Chapter Four: The Lovers

Chapter Four – The Lovers

It was a giant – toad? Aodhan swiped at his brow and examined the creature, lips twitching, but he didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or cry. It looked like a regular toad, but it was the size of a person, and it was even wearing clothes! A fancy jacket stretched over its slimy back, somehow fitted to his shoulders in a way that wouldn’t rip.

“Password,” it croaked again. Helpless, Aodhan looked at Kian, who gazed at the creature with indifference, but said nothing. Perhaps since Aodhan was a newcomer, he had to figure out the password himself and couldn’t have it told to him by someone else? Scratching at his eyebrow, Aodhan broke into a cold sweat.

“I’m sorry. Could you give me a hint?” Aodhan asked in a small voice, ignoring the snort of the boy next to him.

The toad seemed to grow a little taller, an arrogant tilt to its head. “You only get one hint. Are you sure you want to use it?”

Aodhan nodded rapidly. Anything would work, but right now he had nothing to go on. How was he supposed to guess otherwise?

The toad cleared its throat. “The answer is the last line of a verse. I will now recite the verse to you:

‘In the morning they arise,

And their moony covering

Is soaring in the skies,

With the tempests as they toss,

Like- almost anything-

Or – “ (1)

The toad finished reciting and sat back calmly to wait. Aodhan blinked slowly twice. “So I. . .have to finish the verse?”

“That is correct.”

Swallowing hard, Aodhan turned to Kian with his eyes widened, as if begging, but the boy remained indifferent. Aodhan even suspected he was holding back a yawn. The toad noticed this look and immediately croaked a warning.

“Each person wishing to pass into An Uaimh Bhinn shall answer separately and whisper their response to me to avoid cheating.”

Aodhan sucked his lips into his mouth, thinking hard. The last line should logically rhyme with “toss.” But what rhymed with toss? Loss? Gloss? Moss? As he was turning over different options in his mind, he didn’t notice the toad’s large, unblinking eyes narrowing on him. It took two large whiffs of air and croaked wildly as it noticed something distinctly dusty coming from the thoughtful youth.

“Human!” it shouted, pointing a large, webbed foot at Aodhan, whose eyes went wide. “A human got in! Someone! Call the guards!”

Aodhan was frozen in place. After the toad’s shout, the voices inside the city seemed to quiet somewhat. As they stood there, the toad still pointing its foot at the slender youth that was trembling like a cattail in the wind, a light snort broke the tension.

Kian had crossed his arms. “I didn’t know toads could smell. A bit of dust gets up your slimy nostrils and you think we’ve been invaded. You missed the most obvious scent, too.”

The toad huffed. “I know what I smelled. What ‘most obvious scent’?”

Grumbling under his breath, Kian rolled his eyes and walked up to Aodhan. “Please, excuse me.” He grinned wolfishly and darted a hand at Aodhan’s neck, pulling the dragon pendant out of his collar.

At first the toad didn’t understand, so, with another insolent snort, Kian tugged Aodhan over by the necklace like a dog by its collar until they were right in front of it. Aodhan had to bend slightly at the waist to accommodate Kian’s youthful height. He felt his face heat up for no good reason and looked off to the side. A silence so complete that Aodhan could hear his own heartbeat fell over them. The crickets stopped chirping and even the wind took a rest. In that moment of stillness, the toad’s soul left its body.

The toad dropped flat to the ground, making weird push-up motions that Aodhan only understood were its way of bowing after a staring for a while. It hollered wildly as it bowed repeatedly, a green blur against the dirt path it was moving so fast. “My deepest apologies my lord! Pray don’t be too offended! This servant is stupid and blind! Please punish me as you see fit.”

Aodhan swallowed back a mouthful of blood. Is he talking to me? He snuck another glance at Kian. The boy still had him by the neck, viewing the kowtowing amphibian with keen pleasure. Or is he talking to this boy?

As it turns out, he was talking to Aodhan. Once Kian had released him, Aodhan stepped back slowly and cleared his throat, effectively stopping the toad’s display of subservience. It avoided looking at Aodhan, trembling all over, and moved to the side to let them pass. After they passed, the toad fell to the ground again, though if he was bowing again, or unconscious, Aodhan couldn’t tell.

Aodhan quickly forgot about the toad. An Uaimh Bhinn spread out before him and every thought he had ever had was instantly wiped from his head.

Lanterns like the ones illuminating the path were strung up in the branches over their heads, casting a blue pallor over the glen. Wooden staircases clung to the thick trunks and bridges made of a material as delicate and clear as glass, but lighter and more flexible crisscrossed overhead, allowing whoever walked across to look like they were floating. Down below, hundreds of creatures bustled about in what was equivalent to a human market, except instead of cries of “fresh carrots” or “trinkets for your sweetheart” it was “fresh goblin liver” and “curses for your enemies.”

“If you think this is grand and exciting, wait until you see the larger cities,” Kian said, grinning at Aodhan’s childlike wonder. Together, they slid into the crowd seamlessly and strolled along, eyeing the displays with everyone else. Thankfully, no one else noticed there was an intruder in their midst, as many of the sidhe chose to look more like humans, and with all the scents mingling in the market, no one noticed anything wrong with his. Though Aodhan noticed that as he passed, many of the creatures frowned, sniffing hard, but instead of calling him out like the toad had, they turned white (or green, gray, or yellow depending on the species) with shock and hurried away like they had been stung.

Lost in thought, Aodhan played with the dragon around his throat, running his fingers over it to calm himself as he remembered where he was, some of his excitement dampened with despair. He didn’t notice a pair of eyes locked on to every movement of his fingers.

“Kian,” he said suddenly.

“Hm?” The boy raised his head slightly, as if just remembering that Aodhan was there.

“What was the answer?”

“The answer? Oh, the password?” He smirked, revealing the glint of an unnaturally long canine. “It’s ‘a yellow albatross.’”

A yellow albatross, Aodhan thought. How was he ever supposed to guess that? With a sigh, Aodhan struggled to focus. What was he supposed to be doing right now?

“Kian,” he called again, blushing after he realized the boy was already looking at him.

“Yes?”

“Who do you think I should talk to to find Lord Maeron?” At this point the two had reached the far edge of the glen, where the crowds were thinner and the light less abundant.

Kian rubbed his chin in thought. “There should be members of the local council around here somewhere. You could start asking around for one of them and see if they know anything.”

Aodhan nodded. “But who to ask?” he mused aloud, scrutinizing the creatures nearest to him. Suddenly, he realized something and spun back to face Kian. “You don’t have to come with me. You’ve already done enough.”

Kian languidly put his arms behind his neck, as though stretching. “Hmm, no. I think I’ll stay a bit longer. It’s not often one comes across a human in this place. I want to see what happens. Whether you find Lord Maeron or get ripped into pieces on the way, it’s bound to be dreadfully interesting.”

Blinking, Aodhan swallowed hard and tried to ignore the ‘ripped to pieces’ part for the sake of having company. “Ah, um, thank you.” He scratched his eyebrow and zoned out for a moment while looking at a person whose skin was bark, their hair made of maple leaves. “Oh, yeah,” he said, “is this your true form?”

Kian didn’t move out of his relaxed position, but Aodhan sensed that the boy had stiffened slightly. “Of course not.”

Seeing that he was unwilling to say anymore about it, Aodhan backed off and focused on picking out the least scary creature to talk to. Except. . .they all looked scary. Even the ones with human figures had snake eyes or shark teeth or something else horrifying. He heard the boy next to him breathe out in amusement. “Does that disappoint you?”

“No,” Aodhan said immediately, then bit his lips. “Well, maybe a little.”

Kian raised an eyebrow. “Why is that?”

Aodhan scuffed his foot against the dirt, hands behind his back. He looked at the ground as he spoke, ears burning. “It’s just that this form is so cute.”

He peeked at the boy from the corner of his eye and frowned, noticing an expression of displeasure cross his face like a shadow. He amended himself quickly. Sidhe probably weren’t too fond of being called “cute.”

“Not cute. Definitely not cute, that’s not what I meant at all,” he sputtered, “I meant, less threatening, which makes me more comfortable, so I really like this completely not cute form of yours.”

Kian smiled and shook his head. “That’s good, then. Follow me. I have a friend living nearby that might be able to help us find a council member.” He turned on his heel and went down one of the dim-lit paths branching off from the glen. Aodhan hurried after him, silently sighing in relief that he wouldn’t have to approach anyone himself. He had always been an introverted person, barely able to talk to his peers in the village, let alone sidhe that could very well rip his head off for saying the wrong thing. Betha was always better at dealing with people than he was.

The thought of his sister sent a lump to his throat and he was suddenly grateful that he was walking behind Kian so he couldn’t see how Aodhan’s expression twisted. He coughed to clear out the lump and stumbled up so he could walk next to Kian, “Who’s this friend?”

“He’s someone I trust, so don’t worry about him revealing you.”

“Oh. What should I call him?”

“I call him Old Gray, but it’s best if you don’t speak while in his presence. He finds human voices especially grating to the ear and will likely block out everything you say.”

“My voice? How is it any different from yours?”

Kian scoffed. “Of course, your dull human hearing wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, but to the ears of any sidhe, your voice is the equivalent of metal grating on stone.”

Aodhan frowned and unconsciously spoke in a whisper. “Then how do you stand listening to me?”

“I happen to like the sound of metal grating on stone,” he answered simply. “We’re almost there.”

The glen was far behind them now, only the barest lilting tone of the flute carried toward them on the wind. They had come to a clump of trees covered in lanterns that glowed not just blue, but also red, green, and yellow. In the center of this stood two tightly intertwined trees, their roots growing together, branches tangled so thoroughly that they could never be separated. Kian walked up to these two trees and stared at them for a while.

Strangely, as Aodhan examined the trees alongside him, he felt something in his memories stir, awakening after years of dormancy like an ancient creature at the bottom of the sea. Of course, two trees growing together was nothing rare, he had seen plenty just like this all the time. But why did he feel like he had seen these particular trees before?

“There’s a special story behind these trees,” Kian said, gently placing a palm against one of the trunks. In response to his touch, a faint green light seemed to pulse through the cracks in the bark. “I’ve told you how sidhe only tell one other person their true name, right?”

Aodhan nodded.

“Well, sharing a true name is the same as giving the other person control of your soul. It’s the same as letting them hold a dagger to your neck – you have to trust wholeheartedly that they won’t kill you.”

The boy’s eyes seemed to glow as he stared at the trees, continuing his story after a moment of silence.

“According to Old Gray, these two trees used to be a young sidhe couple. They were enemies for a long while. Apparently, their families shared the same territory quite peacefully, but ever since childhood these two had held deep hatred for each other, despite their families’ hope that they would become good friends. They weren’t even sure why the two were so hostile, until one day, in the midst of a particularly vicious fight, the truth was revealed.

“The woman, by the name of Niamh, claimed that the man, Oisin, had stolen something precious from her, a hair pin that she had taken great care to shape and imbue with energy. Thus, whoever owned the pin could store some of their own lifeforce within it. Niamh said she had been saving the pin to gift to her love in the future, but, seeing how greatly she treasured the pin, Oisin had stolen it and even now refused to return it.

“The two families broke up the fight, in which both Niamh and Oisin were gravely injured, and separated them until they could peacefully resolve the matter. The obvious solution was just for Oisin to return what didn’t belong to him, but no matter how his family pleaded, he stubbornly refused. No one could figure out just why he was so intent on keeping the little bauble. Several decades passed in this manner and the two didn’t see each other’s faces even once during this time. Gradually, Niamh began to forget her past grievance. One day, she was collecting berries in the wood not far from her home and heard a rustling behind her. Who could it be, but Oisin?

“Now, over thirty years had passed and they were no longer teenagers. Though sidhe don’t age like you humans do, and both still looked quite youthful, they were no longer adolescents and faced each other with maturity. However, Niamh hadn’t completely forgotten her hatred and treated the other with disdain, which sparked another argument.

“Swept up by their passions, the two came very close to each other and they quickly realized that their enmity from long ago had developed into deep attraction. In an instant, their hatred turned into lust and the two made love there on the forest floor.”

At this part, Aodhan couldn’t stop his cheeks from burning and hoped the glow from the lanterns would cover it.

“Once the two had finished, still lying peacefully among the bushes, Oisin took something out of his discarded clothes and quietly tied it into Niamh’s hair. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘I’ll return this hair pin to you. After these three decades, it holds enough of my lifeforce that you could kill me without a second thought. With this, let our past grievances lay to rest and allow the future to be peaceful.’

“These words sparked rage in Naimh, who thought that he was only returning the pin because he had already had her and no longer had use for it. In a fit, she threw the pin to the ground and stomped on it, snapping it in half.

“But Oisin had been telling the truth and because his lifeforce was contained within the pin, he was greatly injured. Seeing this, Naimh hesitated, confused. With a sigh, Oisin told her everything. He had only stolen the pin in the first place to keep her from giving it to someone else – pure jealousy. Once they had been separated, Oisin’s affections only grew deeper the longer they were apart and so, with only the pin to remember her by, he slowly fashioned the pin into a gift that would show his devotion to her. He thought that once they met again, he could return it and tell her of his true feelings.

“With this, Naimh scrambled to fix the pin, but the damage had been done and Oisin had only moments left to live.

“Sobbing, Naimh clung to Oisin and told him she loved him too. He smiled through bloody teeth and told her that to love her in this life was his greatest gift, that even if he died, at least he had died at the hands of the one he loved. Naimh sobbed harder and, seeing him take his last breaths, wished fervently to be together in the next life. Hugging each other tightly, the two whispered their true names to each other and, finally, Oisin took his last breath. Overcome with despair, Naimh took the broken hair pin and jabbed it into her own throat.

“As her vision faded, she noticed that her body seemed stuck to the ground and saw, astonished, that her legs were turning into roots, her body becoming stiff with bark, and Oisin’s cold body was the same. With a last, contented smile, Naimh drew her last breath and in moments the two had been transformed into two intertwined trees, together forever.”

Despite himself, Aodhan was enthralled. “And. . .these two trees are them?”

Kian shrugged. “That’s what Old Gray says. And, these two trees do seem to have an unusual amount of spiritual consciousness, so it’s possible.”

“How romantic,” Aodhan sighed. “So was the pin lost forever after that?”

Kian smirked, seeming like Aodhan had said something funny. “Who knows?”

The story was really quite romantic and tragic, but it didn’t explain why Aodhan felt he had been here before. Perhaps he had come across them on his first trip in the Tir Na Nog, but why would he remember this place of all places? Deep in thought, Aodhan placed a hand on the trunk closest to him and smiled a little at the warmth of the bark. Next to him, Kian’s dark eyes flashed, but settled before Aodhan had time to wonder about it.

Suddenly, from above them came a voice. “Well, well, look who decided to come pay this old man a visit.”

In an instant, Kian’s face softened. They both looked up. Carefully descending one of the clear staircases was a tall, human-shaped sidhe covered in a silvery cloak. The sidhe was obviously an elder, hair gray, an aura of wisdom circling him, but his skin was unlined and youthful. His eyes carried a depth that made Aodhan feel like staring too long would get him sucked in and buried.

“And you’ve brought a friend. How unusual,” he said, but something in his tone of voice told Aodhan he wasn’t actually surprised.

“Nice to see you too, but he’s not a friend,” Kian said seriously, which made Aodhan blush a little, feeling hurt despite himself. Of course, they had only known each other for maybe an hour, so they couldn’t be anything more than acquaintances, but Aodhan felt a sort of kinship with the boy. Aodhan quickly stuffed the feeling down and kept his expression neutral.

Hearing this, Old Gray scrutinized Aodhan and raised his bushy gray brows. “I see. You were serious.”

Kian nodded solemnly, but Aodhan looked back and forth between them, wondering what he had missed. Old Gray sighed and waved them forward. “You might as well come up. But make sure the human cleanses himself before you do. I despise the scent of human. Even if he’s smeared with the precious lord’s scent, the dust tickles my nose.” With this, he went back up the stairs, nose turned up.

Aodhan blinked. “He wants me to bathe?” Subconsciously, Aodhan tried to smell himself. He didn’t smell that bad. Kian rolled his eyes.

“He’s just being fussy. Come, there’s a spring just down this path.” He led the way deeper into the forest. Aodhan stumbled after him like a newly born lamb.

“Wait, do I actually have to bathe? I don’t have any other clothes with me.” Not to mention, he was uncomfortable undressing in this place where who knows how many different eyes could be watching.

“I’ll find clothes for you, not to worry. And this is Old Gray’s private spring. None would dare to enter it uninvited.”

Aodhan’s heart calmed slightly. Was the scent of human really so abhorrent? This insecurity had begun to nag at him since the toad incident. Aodhan wanted to ask Kian about it, but feared the other saying he actually smelled repulsive. Unconsciously, as they walked, Aodhan began to drift further away, leaving several feet of space between them.

“Hey,” Kian scolded suddenly. “Don’t go so far away. Are you trying to get snatched by one of the flesh-eaters?”

Aodhan jumped and trotted closer, but still left more distance than before, which made Kian raise an eyebrow.

After another few minutes, they came upon a natural spring, surrounded by high walls of stone. It was even a hot spring, with steam rising from the clear water in clouds, so Aodhan wouldn’t have to bathe in the cold. Aodhan stepped up to the lip of the spring and peered in. The water was so pure that he could count every rock at the bottom.

“Take your time and call for me when you’re done. I’ll leave clothes right here,” Kian said, patting a knee-high boulder next to him before he made to leave.

“Wait,” Aodhan called. He had decided to swallow his pride and ask.

“What is it?”

He swallowed hard. “Do I. . . do I actually smell bad?” After squeezing out the words, his whole body immediately flushed red.

The wavering tone made Kian pause, eyeing Aodhan with an unreadable expression. “Depends on who you ask. Some sidhe have less tolerance than others, but as to whether it smells bad is entirely a matter of opinion.”

Figuring that he had already made a fool of himself, Aodhan damned himself further. “Then, what’s your opinion?”

He didn’t look at Kian as he asked, pretending to focus on the spring water, so he was surprised to hear footsteps before the youth was suddenly beside him. Then, to Aodhan’s shock and horror, the boy leaned in and sniffed around him deeply. Aodhan’s mouth fell open.

Done sniffing, the boy leaned back. “Hm. Not too bad.”

“Then,” Aodhan said, voice small, “it doesn’t bother you?”

Kian shook his head softly and lightly thumped Aodhan’s forehead with a knuckle. “Why so worried? It’s not like you smell like shit. More like a dusty library. Stop fretting over something so trivial. Call me when you’re done.”

Having said his piece, Kian swept out of the enclosure, leaving Aodhan to stare blankly at the water for a long moment before slowly undressing and slipping in.

The water lapped gently over his shoulders. Tugging his hair out of its braid, he ran his fingers through it and dunked his head under quickly, scrubbing gently at the roots. Finished with his hair, he scrubbed at his body, mind blank as he enjoyed the rather mundane activity.

Suddenly, as he was scrubbing his foot, he heard a splash and froze. A dark shadow was moving under the water of the spring, moving toward him at lightning speed.

(1) This is a verse from Edgar Allan Poe’s 1946 poem “Fairy-Land.”

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