Post by Mystique on Sept 27, 2010 18:26:28 GMT -4
...there was a little girl. Her name is unimportant. It has been lost and forgotten, unneeded in this world. She has large yellow eyes, two little moons that dance in the deep blue sky of her face. For you see, she is blue all over. Her hair falls in tiny red ringlets, wildflowers laced through them by a kind mother's hand.
She is her mother's secret, and they whisper in the night places while her mother teaches her The Way.
"Watch me, Ainm ceana, this is the way." She moves the skin across her body, gently folding it back, letting the power ripple through it until it matches the faded green of the grass in her hands. "Now you."
The girl tries, but it is difficult to do the thing. Not because the color is hard to make in her skin, but because the natural tendency is to take on the whole texture, the whole essence of the thing held out to her. She will understand this later when she is grown and the world is not so kind, but for now she does the thing her mother asks.
"Very good! Such a good girl." The mother embraces her offspring, cradling the soft body as if the life will slip away if she lets go. "Remember what I tell you. If the bad things come, you take this color and run. You do not change until they have gone."
The girl nods and promises, sleep making her tiny lids flutter. She is laid in a mossy bower to rest. The mother watches over her, fear and sadness and love mingled in the tears on her face. She must leave her little one and go back to the village.
Traitors and superstitious fools. That is what makes up the village. There was once a time when the children of the Sidhe were welcomed, a sign that the surrounding fey would not harm them, a bond of flesh. Now though, with the Christian hordes washing up everyday, there were murmurs of dark things. Demons, witches, and a terrible word - blasphemy.
The women trust not this priestess who wanders every night into the wilderness. She is too beautiful. She is from the age of blue-painted warriors, faeries, and secret rites of the earth. They will sell her to the brother who has come to build his church and change their ways. That way leads wealth and acceptance in the new world awakening around them. Her way leads to decay and condemnation.
There is a man who keeps company with the priestess. He is what will be known as a king in the eyes of the brown-robed brothers, but truly what he is a leader, a protector, and a consort to the high powers of the priestess, though he knows that power is shifting. He wants peace in this place. He is afraid for the mother and the child, the Sidhe-born that would have been blessed in his father's time, but now is damned. He can save only one. The mother listens to this council, but cannot accept it. Will not. How can a mother abandon her own flesh, her own blood?
"An mor ata air?" What price is this? Will her protector sacrifice a child for the foreign god? Yes. This is the price that man is willing to pay to appease a stronger god. The child must die or both must leave. That is all this new time leaves them.
She awakes to find her mother over her, caressing her cheek. They must go. They must leave this place where the strange and the different are shunned. Footsteps and shrieking voices gather in the distance. The mother panics. She tells the child the bad things have come. Run!
Her skin changes, blends her body perfectly into the tall grass, and she narrows her eyes to slits to watch. She should be running, but she cannot leave her mother. How powerful that mother is as she summons up the earth to twine around those angry women! How wonderful to see that green suffuse her body, making her sleek red hair coil and wave like the bansidhe!
But the story changes. The heroes do not win. They are overcome by the dark rage of inflexible ineffability. There is no escaping change, and casualties are met at the turning of this era. The mother is one of them. The child's innocence is the other. The girl thinks she won't forget as shock pulls her into unconsciousness, but she is wrong.
The Sidhe gather around her, touching her, turning her tiny limbs this way and that. What a strange blue babe? They gather her up and take her to the safe place, away from the sad broken body of their fallen friend. Our time is finished, they say to one another. We take back our promise with us. They will take the land, but it will not bear fruit. That is our way.
Time, however, changes ways. It will change what they know of themselves. The Sidhe will take on a new name, that of mutant, though there will be transitions before that. Titles that invoke disgust and distrust -freak, abomination, outcast, and more.
The blue child rides the waves of time, though it leaves no outward mark. Her power does that much for her. Yet, no matter how many scars she remakes to healthy flesh, she cannot heal her memory. She cannot remember the mother, the quiet fields under star filled nights, or the gentle touch of love. Because of this, she is lonely, and the loneliness is slowly corrupting her heart.
Her story remains unfinished. The lines of her destiny as unfixed as her body. Where will she end up? Only time will tell...
She is her mother's secret, and they whisper in the night places while her mother teaches her The Way.
"Watch me, Ainm ceana, this is the way." She moves the skin across her body, gently folding it back, letting the power ripple through it until it matches the faded green of the grass in her hands. "Now you."
The girl tries, but it is difficult to do the thing. Not because the color is hard to make in her skin, but because the natural tendency is to take on the whole texture, the whole essence of the thing held out to her. She will understand this later when she is grown and the world is not so kind, but for now she does the thing her mother asks.
"Very good! Such a good girl." The mother embraces her offspring, cradling the soft body as if the life will slip away if she lets go. "Remember what I tell you. If the bad things come, you take this color and run. You do not change until they have gone."
The girl nods and promises, sleep making her tiny lids flutter. She is laid in a mossy bower to rest. The mother watches over her, fear and sadness and love mingled in the tears on her face. She must leave her little one and go back to the village.
Traitors and superstitious fools. That is what makes up the village. There was once a time when the children of the Sidhe were welcomed, a sign that the surrounding fey would not harm them, a bond of flesh. Now though, with the Christian hordes washing up everyday, there were murmurs of dark things. Demons, witches, and a terrible word - blasphemy.
The women trust not this priestess who wanders every night into the wilderness. She is too beautiful. She is from the age of blue-painted warriors, faeries, and secret rites of the earth. They will sell her to the brother who has come to build his church and change their ways. That way leads wealth and acceptance in the new world awakening around them. Her way leads to decay and condemnation.
There is a man who keeps company with the priestess. He is what will be known as a king in the eyes of the brown-robed brothers, but truly what he is a leader, a protector, and a consort to the high powers of the priestess, though he knows that power is shifting. He wants peace in this place. He is afraid for the mother and the child, the Sidhe-born that would have been blessed in his father's time, but now is damned. He can save only one. The mother listens to this council, but cannot accept it. Will not. How can a mother abandon her own flesh, her own blood?
"An mor ata air?" What price is this? Will her protector sacrifice a child for the foreign god? Yes. This is the price that man is willing to pay to appease a stronger god. The child must die or both must leave. That is all this new time leaves them.
She awakes to find her mother over her, caressing her cheek. They must go. They must leave this place where the strange and the different are shunned. Footsteps and shrieking voices gather in the distance. The mother panics. She tells the child the bad things have come. Run!
Her skin changes, blends her body perfectly into the tall grass, and she narrows her eyes to slits to watch. She should be running, but she cannot leave her mother. How powerful that mother is as she summons up the earth to twine around those angry women! How wonderful to see that green suffuse her body, making her sleek red hair coil and wave like the bansidhe!
But the story changes. The heroes do not win. They are overcome by the dark rage of inflexible ineffability. There is no escaping change, and casualties are met at the turning of this era. The mother is one of them. The child's innocence is the other. The girl thinks she won't forget as shock pulls her into unconsciousness, but she is wrong.
The Sidhe gather around her, touching her, turning her tiny limbs this way and that. What a strange blue babe? They gather her up and take her to the safe place, away from the sad broken body of their fallen friend. Our time is finished, they say to one another. We take back our promise with us. They will take the land, but it will not bear fruit. That is our way.
Time, however, changes ways. It will change what they know of themselves. The Sidhe will take on a new name, that of mutant, though there will be transitions before that. Titles that invoke disgust and distrust -freak, abomination, outcast, and more.
The blue child rides the waves of time, though it leaves no outward mark. Her power does that much for her. Yet, no matter how many scars she remakes to healthy flesh, she cannot heal her memory. She cannot remember the mother, the quiet fields under star filled nights, or the gentle touch of love. Because of this, she is lonely, and the loneliness is slowly corrupting her heart.
Her story remains unfinished. The lines of her destiny as unfixed as her body. Where will she end up? Only time will tell...