I am alone now. Alone in a sense that few chose to think about. In the physical sense, I am in company, but all the same, I am alone. The girl with hair of fire thinks me to be but an animal, and Siobhan has long since ceased to come and torment me. I used to think that this was a good thing, but now I wish she would come. I wish that a person would take me for what I am: a man in the wrong shell without a means of returning to whence I came. Perhaps I will never return.
In an era long ago, I was not as I am today. I was a prince among my own people, revered and respected, though perhaps not well liked by many. I had my own living quarters, many fine, fine horses, and a kennel full of hunting dogs. I lived much like a king, though not as richly as my father, the true king, had. Yes, life had been wonderful, very rich for its day. And yet I had chosen to ignore it and even throw it all away...The morning is early, but for once I don't mind the premature hour, nor do the thick mist or frosty temperatures bother me. Underneath me, my horse fidgets nervously, ears flicking frantically back and forth, black tail slashing through the air in a nervous frenzy.
Absentmindedly, I pat his muscled neck in reassurance, as much for his benefit as for mine. We both need it.
All around us were other men and horses, though a scant few had our breeding, myself being a royal prince of the realm,
Tearlach beneath me a product of some of the finest horses in the world. It may have sounded pretentious, but the fact was he came from very fine parents. I would know, having bred him myself.
We were all awaiting the king's group to arrive, which consisted of my father, my mother, my older brother, and our young cousin, who was currently in favor with my father and my brother the heir.
In all normal circumstances my mother the queen would nott be caught dead out in this weather astride a horse, much less be preparing to head out for a hunt. Every year, however, she is obliged to accompany her husband out into the forest at the head of several hundred nobles and horses, in pursuit of a stag.
This is the annual hunt, the Tynchal that happens once a year in honor of some ancient pagan belief long forgotten. And every year, one lucky man slays the stag and wins the hunt. And to win the hunt is to become an object of such prestige and honor.
My father never wins the hunt anymore. I have heard that, in his youth, my father was one of the bonniest braw hunters out there; but that was the past, and my father is no longer young. He is an old man, old enough to willingly use my mother's weak constitution as an excuse to pull out of each Tynchal year after year.
Percival, our father's heir, never wins the hunt either, though I'm sure he's tried. Lack of skill combined with a hidden dislike of horses has made for a poor rider and a poor hunter; it was a wonder that Percy is even ready to undertake the ruling of our kingdom. Bloody fool that he is, it was likely that he'd send our home spiraling into chaos.
And to speak of the devil, here they came now. My father leads the way, astride his chestnut gelding. Mother comes next, sitting serenely upon a gray palfrey mare. Trailing after my sire and dam are Perce and Breedan, looking awkward on the steeds that walked for them. Awkward is as awkward does.
After what seems like forever, me and every other pair of eyes watching them crawl along to the head of the hunt, they reach their positions. Halted horses made their platform, and my father clears his throat, though it is not necessary. Our eyes are already trained on him.
"I thank you all," he begins, "for joining us in yet another Tynchal in the honor of our forefathers."
He always begins with that.
"The princess regrets that she cannot join this hunt, and she sends her best wishes to each and every one of you."
More like she curses this hunt and blesses the baby she is carrying. Stark raving mad, she is.
Not that anyone really cared at the moment. She was married and expecting, and a witch to boot. Linger on her too much, and your mind begins to rot away. Or so the story goes.
My father is never one for speeches, and I know that he wishes to go to the actual ride as soon as he can. A tightening of hands on reins tells me that he will announce abruptly.
"The hunt begins now!" the king shouts, kicking his horse out into a slow gallop. This is the cue for Mother and Perce and Breedan to head out, as well. Their departure in turn stands as a signal to us that it was time to take off.
I nudge
Tearlach into a trot but keep a careful rein lest he decide he wanted to take off with the rest of the front, the exact opposite of what I am going for.
You can always tell who is more into the thrill of the outing and who is taking the hunt seriously by who is up ahead galloping and who is in the rear, conserving their horses strength and waiting for the rest of the mad rush to die out.
After the bulk of the hunt has thundered out, a discreet look around me reveals that there are several handfuls of men that will be my true competition. None whom I know very well, none whom I care to get to know. Squabbling nobles, most likely, seeking greater favor from the king.
Belly-crawling throat-licking mutts with no real purpose in life. Wastes of good land, money, and horses. Men without souls, really, fit only for tithing riches off of and sending off to war. Alas, there really isn't much to be done for it, unless they were to all somehow die off. And the probability of that is quite slim indeed.
They, however, were not important here. What is important is myself,
Tearlach, and killing the stag this year. I needed this kill, so much more than any other man in this hunt. I needed to prove to all that a second prince is not useless.
And to achieve that, I needed to stay focused. According to the reports sent in by the scouts, several large stag were wandering about the forest, though only one of them truly has any size worth going after.
That is the one I am going after.
"Ho," I tell
Tearlach softly as I cue for a walk. Trotting blindly about is not going to find us any prey.
The others trot ahead of me, no doubt thinking me a fool. But once they are out of sight, I turn
Tearlach in a slightly different angle than where they had gone. See if I traveled where the prey had all been chased away.
As my horse walks atop the forest floor and I train my eyes to the skirts of the trees for any movement, I wonder if it will rain. It is always raining here, with a few rare days of clear skies and bright sun tossed in for variety.
Gray skies threaten above.
But even if it does rain, well, tough. The hunt begins when the King orders it, and it lasts all day. Few ever manage to pursue the chase half-way in, and even fewer see the hunt til sunset.
I'd seen the sun set last year, but the stag had eluded me. This year would be different. I would show everyone that they were wrong.
I think that, ever since I was a small lad, I've always known that my brother and I were born in the wrong order. Where he was squeamish and slight, I was strong and broad.
I bred my own horses, and my older brother read books. I would go out and get dirty, and my brother would memorize ancient speeches from long ago battles. By the time I was seven I could ride a horse with ease; by the time my brother was seven, he'd found that he didn't care for horses.
What sort of ruler of Soar didn't like horses?
And the worst of it: our father seems to approve. The King himself appears to be made of softer stuff, a trait Perce has no doubt inherited. Truly, I am larger than my own father and brother.
I myself am my mother's son for true. Though diminished by disease, Mother once towered over many a man, an heirloom left from her father's people. And it is my heirloom as well.
Even so, with my great height and superior abilities, I have been somehow overlooked. Overlooked as only a second child can be. And it's wrong. I deserve more, oh so much more.
I deserve to be King. The realm needs a hale and powerful leader, not a pansy whelp.
My mood grows dark every time I think of this failing of order. Life is not fair, nor does it usually end out fair when the natural state is left be.
I need to create my own fairness. And I will not fail.
Tearlach beneath me senses my mood, and his steps grow jerky as they eat up the ground. I force myself to calm down, and to relax.
Tearlach is right. Agitation accomplishes nothing. Neither does dalliance.
But simply watching and waiting is not very engaging. As I keep my eyes peeled for signs of a stag, I think of everything I hope to accomplish. I've thought and planned and plotted and schemed for many a day, until my visions took hold in my mind.
I know what I need to do.
I am so engrossed in my musings that I almost miss it. Perhaps I would have, too, had
Tearlach not alerted me to another's presence.
I whip my head around to see what my horse sensed, and I am rewarded with the sight of a deer staring at me. He is large, and I know instantly that he is the one I am looking for.
"Hup," I tell
Tearlach, and eargerly my stallion obeys, swinging into a steady trot. The deer startles, and takes off. That does not matter. I want a hunt, and the deer is more than willing to comply.
The chase has begun.
We crash through the forest, our speeds growing to greater heights as the stag realizes it has become prey.
Tearlach has only a slight difficulty in running with the deer. He is larger, heavier.
He can also last much longer.
But I find myself wishing I had a pack of my best hunting hounds even as the exhileration of the run and chase course through me. Hounds would alleviate a portion of the burden from
Tearlach.The king forbade the use of hounds for this hunt. It makes me wonder fleetingly if next our horses will be barred, as well.
The stag clears a burn, and my horse bunches up in preparation to leap. He jumps, and for a moment we hang suspended in the air. The moment does not last, though, and before we know it,
Tearlach has successfully passed over the water to the other side.
"Speed," I whisper to my horse as he thunders through the trees, the flagging tail our focal point. "Speed bonnie horse like a bird on the wing." It is barely audible, but I know he can hear.
Carry the lad who is born to be king.I do not know how long we go, the stag fleeing,
Tearlach and I in pursuit. Aback of my horse, it could have been but moments or it could have been hours. Time warps.
When the distance between myself and the red deer begins to close, I know the hunt is nigh on finished. Anticipation trills through me.
Tearlach too seems to sense the end of our hunt, and his pace lags, slowing into a gentle lope. That is fine: he has earned it.
The stag slows, stops, and leaps high unto the air. We come up behind the deer and find ourselves underneath a standing rock. Behind the rocks is a craggy mess.
The stag is no where in sight.
It is impossible for
Tearlach for follow. We circle around the rocks as best as we can, searching for a way to follow directly. I cannot find anything.
I feel a trickle of anger seep through me. This could not be the end. I needed this hunt. Soar needed this hunt.
The trickle becomes a steady flow, and I clamp my jaw shut. I think of all my plans, and I force my anger down. I refuse to allow this to be the end.
Instead, I take to the left of the rock formations. Instinct tells me that the deer will circle back, and it seems most likely that the stag will do so from this side.
Though
Tearlach is capable of picking his own path wisely, I am careful to steer him around the jutting rocks and hard surfaces. His feet can only take so much abuse.
As we run, I observe that we are heading steadily outward, that the rock is expanding and forcing us to travel further to the left. I begin to wonder if I have made the right choice.
Hastily, I cast that thought away. It would work out. It had to.
And then, out before us, the stag leaps. It cuts directly through our path, startling
Tearlach and bringing him to a halt that ends with a half-rear.
With a wrench of muscle and sheer will coupled with my aids,
Tearlach swerves toward the bounding shadow of our prey. We begin to take up the chase once more, but suddenly my horse shies and bolts out of the path.
I bring the stallion to a halt, just in time to see a silver-white blur race ahead of us.
A white wolf has claimed our prey as his.
It urge
Tearlach to take after them. Reluctantly, my brave horse does, breaking once more into a jerky canter. I can tell my horse is afraid, but I set his fear aside and instead turn toward reclaiming my hunt.
From what I remember of previous hunts, wolves are cunning hunters themselves, with a tight mind. And they can easily outpace a horse.
But if it took the stag...Horse gods, but a wolf is rare to find this far north. A white wolf pelt would be worth so far much more than a stag hide and antlers.
In an instant, I decide. I will let the wolf have the stag. In return, I will take the wolf for myself.
This is how it endures. For how long, I am not sure, but I sense that much time has gone by since the beginning of the hunt.
Tearlach grows tired before long, and we fall behind. I rein my excitement back and let my horse trot it out.
Even if I cannot see the actual beasts, I can still track.
The trot slows to a walk. I do not push my horse to move - we have much time left, and I need for him to regain his strength. I let him walk it out, rather than trot.
As we walk, I hear a rumbling sound, feel the ground tremble. The gray skies of before are turning nasty. Soon it will rain.
The rain will wash the tracks away.
My sense of urgency returns, though I work hard to clamp it down. It will not help matters, nor make
Tearlach grow stronger. Though it pains me to do so, I wait.
We walk for a very long time. Long enough that I begin to fear that we will never catch up. Long enough that I begin to feel tendrils of panic. But I keep going. The tracks are still there, and the rain has yet to fall.
Just when I am ready to toss caution to the wind and force
Tearlach, we both sense something ahead. Given what has transpired previously, I take this to mean the wolf has caught the stag. I will creep up and kill the wolf.
The very thought steals my breath away.
I silently slip out of the saddle and land on the ground with a soft thump. I wince and wait, sure the sound has carried ahead, but nothing seems to have changed.
With all the care I can muster, I ground tie
Tearlach and whisper to him.
"Tapadh leat," I say, though simple words cannot express my gratitude.
And then I move foreward.
I move with all the stealth and grace I can, calling upon every skill I have ever learned. It works, because after long moments of caution, I am at the edge of one of the many clearings in the glen.
The wolf is there, hunched over his kill, and he is feasting upon the carcass of the stag. The stag, even in death, looks glorious, and I cannot but wish it was myself that had taken the kill. But that is alright. The wolf will suffice.
I will claim both stag and wolf as mine.
The wolf notices me, pausing from its feeding to stare my way with crystal blue eyes. I stare back. A moment goes by, I blink, and the wolf goes back to eating. This surprises me, as I had expected the wolf to flee or attack.
I shrug it off, however. It will not matter soon. I step past the tree line and draw my
sgian dhu. A sword will not work in such close quarters, and I will need the control my blade allows me.
The singing of metal on metal at the blade slips out of its sheath catches the wolf's attention, and it whirls around to stare at me again. I stare back, and this time the wolf growls.
I am sore tempted to growl back. But I don't. I move closer instead, step by step, watching for a reaction. I am intruding on its kill. I just need to wait for the defense to kick in.
I do not wait long. The wolf tenses, and then leaps at me, fangs flashing. I dodge and deftly swipe my knife at the wolf. The tip of the blade nips at the fur, but nothing else happens.
We circle 'round, and then have another go. This time, my blade has cut through the tough hide and kissed hot blood. I, too, am bleeding, a gash on the arm.
Both wounds are superficial. I need to defend myself better. The wolf must die.
On and on we go, parrying back and forth, slash for slash, swipe for swipe, until I am slick with blood and the white fur is stained crimson. And try as I might, I cannot tell our blood apart. It is all red on the inside, no matter what the outside looks like.
We both tire, and we both begin to make more and more openings for the other. This is bad. Death is a possibility.
But I cannot allow it. I am more refreshed than even the wolf. I rode aback a horse, while the wolf ran for many many miles. I must win.
I leap at the wolf again, this time aiming for the back and not the body. I grab hold and sinking the
sgian dhu into the neck even as the white wolf bites down on my leg.
It hurts like the devil, but I do not mind terribly so. Instead, I listen closely as the blade scrapes against bone and severs the spine. It is over. The body beneath me crumbles, and the daggers in my leg loosen. I fall with the wolf.
I am tired, and I hurt. But I am happy. Even as my vision grows blurry around the edges and my lids long to close, I smile. Though it was part of a greater plan, victory is still sweet.
I cannot feel my leg. My vision has grown almost white. It's black now. I cannot tell if it is from the pain or if I have just shut my eyes. Maybe it is both. I do not remember.
When I opened my eyes again, the light is too much. My body feels sticky, and layered. There are wet things on my cheek. I try to sit up and gain my bearings, and find myself whimpering instead. I am so stiff. And I remember.
My leg feels as if it's on fire. I am covered with blood. And the first drops of rain have begun to fall. Beside me, the wolf lays still, it's white fur no longer pristine.
I wonder how
Tearlach is.
I should try and get up, I tell myself. Surely it is near the end of the day. I will be missed.
I struggle to move. Fail. I shut my eyes again, fatigued. And when I open the lids once more, my weary eyes widen.
There is a white lady in the glen.
She is staring down at me, and she does not look pleased. Her face is pale, a stark white. She is wrapped in a shroud of some sort. Her face is perfectly chisled, though her eyes are slanted and placed too far apart. Bright red lips and blue eyes catch my attention. I think this woman is beautiful.
And I do not think she is human.
"You awake," she says dispassionately, and it takes me a moment to realize that she is speaking in the old tongue, spoken so rarely by the common people.
"Aye," I croak out. The woman glares at me.
"You murdered Ennaan Aoife
, human," she says coldly. My blood freezes, and I gotill. I knowwhat she is
She is Fae. A Sidhe. A goddess in all but name. And I had killed a sacred animal. I would not live to see the sun set.
"William Ian Alexander," she hisses,the unearthly sound grating upon my ears.
"I would kill you now but for my Queen's pleasure."She takes several steps toward me, and I attempt to shrink back.
"Foul murderer! Filthy human. So callous as to steal a life away without cause, without need. You and your kind are a bane upon this earth. You breed like hares and spread like rats, and dare to call yourselfs the rulers of the natural world."But my Queen has placed a geas upon harming a human. I will not partake in the Queen's Mercy for all human life, for which you now still breath. However...!"And then she smiles, out of place as it looks on her ethereal features.
"Nothing was said of just punishment. For the life you stole, I give unto you!" And there she is, right in front of me.
"Live long and despair." She kisses me. And that was the end of it. I no longer think, just feel. Extreme pain and agony. My bones crack and snap, shift underneath itchy skin. Everything is on fire, stretched beyond all reason, abused to impossible extents.
I think I die then, though it does not last long. And when it begins to fade. I know something is wrong. Everything feels wrong, smells wrong, looks wrong.
The white lady looks different. Larger, somehow. And she is still staring at me with cool distaste.
"I am Siobhan," she tells me.
"Remember my name."And then she leaves me, laying admist the bloodied glen, in a world gone wrong.
_______________________
[character] William Ian Alexander | Rollo ------> bio
[style] first person, present tense
[word.count] 4023
[notes] >>uh...oh, yeah, I wrote this over the period of a few days, so the tenses are probably all over the place. And if you think it's unrealistic, well phsshhh! This whole site has flown into the unrealistic, so I'll thank you very much to take it as it is =)
>>Pretty Eyes, sorry for embellishing on the royal family preceeding Peregrine and Paladin and Phillip....*_*
>>And yes, I know that it doesn't quite fit the bio I had for him: I tried to stay true to his supposed personality in the beginning, but as the story went on he fled from my already tenuous controll and stood up and said, "I Am." Not much I could do after that but to let him have his way...
>>AND, I actually got to use a song in here (just a couple of lyrics, with a little bit of it tweaked to fit the story). See if you can guess where they are, and what song it is =P[disclaimer]the story
tapadh leat was written by
pureginius and is copyright to her. The title is Scots Gaelic, and the characters are figments of their respective creator's imagination. The kingdom of Soar and the Alexander family are creations of
the infamous peregrine. Much of the information put into this story may be found thruought the internet, and most of it comes from real Scottish myths and legends. This story is not to be distributed without the permission of
pureginius or
the infamous peregrine, and if we find that our copyright has been infringed, do expect two respective armies of goats&banshees and fangirls&wookies to be coming your way,
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