220 - A God, Vibrant

Lin

I had my first session of reiki today with the new practitioner.

Honestly, I feel so much better.

My remaining crystals also came in the post.

And they're all wonderful.

Crystals have always felt healing for me to use, but these ones I've collected recently feel much stronger to me than they did before.

Even in the spiritual awakening I had before finding out I was a God, I didn't have as much of a connection with my crystals as I do now.

Perhaps I needed to leave in order to develop my psychic abilities.

Which would explain a lot, given the experiences I've had since then.

Speaking of which, I ended up having a dream about running from the voldys.

Luckily, Terrence managed to distract me in the dream for long enough for me to wake up.

Efara stands in the cornflower doorway of her father's living room, giddy with excitement.

I have a place I want to show you. But it's a bit far out, so we'll need to take the car. You coming?

Sur! Let's go!

Brav!

She ushers me into the hallway, handing me my coat, boots and a spare set of keys.

Just in case.

I nod.

Trugarez.

Pulling my boots on, I notice that both my father and Terrence are coming with us, as well as her father and sister, Marina.

Looks like this will be fun.

Terrence ruffles my hair.

Yup. Even I don't know where we're going.

I have an inkling, given the description that Efara gave me, but I don't remember enough to actively presume our destination.

Wrapping my coat around me and pocketing the spare keys, I follow Efara outside, with everyone else trailing behind me. We quickly reach Parac'hel's (Efara and Marina's father) large Chrysler ten seater, and he gestures for us to enter. 

As we wait for Efara to tell Parac'hel where we're going, Marina starts a conversation with myself and Terrence.

I'm so happy you guys are still married!

Terrence smiles.

Of course! Come to think of it, if I remember rightly, our anniversary should be at the beginning of August. Lovely?

Drawing up a floating clock in my hand, it reflects a calendar flicking page after page to August, before the 1st of August is circled in red ink.

Well, that explains a lot.

Terrence snorts in an attempt to keep himself from laughing, and fails. Marina casts us both a questioning look.

Herne Bay.

Realisation dawns on her face, and she nods.

Efara told me about that. How tasteless to arrange to kidnap you on both a Sabbat and the night of your anniversary! No wonder Efara was so mad about it...

And I'll stay mad about it.

Efara hops into the car beside Marina, behind myself and Terrence.

Doing that kind of thing on a Sabbat but also a significant day you share with a loved one is often a precursor to programming you to kill that person. 

Fortunately, those bastards didn't get that far, so we can move onto a better topic. Like you guys' myth.

My Da pipes up.

Definitely a good one, Efara! It relates to where we're going, too!

Agh, you told him!

He's in the front seat, Efa. He was going to find out anyway. 

I exchange grins with Terrence. Gods, I love these people.

*******

Efara

Ma tadig starts the engine, and Taranis turns to us again.

So, who wants to talk about the myth?

Well, it's technically Lin's myth, so they ought to tell it, right?

For a minute, silence fills the car as my father turns out of our driveway, and begins our journey.

Mat eo din. But this will be the real one, alright?

Mari grins at me, and I lightly shove her head in response.

So I grew up in Penmarc'h, not too far from here - I actually spent my summers between here and Greece. 

Anyway, I'd play in the Faery Stones, and for some reason, I was the only child to do so who never got ill. I mean, I gave offerings every time I came over, and I asked for permission to play there, but so had other kids. 

Really, this in and of itself should have been a sign, I suppose. But yeah. I spent most of my summers with my foster parents, a humble lord and his wife, with a fair amount of land, and as I grew up, we began, for some reason, getting marriage proposals addressed to me at their house.

Now, my marriage hadn't yet been arranged, as I had not yet found anyone suitable or to my taste that I would've wanted to live that long with. Also keep in mind that it was just as the Christians had taken our lands, so polygamy was out of the question, despite my faith.

One day, my foster father gets a huge debt warrant sent to the house, whilst I'm present. In the notes, it's a horribly veiled threat, essentially asking him to hand me over. He refused, and actually agreed to duel on it. His foe, though, decided on cheating from the get-go, which left him with serious injuries, and the task of telling my Da what had happened to me.

Can you guess who his foe was?

We all scoff. Of course we know!

They snort, and continue.

Apparently this walking shit pit had been besotted with me upon seeing me in the marketplace in Goulenn. Why he saw fit to essentially kidnap me because of it, I have no idea, but for the next seven years, I refused any relations with him. And so, my watch began.

A few times I remember his sister offering me wine laced with some kind of hallucinogenic aphrodisiac to try to get me to lay with her brother. But I was lucid enough to feign retching. That put him off every time, so I employed it when it best suited me. She never seemed to learn.

Just as I was losing all hope of ever escaping and living again, a chaffinch flew up to my window, and sung of me still having friends that watched over me. When I asked what he meant, the bird responded that the Fey of Penmarc'h were willing to challenge world's claim to my foster father's land as well as my hand in marriage, given the kidnapping and the illegitimate grounds world married me on in the first place.

Then, he said, to add legitimacy to our claim, we're going to have someone visit at regular intervals. Now, you don't have to do anything you don't wish to - if you wish, the two of you can merely be friends. But the pretext will definitely look like a tryst, so do keep that in mind.

And that's how I met Terrence.

Terrence's face flushes a shade of pink I've never seen before, and Lin giggles. At that, he smiles.

He swoops into my room at dusk in the form of a falcon, and materialises into the man you all know him to be today - though he was wearing armour. 

I was initially taken aback, because erm??? Adult looking man??? In my room??? 

But he was as sweet as ever, and very patient with me as I slowly began to remember him, and the life I once led with him.

Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and I felt better than ever. Eventually, we got to a point where being in each other's presence, whilst lovely, wasn't all that we wanted.

And you can guess what happened then.

Terrence raises an eyebrow.

Right in front of your Dad.

Lin playfully pushes his shoulder.

Shush!

The car erupts with laughter, and Terrence shakes his head, still smiling. Once they've caught their breath, Lin continues.

So we did what you'd expect, and at some point, obviously someone noticed that I had either made a mess of the sheets, or that I was looking healthier, because then world and his sister started acting very suspiciously.

That was how we met Anasol - she was a faery enslaved by world's sister, and she wanted an out. So myself and Terrence got her one through the bugul noz - or, as you know him, my Da.

Taranis grins, pointing at himself.

In return, she gave us the information that world's sister was brewing a concoction to knock me out for a day and a night, to figure out why I was so happy. Clearly, they didn't like that I was doing something that they didn't know about, and therefore couldn't control.

Remind you of anyone?

Yet again, the whole car snickers. I know who Lin's referring to here as well - world's sister is mrs voldy. Which, given Lin's past, makes this all make sense. 

The irony here is that the experience they kept trying to force Lin into was mrs voldy's childhood this time around. How the turn tables.

So, we engage as normal, with Terrence giving me handkerchiefs to hide in my chest in my room, ready for a daring escape. But I didn't have enough handkerchiefs before world's sister had completed her drug to allow me to use that method of escape.

Which meant that I had to improvise.

I'd already arranged the kinds of clothes I was going to escape in, and had practised doing my hair quickly enough before getting out of the room both with and without Terrence, so I knew what I was doing - aside from what to do about the wine.

Fumbling, I suddenly figure it out. If she thinks I've drunken the wine, she might let her guard down just enough to make a mistake. So when world's sister gave me the strange request of drinking whilst watching the sunset with her (which she almost never did), I obliged her. 

I took one sip, imitated gulping, then slumped in the chair, faking dormancy. She carried me onto the bed, tucked me in, then took both goblets of wine and left the room, leaving my door unlocked behind her.

Big mistake.

I spat out that disgusting wine into the handkerchief that world had given me, quietly got up and began to change, then style my hair. I had hidden Tarassäs on my person when I'd married world, so no one knew I'd kept her with me at the time. But I left her in my wardrobe, and I couldn't leave without her anyway. So I wrapped myself in my cloak, put my boots on, strapped Tarassäs to my back and left the room, flying down the stairs.

Keeping my hood up, I flitted through the corridors, up until I found an exit from the castle into the woods.

And I made a break for it.

I don't think I've ever run that hard, honestly. Even when I'd managed to get halfway across the marshes that led to the forest (which were about half a mile away), I could hear world's sister screaming about where I was to Anasol, who basically gave her the ultimate fuck you. (Think "this contract between us is over" vibes).

I had tied Terrence's handkerchiefs around my waist so that he could identify me, but I had no idea where I was going. That was, until I met my Dad on the road, working as the bugul noz.

He guided me over the same stones I had played over - Les Alignements de la Madeleine - and told me how to compensate the faeries there. So I gave them my wedding ring, which my father had just debugged. Surprisingly, they were satisfied, as it was quite expensive.

We flew for ages longer, until I got to the fields before Bro Arc'hant - where my father left me to go on ahead on my own. The castle was right in front of me, shining silver in the daylight, so I moved on forward, until I got there, and announced myself. At first, they laughed at me, until I brought out the belt of handkerchiefs. In response, they let me in with an armed escort.

I was welcomed with open arms; world's marriage to me was contested and we won, both when he tried to object and when he threatened us with war. Myself and Terrence married again, and we lived in Bro Arc'hant for the rest of that life.

Oh, and I had Ywenec. 

Yeah, can't forget our son.

As they beam at each other lovingly, we stop at said stones - Les Alignements de la Madeleine. A chorus of faery song greets us upon our arrival, and the stars seem to twinkle brighter in the sky than ever.

Welcome back to Breizh, Litavis Dethmonias.