stone on the water

Gabe held up the books he had been carrying by way of answer, then sat them on the table like the suddenly unimportant objects that they now were. It wasn’t the fact that his father had wheeled and nearly thrown a dagger at him that bothered Gabe in this moment. He would have survived that just fine. “Caoimhe wanted to borrow some books she’d seen when she was over last. I’d a moment free, so I brought them over. And I knocked, Da.” Gabe said flatly. His empathy was long gone, but he didn’t need that to notice how he’d been held at arm’s length since he died or the way his father shifted the subject thinking that he would bow out again and not prod. With Caoimhe he understood, for her everything was fresh and he was sure that in some way, her coming back made it fresher again for his father. But coming so close to the precipice and then being pushed towards another with Daniel Bisset looming over his head had left Gabe feeling impatient with being kept in the dark. It certainly wasn’t for his good anymore, his fragile health was in the past, and he wasn’t asking for full disclosure. Just something, anything, which seemed impossible no matter when or how he asked. “If I had been buried, would you have told me anything before the casket dropped?” He said, letting that sentence stand in the tense air between them for a moment. “About my siblings, about any of what happened to them and Caoimhe? And you can dart around it, but what I am bothers you. How long are you going to deny that instead of talking to me about it?” Gabe heard his voice rising in pitch, then lowered it. Best to limit how much he antagonized him. Not that he thought it would help, given how little he had historically gotten out of his da. “I can’t tell if it’s me as a person that’s the problem or what I am. Or why, honestly.”

He almost skewered his own son. The thought makes his stomach churn several seconds too late, and he reaches for his wrist, to spin the dials on the edge of it for calming, but he has yet to replace it. Fiona still has it, and he lets his hand drop with a sigh as Gabriel sets the books aside. “I did not hear you knock, the shop can be loud at times.” It doesn’t help how easily he gets lost in his thoughts, but Faolan doesn’t see this as a good enough reason for a lapse in judgment. He pinches the bridge of his nose, the ire building in Gabriel a spike between his brows and he builds the wall slowly, brick by brick, only to have it crumble to pieces at Gabriel’s question. His hands drop, eyes widening in surprise. “Would I share things about my dead children with my dying one before he, too, joined them?” he asks in a deceptively even tone, as if the words aren’t rolling around in his head, knocking loose things better left shelved. His heart races, and he can’t stop it, even if he knows Gabriel can hear it, even if he’s done his best to hide any of it. “No, I would not, short of asking you to pass my love to them. You would have... you would have eternity to ask stories of them. Perhaps you would know them better than I did, even.” Talking about them at all makes it feel like he’s being twisted into a knot. Thinking about Gabriel dying, too, makes him think of that patch of unhealed ground in Ireland, two centuries gone by and still barren. Would there be another patch in Lethe where Gabriel died? For he couldn’t imagine so easily letting him go into the dark without trying more, regardless of what Gabriel may wish. It’s only Gabriel’s rising voice that brings him back to the here and now. “They were so-- You are my youngest child - and you are older than any of them will have the chance to be.” His tone is no longer even. “This is...How can I-- How can someone talk about it?” he whispers, palms resting on the counter. “They are dead, and they are never coming back. What do the details of it matter? This is not a slight against you, Gabriel.”

Upset is a rather diplomatic word for how Terry feels at the moment, a great understatement really. On a scale of 0 to 10, he is at Angry Sicilian. If he acted upon his antiquated anger, though, he would have returned these senseless hooligans into ash and dust. He is holding on to the last string of patience. “Lamia or nymph, if anyone pulls shits like this in this sacred land” Terry growls, before kicking the werewolf in the face to knock them out, “they’ll all get fried like yesterday’s onion rings.” He remembers Tilda talking about this new werewolf Councilman, some punk called Maksim or whatever. The name didn’t ring a bell. What he knows is that the Lowell kid wouldn’t have let this happen. “Who was that new knucklehead in the Council? For the werewolf? You know him?” He asks, since he has a bone to pick with that guy now. The door opens behind them and a group of people pour out, dressed similarly in hoods and masks. Terry grabs one of them and begins pummeling at them. As they try to surround him and Faolan, he releases the rampaging thunder and lightning stored in his body, electrocuting a handful of wolves. “Where do you think you’re going?” 

Not the type of thing he expects Terry to say, but old fae have their quirks - himself included - and he isn’t about to question it. He frowns, hands in his pocket, radiating a calmness, not quite willing to be so close to the fae if he decides to crack. “Maksim, I am told. He used to live in together a couple decades ago if I recall, but I am not a werewolf nor well-versed in oftentimes petty politics,” he replies with a shrug, eyes flickering to the door as people pour out of the bar, the smell of smoke clinging to their clothes. Some topple in the wake of Terry’s attack, writhing on the ground. Several aren’t by virtue of being several feet back and they dive over their fallen comrades. One reaches for Faolan, fist heading for his stomach, and he reaches out to touch the skin of their wrist, warmth flooding through him as he steals energy from them in an instant. Their fist barely bumps him, and he flings them away and into another werewolf with a sigh. “Do people really think fae are incompetent? This is insulting, I saw better fighting from the Franks.” Between Terry’s lightning and Faolan’s own method, the remaining wolves are wary. “Wolves out number everyone else. We shouldn’t have to share with the likes of fae scum,” one of the wolves growl, fists clenched at his side. Faolan raises a brow. “Outnumbered or no, I do think he can take you on his own, kid,” he says, and the sharpness of his ending cannot be mistaken for anything other than a slight, narrowing his eyes. The mood is still tense, still ready to explode, but the wolves are looking to the one who speaks for guidance, not quite sure what to do next. Faolan raises a brow at Terry, sensing the resignation from them that warns of their next move: running away like cowards. “Do you wish to keep them here to face justice then?”

His laughter makes her wince, but Fiona laughs too, no matter how sorry she looks. “I’ll get it, I promise.” She nods with sincerity, though she’s still laughing off her embarrassment, even as she gives another go at the name. “Definitely not. I’ll keep trying.” With a shake of her head, Fiona jots down some attempt at a pronunciation guide on her napkin. It’s then, with her tongue slightly between her teeth in her concentration, that she nails it. With a grin, she looks up, excitement genuine at the accomplishment. Right about now, it feels like the only thing she’s gotten right. “Oh, good! Faolan. Great.” It’s the mention of the first time that makes her smile waver, but not too much, and she doesn’t tread too far into that territory. It’ll come back, won’t it? The memory. It’ll come back. Her lips quirk at the mention of sleep, and Fiona sighs softly. “Um, yeah. My nurses keep saying rest is important, but… I don’t know. It’s hard to be tired when so much is happening.” So much to learn, so much to fear, so much to celebrate. Just… so much. “Oh, yes! Yeah, my nurses are, um… well, they’re nice. Won’t give me much information, but you know, they’re taking care of me. So. They’re great.” The positivity fades as the potential fear of the dream creeps in, and she tries to fend it off, especially when she can still feel watchful eyes on her. That’s been pretty constant over the last few days, too. So much staring.

She rubs her own eyes despite the claims about not being tired, then turns a wry smile towards this uncle of hers in his chair. “Are they? Hey, that’s good to know. I sort of figured maybe it was just a me thing. People seem to have a lot of questions. Family and nurses and police…” Fiona shrugs, unbothered despite the overstimulation. Bother comes in the form of those other voices, and they seem to trouble Faolan as well, which only makes her frown. “Um… I mean… I don’t know. It’s like… they’re trying to say something, I guess, but they’re trying to make me say it? That makes no sense, I’m sorry. It’s just… loud, I guess, and sometimes it feels like there’s hands grabbing me. Other times it feels like drowning.” She’s being honest, open, but it’s only making the man in front of her look more troubled. Fiona bites back another apology, trying for levity instead. “Just a dream, I guess. I, um… well, I think it’s just in my dreams. I’m not totally sure.” The string of her blanket is twined tightly around her knuckle again by the time Faolan asserts his intentions to help, and it makes Fiona’s gaze lift from her own hands. Surprise comes first, followed by genuine gratefulness. “Thank you. Yes, um, it’s probably just the dreams.” She shrugs, dismissive. Better not to discuss them. Or at least more comfortable. His mention of ease piques her interest, and her inquiry is immediate: “How?” Fiona catches herself then, stammering a moment before trying again: “I-I mean… how does it get easier? Because right now, it’s just… a lot. Most people are nice, you know, just… worried, and caring. But still, it’s, um… yeah. A lot.”

“There is... medicine they can give you that will help you sleep longer,” he says tentatively, not so sure he wants to recommend pumping his niece with drugs for rest. At least, not if they have other alternatives. “I would, perhaps, try something like meditation, or... music works well.” How many children did he help get to sleep playing his flute? How often did she sing them to sleep? Faolan head tilts, brows furrowed, trying to recall the lullaby, but it’s smoke falling from his fingers when he gets close. He can’t even remember the last time he used it - or, perhaps, he remembered a little too well the last time he used it. “Your Aunt Clíodhna - Cora, that is - her husband is a Riverborn like you, and none of us wish to push memories on you too hard,” he explains. “The doctors do not recommend it, and your aunt would have our head if we played with it when she is too far to help.” And unlikely to return. He’s wary of trying her solution to the problem: healing Arthur came with its own drawbacks, and he has no wish to inflict the same glitched memories on Fiona as his vampire brother-in-law suffers. “Perhaps he will have some advice on how to help you that the rest of us do not know, but we will find a way to keep your nightmares at bay.”

Faolan shifts forward in his chair, his elbows resting on his knees as he regards her with a serious gaze. For all their chatter - happy and not - he can’t help thinking the root of her problems are too deep to fix this morning. “I can help with blocking out emotions for a little while if you wish, it will be easier to sleep without the emotions of this place,” he says, waving a hand around them. Decades around this blue earth and he still winces in a hospital. It’s absurd that he didn’t think of this the moment they brought her in, but he can be forgiven for the lapse in judgment when he spent the last few hours sprawled on a hospital bench, asleep. “You are not alone in this, no matter what it must feel like when the emotions are overwhelming. Find something to focus on - an object, a person, a feeling you know is your own - and it will be easier to center yourself,” he recommends, looking around the room. Flowers, balloons, and well wishes litter the room, nothing concrete. Instead, he unlatches a watch on his wrist, holding it out to her. “Take this. Spin the dial a few times when things are overwhelming and it might ground you. Now, try to rest, I will be here if you need anything.” Faolan presses the watch into her hand, smiling gently. He steals the book someone left resting on the nightstand, folding the pages back to read, hoping she might be able to find the time to rest. He’s slept enough, he can wait for the sun to fully awaken, especially if it will help her.

Marek offered an easy smile, content to run into not only a fellow fae, but one who seemed to appreciate this particular kind of fae weaponry as much as he did. “They’ve become somewhat of a lost art, I’m afraid. Few blacksmiths still know how to make them” he said as he spun the blade with ease in his hand and then let the energy blade fade, keeping only the metallic hilt in his hand. Marek had been about to say that it was like his blade had simply stayed in their former realm, collecting dust, as it was near impossible to get another fae to wield someone else’s electrokinetic blade. But he said nothing, processing what the man said about others imitating the style and about having made an impression in the Otherlands. His eyes widened a little and a smile gradually spread across his lips. “Wait. Did you-?” he began, glancing down at the hilt of his blade. Any remaining doubt Marek might have had about Faolan being the genius creator of the very blade he so cherished, was swiftly dissipated as the man spoke with such ease about the special calibration of the blade. The young fae only shook his head in response, letting the man know there were no other issues with his blade other than the need for recalibration. “Gods, I can’t believe it. You’re Faolan, the Faolan” he said with evident admiration. He was standing before the man who crafted one of the single best inventions their realm had to offer. And it wasn’t an opinion that stemmed from his years as a royal guard, having made ample use of that special weapon. Objectively, it took a lot of skill and a touch of genius to merge fae power with a blacksmith’s craft. Marek slipped his blade’s hilt back into the leather sheath attached to his belt and held out his hand “It’s a great honor to meet you, sir” he said with a nod, a polite gesture that gave away in some slight way his old courtly mannerisms. “My name is Marek” he said, not bothering to use the human name he’d adopted. Everyone in town called him that, anyway, believing it to be his last name, not always privy to the fact that it was his true fae name.

Faolan stares. It isn’t the first time someone’s regarded his work with something like this, he hasn’t been a blacksmith for this long with mastering the trade, but it’s the first time someone’s remembered him from the Otherlands. He left the accomplishments behind a long time ago, but it doesn’t stop the pleased smile from crossing his lips. “I have not had an article used in front of my name in some centuries. Some people still remember my name then?” he wonders, a little surprised his mother didn’t try to erase that from history. It’s good to know there’s limits to even her power. Faolan grasps his hand, shaking it firmly. “Pleasure, Marek. Faolan is fine, I am not the type of person to stand on ceremony. I have to admit, I did not know they still made blades like this in the Otherlands, I always thought someone would take my work and run with it.” He studies the hilt only a moment longer. “Not my finest work, but one of my favorites. I can calibrate it for you at my shop whenever you are free, it is down the road from here,” he says, gesturing in the vague direction of Heat of the Moment. It isn’t far from them, but he won’t assume Marek has the time to handle it now, not when Faolan has clearly interrupted some sort of training. A familiar sort of training, too, but it takes him a moment of thoughtfully studying Marek before it clicks. “You are a guard? I did not work with them much, they had their own blacksmiths and I was not much of a name still, but you stand the way I imagined they did. Are you fresh from the Otherlands then?” Faolan hasn’t thought of the Otherlands as his home since... probably since the mid 1300′s, but he’s still got a curiosity for it. “Have they still got the uhh... mad man from Barstew trying to start a new religion? I have not heard about home since the 1900s, I am not sure what has changed.”

So he’s upset. She was, too, when she was being ferried through the hospital, but now she’s fine. Really, it was all an overreaction… like this seems to be. Fiona’s expression goes through various stages of bewilderment as her head shakes. Are her hearing aids acting up? No, no, this is gibberish. He’s speaking in tongues. That’s not a good sign, is it? “Is… Is that some kind of incantation or something? I don’t know what you’re – oh.” Well, now she understands, and she’s less than pleased by it. “I’m okay. The doctors gave me the all clear, I swear.” Fiona practically sulks as she sinks into her chair, avoiding her uncle’s gaze. She sighs instead of answering the first question, though her gaze lifts as Faolan takes hold of her wrist. Biting back a grimace, she shrugs. This was exactly what she hadn’t wanted, the worried look on her uncle’s face, the concern she can feel practically rolling off of him. “They’re not new, but I promise, they’re fine. I just, um, I don’t know.” Obviously Fiona knows what happened. What she doesn’t know is how to best phrase it in order to save from any real panic on her behalf. After all, she can handle some bruises. “I just had a… lousy conversation, that’s all. But I stuck up for myself, which you told me is important.” If she’s learned anything about her uncle, it’s that vague details like that won’t satisfy him. She can only hope that carrying on will make him forget to ask. “I didn’t tell anyone because I was okay. I am okay! I didn’t need a ride home and…” Her foot started bouncing sometime. It doesn’t let up now. “Also I was scared that… I was scared that you, or Gabe, or anyone else seeing me back there would just remind you of how it was a couple months ago.” January, when she was freshly washed ashore and privy to all those prying, pitying eyes. Nowadays, she wants to feel like a person, not just a victim. “So I handled it by myself and everything turned out fine. I would’ve come to tea and everything today, I just… I forgot, that’s all. I’m sorry I scared you. That’s the opposite of what I wanted.”

“Sidhe. The language of the fae. My dialect of it is fairly old compared to what you may have heard, I have not been to the Otherlands in centuries.” Faolan rubs his brows as she settles into a chair, sulking in a way that reminds him for a split second like Deirdre. The second fades, and it isn’t Deirdre, but Fionn in the downturn of her lips and the slight shrug. It’s disconcerting, enough that he stares at her for several long seconds before he blinks it away. His fingers are gentle on her wrist, thumb pressing until he feels the steady thrum of her pulse. Steady, and normal, and the band around his chest loosens. “Fae can heal, I am not sure if I have told you this. It is sometimes an instinctive thing when a fae is hurt. You draw energy from another living thing - person or plant - and use it to heal yourself or others,” he explains, shifting on his heels. He can’t stomach the bruises or cuts enough to ask, so he simply does. “I will heal these. This will not hurt, but it may feel strange.” His thumb presses harder against her pulse point, and he’s done this enough to feel little of the weariness giving away your energy inflicts. It flows from his hands, unseen, akin to a cool breeze on a sweltering day, or so it has always felt to him when on the receiving end. The wounds close slowly, fainter and fainter, until they look several weeks rather than a day. “It is important to stand up for yourself, but you cannot hide from your family either, Fiona, we are here to help you.” Her foot bounces, and his brow furrows. His empathy is harder to hold on a leash around his family, like their very existence softens the walls he’s held the last two centuries. “You cannot stop how someone feels, only the way it makes you feel,” he says. “Help me understand. What was wrong a couple--” He stops, comprehension hitting before he finishes speaking. “You mean when you returned. Is that what bothers you? Our worry?”

“Someone surely tried to teach you well. Seems to me she might’ve failed.” It’s all in good humor, and the laugh that hums through Caoimhe’s words proves as much. After all, it’s not true, and the way that they glide around the living room proves as much. In fine tune with each other, even after all these years. A lovely thing, she thinks. Lovely, too, to simply be held, warm and content in the light of the setting sun through the window. The sort of thing she’d taken for granted once. Never again, though. Not after those centuries in that horrible in-between, so cold, so distant. Now, she’s lucky – lucky enough to press an absentminded kiss to the corner of her husband’s jaw between lines of melody. “I didn’t either. Prayed for it, certainly, but hardly thought it would come to be.” She confesses softly, more pessimistic than she usually allows for. Still, it’s the truth, and hindsight now in the wake of all they have. Perhaps not entirely, considering all that they’ve lost as well. But they have each other. Caoimhe’s reminded of as much at the feeling of lips against her hair, the sensation making her lips curve into a smile, eyes fluttering closed. “Hm?” She merely murmurs in response to the endearment, though she pays more attention at the mention of their son. Their lively, musical boy. Caoimhe’s hand is quick to rub against Faolan’s back, hoping to reassure after the hitch in his voice. Despite it all, she manages another laugh, low and soft. “I do, quite well. In fact, I may remember the words. Let’s see…” 

They’d been raised in such a musical home, their children. Caoimhe had seen to that, with constant songs, fae and otherwise. This one in particular wasn’t fae at all, but an Irish folk song she’d found rather sweet. One she recalls now, sung softly to her audience of one, still with her cheek against his shoulder. It’s only when she reaches the end of the chorus and hopes to share a smile with her husband that she straightens, opening her eyes in the hopes to meet his. She doesn’t make it that far. Instead, her gaze latches onto a photo in the corner, put into a frame but not yet mounted on the wall. This particular spring cleaning project stops her in her tracks, halting the music she’d been providing and any semblance of a dance. Caoimhe’s hardly aware of her own gasp as she wrenches herself from her husband’s arms, moving with sudden haste toward the photo. “Lanna?” The nickname for a daughter lost makes its way to her lips as if she could really be calling her child. But it’s not. It’s not at all, and it’s only when Caoimhe is knelt before the photo and blinking back unexpected tears that she realizes. “Oh. No, no.” Her head shakes and she swallows hard, setting down the frame. “I’m sorry. No, it’s Fiona. Just Fiona.” Hardly ‘just,’ sweet thing that she is. But she’s not Alanna. Not their Lanna, long gone. “When the light hits her just right sometimes… it’s as if I’m seeing everything our girl could have been.” Finally, Caoimhe looks back to her husband. “I doubt I need to explain.”

Any brush of her lips against his skin is like the first time, and his grip tightens on her hand as their twirling becomes little more than a sway back and forth. How long has it been since he prayed? Maybe with Fiona, maybe with Gabe, though he hadn’t let the words fall from his lips, afraid of tempting the cruelty of fate yet again. “I’m here now,” he murmurs, brushing her hair away from her face. “We don’t have to fear the darkness anymore.” Some things they haven’t discussed: her long, long years alone in the darkness, punctured only by glimpses and his own memories of the day that changed everything. He dreads facing it, and someday he’ll have to find the courage to say pieces of it, to share it with the only person who deserves to know. The only person who deserves not to know, either. It’s a thought for another day, one he shakes off as the first bit of melody falls from her lips. Haunting. It brings pain, the kind that makes his fingers tremble on her back as the memories of them sprawled on the floor, singing off-key but happy, Bran changing the words to suit his needs. But the longer it goes, the less it feels like someone digging into his chest and the more it feels like Bran is standing between them. His eyes are closed. He can almost imagine the three of them are rocking in place together. It ends, slowly, and for once, his heart isn’t pinching with grief, but with a bittersweet happiness for a memory he had thought long gone.

Her melody ends -- and the gasp rocks him back to the present. His eyes wrench open, eyes flashing to the doorway, bolted thrice, and then back to Caoimhe as she calls their daughter’s name. A nickname, at that, a punch to the gut as it falls from her lips. How many times did they call her that? Ten times? Twenty? Not enough, for certain. “Caoimhe,” he breathes. His eyes linger on the photo, crouching beside her with a hand settling on her wrist. Fiona is... the exact type of woman he always imagined Alanna to be, and he tries to remember if in the distant past he might have seen his daughter’s face in hers, or if he had blocked anything and everything away. No, she doesn’t need to explain. “I know. I... When you were... After, I do not remember what I did or where I went, but I do remember seeing you all wherever I turned. A woman with your hair.” Faolan brushes a hand over it once more, the curls soft beneath his hand. He settles on the ground, shifting to rest his back against the bookshelf. His hand rests on her wrist, but no more. “A boy who had the same choking laugh as Bran when he dive bombed you from trees.” Here he smiles, flickering. “Deirdre, I saw her in every child with her eyes. I saw Alanna in every newborn’s cry. I am sorry, A ghrá, I promised you no lies and it does not get easier.”

Summer of 1800. Meallán Cottage, Ireland. tw: implications of suicide

He watches the sky in the days leading up to their anniversary, half-afraid it will turn into a winter storm in the middle of summer. Irrational, but this tiny fear lives within him. He’s unsure if he can handle the sight of their home obscured in a spattering of snow without feeling his heart squeeze in his chest, but he shrugs it off. He cannot be afraid when he’s already lived through his greatest fears, there’s no room left in him for it.

His steps drag. He knows this route, he recognizes the trees on either side of him and the shadows they cast over the path. There’s a carving in one of the trees, a permanent mark in a slowly changing world. Touching the grooves of his son’s name is painful to the point of sickness, heart squeezing at the uneven loops of the letter B, the shakiness of the R and the A as he tried to curve the knife, and the jagged lines of the N. Bran, it says, and it hurts. 

Faolan tears himself away from the tree, heaving for air. It’s been almost a decade since he stepped foot onto this land of theirs, and twenty-five years this winter since he last saw them. 

Can he bear to see the rest? He must. He must, he promised.

“It’s my bar, it’s none of your business if I close it early,” Terry sneers before looking back toward the parking lot and finding Faolan there. He essentially makes the face that reads ‘oh, it’s you’. Obviously he is not in a great mood right now. He snorts as Faolan calls it ‘a rough night’. That’s a grave understatement. “These godless punks are trying to set my bar on fire.” Terry snarls and spits out blood. The white hot angry inside him settles in comfortably like a cat snuggling to its favorite spot to sunbathe. It has been some times since he got this furious. Yet, the anger fits him like a pair of old gloves. “…sure, I could use a hand. I’m guessing the kids inside are taking care of themselves, so just gotta make sure no more fuckers go inside.” 

Faolan shrugs, unbothered at the annoyance in Terry's voice, but he startles at the explanation, a quiet, Sidhe swear escaping him. "If you are upset about it, it must be serious," he says, running a hand through his hair. Not much of a friendship between them, not like there is between Cora and Terry, but he knows him enough to feel sympathy. "Wolves?" The species don't feel different, but the edge of righteousness emitting from the one werewolf sitting on the ground, nursing his head where blood drips into his eyes from a wound slow to heal and glaring at them, is all werewolf. Faolan cracks his neck with a sigh, knowing Caoimhe will be less than pleased at this development. He takes a position near the door. "Can't be many left, you handled most of them yourself. Kid, what was the plan here?" This he asks to the werewolf. No response, unsurprising, but the surge of emotions are helpful enough. Faolan looks at Terry. "Better them than a lamia or a nymph. Only way to stop them is a little more permanent than handling wolves."

The morning itself passes slowly, busy with the influx of orders to hand out in preparation for the gala - nothing like the possibility of violence to prompt people to defend themselves in the most ridiculous ways possible. He waits for the door to close and then turns to face her. “All clear in your household then?” Faolan asks with a raise of his brow. Between closing the shop to help Caoimhe adjust to life two hundred years since she last saw it, and a sickness rampaging through Ivy’s home, he hasn’t seen her in several weeks.  “You look tired, you should have perhaps taken another day away to rest.” Another pause as he looks her over. Shorts. In the shop. The furnaces are further back, away from the shop, but nonetheless he runs a hand over his face. “Ivy, you cannot wear shorts in here. A burn from something in here is going to hurt more than you think and you will not be able to wax poetry about the scar.”

Date: May 9th, 2021 Time: 7PM Location: Heat Of The Moment, lower level

@faolanmeadowes​

He quite liked his father’s wife. His stepmother, he supposed he should call her, but he hadn’t quite worked up the courage to do so yet. She had children once upon a time, children who were far older than himself, so it was best not to assume. Probably. There were several books he had offered to her on loan the last time she had been over at his house and it had taken him this long to get them together with a free moment to go over to the smithy. He had forgotten the harsh pace of doctoring the living in the time he served the dead instead, it seemed. Gabe unlocked the back door of the shop with his key, then slipped inside without a word of greeting. Would his father have heard him anyway? He wasn’t going to find out, not with how Faolan was halfway across the room with a dagger in hand by the time Gabe had started walking to the front room. “Da! It’s just me, I promise. Just me, some books, and…” Faolan seemed to ease off a bit after that and Gabe sighed. Was it just since he turned that his father seemed more on edge? He couldn’t be sure, but he wondered. It wasn’t as if Gabe hadn’t excused himself from a room filled with Fae relatives more than once these past months as he built up a tolerance to the scent of their blood. “I’m sorry I scared you, I’ll…stomp or something coming in next time. Are you alright? And don’t be putting off the question, we’ve both got to stop with that. It’s more than just me startling you, isn’t it?”

He hasn’t dug a deep enough hole to hide these memories from his nightmares, but he finds little ways to push the dreams back. Like the near too many locks on his door and the small, easy to reach weapons tucked around the shop. Both are useful, especially the latter when he hears the back door open, the hilt of it in his hand a familiar weight, an extension of his arm. No hesitation, not again. “Is that you, Gabriel?” he breathes, heart hammering in his chest. Faolan mumbles curses in Sidhe. His dagger lowers for a moment until he huffs a sigh, tossing it to the side where it embeds in a dummy he bought for this express purpose. It’s several seconds before he collects himself enough to speak, long enough for Gabriel’s words to wash over him, for his own worried curses to drift away. He switches back to English, not having the time to teach his son the rudimentary knowledge of another language just this moment. Someday, perhaps, Faolan will show him pieces of his roots. “What are you doing here? I wasn’t expecting you.” No, but that’s never been a problem in the past. Gabriel once came and went freely, but times have changed. Faolan smiles grimly. “I will be fine, you startled me, I forget how silently you can move now that you no longer trip so easily.” Faolan continues letting the subject sit there, but Gabriel has a stubborn look on his face. He continues on, attempting to ignore it. “You should be careful, I have no wish to bury you.” Cheerful. Nicely done, Faolan. He’s forgotten how much harder it is to talk to Gabriel sometimes, something he’s slowly attempted to remedy. The progressing is falling apart before his eyes.

Date: May 3rd 2021 Time: 4:15 pm Location: Fiona’s home

@faolanmeadowes​

It’s hot. A few months ago, Fiona might’ve begged for weather like this, when she was prone to chills and wearing many layers. But now, standing in her living room and frowning at the air conditioner that refuses to work, sweat running down her back and bruises and few cuts aching various limbs, she’s… well, Fiona is cranky. Truly cranky, down to hands on her hips and huffing. As if glaring at the air conditioner will do anything. Finally, she cranks up a fan, hoping it will ward off the humidity some – and then nearly smacks her head on a shelf straightening up. Not because of general clumsiness this time around, but because of the pounding knock on her door. After yesterday’s events, it’s enough to make her hands tremble, and Fiona grabs the nearest plausible defensive item (in this case, a bird statue) before approaching the door. Looking through the peephole, she sighs in relief so loudly she’s sure her uncle can hear it on the other side. Not a threat – but he still looks worried, so she throws the door open quickly. “Faolan! You scared me,” the girl laughs, then her expression wavers some. “Oh, no.” They’d bumped their weekend tea to today, a Monday. Which was already strange, apparently, and then… “I missed tea. I forgot. Oh man, I forgot…” She’s immediately sorry and is a split second from launching into apologies when she feels her uncle’s traveling gaze and remembers just what she looks like. And she’s wearing a tank top, thanks to the heat, so there’s no hiding anything. “…Shit.” Fiona bites her lip only to wince from it, forgetting she’d done the same thing whilst falling yesterday and promptly split it. “Um, I-I can explain.”

Tea time comes and goes without a comment, and he shares a look with Caoimhe from across the table. No empathy is needed for them to understand the concern, nor does it take him long to decide to just... check on her. Paranoia aside, Faolan knows how easily she gets distracted, and he has to remind himself not to panic on the short drive over. It’s impossible to stifle, and his nerves are shot by the time he pounds on her doors. Scared her? Yes, he can feel the flash of startle in her, and then the striking change to apologetic. Faolan, she says, and he feels a flash of hurt that’s quickly smothered, remembering too clearly the Uncle she used to attach to the front of it. “You are alright?” he asks, warily, short-lived as the question is when he looks her over. Faolan swears in Sidhe, ushering her deeper into the apartment and closing the door behind him, and launches into questions before it registers how little she knows of the language. The Fiona from before might pick up a phrase or two, but not this one. Her swear is proof enough of the difference. Faolan stops, pulling a hand down his face. “Sit.” He points to her kitchen table. “When did this happen?” he says in English, pointing at the bruises and cuts marring her flesh. Faolan attempts to take her wrist, wanting to heal them. “You cannot tell me these are new, I have seen enough bruises and cuts to know when some are hours old. How did this happen? Why have we not heard anything about it?” He wants to ask if she learned anything from the last time they had this issue, his eyes straying to her forehead, but yet again it’s a reminder of what they’d lost. It’s a strange feeling to have a history with someone and be unsure whether it benefited them to remember it or not.