The Keepers

Thanks to Horace and his insufferable pallor, everyone in the house was now in trouble. Faeryn and Isla had had the presence of mind to vacate as quickly and stealthily as they could, but Horace would be forced into some manner of labor or other and poor naive Pat had gotten caught in the fray. Isla took the hiding place that was Jurgen's hutch, and she was hardly willing to share and who could blame her? Faeryn was a liability when it came to covert movements and besides, she'd become possessive over their oldest brother recently- just about the same time he'd begun openly courting that green eyed girl, Brona; she didn't need to know they'd been seeing each other in secret for nearly a year now. Either way, she couldn't go to their father, out in the woods on a woodsman trek to bring back some more hardwoods and sap for lacquer- she could find him of course, but it would never be worth it considering she'd be doing much more work and under much more unhappy dispositions.

For now, she just continued to run, and when she could no longer do that she walked, and when she lost interest in that too she simply wandered. Whistling a little diddy to herself as she went, skidding pebbles across the ground. With the temperature dropping around her, there could be little confusion that she was headed up the mountain, and knowing her own lands well enough, she knew it was one of those on the border between Ævinwite and her neighbor with whom the relations were not quite so easy. Well, she didn't plan on crossing over, so grabbing tree limbs and swinging herself upward on the steeper inclines, digging the soft toes of her boots in the root systems of the hardy trees, she climbed higher. A breeze fluttered some of the loose parts of her hair, and she tugged out her braid when she came to an area where she could walk without thinking safely, turning her whistle to a soft sing song- some bawdy bar shanty or other, she loved them the most. Her wavy hair slipped in and out of her fingers while she redid the coordinated twist- not a pretty thing, but it would serve. And while she gathered things she liked- small bits of quarts shimmering in the afternoon light, small rocks of appropriate size and heft to be useful in a slingshot, or beautiful inky blue-black feathers, she caught the light coming upon the pass. She'd wandered so far. She wouldn't cross the border, no of course not, but being so close it would be a waste to walk away, cowardly even. She was feeling puckish anyway.

"Hey there, Ho there, Here I be," she called, smiling, as though she was once again play a game of Hide From the Beast with her siblings again, "Who's on da o'er side waitin' fer me?"

The walk had been soothing, and not so boring as one might think. The gentle breezes rolling down the mountain's side tickled Faeryn's reddening nose and cheeks. She'd felt little need to protect herself against it save for pulling the beaverskin stole about her shoulders a hair tighter. The scent of the moist wood- with little warmth to dry it- the moss covered rocks and trunks, pine needles and their biting, acrid scent, the sun high in the Western sky dancing between the canopy and clouds across her face; It made her feel happy and content. Safe. In such a complacent state, she had sung to herself, had tip toed up the rocky ways of the edge of her kingdom's world and had shouted out the pass to the great, mysterious, far, far, away beyond. She was therefore nonplussed when the beyond shouted back.

This was not an accent she recognized. It was foreign. Foreign as the other side of the mountain from which it came. Faeryn had never had to deal from someone from "over there" before, never really even seen one, but she'd heard the stores warriors and adventureres told from outside the windows of the alehouse where she'd hide with her brothers and try to sneak a drink. They were almost like a different manner of being altogether, she heard them say, people like them, but not quite the same. They had eyes like snakes or cats. She remembered looking to her big brother's eyes as they listened intently. Snakes and cats were venomous and not to be trusted. They all had dark hair, no colors. No red of fire and blood, no brown of oak and earth, and no gold of sunshine and honey. All one color, the black of her father, but for everyone. Like coal and smoke. Black was the color of the shadows that lurked in the woods, the monsters that gobbled up children who misbehaved or stayed out in the woods too late. And that was hardly all- they were not warriors like her people- no, they did not fight for the glory of their crest or the ascension of their name, they fought and killed in droves as many as they could as quickly as possible. It was as if all they cared about was destroying everything around them. A disease. When Faeryn had had nightmares later, along with Horace who was still sweet and friendly in those times, their mother had come to sit with them to tell them how foolish they'd been to believe those men; they were exaggerating she'd said, in order to make their exploits seem all the greater the way a man might say he'd fought a lion when he'd barely escaped a wildcat. She showed them the beautiful pitcher from which poured the whiskey they were not allowed to touch- the exquisite craftsmanship of the metallic item that caught the evening light from the mantle and told them how it was made by those from Dál Riata and the people who worked there on all manner of pretty things like this. It comforted the 10 and 13 year old to hear of this and they thanked their mother. Still, as she blew out their candle, she warned them- made them promise- to never play near the border and if they saw someone like that to run straight to her, their father, or Jurgen.

Horace leaned over the bed that had been raised above her own on strong logs of black cherry in the dark and whispered to Faeryn then that he was not afraid. He would not run to cower under his mother's skirts or his father's back, and that if he ever did see anyone from over there on their soil, he'd fight beside every other brave man and woman and Faeryn had quickly agreed, proving her bravery and loyalty too. The voice though, and the words it spoke... she'd never admit that her heart skipped a beat, and her fingers felt numb. A witch- a real live witch. She hardly had time to truly think things through as her hands went to her hips and the tomahawks she kept there in times such as these, and lifted one into her fist ready to defend herself, her family, her shire, and her kingdom, when a figure appeared against the light at it's back and she blinked at it.

It stood there and Faeryn couldn't help but stare. She wondered what it's next move would be but it made none, only watched her back. Hooded and mysterious like a trickster of lore who could not cross the line save for if she invited it in. Was she safe? She dared not turn her back and yet she was taken aback when it pulled down it's hood to reveal a woman her own age staring just as intently as she was. Her eyes were not like a snakes but shaped like the wings of a dove taking flight- they were brown and sparking like a copper basin under the water of a glittering stream. Her face was rounder and softer than those she saw each day, and her build much more slight; long and slender like a swan. And her hair was dark, except where it wasn't- in her hair were bursts of gold like shooting stars on a midnight sky. Not only that, but she did not appear to be armed at all, not even an axe for cutting trees or a knife for hunting. Who was she?

"Who... Who are ye?" It took much longer for Faeryn to muster her voice than she would have liked, but she managed to call out to this mysterious new person, "What kind o' witch? A badee or a nice witch?" What sorts of magic could she do? All the witches she knew about were illusionists and mesmerizers who made a ditch look like an inviting bed, or turned a person's mind off so that they only obeyed- anything from clucking like a chicken to walking into an oven a person might do under the spell of a witch. But those were the witches that lived in her woods, in Ævinwite, not the ones from over the mountain. People of her lands took the supernatural and the stories of the past very seriously and believed in a great many things including witches, goblins, ghosts, and magic. Magic was not easy to fight, Faeryn knew, and spirits were usually on the side of those who could use it, but often times, if she remembered correctly, phantasmal beings liked to play games or give riddles or make trades. If that held here, perhaps she could escape with her life and tell everyone of the Witch of Dál Riata Pass. A beauty but a mysterious one.