Beltane

[truailligh]

Who: truailligh ; open
What: Celebrating Bealltainn*
Where: Plaza near the gardens
When: May 1st, after nightfall
Note: * Scottish Gaelic spelling of Beltane

Comments

[truailligh]

If something like that happens again, I'll be better prepared, she vows and she means it. Even if it means offering up blood and her throat to The Morrígan sooner than she ever normally would she'll still do it because she doesn't want to be in that position in again. I'll come make sure you're alright seeing as the stupid things we talk on here seem to be rendered useless whenever we really have need of them.

It's not so difficult for her in all honesty to place her trust in royals. There were lines of banshees before who pledged themselves to nobles but still, she just wishes they were more decisive about the right things, about citizens they do not wish to see harmed.

If they want us to depend on them, to really believe that we all truly belong here, it's a strange way to go about it. I wonder just how easy it is to be allowed to speak with one of them. For some residents, it would most likely be easier than for others but maybe she could try. It wouldn't hurt after all and Genero had never really proved particularly helpful or willing to talk to anyone about anything of great import. But prepared how? She has wards and her own magic but she wants to know what Eden has, and others, because knowing what she can and can't rely on are always handy in a pinch when her wards don't seem to provide any sort of shelter.

bread arrogance. laffo. sounds delicious.

[solarpurpura]

Knowing who can be called together. She is much the same as Shirley on that account, she had her wards and her charms, had her spells, but she was only one singular witch, if she were swarmed by anything they could overtake her, easily.

There are some evident groups, as it is, but they would... not be interested in our safety. The hunters certainly had no interest in them, and she has not spoken to Rukia again since she left the house, Eden can only assume the girl was discomfited by her. Lord Death has a fondness for them both, but Eden did not take it as his purview to meddle unnecessarily. The demons would clearly fend for themselves, it was their nature.

What Eden would truly like is to have her own fealty, have her wires bent deep into a few people. Then she could rely on them to come as she had need of them. She would have to... become much stronger before she was anywhere near intimidating enough for such a feat however. She's grown considerably in her time here, but she doubts her power still, not without turning to the likes of the demons for more, and that she will not do. Her name and her blood is promised to the Hill, it would not take kindly to her treachery. She had Kelly already, his presence was empowering to her as he bore her brother's strings, but Eden was reluctant to pull on them too roughly. He was her friend, she did not wish to use him for canon fodder.

And you don't need to worry about me... I'll be all right. Not that she didn't appreciate it, though she wonders how to express that much.

[truailligh]

Other people have magic but they've always had this...this... she waves her hands through the air as she tries to get the right word to spring to mind, noble air about them.

She'd spoken to one of the hunters, to warn him to stay far, far away from her and she was sure that at least one of the little girls she'd upset had to have some sort of magic, just from the overall aura she'd had when they'd spoken. And it wasn't as though she had a problem with doing good. It was just that if push came to shove, they didn't ever understand the nature of sacrifice or that there were things you had to do that you just couldn't question, that killing or harming seriously were the better option. Or that having a little bit of vengeance was a good thing, even for what they might wave off as a small slight. Death...Death she could perhaps rely on and maybe Dresden; he'd warded her place of solace for her when she hadn't been able to and something about him had reminded her of her brother. A joking layer that held something made of steel, something that would do whatever was necessary.

She'll have to try and find an opportunity to talk to him again in the future so that she can suss him out better.

She wishes she had Corbin here. The Morrígan's faithful Cù Sìth, the fairy dog that should help her to bring her what she needs. If she could go back home again and at least finish what needs to be finished before she arrives back... But she can't remember how she managed to escape or return last time even though returning wasn't on the cards.

I worry about the people I care for here, even if they're few and far between. She worries because her own grief if they die is a hundred times more painful and crushing than that of others grieving for their loved ones.

[solarpurpura]

She rests her chin on her knees, staring back into the fire.

It was only Kelly, before. Eden was free to do as she wished, apart from make decision about her own body, but simply because she was free to make her friends as she wished did not mean her family would not harm them. They did not think much of powerless humans, and they thought only of power when faced with other witches. There were not many of the latter, they knew to stay away from the hills, to stay on the far sides of the rivers.

It's difficult, to have so many here. Yes, Eden, friendship is hard. I cannot watch over them too closely without staining them.

[truailligh]

What do you mean, staining them? Her attention is on Eden alone as she thinks this and it drives home the divide there is between them, despite the similarities of birthlines and obligations and expectations and the importance of tradition.

She runs fingers over her marks and glances down at her legs and the scars that hide beneath the fabric.

[solarpurpura]

We are rotted inside, and our magic is black. That is simple fact, without any hope of reformation or redemption. She had been born destined for Hell when her time spreading her filth across the Earth was through. You cannot reap its benefits without a cost, and I am sure to pay mine.

She did not feel guilty about the small trinket she had given to Dawn, or the eye she had crafted for Noah. One was a negligible influence and while the eye had taken much more of herself to create, it was a temporary fixture until Noah was healed.

Kelly is... much older than he should be. I can see it on him. She had always feared that she would taint him, and it seems she was right. Given the proper amount of time, she would come to accept him as family: the father of her daughters, her partner and her brother's too. Put to her now, she just felt worried and guilty, but in many ways the Morrisons were the lesser evil in Kelly Bridge's life. Still, his eyes should not be so dark, and Eden knows she could do it to another with a heavy enough film of her tarry magic on their skin.

[truailligh]

There's always balance on some scale. No good without bad, no bad without good. Simplistic and well, it's not always the case but it's how life works. Anything we do needs a sacrifice and she runs a finger across the line cut in her throat for Tairngreacht before she continues, if life continues the way it is, my body will be cold and in the ground in less than thirty years and I'll be locked away in Otherworld.

It's what makes her hate anyone who grieves and mourns and it's why a little group of girls in the city hate her by now because it's their grief that she has to put up with and when she's the only banshee in the city who has to deal with it, it's impossible not to hate them, more than a little.

She's quiet then, considering this and she can't imagine what it would be like if Cedric or Cassandra or Blair or even Corbin showed up different to how she knows them. Have you tried to talk to him about it?

[solarpurpura]

She glances at Shirley sadly. Her family was by no means immortal, but the consumption of their fellow did certainly give them an eerie glamour late into their years. Never much more than a century, and not spared the pains of old age inside, but that was still longer, by more than half, than what Shirley hoped for. And to spend that precious time drinking sorrow... Eden understands perfectly well, though she wonders if it shows.

It is difficult to talk about... our future. He does not tell me things because he does not think I will bear it. They have been trying to repair the disconnect in their friendship the entire time he has been here. He knows too much and she is still fragile, needs every moment of those ten years to grow into her burdens.

And I know why he chooses us, I would not have it differently. Because they were there for him when all others turned their eyes away. It was she and Othniel who came down from the Hill to find Kelly bloodied in the alleyway and take him home, and they had done it because it was Kelly in kind who had looked at Eden, ashen from the loss of her baby, and tucked her into his side where she would be safe for a little while.

Eden lifts her head and turns towards Shirley fully, but dark eyes and sad mouth. We cannot define the balance, only be moved by it.

[truailligh]

If a banshee ever lived beyond her fifty years, the madness would hit. Grief, layers deep, makes a mind snap. Some cannot cope at all and bloodlines fall and die because it's too weak and others go before that deadline for the same reason. More and more try for multiple daughters to ease the load and to keep a bloodline alive but it doesn't always work that way, not anymore. Or some take the same view as Shirley and end the lines with them if they can.

She can understand where Kelly is coming from - and that makes her like him all the more - because that's what people do when they care but this is Eden's life too and maybe preparing her for what's to come wouldn't be so bad because despite what parts of Shirley would maybe like to hope for, she cannot see much great good in Eden's life and what she has just heard does nothing to reassure her. Maybe he needs more time and to see how your life is here. Men can have their moments of thinking they have to be big chivalrous buffoons on their white horses, riding in to rescue the poor little girl. Excuse her, she has read too much Chaucer and other medieval literature in her life. But if he chooses you and your family then he owes it to you, doesn't he? Not an easy thing to bring up. Sometimes knowing nothing is better than knowing at all but having the option to choose freely makes all the difference sometimes.

Her shoulders shift and if it was day, a little huff of laughter would have escaped her but it's just silence instead.

Only the Gods and the ones who made and shaped the world have a true say in the end. Everything else is doing what is required, moving toward a point for them whether they know it or not. And for Shirley, she both knows it and doesn't; the balance is skewed for her, tilting her onto the darker path instead of the easy road ahead.

[solarpurpura]

There's some tentative amusement in Eden's expression at the way Shirley describes men. It isn't her experience, while her elder brother Lehi would never fail to ride in and protect her, that was because it was his role in the family. Men were otherwise considered weaker, and the property of their respective women. Kelly will always belong to Eden, in the eyes of Mother Morrison, even if Eden makes no attempt to exercise that right.

She is also not so familiar with the option to choose anything freely, and she confesses quietly,

Choosing is also difficult.

[truailligh]

While men don't bare the bloodline, they're still considered normal men by any standard even if her dad is...well, Lachlan's sort of an idiot about things at times and he's more than happy to volunteer to take part in girly things with Shirley.

Better than not having an options though.

[solarpurpura]

Eden is not convinced of that, but she thinks she accepts that difference between the two of them. She stretches out in the leaves quietly, curling an arm under her head, is very used to the woods, and to firelight, comfortable in the dark.

Are you happy with what you have chosen, Shirley?

[truailligh]

Shirley draws herself straighter at that, knees so tight to her chest now that it's uncomfortable as her fingers clench and she'll have faint marks in the morning. Has she even chosen yet? She has plans and she knows what turn in the road she will take but until she takes the Dullahan's scythe, she cannot say that she's really made a choice.

But she can picture it vividly, holding it in her hand, Corbin's muzzle and then face stained with blood as he shifts back, the headless horses whinnying and bucking before they're set loose and she wonders if Corbin will give chase or if he'll go back to his mistress.

She can picture her mother's head, separated from her body, lying uselessly on the floor.

Does this mean she has chosen? Most likely.

I think I will be. No one else will be so it might as well be me.