Private Tales Chasing Shadows

This had become something of a ritual now, watching the Sluagh's departures and arrivals of the hunt. Looking on in curiosity, envy, jealousy, and petulant anger as the silver hair of her Godfather melded among the coal of the black shucks.

You are not yet ready to join the Sluagh, child.

You still have much to learn.

One day you will join the ranks of your great father, but until then you will remain here. Safe.

Safe did not translate to feelings of pride or honor. Safe, to her, translated only to that which she was lacking. Strength, courage, skill, the bravado and perhaps the hint of madness it required to do what the Sluagh did. For only a short time ago had she begun her training in earnest under Veithir's keen mentorship.

Her hands had not yet formed the callouses required to properly use a blade. Her limbs had not burned with the pain necessitated for growing lean and strong. Her youth had not yet been tarnished enough to handle the atrocities they committed. Her spine was not yet rigid enough to balance the aggression that so often plagued the Sluagh's many participants. She could not hold her own.

Just a babe. A mere pup among wolves. All snarl but no fangs. All bark but no claws. Well... Thiri thought as her gaze shifted to her hands and the black painted nails that gleamed like obsidian dust under moonlight, not in this form. Her other form could hunt, but her other form was uncontrolled. Nothing more than a ravenous beast the Hunt would likely elect to put down rather than suffer among their numbers.

That control will come in due time, Veithir assured her, be patient.

Be patient was a rotten way of delaying the truth and for all the good he meant, she wished he would simply come out and say it: you are not fit to join the Sluagh. You are barely fit to join the community at large.

Thiri shut her eyes against the sound of the wailing howls, growing bored as the shucks took on their fae forms once more. It was their beastly sides that she reveled in most, even from afar. To see them in their natural glory, rank and slathered in viscera and blood as was their trophies for a good hunt gave her some semblance of comfort that maybe, just maybe, she wasn't the worst one out there. Her steps carried her through the Autumn forest, having not seen the gleam of Veithir's hair meant he likely was still out with another group. Who knew how long it would be until his return.

How long she would have to while away the hours waiting for him here? Where she was safe. Where he made her promise to stay. She idled between the shadows of the trees, wandering with no particular path in mind. The Commons is where they'd be coming together in celebration and already she could hear their cheering and yowls. That would carry on late into the wee hours of the morning and beyond while they danced and feasted and fucked and reveled the night away. Too many people and strangers made the discomfort of it far surpass any curiosity she might've had but...

When the hunt comes to its end,
In the silence.. I'm left to fend,
For the shadows, they are my friend,
But in my mind, they twist , and bend..

Some whispered words from a quiet and secluded patch of the forest peaked her intrigue, and so she followed them to their source. Quieter on her feet now, more natural in the setting than she had been before, she still had no hopes of sneaking up on an experienced hunter - or a shuck, no less. But she wasn't sneaking, not as such. Merely curious.

"What is that?" Thiri said to the dark stranger whose face she could not see. Just a silhouette there within the umbrage of the great oak tree, speaking to himself.

She'd startled him - whoops. That wasn't quite what she'd meant to do, but some little part of her felt a bit smug about it all. Sneaking up on a shuck so well that he'd looked about prepared to flee.

Don't cause unnecessary trouble, she could hear Veithir's voice in her head. His warnings about the shucks, especially after a hunt, followed not long after. This one seemed particularly on edge, though she couldn't say if that was simply an after-effect of the hunt, or her impinging on his privacy. A smarter fae might've excused themselves, apologized for intruding, and given him his space and peace.

Aethiriin was not so smart, though, and decided to step out further into the open, leaving the sanctuary of the shade beneath the tree. Moonlight wasn't so bad. It cast an eerie, cold glow she could find some comfort in unlike the sun that preferred to crisp her fair skin every opportunity it was given.

"No," Thiri replied simply with a long glance back toward the Commons where the revelry still echoed into the twilight hours, "at least, not on purpose. I'm just waiting..." she looked back to him, eyes lingering over him before landing upon the shadows at his feet, "...for someone."

"The words you were speaking," she pressed on, tearing her eyes away from flickers of darkness back to the gleam of his eyes. Still couldn't quite make him out. Something about the way the umbrage of the oak tree wrapped around his figure - he appeared almost blurry to her from this distance, "were they a spell?"

"Wherever," the girl answered blithely, her eyes casting a wide arc as her own arms came to fold at her front, "it's not like he can't find me."

Not like she could run away with any ounce of success. Her first attempt years ago had been a horrible, nightmare inducing failure but also the springboard to Veithir finally beginning her training. The following attempts had been more-or-less laughable. If it was not her hapless self leaving a trail, her familiar lead him right to her.

Annoying thing, Thiri thought and rather suddenly cast her own suspicious glance around to the other little shadows of the wood, eyes pinned, weren't pets supposed to hold loyalty to their masters? What does that say about me?

"Witches cast spells."

Her gaze shifted back, widening at the realization he'd wandered a bit closer without her even noticing. He was clearer now, too. Something about stepping out from the shadows had lifted the haze. Aethiriin stared.

"I just... ramble."

"Well I've never met a witch," she rebuked sharply. And wasn't rambling a thing crazy people did? Was he crazy? Had she caught him in a moment of hunt-driven-neurosis? How fun.

She was still staring and she was not one bit ashamed or embarrassed about it. Wasn't as if she hadn't met other fae up close before, even if she was a bit of a shut in both by choice and necessity.

"Aethiriin," the girl studied him, intrigued at this distance, "do you ramble often or just after hunts?"

He wasn't very good at answering questions, was he? Thiri's eyes narrowed as he stared back, given the impression she was momentarily looking in a mirror. Not answering questions was her thing, but he was decidedly more eloquent about it.

Just listen to the way he says my name, like he's trying to recite poetry. Is that another part of rambling?

She neglected the prickling tingle along her scalp at the sound of it, and though all teachings had taught her otherwise, the duannan decided to move closer instead of back while the shuck went through the motions of pacing in the way that addle-brained types usually were want to do. Aethiriin was not known for being smart about her curiosities and the other fae had her's inexplicably piqued. She wanted to get closer and see if there was simply a trick of the light, or if the shadows really were clinging to him like a stubborn and insatiable lover.

"Tried that," she admitted, "I am always found out ... or given away..." that cursed catling. Though she heard its mewling just now but it was simply a strained howl from the Commons.

"What's it like... on the hunts?" Veithir was rather reticent about the details whenever she asked.

"Clearly," she echoed him, the cut of her consonants sharp with ire to match a shifting hue of vehement orange within her gaze. Might've stepped away then, letting that emotion carry her quickly before it made something of itself, but she'd asked a question she deeply wanted answers for and it appeared he was going to be more forthcoming this time.

So Thiri stuck her landing and rooted herself bodily to the spot in wait.

It's quite wonderful.

He looked as if he believed it, too. Like a beast sated and pleased with itself. The proverbial cat that ate the canary and washed it down with a bowl of cream.

Quite unlike the way Veithir looked after hunts. He always seemed tired... maybe sad. She didn't know why. Thiri felt those heated coals stoked again at this line of thinking. Why wouldn't Veithir tell her about the hunts? Did he enjoy them as much as this one seemed to, or was he truly disturbed by his participation? Shouldering a silent suffering out of a sense of duty much like she believed he did with caring for herself.

His duty to her father.

Resentment creased her brow...

You are not Sluagh.

...then settled deeply into her dark lips.

You want to be?

Aethiriin tore her gaze from him, fingernails digging into her arms where she held them crossed at her front. She felt those roots holding her there recede then finally give way as his little poem rambled into the air between them. It cut her, deeply, to be seen so plainly. But the worst of it was the mocking tone... or what she perceived to be mockery.

Just walk away, she thought to herself as her fingers dug more strongly into the material of her clothing. Anger stung behind her eyes and rose to a boil within her chest, making her heart pound.

Walk. Away.

"Forget it."

She stabbed him with a glare and finally moved, backpedaling once and then twice before turning and moving to recount her steps through the woods.

A few weeks went by without another appearance of the little Ghost. While Veithir did not attend to every call of the Hunt, even the ones he did would not always produce a waiting Aethiriin. Most often she was taken in by her Uncle Asemir for the duration - but there existed some rare instances where the Duskirae King could not.

Or when Thiri refused to go for some slight or tiff with life. No one could ever really predict just where her mind or mood would be.

So it might've come as a surprise when returning from a Hunt that Oryn would find her standing beneath his oak tree, waiting for him.

"You said if I ever needed to hide..." she stuck him with a stare rife with emotion, "hide me."

In the moments of his approach she wasn't really looking at him so much as through him, her gaze disconnected by the churn of her mind and the wariness of her senses as she waited with growing anxiousness for a magic solution to her problem. Fear, agitation, paranoia, and a malaise of the spirit filtered through a gaze that sifted the colors of her turmoil like a spinning kaleidescope, which landed upon the hands he offered.

Suddenly, a curious smile flickered across her face followed by a pip of amusement, "...charcoal..."

"Aethiriin!" the sound of her name boomed from a deep voice within the wood, startling her from the wayward musing.

"THIRI!" the voice boomed again.

Without another thought, Thiri took the shuck's blackened hands with her own in a tight and insistent grip, and blinked into the sudden blackness. At once, in the presence of the dark that she so often took comfort in, Aethiriin released a breath she had not realized she'd been holding. The fission within her eyes calmed to a simmering swirl of green and blue, near reflecting the realm within which she now found herself standing. Though her hands maintained their strong grip and did not release, her gaze shifted around to take in her new surroundings.

Another breath flushed from her parted lips in awe, "What... what is this place?"

No answer as to the owner of her pursuer. Did not or would not, Aethiriin let his curiosities fall loosely about them while distracted with this new realm he'd brought her to.

"Your...shadow?" she eyed him, curiously enthralled by the very idea of such a thing. How she would have taken refuge in her own shadow given the ability, what a lucky trick indeed for him to have access to. Her own abilities with the shadows did not extend so far nor deep. Given the right settings, she could bring darkness to and with her, could meld with it to avoid attention, but could not outright escape into it.

"You can let go..."

Her eyes drifted back down to those blackened hands where her own fingers gripped him and realized just how tightly they did. Reflexively, the girl let him go but not with any haste. Her hands loosened, lingered, and then slowly slipped away from his to turn her palms up at her gaze. The black had not rubbed off, left no charcoal or graphite prints like her own hands were want to do after spending a day lost in her art. Thiri made a sound of thought before tucking her hands away at her sides, folding her arms at her front to hug at herself.

She turned her attention back to the seemingly endless expanse around her and the curious floating lights that bobbed and weaved like wishies in a breeze.

"How far does it go?" the question asked itself before she'd given it any real thought, and then her feet moved to step past him, impulse driving her to find out, "Could it go all the way to Spring Court?"

"Contagious?" Thiri murmured absently, not really thinking of the word itself as anything but an adjective. He might've said he wasn't adventurous or generous or something equally irrelevant to her own current whirlwind of thoughts, "Why would you be?"

Having had little exposure to the shucks of the Hunt, Aethiriin knew nothing of their smoke-like forms and the taboo that surrounded them. Surely any other fae in her place would have figured it out by now. Would have perhaps been horrified by Oryn's flippant use of his powers. Questioned his sanity.

But if this place could go wherever he went, that was enough for her. Thiri did not bother herself with the how of it.

"Yes," she replied, mistified by one of the dawdling glow lights of his realm as it floating about her head like a firebug in mid summer, "I heard a rumor that my Godmother has awakened from torpor and I want to see her."

But certain elements, certain fae, would not permit her to go and Thiri was not yet able to travel the ley on her own. She turned to look back at him over her shoulder, "Will you-" and blinked as she found him in a hammock with two wolves playing. Thiri watched them for a time, finding herself muddled in equal parts curiosity and annoyance. They reminded her strongly of the wyldlings that followed her about - the catling being the worst one of all.

"Will you take me there?" her question broke the silence suddenly, mind picking up the line of thought right where it had left off.

That line of questions, of accusations, did stop the girl in her tracks. Aethiriin blinked into the ether before her.

"I don't like asking for people's names...they never stick around long enough for me to use them," she replied shortly to him, clearly jilted by the fact that the unknown voice in the wood had called for her by it. Oryn now not only knew her name, but her nickname as well - all without asking, all without her approving.

"You have not offered me your name so clearly you do not want me to know it."

And asking where it was not offered felt impolite. As if asking for anything else were not, but she did not make that distinction.

She turned in a fluid motion on her heel to face him, brow lowering over vivid, narrowed eyes, "But you did offer to hide me before. By my count I have only asked for one favor."

Be that as it were, he wasn't wrong. Asking for favors without offering some kind of repayment was also rude.

"What would you want in return for that favor?"

Thiri's eyes remained narrowed, slivering even more if it were physically possible. She wasn't too familiar with debts - too young to have them, really, but she disliked the idea of it quite immediately. The young fae leaned away from his words with a visible grimace. Would have rather he'd asked for money.

Or something.

"Fine," she replied in the same way she would have if Veithir told her she had to clean the entire house because he said so, "but don't expect much. I can't do anything right, after all."

Oh a name. Her expression softened just a smidge, calmer colors shifting within her eyes from vehemently strained peaches to a sun-bathing orange tabby cat.

"Is this what you do when you aren't on hunts? Swing in a shadow hammock?"