. He added, “We’re here for more profane reasons.” 

Literature enables both profane pleasure and reverence. On Bloomsday, no one has to choose. 

[oliviaenglandproject4]

Documentary Photography-Research

Week One: 04.02.19 Liam’s Lesson

There are so many amazing Documentary Photographers in the world and I’ve  been doing a lot of research on the internet and in books to find 10 that I really like. 

Corey Arnold:

Corey Arnold is a photographer and commercial fisherman by trade. His fishing work is an ongoing photography series documenting the experience of life at sea for commercial fishermen worldwide. Corey Arnold has been working and photographing on the Bering Sea since he first landed a job on a King crab fishing boat in 2002. His work examines man’s relationship with the natural world including animals, food production, and environmental issues. Corey Arnold documents the things that happen on the sea and the people that work on the sea. Arnold said “ I followed my childhood dreams of being a professional fisherman and carried my camera along to document the absurd the mysterious, and the beauty that surrounds a life at sea.” This photograph captures what you’d expect to see on a fishing boat.

Jim Goldberg:

Jim Goldberg is an American photographer and his wok reflects long term ignored and neglected situations. He is best known for his photography books about the rich and poor and his photos including text that are often written by his subjects. These photographs from Jim Goldberg are black and white images that really show how people use to live back in the day. These photographs show the difference between the rich and the poor, the first images of the two elderly people in the modern house and the way they are dressed in a suit and dress shows they had money and they wasn’t poor. The other images on the right is completely different because these people aren’t well of for money and they live in a room with just a bed on the floor and they aren’t dressed very nicely because they are poor and they can’t afford it. These images really show emotion and they tell us a lot about their life and their upbringings maybe.

James Mollison:

This photographer called James Mollison created a book called ‘Where Children Sleep’ this is a series of photographs where he has taken portraits of many different children and their bedrooms to define who they are. The idea of this project was to engage with the subjects of children's rights. This image of the young boy and his bedroom shows that his family aren’t poor and that he can afford to have nice things. However not all of James Mollison’s photographs are the same, he also has some of children who’s families aren’t as well off and don’t have much money so they live and sleep in more of a rough looking bedroom. Going back to the photograph of this little boy the types of things he has in his bedroom like his toys and his guitar shows that he enjoys playing with his toys and experimenting the different types of music. I really like this idea of these photographs as it shows more than just a portrait or just a room that could belong to anybody. It tells a story about that person and it shows if your expectations of someone’s living space is what you thought.

This is a photograph that James Mollison took as part of a series called “What refugees carry with them” These three boys are called Kader, Muhammed and Caestar. They are all younger that 11 years old  and they come over on a boat with nothing, however they was given three biscuits and this is what you can see in the photograph. I like this series as it is interesting to see what the refugees are carrying with them. I also like how James Mollison puts these images next to each other in this side by side format. 

Kirsten Lewis:

Kirsten Lewis is known to be one of the best documentary family photographers in the world. Kirsten spends up to 72 hours at a time with a family and she takes many photographs of them to document their life. This photograph is one of many of my favourites because it makes you ask loads of questions. Are the two children siblings? Why is the little boy crying? Where were they going?. I really like photographs that make you want to ask questions because it means it’s interesting and it gets you hooked into it. 

This is a photograph that Kirsten Lewis taken in the series called “Day in the life” she goes to peoples homes and on family day drips with people’s families and photographs what they are getting up to. These sort of shoots capture really funny moments that you wouldn’t even think is going to happen as it is an in the moment shot. In this photograph  you can see that the mother of these two children is doing a mothers role and multitasking with her children, The little boy is acting like a little boy and hanging onto the bathroom sink while his mum is brushing his teeth. The baby is in the arms of the mother chilling. I really like this photo because it makes us want to ask so many questions and imagine how this family are. 

Clare Richardson:

Clare Richardson is a family portrait photographer and she isn’t one to overly edit images she prefers to capture nature and real photographs of families. She likes to catch images of a cheeky smile or mischievous look. Clare photographs children as they are growing up each year. This is an image of a little girl and she has tried to capture her personality. I really like the way she captures moments of children all different ages and families because they are amazing to look back at and the editing isn’t to much you can still see all of the detail in the photographs.

Tim Hetherington:

Tim Hetherington had a mission to create a better understanding of the world. He was working and living in Africa for many years which made him want to go into exploring the consequences of conflict and he quickly came to documenting conflict itself before delving deeper to understand the origins and causes of violence. This images Tim was immediately engaged with the lives of the children blinded in conflict and he maintained his involvement with the Milton Margai School for the Blind. I really like this image as it shows no matter were you are in the world or whatever circumstances you have there is always conflict in the world and Tim shows this throughout all of his work. This is a very powerful images as the children are blind but they are still having conflict and the angle it has been captured in makes it look more interesting. 

John Decker:

Photojournalism is the main type of photography that Decker does. He also photographs weddings, documentary and for various magazines and newspaper. As well as his photography work on Schwarzenegger he has done work based on the homeless people in California. This image was taken from part of the ‘Homeless’ collection, titled Patty and Art. The collection is based on a man and woman, who I assume to be boyfriend and girlfriend. When looking at this photo you can start to figure out what type of people these two are. In this photo you can see that they are outside, shoe less, feet up with dirt on the soles of their feet.The cigarette butts in the ashtray obviously tells us they are smokers. It’s a really random assortment of items on the table. The can in the background, tomato ketchup bottle, a wrench accessory, gloves and a jar of what I assume is mayonnaise is a weird combination of products. But this can tell you a bit about them and their way of life. They enjoy the outdoors, a good drink, a cigarette and are very hands on people. I really like this photograph as it gives us a lot of unanswered questions and it is looks like it could be in a series of photographs

Deirdre O’Callaghan:

This photograph was taken by a lady called Deirdre O’Callaghan and she took this photo for part of a series called “Hide the can” This image was taken in North London in an Hostel home to mainly Irish men in their fifties and sixties who came to London as young adults to earn money as manual labourers. Deirdre O’callaghan was invited by the house to document the men’s holidays to Ireland, so that they could reflect on their lives. I really like this photograph as it shows a working man in the kitchen and in this day and age we normally see men out side doing more “men” type jobs and we expect to see women in the kitchen doing the house work.

[mor-beck-more-problems]

(Part 2) Where Does the Good Go? || Deirdre and Morgan

Is it even a break up if you were never together?

Morgan stepped back and gathered their things in silence. She didn’t know what to make of this rage in Deirdre. She’d assumed the banshee thought she was being rejected, or used. That this was just some terrible misunderstanding they could bridge with a few whispers. But the walls around Deirdre had fortified. She couldn’t reach her behind her cold-burning fire. As they picked their way back, Morgan still watching her for a clue, for the smallest crack, she began to wonder how much of Deirdre she had really known at all. She waited until Deirdre stopped at the next place. The lake. Morgan’s eyes burned at the corners to see it. It was kind of beautiful in a mouldering, melancholic way. The kind of way Morgan had seen in paintings and dreamed and lusted over alone when she wanted to escape her small, sad life. Would Deirdre believe her if she said it was beautiful? If she liked it? She was still surprised Deirdre wasn’t sending her packing home, the food, her stupid leingere with lace apliques in the shape of bones, and everything strapped behind her. That seemed to be the most obvious step. The floor opened, and down you went to the bottom, no stops along the way. But this? She couldn’t quite hide her confusion as she took in the gentle mist and the bright, melted diamond of the sun, finally peeking out. They should be able to enjoy it. They were supposed to enjoy it. “I am sorry,” she said quietly.

With the way cold wind brushed the back of her head, Deirdre could feel her mother’s hand at her skull, keeping her under water. These were all lessons to learn, points to be made. When she was told to slaughter the sheep she liked best, there was something that needed to be said. The lake was still, its depths beckoned to her and she closed her eyes, imagining the days sat at her lake in Ireland wishing that the world could give for her. That she could stop trying and simply be the person that her family wanted---or the kind of person that wouldn’t care what her family wanted. She was young, her mother would blame it all away on that. This foolishness could be easily swept away. To accept her place as fate’s servant and the fae she was born to be should have been just as easy as bowing. “Don’t be sorry,” she opened her eyes, the lake was still there, Morgan still behind her. Deirdre turned, pulling out the knife Morgan had used to kill the doe and held it out. “The only thing I can teach a human is how to become the kind of prey that fights back,” her eyes, glossed with apathy, bore into Morgan’s, “but you see, I was taught there was no point. Humans are inherently inferior and even if you could teach a sheep to hold a knife, a wolf will always be smarter. So, no, I’m sorry, Morgan. I’m not the person you think I am, I am not what you want. You’ve wasted your time.” She held the knife out, urging Morgan to take it, “I need nothing, and most certainly nothing a human can offer.” It was her mistake to give, and there was something on the tip of her tongue about equivalent exchange and how it didn’t work. Instead, she waved the knife around some more, holding it by its blade. “I will teach you once how to fight. Then we leave. I’ve meddled too much in the hand of fate, and it's not my place. I observe. Alone. It’s not a place I go, it’s a place I am. Take the knife.” 

Morgan listened, wilting with her tears still snug in her eyes, and said nothing. It was this again. And this time she didn’t have her blind hope that it was all wrong. She could see the Deirdre she wanted to scoop into her arms and carry way, so small, and so scared, and so kind and funny and wise and thoughtful in spite of it all. But she was just a part, and perhaps, Morgan feared, not even half of the woman before her. There was this bleak expanse unfurling around that piece she treasured, unknown and unwelcoming. “You could never be a waste of time, Deirdre, even anything else you said is true, that part could never be.” She took the blade and tucked it against her belt at an angle, sighing with dismay at the streaks of red it left on Deirdre’s hand. “Can we sit first?” She was already sinking to the ground and picking through the basket, grimacing miserably at all her effusive preparations. It was embarrassing, worse than being peeked at in the nude in the dressing room. It wasn’t her body, but all her expectations, her too-hopeful misconceptions. She had wanted every piece to be so special, to be savored and exchanged from mouth to finger to mouth and back with nostalgia and tenderness. Universe end her, there was a pear and blueberry tart. But she finally found what she was looking for. First aid supplies. She had assumed she was the one who would slice her hand open being foolish. Just one more thing gotten wrong. “Let me,” she said. “There’s no reason for you to be hurting more right now.” She gestured with the same firmness Deirdre had shown her, or as close to it as she could muster, and waited. 

Deirdre straightened, standing with a posture like her mother's. Finding those teaching comforting in the moment. She rubbed her hands, now without the cover of gloves she'd worn to protect her hands from iron, and looked down to find her palm wet—hot blood spread around. When did that happen? She didn't even notice, didn't even feel it. Her hand should have stung or burned but all feeling in her found coldness. Her hand was still, she'd learned how to be steady even in the face of injury. And there was only one way to teach that. Deirdre glanced up, watching Morgan. Then she pulled another knife out, gripping it in the hand she hadn't cut. "I'm teaching you how to fight. No vampire coming after you will want to sit first." And then she could feel her face twitch as Morgan suggested that she was feeling any pain, that she hurt. She was above hurting. To prove that, she pressed the blade of the other knife into her bleeding palm and drew another line. What was a simple cut, small and easily mended, was now accompanied by a large gash she'd drawn herself. Her hand remained still. Her body remained numb. "Let you do what, exactly? I told you I need nothing. I'm here to teach you. You'd be smart to learn." She closed her fingers around her bleeding palm, suddenly aware it was throbbing—suddenly aware her own heart felt crushed under the weight of something she couldn't verbalize simply because she didn't know how. 

“Deirdre, you’re not okay!” Morgan said. The ice was buckling under her rage, leaving something much sadder, much more heartbreaking its place. Morgan ripped open a pair of antiseptic wipes and reached for her bleeding hand, holding tight with all she had. She pressed it in. “I know it stings something fierce, but just let me.” She pressed harder. Deirdre might even need stitches. “I’m sorry, Deirdre. I am so, so, sorry, for making you feel this way. But let me tend to you right now first.” She looked into her eyes, her own breath pounding in her chest in tandem with the banshee’s. “Please.”

But it didn't sting. The throbbing of her palm turned sharp quickly before it dulled back into a throb and Deirdre wanted to scream that it didn't sting. That she didn't feel. That pain and emotion were so far below her. Every time she could feel some emotion bubble up it was pulled back down like some creature stuck at the bottom of a tar pit, clawing for life. Coldness covered her in its familiar protective sheen and she snapped her hand away from Morgan, taking a pointed step back as she did so. Blood rolled off her palm and plopped on to the frozen ground. "Feel like what, Morgan?" Her coldness cracked a little with each word, giving itself to smothering sadness. "If you seem to know me so well then feel what way? Because I don't feel like anything." Her voice quivered, "because I don't know what I feel. S-so, tell me w-what."

Morgan persisted, hands outstretched for Deirdre still. “Like you can’t breathe,” she said. “Like your heart wants to break your ribs, and you don’t know what to do, and nothing is going to fix it, and you can’t stop to rest!” She gripped Deirdre’s shoulders hard and tried, once again, to meet her gaze. Poor Deirdre, how did she not know, not remember having her heart broken? “Like you’re going to be sucked down and in and freeze and break and burn at the same time. I know, Deirdre. I know, okay? So let me be here with you, because I am. I am already in it, I know it so well. So you don’t need to hang onto it, and you don’t need to be alone. I’m here, so let me, okay?”

There was a word for fae that liked humans. Several words. All of them burned in Deirdre's head whenever she even looked at Morgan. And the human didn't understand, couldn't understand. Even half of the problem, even half of her life and how it was lived and how it had to be. Her heart hammered in her chest as well as the dammed thing could, begging to be known, begging to be heard. She looked into Morgan's eyes, blue and bright. Confusion must have reflected back in hers. Yet again, she found herself unsure what Morgan was saying. But she did know this conversation wouldn't end well. She knew all of this wouldn't. When did she end it? Now? And then sit through driving the human home, making her pick her things and then leave? Or did she pretend to agree, and simply wither out of Morgan's life? Her hand burned, more blood trailed down and hit the ground. Deirdre leaned down and pressed her forehead to Morgan's. She'd be rid of her cursed emotions and the human. "I need nothing," she growled, too proud for anything else. The rest of her argument died as she grew more and more sure that this was it. She'd get through this day, let Morgan leave, and simply never speak to the human again. She had no reason to explain herself now; Morgan was human, whatever stood between them didn't mean anything and if Morgan didn't already know, then she was a lost cause. "Do what you want." 

Morgan shifted her hands to cup Deirdre’s face, brushing the lines of her face so tenderly, so carefully. Her pain was brutal. And it was just as hardened and tangled into her being as Morgan had ever feared. How had she ever imagined she could secret her away from it? “I would do so much for you,” she sighed, voice trembling with tears. “So much, Deirdre, I’m afraid of the words for them sometimes. I may not know all of you, but you are so precious, and dear—“ she moved a hand down to Deirdre’s heart and pressed in firmly. “That stays true, even if you don’t believe me right now. Even if you disappear again. Now come down here with me. Let me, this once. It doesn’t have to be about need, it can just be because, okay?” She tried to ease them to the ground without letting go. The moment she did, she was sure, this would be over. The day, the weekend, all of it.

Something pushed against her mind, Deirdre pushed it back as easily as she did everything else. Yet again she found Morgan’s words completely foregin to her ears, though she couldn’t tell whose fault that was---her refusal to understand or Morgan’s lack of it. Deirdre reached out, holding on to Morgan as they sat. The cold ground welcomed them, and in the silent forest around them and the still lake beside, she imagined a world that might in the same way. For a moment though, only just a flicker; dead the moment it came. There were words for fae that allowed humans to do this to them, Deirdre knew them all. Those were just some words that Deirdre feared, she couldn’t imagine what Morgan was afraid of. She offered her hand out, still bleeding. She lacked the energy to pull on any feigned friendliness, and settled into a coldness she knew well instead. She pulled her gaze from Morgan and stared across the lake. “I miss home.” She had resigned--accepted, agreed, encouraged--herself to mark this as the last time she’d see Morgan. “I miss home,” she repeated, hoping it made sense. She missed the place where things made sense.

Morgan wrapped her arms around Deirdre as they sank into the ground and finagled her way through cleaning Deirdre’s cut. The second one was deep, enough for Morgan to see the fragile layers of flesh below her icy skin. She fished out the supplies and began to work, head pressed against Deirdre as her eyes remained on the task at hand. Deirdre felt lost to Morgan. She had begged her, more than once, to be let to do this, to make the space where time and fear could stop, the way Deirdre so often built that space for her. And yet cocooned around her body, weaving her skin back together, Morgan wasn’t sure if Deirdre felt it at all. The distinction between her great selves was too weighty, had perhaps felt like a cleave to the chest, when what she wanted—what they both wanted, was to be whole and together. Morgan paused to bring her hand up to her lips. She couldn’t imagine what circumstances would bring Deirdre to let her near enough to touch again, so she had to spend her want now, while she still could. “Tell me about it,” she whispered, getting back to it. A gauze bandage would come next, Deirdre was liable to pull them without any reinforcement, and the shallow cut needed protecting too. “What do you miss?”

Deirdre looked at the lake, acutely aware that Morgan was there and doing something. She couldn’t let herself feel that, and she willed herself not to. If Morgan liked her, more than she should, that was her fault. Deirdre wouldn’t be responsible. The lake took the cloudy winter sun well, letting light shimmer across its dark expanse. Surrounded by nature like this, she could almost pretend this was her lake, almost. “If you ever lost your way, you’d always know how to get back home. My family lined our county with bones, the forest was marked with them. You could follow a trail of death right home, as long as you were in Ireland and knew where to look. And the fae---” she closed her eyes, wincing at the way fae sounded out of her mouth, nearly unrecognizable. When had she strayed so far from what she knew? Was it Regan and her innocence against her father’s failure? Was it her growing fondness for a handful of humans she shouldn’t have cared at all for? Was it Morgan? “The fae were friends. Family.” They held vitriolic words but all were welcome, all were accepted. All made sense. Deirdre opened her eyes; the lake was still there, Morgan still beside her, tending to a wound Deirdre knew didn’t need that much care. She didn’t heal like Morgan did. She didn’t need this. “I miss everything.” She leaned into Morgan at last, unsure if she was giving in or simply too tired to keep her body from falling into the human’s. Maybe the difference didn’t matter. “Are you done yet?”

Morgan was. She had even tied a double knot. Deirdre’s hand hung useless in her grasp and at the prod she let it go, only to wind her arms about her chest. What was it Deirdre had told her once? There was no satisfying life, never enough? Then again, she had also said she would stay, even with Morgan at her worst. Then again, Morgan had known even then, even then, that it wouldn’t be possible. Earth and stars, they never stood a chance. And it wasn’t fair. Even if they broke the world open, they might never make it measure out to be fair, to a place where they could stay as happy as they’d been this weekend. Just a nice life. A house, a bed, a girl to-- Morgan pushed the idea away. It was already gone. Death would never have shared Deirdre to her long enough to make it worth thinking in the first place. “I wanna ask you something,” Morgan whispered, floating a hand up to circle around Deirdre’s hair.``A few things. Can I do that?” She looked down at the top of Deirdre’s head, but it still somehow felt like she was talking to a ghost. “Will you take a promise from me? A promise that if--” She was shivering with the effort of keeping her composure, and it made her brain feel scrambled. “If you decide someday you want me, because you’re in trouble, or you’re too lonely, or you just want me there, if you decide that and you ask me, I promise I’ll come.” The words came out haltingly, but it was a start.

Deirdre looked down at her hand, staring at the fabric of the bandage, lost in its weaving. She managed a weak smile, unbeknownst to her. The simple sight of something done so delicately when she didn’t need it. Done so tightly when she was sure to heal fine the next day. There was some humor in that, in a way that was so painfully human that she ached. Deirdre looked up as Morgan went on, lost then in her features; soft, sharp, aged, her eyes followed each line. She knew them well, she’d seen them illuminated by her soft bedroom lights, by fire, or the harshness of diner fluorescents. They seemed different here. “Morgan…” Deirdre rolled her eyes, allowing a soft laugh to leave her lips as she rolled her eyes. “You’ve already made the promise. I can’t just not accept it.” She could release her though, speak the words to utter that into existence. But why bother? She had no intentions of ever pulling upon the promise, and if Morgan wanted to foolishly give things up, then why should she stop her? Fae didn’t work like that. They didn’t extend these kindnesses to humans. So inferior, so beneath them, so unworthy of--- ”But I’ll take it,” she sighed. She reached out with her newly bandaged hand, running her thumb along Morgan’s jaw. She was trying to do something, though Deirdre ignored it in favor of accepting her own reality. It was easier. “Anything else?”

Morgan’s face crumpled at Deirdre’s caress. She could only nod at her question and hold her tighter. She should’ve done it more often, squeeze her arms around her cold, sturdy frame and breathe in her hair and prop her up for a change. She should have done a lot of things differently. “If I was going to ask you to remember something, not believe it, just remember, so you can maybe believe it later--if you promised, would that make it happen? Would it stay with you? Because I need you to remember that you are so amazing, and you have so much to offer life and death alike. That you showed me so much more than you think, and you deserve to be really, really loved and cared for. It’s so easy sometimes, it is.” And Morgan had tried, was trying still, because if she kept trying she might not feel the earth falling away, she might not notice the plummeting feeling in her chest. But that was less important for Deirdre to remember.

Deirdre tilted her head, pushing away from Morgan so she could look at her as she spoke out what was probably the most absurd string of words the banshee ever had the displeasure of hearing. “I know I’m amazing.” And she did, even if the darkest corners of her felt like they chipped away at that. Even if without the drowning sound of her family’s praise that fact became less and less clear. She knew. That was the nature of fae, to simply be better--amazing. “I know I have something to offer.” And she did. And she offered it everyday. Sometimes whole, sometimes in pieces. “I don’t deserve to be---I don’t deserve anything. People don’t deserve things that’s not---” her jaw clenched, and she pulled away completely, rushing to stand up and dust herself off. “Maybe you can make me a promise to stop being such an idiot,” she groaned, picking off pieces of dirt that she didn’t actually care to get rid of. “Of course, that’s not possible. You’re human.” And that was the problem, the big one. She wanted Morgan to see that and stop trying. There were words for fae that did these sorts of things. Fates, she knew each and every one and she feared the day they would be levelled against her in seriousness. Her cousin might have called her one once, for reading Jane Austen by the lake. Her mother might have agreed, might have taken her books to fire to prove yet another point. But that was a different girl, that was the weak one that cried and longed. Not this woman. Not the person she was now. “Anything else?” She growled, growing increasingly impatient, yet offering her time to Morgan anyway.

“I meant amazing without having to break or do anything, but that’s why I didn’t ask you to believe me. And you didn’t say the words!” Without Deirdre’s weight pressing against her, Morgan felt like a skeleton in freefall, all knobs and loose jangling bits. She stayed on the ground, starting somewhere between Deirdre and the lake, hating how Deirdre said the word human, how it reminded her of the way people used to say dyke. Hating the world that taught Deirdre feelings were dirty words. Hating how many secrets and hiccups she’d ignored and sat on because of a smile, because of a flutter in her chest. “I don’t know, that you won’t hurt yourself, or you’ll talk to me sometimes, at least to let me know when I’m gaonna fuck up and die, or--” There was no satisfying life. There was no end to the universe’s appetite. It just took, and it twisted, and it took more. “I don’t know. I knew I was never going to get to keep you forever but--” but ending like this felt cruel, like a bad joke. Morgan got to her feet. “Will you tell me the truth? If things were different, if we were just people, and we could just want each other without flipping fae civilizations or knocking stars out of balance, or whatever it is--how would you want it to be tonight? Because I don’t know that either.”

“Because I refuse to make such an inane promise about---” Deirdre threw up her hands, groaning instead of finishing her sentence. “Oh, so I’m useful to tell you how not to die? Is that it? Is that why--” she groaned again, reaching down to unfurl the bandage. Curse the double knot, it was so much harder to undo. Curse this place and this damn conversation. Now she was going to have sit in a car with Morgan and it would be weird and she didn’t want to stew in emotions she couldn’t name or understand. “Keep me for---you didn’t have me for anything at all! We just slept together! That was it and---fuck, why is this so tight?” She pulled at the knot, yanking and tearing and eventually using her teeth to pull it undone. Then she held her palm out, the swelling had gone down already, the pain was non-existent. She was healing, far quicker than a human. “Do you see that? We’re not even remotely similar.” Deirdre dropped her hand, tugged into silence. The truth? The truth was something she didn’t want to think about but fates she knew it so well. If Morgan wasn’t human, she would have asked the woman on a proper date already. She could probably balance duty and navigating through a relationship she didn’t understand, but wanted to so desperately. Maybe one day they’d come to head with each other, duty and desire, but that would be far away in the uncertain future. Something probably could have happened. They could have figured it out. “I don’t gamble in ‘what if’,” Deirdre rasped, “don’t you dare ask me that question. Don’t you dare ask me to forget the world I live in.” She couldn’t, she wouldn’t. There was nothing else to her but her birthright and heritage. Lost in the milieu was where she belonged, where she knew how to be. She held up her palm again, “do you see that? I told you I didn’t need anything.” And she had to believe that.

“Tell me when I’m going to die so I can be ready!” Morgan said. “Why on earth would I want to be the universe’s kick toy longer than fate already wants me to be? And don’t do that, don’t lie--yelling about this isn’t making anything hurt less! So you’re all-powerful fae, even all-powerful fae want things, and get screwed out of things. I’m trying to give one last, pitiful, good thing, okay! Because I forgot the rules we were playing by first, and I screwed up today on my own, and when you smile, Deirdre--” Morgan clenched her jaw. “Don’t forget your world, or even the terrible things that happened to you. That’s not what I’m saying. Just take one good thing.”

Deirdre balled up the discarded bandage in her hand. “No one is ever ready!” She dropped her hand again, forcing that one into a fist even as it begged not to be. “I’ve watched so many people die and not a single one of them is ready. You can only lie, that’s it. That’s all you have. That’s all any of us get.” She swallowed down the sudden tightness in her throat. “I don’t want things,” she reiterated, stubbornly wanting to disagree with Morgan. “I don’t want a good thing! I don’t want--what’s the plan then? We go through one more happy night and then--then---” she slammed her jaw shut, snapping that sentence away. “Isn’t that worse?” She asked, irritated. “It’s far, far worse. Spending a night knowing exactly what happens.” Deirdre threw the bandage to the floor, wanting to storm off somewhere but still very acutely aware of the fact she’d driven here. With Morgan. And they had to drive back. “Nothing terrible happened to me! I’m not the one who’s cursed! I was given a gift, I was---” she strode closer to Morgan instead, finger jabbed toward her. “I don’t want to have this conversation anymore.”

“I never said being a banshee was one of them!” Morgan said. “And what are we supposed to do then? Drive in silence like we hate each other? Are you going to help me pack? Or maybe I’ll just walk home!” That was an especially shitty prospect, but Morgan found it more preferable than the alternative she’d mentioned. “Don’t you want some control over our bullshit, Deirdre? Didn’t it ever feel worth pretending? If you could stop being mad at us for five minutes I could at least kiss you goodbye.” 

Deirdre inched closer, bolstered by some unspoken gravitational pull she thought only capable of Death and Fae. She didn’t think about it. She wouldn’t think about it. Morgan said kiss and Deirdre did just that---rough and angry and in complete ignorance to what Morgan was asking. She couldn’t be less mad, and she wouldn’t try. She wouldn’t think about it. Anger stopped sadness, which stopped everything else. “You’re not walking,” she breathed, “this forest is dangerous. And so are the streets, even in daylight. I’ll drive you back and we won’t speak. Then you take your things from my house and we also won’t speak. Sounds like a much more enjoyable plan to me.”

Morgan barely had time to draw in a breath before Deirdre was kissing her. She threw her arms around her like she’d been waiting to all along. She pressed back, meeting frustration with hunger. Who knew how long this would ache, who knew where the space where Deirdre’s stories went, and her jokes, and her sacrifices to her. Who knew how long before Morgan was sad and stupid enough to try something like this again. The universe always held the best cards back, but at least this, for a little while more, was hers. She tugged on Deirdre’s shirt, her desire clear. “If by not speaking you mean more of this, then you have yourself a deal.”

Deirdre pulled back, mulling it over. It was a bad idea. Morgan tugged on her shirt. She nodded. “Yeah, okay, fine.”