tall saint stay behind me now

@eleonor-castellana​

“Buenos días querida señora! I remembered to bring the book you were looking for, which is handy given you’ve scheduled me for today.” Alistair knew by now how the manners of the world had changed since he was first taught how to behave, but Eleonor seemed to enjoy his old fashioned manners. They hadn’t made much headway with his injury in the few months that he had been seeing her, but little matter. He liked the learned doctor and she had seemed a tad down lately. Pensive. So he had dug up a tome about the Spain of her youth to go with another that she had requested from the shop, wrapped them up carefully in butcher paper, and now sat them on her desk. It was easier to walk these days, some of her treatments had eased the pain, but he still leaned on his cane a tad as he walked forward. Thankfully the chair in front of her desk was a comfortable leather affair and he sank into it gladly after a quick handshake. This meeting, like the meetings he had with Mira Lowell, were intended to probe at how he was doing. Coping, really. Which wasn’t anywhere near as interesting as getting to know the women themselves. After what he had been through, he felt well enough in spite of the nagging fear that one day Morrigan might find her way here. Find her way to his family, which he had so recently won back. “The top is a little something extra. Castile before the Reconquista. I don’t not pretend to know your affairs, my dear Eleonor, but you seemed in need of a boost last I saw you. The tests you ran are of course the real reason that I am here, but ah! I thought I might as well.”

She frowns, and poorly attempts to hide her curiosity, something spotted easily enough that she gives up on hiding it. “That sounds ominous. Would this mother truly try to chase you across worlds after you both?” The question is stupid, and Mira knows it the moment she finishes asking, a grimace on her face, knowing better than anybody what some people would do when slighted. Seth Lowell is fresh on the mind, still two weeks later, though less of a troublesome nightmare than she expects in light of all else. “I heard about Fiona. I get the feeling you want to talk about something else.” And she’s right, when he begins prying. Her lips twitch, amused against her will at the so very clear similarities between him and his grandson. “You and Gabe are both blunt, and when you know me as well as him, I have no doubts you will be as direct about questioning me. How much do you know about me from Gabe?” It’s as much to buy time as it is to find answers, but he’s as persistent as his grandson, too, and she gives up attempting to hide with a huff. “Oh, alright, I can see this is not something that will be left alone. My… partner died in September, he was a good man and he deserved more than what he was given.” The pang is still there, but it’s easier to talk about than it once was. She falters, mouth opening to speak and then snapping closed, unable to explain Andreas, and the well of feelings for him she is trying to grasp still. This time, Mira sighs. “Love is very strange, Alistair, and I think I’m only just beginning to figure pieces of it out. I didn’t think I would be able to move on, and now I’m afraid that I have.” Too soon, it feels like, and yet she doesn’t want to wait. It’s too confusing, and she grimaces, finally returning her eyes to his, unaware of them drifting to her lap. “Have you ever been in love?”

Quite a question she asked, this social worker, and the brunt of it caused a strangled laugh to slip past his lips. Better that than a cry, he supposed. “Oh, my dear lady, she most certainly would. My leaving set off bombs in her stronghold and Morrigan never did take betrayal lightly.” Alistair said, thinking back to his conversation with Briar during the festival. Prepare for the worst, he had told her, but what could they do? Little and less, and yet Miss Lowell had offered to help him with anything he needed. Hmm. “I doubt I could get Briar to speak to anyone in authority, but do you think it possible I could get an audience with my council representative to tell them of her? To ask if she could be barred from Lethe?” A nice possibility, though not one he would put much hope towards regardless. Morrigan on a mission would hardly be stopped by such a minor stumbling block. Still, every bit helped. Alistair smiled slightly when he was compared to his grandson, and ever so slightly more when she explained her conundrum. It brought him joy to help and when one could hardly help but see bits and pieces into the lives of those they interacted with? Well, either you helped or you blocked it out. He tended to favor the former. Her questions were solid ones, but they caused her great pain, and so he reached across the desk, squeezed her hand lightly. “Love is a great mystery to all and yet it is the greatest gift, in its way. My mother always said I loved too easily, too deeply, and that would be my downfall. In a way she was right, I let myself be used and abused to protect my mother from harm. Because I loved her so dearly. And now she is gone.” He said after a long moment, hand retracting from Mira’s but still radiating as much comfort as he could, empathically. “I believe you speak of romantic love though, and that is a fine kind of love too. You loved your partner, certainly. I can feel that clear as anything. But this man you love now, it does not dishonor the love for the one lost to love again.” A softer smile crossed his lips then, perhaps for the bitterer truth he had to give. “I cannot say for sure if I have loved anyone romantically in my long life, I spent so much of it a captive. But I think if I had lost someone I loved, then found another who warmed my heart as surely as this man warms yours? Oh, I would treasure it.”

She considers agreeing to the cotton candy, if only because it looks soft and it looks good, and she can’t recall a time where she’s had something like that. For that reason alone though, Briar shakes her head, continuing on her way. “The dress was striking.” The blood, too, is what she really means, but it would ruin the… Well, she’s trying, even if it feels a bit like failing with each word. “I would hope they don’t do it here, it’s hardly much of a safe haven if people have to prove themselves in,” she grumbles, and knows if such a thing comes up she’ll be resigned to knocking the council upside the head until they saw straight again. She walks several steps before realizing Alistair isn’t with her, and she tenses at the first brush of a stranger’s shoulder against her own, hurrying back in his direction in time for him to finish his purchase. “I…Oh, what is this for then? Gifts for what?” Surprised, Briar accepts it on orders alone, only processing what it is she’s holding when she has it in her hands. The knife is heavy in her hand, the weight unfamiliar for a moment, but she tests the edge of it against her thumb lightly and it cuts. Sharp, and well-loved. And his mother’s too who she supposes in some weird way is like a grandmother to her. Her lips quirk with a ghost of a smile. “I thought you of all people would decide to keep weapons away from me. Can’t think of anyone in town who deserves it – maybe the blonde vampire, but not much of a stake so.” Everyone is spared then, though she isn’t much for stabbing people. Briar tilts her head, watching the knife for a moment longer and privately thinks the only person who could use a stabbing is the one person not here. She tucks the knife into its sheath, and looks up at him, serious. “Do you think she’ll come here?”

It was a gesture of trust, the giving of this knife and the sheath to protect the blade. Briar had not been raised to be trustworthy, nor had anyone but himself ever believed she could be trusted. Even this brother of hers, kind though he may be, didn’t quite trust her. Not yet at a least. On one hand Alistair could understand that, given how he had finally met Briar and the fact that a child lived in his house. On another, he knew that trust couldn’t be earned if chances were never extended in the first place. “You aren’t a child anymore, Briar. Nor are you a tool to be used or a walking weapon. Mother told me to give that to a child of mine that would use it best, and of the ones I have met thus far, well...you are the only one who would.” Alistair replied, giving her shoulder a cursory squeeze after being sure to let her see his hand moving that direction so she could bat it away if she so chose. But she didn’t, which warmed his heart. A little progress at a time, that was all one could hope for with a child as thoroughly damaged as his dear Briar. Her next question extinguishes his smile, sends a jolt of fear to his heart, and he sighs. Not an easy answer to give, but Briar never did have much patience for subtleties and sugarcoating. “I...think she may. What my mother did to free me set other destruction in motion. Her kingdom by now is in shambles, her power base shattered, and you and I both know how poorly she accepts failure. And losses.” Especially her own. Briar and Alistair were two very valuable tools that had freed themselves, and what would she do if she then found out that two of her children were in this town? That her grandchildren were as well. He didn’t dare to think, or rather, he feared to. Gently, he gestured for them to keep moving. “Her crimes aren’t known here, Briar. We must expect the worst and prepare, best we can. Yes?”

“I’m familiar with your family. I’ve only met your kids in passing, but I was your grandson’s doctor for a while,” she admits, smiling, knowing its been a time since she’s had to help him. Mostly because she’s stepped back from work, even if her still up to date license says otherwise, and mostly because he has little need for a doctor as a vampire. Alistair knows little of this, but they are hardly ever here to talk about her, and she’s content with that given she already has one nosy Meadowes man in her life. Said nosy Meadowes man is the reason she’s too distracted to form a better response to his talk of Cora than: “Good, I was worried how her departure would hit you for a while there, but you seem no worse for wear. Did she say why she left, or does this have to do with the past you’ve left as well?” She knows the details about his previous situation, the bits he’s willing to share with someone who is a virtual stranger. A couple months of knowing each other hasn’t changed that, and Mira isn’t inclined to dig into it beyond the necessary bits. Just as she wouldn’t want someone prodding into her past. She watches him make his tea silently, a little amused at the details his grandson got from him – and then her smile slips, recognizing the look on his face from one on Gabe’s. “You and Gabe are very alike,” she notes with a frown, tapping her fingers on the table, trying to think what would be the easiest response. The one least likely to stir a pot she’s been trying futilely to avoid jostling any further. “I apologize, it’s unprofessional, but I was thinking… about the festival. Were you there for any of it? I left early to avoid the possibility of trouble, but it is relentless.” There, easy, and it isn’t even a lie. Mira is thinking about the festival, even if her thoughts head in the direction of the aftermath of even that.

“A bit, yes. Cora worries for her children, her husband, given how unsettled Lethe is to how she states it was before. And it is inevitable that her mother would make her way towards Lethe, given that I am here and so is dear Briar.” That was an answer that Mira would want an explanation for, but he would give it. Only if asked though. If she was willing to brush it aside (he assumed not) he would much rather leave those fears unrustled into full flower. The remark about his grandson makes him smile. Were they really? A fine thing. that. He liked his grandson, even if he worried about him with this man who was harassing his wife prowling about. “My dear Mira, it’s hardly unprofessional. The mind wanders, and especially these days. I was there for a bit, followed my family to the hospital to watch over Fiona.” He paused, realizing that was by no means as interesting as finding out just what he couldn’t reach in her aura about that night. What preoccupied her so. His mother had been terribly nosy, he knew full well he had inherited that failing. “What about yourself, Dr. Lowell? If I may pry, what preoccupies you that also reminds you of my grandson? He is your friend as well as your patient, I believe he’s said. And you are a stalwart woman, if I may say so. It must be quite something that has you tangled in knots.”

“I did not think anything more Morrigan did could surprise me, but lying about our father is a new and strange low. It matters little to me whether you are a warrior, a scholar, or a cobbler.” It seems like a compliment, and he bites his tongue for the somewhat rough ending he has for the sentence about his opinion on father’s who have no count with their children. From what he knows of Morrigan, if this man is not a warrior, there is a very good reason Faolan knows nothing about him. Locked in a cottage, there it is, and he sighs at the mention of it, unsurprised to hear it, not when he knows half a dozen tales about Morrigan and each uglier than the last. Faolan nods, though the man who is his father already makes himself comfortable in one of the chairs, and he follows a little slowly, trying to think of what to say, if anything at all. This isn’t a touching reunion. Faolan snorts, head shaking, as if the idea of Morrigan picking anything less than a wealthy foothold is laughable at best. “She has power, but our family is not so wealthy, she will gladly pick that. Can’t say it’s done her any good, she is still no more known outside a smaller portion of people in the Otherlands.” He pauses, swallowing back the comment he has about how little her claim on his name has brought her. It is the man’s life, after all, but still, it has brought her wealth, and power, but less so than she could have gotten if she had… What, given them a chance? The idea makes him snort, because he knows a chance with Morrigan means turning up like the selkie girl: deranged, or damaged, take your pick. They are plenty damaged already, he is pleased to have not been dragged down with Morrigan.

Faolan settles down into one of the seats, deciding he can’t stand to have this conversation standing any longer, even if it might be easier to distance himself from the earnest way Alistair of clan Quinlan spoke. “This is not a ploy from Morrigan then to sway our sympathies?” he questions, knowing the answer is negative but blue eyes probing Alistair all the same. He lets the barriers drop a little more, prodding at the feelings swirling around Alistair like a storm, and then, just as quickly, letting his shields snap into place, so that the only emotions he could feel were his own and he held them tight. He smiles, only half-way. “Forgive me, but I am great deal too old to need apologies for your absence, it changes nothing in my book. Least of all because I cannot blame you for something Morrigan caused, you are not the first I have met to have crossed paths with hers.” Somehow, they find him first, as if he has a beacon in him that summons them. Faolan inclines his head, and if his father expects a teary-eyed reunion, he appeared to the wrong child. He can’t imagine his siblings crying either, but the thought of family brings a concerned frown to his face. “I will, however, question this: why now? It has been a millennia, perhaps even two, I am no longer sure of my own age nor is Clíodhna sure of hers, so what brings you into our lives now?”

Alistair can understand why his son thinks it may be a ploy from his mother, a cruel joke. Anyone who had the unfortunate pleasure of being in Morrigan’s clutches as long as they had would think the same. Nothing is sacred to her but her own worth, and manipulation she spun as quickly as the most agile spider. He can also understand the antipathy, though it makes his heart ache to feel the sheer exhaustion in his tone, in his very aura. What terrible things his son must have weathered over the years. But this was not a man to accept pity, let alone a father suddenly appeared after a millenia. “Ah, that is a good question with a long answer. Indulge me a tad, if you would. It needs a proper answer, even if it is long.” Alistair says after a long moment of studying his son, as if to memorize the face itself should he never see it again. Could he blame Faolan if he didn’t wish to see his father again? Not truly. “When Morrigan first imprisoned me, she took over my family seat as her own. The bereaved betrothed, then the secret wife fighting for her lost husband, once she saw she needed that to hold the land. And she locked my mother, my only remaining family, in a tower.” He explains, hand rolling his cane in place on the floor as if to help him drag the scattered pieces together again. “My mother was the collateral for my good behavior. Either I let her use me, be it my mind or my body, and kept to the cottage, or she would kill her. She would torture her first, of course. Then me, after she had forced me to watch.”

Alistair pauses for a moment, thoughtful and to some extent, still grieving the mother he had only so recently lost. It is only when he feels Faolan’s eyes on him that he looks up again, the same shade of blue eyes meeting one another. He can feel that his son can easily believe such a thing, even if he also feels the walls that Faolan keeps around himself. Such strong walls, Alistair can only presume that they’re necessary for a reason he may never know. “For all that time, she never let on that she had borne any children. Abused me often enough, but her visits were scattered. The more the years went on, I suspected, but I couldn’t get an answer any more than I could get free. Until my mother died of her own accord.” If Faolan asks, or if he is willing to reach out with empathy, he will get the clearer meaning of that phrase, but Alistair isn’t quite ready to lay it out bare. Not yet. “I helped a child I had fostered to escape once I had heard she died. Because she deserved to be free of Morrigan, and to see if I could get free myself. Morrigan caught me first.” It’s easier to show the leg than to explain, and so Alistair lifts his left pant leg to show the gnarled, blackened mess of his cursed leg. After a moment, he lets it drop and continues. “Lethe I came to by chance. It seems the portal we tore open from the Otherlands leads here. I do not expect you to want to know me, Faolan. In all honesty, I did not expect you to let me in this building. I do not even expect you to believe me. Just listen, the once.”

Lethe hospital. It’s the direction Briar points her once she manages to get a hold of someone close to the man not answering his phone. It’s well past one am, and with news spread around town of the chaos at Irving Square, well…She had planned to yell at said man when she finally found him, but can’t seem to find her words of frustration any longer. When people die, they’re supposed to stay dead. That’s what she reminds herself as she walks aimlessly from one hallway down the next, trying to find Alistair’s room. Bits of information, that’s all she received from Briar, so she doesn’t know if he’s hurt or someone else is. Part of her pray it is someone else, but that’s selfish. Almost as selfish as the part of her that wants to give in now. The part of her that thinks back to what she saw just outside the hospital doors. Her daughter, whose eyes resemble her own, staring right at her, crying…why had she been crying? She didn’t really look like a physical being, but rather an idea of one, like an outline. When Mari went to reach out to comfort her, to touch her beautiful daughter, her hand faded away into the air with the rest of her. Just as soon as she had seen her, she was gone. 

Inside the hospital now, she frantically tells the same tale again and again to anyone who will listen to her. ‘I’m looking for an older gentleman, a fae, very pretty with blonde hair and a touch of gray? Have you seen him?’ The more she tells it, the more her eyes glaze over, and she begins to think about what she saw outside of the hospital again and again, picturing it. Her daughter, Melissa, standing right there in front of her, plain as day, and then…then nothing. By now she’s been wandering the hospital halls for at least twenty minutes, no luck coming across anyone who knows anything more about Alistair, or where he may be. Her feet scuff against the tiling, tired of walking. She feels worn down from trying to hold back the tears that ultimately begin to fall down her cheeks. And then, by some miracle- “Alistair?” She stops halfway down the hall in which she just came, slowly turning around. Yes. Yes, that is him. Marielle finds herself running down the hall, nearly pushing them both to the ground with the force of her hug. “Thank goodness, I thought something horrible had happened to you,” she breathes into her shirt, eyes closing tightly. “I’m okay,” she nods, leaning back a little to get a better look at him. “Are you hurt? What’s…what’s this about your granddaughter collapsing? And your son…Faolan or Fionn? Are they all right? I heard about what happened at the plaza, but I had no idea…I was terrified something horrible had happened to you.”

He can feel the distress in this place, the fear and the pain, in some places the grief as well. Echoing, impersonal with no face to match it to, but you get used to the auras of someone you know in the madding crowd and he feels Marielle’s aura long before he sees her down the hallway. Before she wraps him in a hug and he sees that her beautiful eyes are full of tears. Him? Hurt? Oh, he wasn’t that much of a mess, he could fend for himself to some extent. “No, Mari darling. I’ve not a lick of damage to me, I promise. Let me uh...let me tell my grandson where I’m going and we can talk a little more, alright?” He said as she stepped back a little from the hug. His handkerchief he gave to her before he turned, though she held onto his arm even when he pulled away. Gabriel’s eyes turned from his phone with a look of muted curiosity, but he didn’t make a comment. “I’ll be just down the hall a bit, my boy. My friend, my landlady, we’ve got something to discuss. Watch over your father, won’t you?” Gabe must have decided it wasn’t worth questioning, because he nodded and went back to texting his wife. Alistair turned to Mari with a soft smile and guided her into the waiting room next to the one the Meadowes clan had taken.

“Fiona, the girl who had been missing? She is my granddaughter. Fionn’s daughter. That was Gabriel, Faolan’s son, and Faolan, asleep. He’s had a bit of a night, poor man. Saw his family’s ghosts. Had to be sedated.” The sofa in here was nicer than the one over there, that much he was thankful for as he guided Marielle to sit next to him on it. Her hands went for his, and he let her, though Alistair for the most part was not fond of being touched. Not after Morrigan. But Marielle needed the comfort as much as he needed to comfort her, to wipe at her tears with his handkerchief. That was workable, almost enjoyable to be able to give her any comfort at all. “Mari, you aren’t just upset about what happened in the plaza, are you? About the fact I was there. You’ve seen something tonight too.” He said gently, becoming more certain the longer that they sat there, skin on skin. Over the short time they had known each other, she had become more comfortable with the strength of his empathy and he had become less apt to keep his readings to himself. A good thing, surely. “You saw Melissa, like Faolan saw his wife. His children. And that is a cruel thing, my darling. You are right to be shaken. What can I do to help you right now, Mari? You’re welcome to stay, I intend to for a while. My granddaughter is unconscious, but I’d like to stay till she’s stable.”

Lethe hospital. It’s the direction Briar points her once she manages to get a hold of someone close to the man not answering his phone. It’s well past one am, and with news spread around town of the chaos at Irving Square, well…She had planned to yell at said man when she finally found him, but can’t seem to find her words of frustration any longer. When people die, they’re supposed to stay dead. That’s what she reminds herself as she walks aimlessly from one hallway down the next, trying to find Alistair’s room. Bits of information, that’s all she received from Briar, so she doesn’t know if he’s hurt or someone else is. Part of her pray it is someone else, but that’s selfish. Almost as selfish as the part of her that wants to give in now. The part of her that thinks back to what she saw just outside the hospital doors. Her daughter, who’s eyes resemble her own, staring right at her, crying…why had she been crying? She didn’t really look like a physical being, but rather an idea of one, like an outline. When Mari went to reach out to comfort her, to touch her beautiful daughter, her hand faded away into the air with the rest of her. Just as soon as she had seen her, she was gone. 

Inside the hospital now, she frantically tells the same tale again and again to anyone who will listen to her. ‘I’m looking for an older gentleman, a fae, very pretty with blonde hair and a touch of gray? Have you seen him?’ The more she tells it, the more her eyes glaze over, and she begins to think about what she saw outside of the hospital again and again, picturing it. Her daughter, Melissa, standing right there in front of her, plain as day, and then…then nothing. By now she’s been wondering the hospital halls for at least twenty minutes, no luck coming across anyone who knows anything more about Alistair, or where he may be. Her feet scuff against the tiling, tired of walking. She feels worn down from trying to hold back the tears that ultimately begin to fall down her cheeks. And then, by some miracle- “Alistair?” She stops halfway down the hall in which she just came, slowly turning around. Yes. Yes, that is him. Marielle finds herself running down the hall, nearly pushing them both to the ground with the force of her hug. “Thank goodness, I thought something horrible had happened to you,” she breathes into her shirt, eyes closing tightly. “I’m okay,” she nods, leaning back a little to get a better look at him. “Are you hurt? What’s…what’s this about your granddaughter collapsing? And your son…Faolan or Fionn? Are they all right? I heard about what happened at the plaza, but I had no idea…I was terrified something horrible had happened to you.”

It knocks the wind out of him, that hug, but it’s quite worth the jolt to ease Mari’s fear. He should have called her, asked his grandson how to use that blasted phone he had been given, but the thought had slipped out of reach while he tended to his son. Who didn’t really need much tending once he was out, but my god, the poor boy needed someone to comfort him, to care. It was selfish though, wanting to do that and not considering who else might be upset hearing of the mess outside when he wasn’t home yet. “No, no, I’m fine! My granddaughter was the girl who went missing, you see. Fiona? She is my son Fionn’s daughter.” Alistair explained, well aware that his family tree was a labyrinth even for the people who held posts in its branches. Gabriel was probably waiting, wondering what the hell he’d gotten up to, so he gently led Mari to the doorway so that he could peer inside without dropping her hand from his own. “That is Gabriel, Faolan’s son. Faolan’s having a rough night with the shades about, we’re letting him sleep. I’ll be back, Gabriel. Watch him, won’t you?” Gabriel nodded, squinting in surprise at the new person outside the door, but Alistair flashed him a smile before pulling her away. There was a quiet room beside this one, really just a small room with a loveseat, but it would do. Alistair took a seat first, Mari following, and he held her hands once more.

“It seems I’m the lucky one here. No ghosts from the Otherlands made it through the veil, but Faolan, my goodness. Lost his whole family long ago and they came. I am sorry though, Marielle. I am sorry for upsetting you, making you worry.” Alistair said once they had settled a tad, hands twined and shoulders touching. She was shaking still, something he would need to investigate. It seemed to ease the longer that they sat together, but he could feel pain in her aura. Grief too, grief he had felt before when she had come to the shop distraught after finding out about her daughter. On a night when the dead came back to walk the earth for a short time, wasn’t it possible she had seen Melissa? An awful thing, certainly. “Mari, darling, you saw something that hurt you earlier. When you were heading out to find me, yes?” He asked, releasing one of her hands to gently turn her face towards his own. The answer was in her eyes, in the streams of tears run down her face, but he asked all the same. A cruel thing to do to someone, that’s what this shade nonsense was. He could offer her comfort, certainly. But he couldn’t undo what was seen. So he opted to do the former, what was within his reach. A kiss to her forehead, to each cheek, and then he pulled her close, as if to shield her from any more pain.

@miralowell​

“Oh! Well enough I suppose. I have people who are kind enough to bear with my inexperience. A fine job, a lovely apartment. A large chunk of my family is here, even if my daughter has seen fit to take her children elsewhere.” Alistair answered, after Mira had asked him how he was doing in Lethe. Once he had been given ID, he had been assigned to a caseworker to help him settle in. At first he had been a tad dubious, but she had gotten him a therapist to sort out his mind with and he quite liked her as a person. So it was no hardship to come to the sessions, especially now that Marielle had taught him how to order a cab to his destination using this smartphone thing she had insisted he needed. “I understand her reasoning and she calls from time to time, does some video thing so I can talk to my grandchildren. You must understand, Miss Lowell: anything is better than my previous situation.” When he had arrived he had been offered a beverage as a courtesy, one that he had neglected to the point that his peppermint tea might be a tad oversteeped. Ah well. Alistair lifted the teabag out by its string and carefully discarded it in the trash can, then set to tearing open the sugar packets he had been offered. “But Miss Lowell, if you’ll forgive the intrusion, it’s quite hard for a Fae to not notice the emotions of someone else in a room. You seem conflicted, preoccupied. Worried about someone you care for. Are you alright?”

@marielle-oleary​

His son is a strong man, stalwart past the means of most anyone Alistair has ever met, but he isn’t surprised that seeing the ghosts of his lost family undid him. What does surprise him is how far that they had to go to get him to accept something to help, but his son in law is a crafty man as well as a kind one. Faolan is sleeping on the sofa in this private waiting room and Alistair, for the first time in either of their lives, is stroking his hair while he sleeps in a gesture of comfort. His jacket pocket keeps buzzing, but he thinks little of it. More important is to watch over his son, to get to know his grandson in hushed tones, and to wait for news of Fiona. At least until he spots a frazzled looking Marielle in the hallway, walking past the door and back again as if she’s looking for something. No, someone. Clearly it’s someone, and likely it’s him given he’s never out this late. He would have to ask her to help him with the phone again letter, but for now he pressed a gentle kiss to the top of Faolan’s sleeping head and after grabbing his cane, hobbled into the hall. “Mari? Marielle!” He called, only to see her stop dead in the hall and make a run for him. “I didn’t make you worry about me, did I? Gracious, I’m sorry. The young woman who collapsed on the ice rink is my granddaughter, my son had to be sedated after all this mess with the ghosts, and I lost track of time. Are you alright?”

Date: December 31, 2020 Time: 11:00AM Location: Winter Festival

@alistairquinlan​

Coming to the Winter Festival isn’t her choice so much as Andreas for his own reason, and because Orion thinks some time around others is useful. So here she is, and here is Alistair beside her because he has a beacon when it comes to finding her, or her for finding him. Briar’s eyes catch on Lionel walking by with something pink and fluffy in his hand. “What in all the realms are they feeding him?” she questions, spinning some to take another peek at it as the boy takes a bite and disappears into the crowd with his mother. “This reminds me of the naming tournament. It was icy like this, and very white, the better for seeing colors I’ve heard.“ She doesn’t know if he recalls this experience, if he was even there in the crowds when Morrigan granted her a name, or if its something he heard later. Either way, Briar eyes her surroundings with distaste, and the people with distrust. “Is this going the same way that did? Because I didn’t think Lethe was much for blood-sports.” Nor is she sure why people would want her to come given their believe she should tone her violent reactions down a level or two, as if it is easy to suppress instincts that have been instilled in her for over three centuries now.

As much as she seemed to resist it, ‘twas a fine thing to see Briar out and about. Not quite socializing, but at least exploring. Free as a bird, albeit one that seemed to find room for suspicion in nearly everything that passed by her. And it was a fine thing to meet this man who was apparently her brother, as well as his lady friend and her son. Her question makes him laugh and he shakes his head. “No, my dear Briar. I believe it’s something called cotton candy. I will happily buy you one if you’d like to try it.” His smile sours slightly at her mention of the naming tournament, one of the few events where he had been allowed to leave (under heavy guard) the confines of his cottage. A nasty event, one Morrigan had made up herself and flatly lied to the girl about so that she thought it was codified Fae culture. “It was very white so that Morrigan could parade herself in that red dress, I believe. The better to show the blood spilled in her honor, at her command. Quite uncivilized, not something they would do here. Now, I’ve...” They walk past a stand of leather goods, only for Alistair to take a few steps backwards to look them over again. He had a gift tucked away in his jacket pocket for Briar, but it was missing something. Something he found in the pile of goods for sale, only to pay for it quickly and step to the side. Best not to get run over when you can’t run, he told himself. “The humans give gifts this time of year and I had meant to give this to you long ago. Before you left.” Alistair holds out the sheath he had just purchased in one hand and a knife belonging to his mother in the other, then smiles at his daughter. “Go on, take them both. My mother would have been proud to see you with them. Just please don’t use them on anyone here.”

Well, being impressed earns him something. Her satisfaction, anyway, but it’s more towards herself. They do have quite the collection, don’t they? Evi mirrors the fae’s gaze and nods, appreciative of the praise. Helps her see things with new eyes, anyway. “It’s been a while in the making. We definitely have some interesting finds, but they tend to be for my amusement more than anything else.” She confesses with a shrug, answering his next comment with a simple nod. None of her business, anyway, though his patronage is appreciated. Never been too good about babbling about the personal. The backstory, though, that’s the sort of detail she needs. She bites back the tut of something like pity that tempts her at the sight of his leg. A shame, but she’s not going to embarrass the poor man. Instead, the witch just nods, listening though her back turns to him as she mentally runs through her inventory. “If you’re pure fae, it’s more likely the curse, I’d say. Good thing, too. No matter how many people wander around here looking not a day over thirty, no one’s ever truly cured old age.” It’s a jest, and she smirks over her shoulder to prove as much before momentarily vanishing into the back room, emerging with a lilac plant in hand. Still flourishing despite the chill in the air. The wonder of it all. She begins to pick at petals as she explains. “Now, usually I tell people to slap some lily on it and come back to me. But cursed objects… that’s tougher. Lilac, here,” she nods toward the small flowers she’ll be dusting into a mortar in a moment. “It’s helpful in, well, exorcising, you could say. I could just try to heal it or patch up the pain, but before you do anything else, best to try and draw that cursed bit out. Lilac helps on its own, but so does being a witch. A salve is probably the best bet. Unless you’ve got some sort of opposition to that. Could do a tincture if you prefer, but I can guarantee it won’t have the same results.”

If he was pure Fae, that made him laugh shortly before it occurred to him just where he was. Not the Otherlands, where practically everyone was pure Fae, though the idea of him not looking a day over thirty was just as laughable. Fifty, perhaps. He wasn’t a vain man. “Never much liked the word pure when it came to species, but yes. Fae through and through, just a tad older than most here.” Alistair explained, aware but a second later that ‘a tad’ wasn’t the best measurement. This woman was a witch, so she was as old as she looked, if not a little more. “Three thousand. Roughly. I’ve no opposition to whatever physic you think would work best, dear lady. Clearly it needs something more than my magic or it would have healed by now. Not a whit of improvement in oh...a month.” It didn’t keep him from living though, from exploring this strange little town, so that was something to be grateful for. Just slowed him down, made his days harder to get through should he need to do a lot of walking. He had arguably lived through worse, but Marielle was insistent he let someone try to give him more relief from the damage. There was a stepstool nearby and he pulled it over to himself, the better to sit on it and let the witch look at the leg more closely. “I don’t know what sort of curse was in the warhammer she used, but Morrigan has a cruel streak a thousand miles long. The skin is tender to the touch unless I use the salve you gave Marielle and the bones ache after a time if I walk or stand too long.” Alistair shrugged, that was all the knowledge he had of this injury. His own symptoms, his own experiences. It wasn’t as if Morrigan would ever tell. “Marielle trusts you, and she does not trust easily. How did you meet?”

Dead. That’s not the news she expected to receive when speaking to Ingrid about Melissa, but here she is, bursting through the front doors of her shop in a fit of grief. But it’s not sadness she feels, at least not at first, though she’s sure that will come sooner rather than later. No, instead she feels anger. Anger at herself for leaving, for not having been a part of her daughter’s life, or her granddaughter’s. How many relationships have been severed because of a choice she made decades ago? When she enters her shop in a flurry of guilt and anger, the first thing she does is stumble to the back, opening up a jar of bath salts she meant to mix days ago. Now’s a better time than any, right? Tears prick the corners of her eyes, but she blinks them back, reaching for a container to mix her concoction in. “You made your choice, you can’t take it back now,” Marielle mutters to herself, brow creasing in the middle. She doesn’t hear Alistair descend down the stairs, in fact, she can barely see him through the tears that have begun forming in her eyes, threatening to break free. They spill over seconds later, her lips parting to let a sob break free, and it’s as though her chest caves in on itself. All in an instant, the anger is sucked out of her and replaced with the pain she feels over losing a daughter she never knew. Can she really feel remorse over someone she never knew? Apparently, as the grief is coming out of her in waves, taking form in her sobs. 

Alistair’s somehow able to guild her to the loveseat in the corner of the room, and the bath salts are left abandoned on her work table. As a replacement, Alistair’s arms wrap around her as they sit down, his fingers running through her hair gently. The kiss and his presence seem to slow her heartbeat, and after a while, her breathing evens out. She feels tired, worn down from her small outburst, but not enough to keep from crying. Tears roll down her cheeks as she presses herself closer to Alistair, eyes closing. “I don’t know,” she says hoarsely, bottom lip beginning to quiver. “I-It’s complicated, Alec. My daughter is…she’s ah…” Saying it makes it real. But well…perhaps this is a long time coming, Mairelle grieving the loss of her daughter. She lost her long before she actually passed away, and perhaps that is what she’s grieving today. Mari shakes her head, managing to look up at Alistair. “She died. I-I never knew, I didn’t….I wasn’t around,” she confesses, tears beginning to fill her eyes again. “I should have been there.” 

That was a pain he knew, but several shades deeper now that her daughter was gone. What would he have done if he had set out to find them and found all had passed on? Broken, certainly. Maybe not in the same way as Marielle, but certainly to his own unique degree. “Oh! My dear, I’m so sorry.” He said, aware that there was little else one could say in such a situation. All he could do was feel the depths of her pain washing over him like so much seawater and comfort her, the best that he could. Her hands held in his, as much calm as he could project slipping between their auras, and a soft, bittersweet smile. He could give her that much too. “Forgive me, but it isn’t hard to read off of your aura that you chose to leave her. Which you regret now, you feel like in some way this is your fault. But it isn’t, my dear Marielle.” The look she gave him then was confused as much as it was pained, like a wounded deer being carried to safety from a busy road. Did she believe him? Not now, certainly. The wound was far too fresh, but he pulled her closer, the better to give her something steady to hold when she was still shaking. “You made the choice that felt best at the time, did you not? And you cannot see the future, Mari. That is not a gift given to your kind. So you gave her to someone you trusted, thinking she might what? Have a better life? That is a noble thing. A brave one.” Alistair reached into his jacket pocket for a handkerchief, then presented it to her with a faint smile. “I am sorry for your pain, Mari, and I will not demean it by telling you how to feel. But I would be happy to listen to what you need to get off of your chest. Okay?”

Only an Otherlander introduced themselves in such a way, though clan Quinlan didn’t remind him of anything specific. A vague notion of a family whittled down to few, and something involving his mother, and it was proof enough that this man was family. More than family, it seemed, but if Alistair ap Morwenna, of clan Quinlan, wanted a more welcoming reaction from Faolan, he was sorely mistaken on which Meadowes he was meeting. “You are my father? The great warrior who left her?” he asked, dubious, looking the man over. It displeased him to know enough about his mother to agree that she would choose chains over a groom near any day, but he couldn’t see why she chose him. Faolan’s eyes lingered on Alistair, chewing over a few things to say. He should, perhaps, feel something for this revelation other than reluctant acceptance. How long had he longed for a father? Centuries, really, but for the centuries he wanted one, he had long surpassed in accepting he didn’t have one. What to do with this man? Faolan longed for Cora with her wisdom, and her ability to pick apart a person with just a few words, something he could use here. “I did wonder how my sister and brother ended up being related so closely. Morrigan is not the type to stay with one person, but you? Something about you appeals to her, I hope you’ve put a great deal of distance between you and her.” The pity in his voice was unmistakable. Anyone who caught Morrigan’s eyes deserved more than a passing glance, as Faolan was inclined to do with this man who was his father by blood and not by anything more yet. Faolan rubbed his face, looking pained. “You picked a… time to visit. Some of the family is here, the pieces of us still left. More than you’ve met, if Morrigan is anything like the woman I remember.”

“Warrior?” Oh, that was rich coming from Morrigan. How many times had she told him what a disappointment he was compared to the brother she had been betrothed to? A thousand or more, surely. Never left a chance open to rub salt into those wounds, and yet here she had been pathetic enough to have told their son such a thing. “And left? Oh, my dear boy, no. My brother was the one she wanted, but he got himself killed. And it’s quite hard to abandon anyone at all when you’ve been magically locked in the same cottage for oh...half one’s life.” Something about him did appeal to her, many things, but none of them were things he gave too willingly. His claim, his advice, and his seed, apparently. He winced slightly as he stepped to the side, aware that the salve he had put on this morning was starting to wane the longer he stood. “Might we...?” He asked, gesturing towards a counter with stools in the middle of what he assumed was the sales portion of the smithy. Alistair took one, sighing as the pressure was taken off his leg. “It is a very long story and not a kind one to hear, but something tells me you have seen worse. In short, she was betrothed to my brother, who was the heir to our lands. And then he died, along with his twin, so she had a choice. Give up her chances of taking hold of a very wealthy foothold, or marry me. The boring one, the scholar.” Alistair explained, though he wasn’t certain how much time his son would be willing to give him in this matter. “I ran. I knew her well enough to know I could not willingly marry someone such as her. So she ran me down, kept me prisoner. Took everything I had and then some. My claim, my family, my...children. I am sorry, Faolan. If I had known you existed, I would have torn heaven and earth asunder to get us away from her.”

@marielle-oleary​

He felt her before he heard a thing from the shop below, a veritable maelstrom of grief and anger bursting into the shop after hours. Alistair had been putting away leftovers to share with her tomorrow, when he next expected to see Marielle, but there was no mistaking that aura. A useful trick when it came to keeping watch for burglars and the like, he had learned long ago, but she was hardly one of those. She was also someone he didn’t find to be easily upset either, and so he hurried downstairs as fast as his leg would allow him to find her crying over a half filled jar of bath salts. “Oh Marielle, this must be very serious indeed. Come now, darling. The salts can stand to be left alone a moment.” Alistair said, gently leading her to the battered loveseat that filled one corner of the work room in the back of the shop. Sobbing was quite unlike her and oh, how her emotions doubled in amplification the moment he touched her. Death, someone had died that she had never gotten to know like she’d wanted. Someone she felt that she owed something to, left unpaid. He would ask, not pry further, that much Alistair had decided by the time he pulled her into his arms and began to stroke her hair. That settled her a bit, as did the calm that he tried to pour into her with every brush of his hand along her hair. After a time he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Recklessly, given the shortness of their acquaintance, but she seemed not to mind. “I am sorry, I try not to use empathy around you, but it’s...your emotions are too strong for me not to notice. I am sorry for whom you lost, and for you, sweet Marielle. Would you like to talk?”

Marielle’s frown begins to turn up into a small smile, one that continues to grow as Alistair goes on. “So you’re kind in spite of her,” she chuckles, head shaking as she clacks her nails against the cart. “You are very surprising to me, Alistair Quinlan. Not many people surprise me anymore, but you…you came limping into my store with your stolen cane, and I don’t think I’ve seen anyone smile brighter. She hasn’t won,” Marielle concludes, stealing one of the red grapes from its stem and popping it into her mouth. “You have.” Whatever Morrigan had in mind for the man standing in front of her, it does not look like she succeeded in doing it. If she intended on tearing him down, she did a pretty poor job of it, despite the limp. “A feast,” she breathes out in a chuckle, head shaking. “No, no, I’m not worth all that fuss. Just a glass of wine and a plate of rice would impress me,” she admits. Cooking is quite the mystery to Marielle. She can never quite get the recipe right, even with it in front of her face. Either it has too much seasoning or not enough, or it’s uncooked or burned to a crisp, there is no in between. “I would um, I would enjoy that very much though,” Mari adds, again feeling the heat rise in her cheeks. For a moment she swears Alistair’s cheeks are doing the same. 

“We can get new ones,” Mari insists, watching as he sets a bag of carrots into the cart. “There are plenty o- oh!” Suddenly there’s a little more weight on her right arm than before, and she realizes quickly that Alistair is sliding into her before they both fall flat on their asses. Her free arm juts out to steady him, resting against his chest softly and her brow creases. “It’s all right, I just…are you okay?” She asks, her words laced with concern. For a moment she thought something might be seriously wrong with him, but no. Just tripped, that’s all. Her palm presses against her own chest as she breathes out, relieved. The rest of their trip around the store is less eventful, thankfully, and in no time their cart is nearly full. Of course she insists on loading the groceries into her truck just as she insisted on it back at the mattress store. ‘No, you need to rest your leg, ‘she said both times, along with, ‘Besides, I have two arms!’ He did well not to argue with her and passed the bags to her for support. That, she allowed. “That’s right. I can’t believe we are coming up to the end of another year,” she sighs. “Perhaps I should be used to it by now.” It never gets old, seeing the times change. Though it could be a bit irritating having to change with it, and to learn new things. She turns to Alistair once she pulls out onto the road and stops at a red light, brow rising. “Alistair are you…asking me to have dinner with you? Like a…date?” It sounded like one. It sounded an awful lot like one, actually, and now her cheeks are heating up again. Her lips curve into a small smile, eyes going back to the road once they start moving again. Then after a moment, she nods. “I'm interested.” 

Was he asking her on a date? On further reflection, sitting beside Marielle in the cab of her truck, he rather thought he was. Unintentionally. He was a single man though, wasn’t he? Lonely as a cloud, new in a world not his own, and maybe he deserved to ask a kind, beautiful woman to share a meal with him. “I suppose it could be considered such a thing, yes. I meant it as a gesture of kindness after all you have done for me in such a short time.” Alistair explained, his own cheeks coloring the more he spoke and the more he noticed hers did as well. They went an even brighter shade of red when she said she was interested, with the tone of voice that indicated she was interested in it not just as a gesture of repayment, but as a date. A romantic...oh. He wasn’t so sure about that, not yet, not after fifteen hundred years or more since he had the freedom to pursue a relationship of his own choosing. And she was a selkie, they did not live as long as his kind. Something told him that she was younger than most of hers as well, though he wasn’t sure what. Intuition, perhaps. “I am not married. Never have been, no matter what my captor liked to claim about she and I. But I am terribly old, Marielle. Time is different there, but by human timekeeping I suppose I’m roughly...” He frowned slightly, counting off fingers and crunching numbers in his head in comparison with his studies of human histories over the years. “Three thousand, perhaps. Give or take.”

Marielle nearly ran a one of those red signs at the corner at that admission and he grabbed the handle above the window, trying not to look as jolted as he felt. Definitely younger than most, or at least not used to Fae longevity. Perhaps both. She stopped the car at the shop again, where the mattress delivery men were waiting to carry the thing upstairs along with the bed frame. Alistair let himself out of the truck with a wince, but only a slight one, and was promptly swatted away when he offered to help. Marielle simply gestured he follow her upstairs to this apartment he had rented himself. A fine place, he realized. There was a beige sofa in the living room and nothing else, so he settled himself on that while the workmen bustled about. “We’ve uh...no gas or electricity and the like in the Otherlands. Well, at least the place I was kept in did not. You may need to teach me how some of these things work.” Alistair admitted when she sat on the sofa next to him, watching the workmen carry their purchases into the room he presumed was his bedroom. A thought occurred to him as he watched her and suddenly he was embarrassed by the fact that he had asked her very little about herself in all this time. “Marielle, you’ve let me be terribly rude. I’ve not asked you half as many questions about yourself as I’ve talked about myself.” He smiled at her gently, reaching over to tap gently at her arm. “You’re a selkie, yes? And your name, O’Leary, that is Irish, is it not? And before you say you aren’t interesting, let me say that I find you extremely interesting, So indulge me a tad while we wait.”