Maybe you're right, I'm no good            Got a heart made of glass, and a head made of wood       Let me make it clear - when I'm gone, I'm gone The night's just the night, and there's no coming dawn When shall I return?             I confess, I don't know what's around the bend, what's left to unfold                      I could promise you the moon brought down with a lasso                                                 I need to stay, but alas, I must go                                        Back in the stark woods behind your old house                                I buried something that'll leave you no doubt                                        Something to prove myself to you                                                 Half is a lie, but the good part's true                I need to stay, but alas, I must go           Maybe you should move on, and I'll go it alone Out in the barren field where we first met                        Full of decay from a life in the red                                  Oaths that I broke, the money I spent             Couldn't make it work, couldn't even make rent                                     The people I forgot that I knew, that I met                       Maybe my life will repay the debt                                                  I need to stay                                                       I need to stay                                            I need to stay, but alas, I must go              I thought you wanted me to stay, but you need me to go I just wanna say, now I finally know - alas, I must go!

faolanmeadowes‌:

He awaits the inevitable shift, the moment they recall their parting words and it becomes too hard to say what needs to be said. But Faolan has held onto his own this long, and Fionn to his, so what makes him think he needs to be said? “You didn’t want to come back,” he repeats, a little flatly, unable to decipher the look on Fionn’s face. “And yet you are here.” Why? He longs to ask, and bites it back just as quick, the arch to his brows a question enough. It is hard to tell if they are speaking of the present, or the aches of the past, but maybe this is a Faolan issue rather than a them issue. His head, after all, is so often stuck in the past he might as well have left it there.

Fionn steps forward, and the tension in Faolan’s shoulders settle a bit. There is no malice in his brother’s face, none of the violence he’s come to think he might receive upon seeing him again. No, it feels like the two of them are standing on a threshold as strangers rather than brothers. “Do not turn this around on me, I have never truly gone. If you wanted to find me, you need only find Cliodna, I checked in with her often in my travels.” He regrets not having more of a place for his siblings to find him, for not having a home in which they might know to find him, but he can’t be blamed for it. His home is in the glen where his family once lived, and it only recently has shifted, somewhat, to belong to the smithy in Lethe. “I have been here often. And I live here now,” he corrects himself, because he is not going anywhere. Where could he go? The glen? No, he visits there in snippets of time only, unable to bear the rest.

The lie is blatant, and he can only stare. “If you do not wish to tell me where you were, you needn’t make up a story for it. You could just say you do not want to share it,” he points out stiffly. He has no room to be offended, but he is. Foolish of him to think two centuries is long enough to make the hurt less palpable when Fionn lies to him. “If not in town, I can only assume you were running as you do. I hope you are not currently dying though, I do not think our family can handle anything else right now. I certainly cannot.” So much death, everywhere he turns. Fionn, looking like he’s one foot in the grave. Fiona, gone. Gabriel, only a few days away from joining the dead himself, in one way or another.

What is he meant to do? Lie to him? Fionn tilts his chin, and Faolan narrows his eyes. “Fionn, why are you–” An alarming thought strikes him into silence, but he must be wrong. Surely Fionn knows, surely he did not stumble into Lethe again by a pure chance? No, he has to know, he has to be playing with Faolan’s head for… No, he dismisses the thought, too, frowning and studying, so intent on figuring out if Fionn knows that he doesn’t realize he is closer to his brother until they are standing right in front of each other. Closer than they’ve been in two centuries, and he rocks a little. “You do not know. You think I am out here just for the fun of it,” he says, shaking his head.

He stops again, another thought hitting him. Does he… Would she tell him? If she fled? If she abandoned her phone on the water? “Fionn, do you know where Fiona is?” he asks, voice clogged with worry and hope. Let this whole week be a mistake of his own paranoia, let it be that she simply fled. Better running from them than the alternative.

Oh, he hadn’t missed this - withering, in front of Faolan. Yet you are here. His great, big bastard of a brother. Looking at him like, like some mangy cat at the rubbish. Nearly a father to him, Faolan was. In most ways that properly mattered. More a father than he’d ever been, to his own child. Christ, as those human things would say. Must be nice, having a proper god to blame, to beg, to believe in. “Right, yeah. Just find sister dearest, out in all this world.” Could have, if he’d bothered to look. But why would he? Fionn coughed out a laugh, arms crossed tightly, his coat soaked through. No spirit left, sadly, holy or otherwise. 

Right. Kentucky. That’d been where he saw the bottle thing, the bottles, on trees. Something - something about... fuck, he’d forgot the story of it. There was always a story. He was supposed to remember that sort of thing. Like he’d remembered where their little home had been, with his niece and nephew and that sister in law who’d wished him dead, or, at least, gone. Which amounted to much the same, didn’t it? He’d got gone, and wound up beat more than half to death in Galway. Far from anything like family. Glad of it, even scraping himself off the cobblestones, all a mess. Lethe. Faolan and Cliodna both, here in Lethe. With Fiona. 

If only he’d never come this way, in the first place. If only. 

His fingers, claw-like with the cold, were digging into his own arms. He was being scolded, again. And again. And again. This could have been centuries ago, and centuries before that, and back. Back to the Otherlands, the beginning. Lying. Running. Hiding. Dying. Fionn huffed, shaking rain from his hair, irate as any pony left out in the damp. Not about to dignify all that with an answer. Or - no. No. He chewed his lip, shivering. Watching the wet trees, dripping darkly in the gloom, rather than Faolan’s face. As his brother came forward, Fionn slipped back, shying nervously. “Ha. Like hell. When’s the last time you did anything at all for the fun of it, eh?” He chuckled, horribly. So he couldn’t hear that... that tremor, there, of a feeling. Some dread, damn feeling he’d rather not name, standing where he was. Easier to joke - until it wasn’t. 

Fiona. 

“Why would I know?” Then, fast, quick enough to crack. “The fuck do you mean, where she is? Where -” His hands had found Faolan’s shoulders, the words raw with genuine, electrical panic. “What’s happened?” 

heavy as a curse / faolan & fionn

This had been a mistake. That was the thought Fionn woke with, most days. Every day. Nights, too, and he did a great deal of waking, these nights. He’d lost sight of what, exactly, had been the mistake he was thinking of. Perhaps it was just that fucking broad - this had been a mistake. All of this. 

There it was, for the moment. Specifically, staying in Lethe had been a mistake. He lurched awake to this; the epiphany wasn’t half to blinding as the hangover. One eye bruised shut from a brawl at... some bar, somewhere, last night, probably, Fionn threw a look at the man whose hospitality he’d been dragged into accepting. He sniffed, rubbed a hand over his face, shadowed by beard. “S’fine,” that, with a rap of his knuckles on the table in question. “Fine old thing.” Solid wood, respectable. Splattered by many canvases’ worth of paint. “Slept on worse.” He had. Much worse. With a scowl, Fionn reached for a bizarrely empty bottle of whiskey. Didn’t recall that. Might be enough for one last mouthful; he gave it a go, head back. Got precisely enough to whet the appetite. A bit of fume. Fuck. He set the mickey down, with a solid clunk. Pressed it to the table, really. Fighting the urge to throw the damn thing. Fuck!

“Not much for dancing,” he coughed, into his shoulder, cleared his throat from it. Kept trembling, after. Hard to stop, these days. “Used to be. I think. If I was, doubt I kept the steps...” Fionn was ignoring it, the painting. Didn’t like the blue in there. It had been a mistake, too. They all were. Only happened when he was off his face in some way or other. Kept his hands busy. He’d lost that violin he’d stolen. Not lost. Left. Left it with her, when he ran out. Christ. Him, and anyone else bothering to listen; Fionn didn’t care who, so long as something was on her side. Whatever that meant, now. Whatever Fiona might need. Wherever she was. If she was anywhere.

He pushed himself away from all that, and Jonas, and the painting, and the stool he’d somehow managed to stay hunched on. “You go on and like what you like, then.” Flat. Fionn turned back, pulled his palette over, his jar of brushes, and swayed to the sinks. Time to clean up. As much as he could, anyway. 

Date: Thursday, December 9th, 2020 Time: 4:31AM Location: The back room of the gallery

@fionnolonan​

He was a strange man, this ragged thing that Jonas had found sleeping next to the dumpster a few months previously. Strange and beautiful, but broken most of all. A Caravaggio with a knife slash through the center, writ large on the world though it seemed he wished not to be. So much so that he drank himself half to death, meddled with harder substances, and seemed to care little about his own survival. Which was precisely why he had lugged the bastard upstairs that first night, and why he gave him shelter now. Food, shelter, clothing, and art supplies, here and there. Maybe he was a bleeding heart, but Jonas remembered the abyss and all its pull. That was why he let him continue on destroying himself, while Jonas tried to gently prod him towards some brand of self care. Like eating, periodically. It didn’t extend to not falling asleep at the drafting table in the back of the gallery though, or not plowing through a bottle of whiskey that was now resting on a half filled palette. Jonas sighed, unsurprised. “Hey darlin’, you best go sleep on an actual bed instead of this ragged old table.” Jonas said softly, brushing the hair out of Fionn’s eyes rather than shaking his shoulder. Either gesture would have earned him a flail, but this was preferable after he had spent ten minutes in bed worrying about just where Fionn had ended up. The flailing was quick to follow though, which was why he rolled back half a foot, grinning. “I didn’t cattle prod your ass, there’s no need for that shit.” Jonas glanced at the painting that Fionn had been working on, his smile warming even further. “Pretty gorgeous for somebody dancin’ with whiskey, I’d say. And don’t do that shit where you say it’s trash. I like it.”

He’d left. He’d run off, like the dog he was, tail tucked and limping. And then what? Drowned himself, for weeks, in dive bars and side streets and town square parks, where there was nobody but the trees to judge him. But judge they had. Them, and the birds on the wing, and his own sober self, whenever that bastard made a brief, furious appearance. Wasn’t so easy to deal with as he usually was, that one. Insistent. Incandescently angry. 

If only he’d remembered to bring the violin. Could have sold it off. As it was, he’d managed to steal and scrounge his way to his first speedball in years. It hit like a sledgehammer, and Fionn had spent some sort of time - fucked if he knew - spinning in the slow-moving, sinuous dark of a terrible trip. Terrible in both senses. Awe provoking, mesmerizing; he hadn’t gone that hard since... a while, anyway. That time the selkie had hauled him out of the Pacific, up in Vancouver. ‘93? Yes. After - after he let her go. 

Fiona. She hadn’t had a name, then. Funny, that they’d give her one so close to his. Fateful, even. If you believed in that sort of thing. 

But the trip. Terrible. As in horrific, too. What else could you call it, when you spent a few endless hours feeling ghostly, familiar fingers run through your hair, and close ‘round your throat, and shake you ‘til your neck felt likely to snap. He could feel the grasping claws of the rats along the Somme, and in the hold of the ship he’d stowed away on, leaving Ireland the first time, and scuttling through the alleys of Paris. And all of them, chittering in his ears, hissing about the shame of it. The damn disgrace. How dare he. To run from his own child, not once, but twice. Twice. 

In short, by the time he was truly dry again, cold as grave-dirt, shivering like a fresh colt, stomach spun in more knots than a schooner’s rigging, Fionn was already on his way back to that little town in the pines. He hitchhiked. He walked, freezing, stupidly, unless he managed to find a roadside liquor store to get a bit of something at. Or a lot of something. As he shambled into a half familiar bend of forest, Fionn left a bottle of whiskey, empty, upended on a branch. Saw that done someplace. Not here. But somewhere. Stuck with him. Like the memory of Fiona’s wide, blue eyes, staring, brightly, as he stumbled away. Again, and again...

His name. A voice he hadn’t heard in centuries, shouting his name. He spun, sliding in the thick mud. Cliodna had mentioned him. Your brother, she’d said. Though, at this point, Faolan was more hers than Fionn’s. Had been for a long, long, time. But Fionn knew that face, the strength of his stride - like it was yesterday he’d seen them last. He blinked through the damp haze of the day, and the drinking. Where had he been? Did he want to come back? He swayed, looking back the way he’d... had he come from the northeast? Was that northeast? Upriver, or down? “No,” he croaked. Oddly honest. Blame the alcohol. “No, I didn’t. I don’t.” But he was here, all the same. 

Sometimes, it didn’t matter what you want. Your feet knew what you needed. Often, in Fionn’s case, that turned out poorly. So everything was in order, then, wasn’t it? He took a step forward, unsteady, squinting at his brother. “Where’ve I been? Where the fuck have you been, eh?” That barked out, broken, from years and leagues away. “I - I went...” He swallowed, refused to admit it; that he’d gone back. To that home Faolan had had, over in the glen. Where they argued, so bitterly. Where he walked away. “I went to the city. To get some things.” The lie clattered out, obvious. Fionn raised his empty hands, shrugged shoulders that carried no bag, nothing but a ragged old coat. “Didn’t find them.” 

He hadn’t expected to see his brother. Ever. But, when he pictured it, and he’d done that much, it hadn’t been like this. There was something... something looming, closer than the past, and he didn’t like it. In Faolan’s voice. In the beat-down curve of him, as he stood there. If Fionn were painting the man, it’d be in blues, the cadet-greys of grief. No, he didn’t like this at all. Why was his brother in Lethe, in the first place? Faolan had never seemed the type to uproot. Neither had Caoimhe, matter of fact. “What’re you up to, ah?” He slurred, and raised his chin, like he was ready to offer some jaw up to those blacksmith’s fists Faolan had made for himself. It was half-defiant. Half-fearful - maybe more than half, actually. Rather more. Not of his brother. Of that... that something. “What are you doing, Faolan, out here, now?”

heavy as a curse / faolan & fionn

Date: November 04, 2020 Time: 4:52pm Location: On the trail, heading to the river. 

@fionnolonan​

His house is quiet in a way he dreads, and Faolan avoids it. Not difficult to accomplish when the last few days have been spent around Gabriel, trying to squeeze a century’s worth of talking into just a couple days. He’s leaving Gabriel and Aurélie for a day to themselves, and instead he’ll… What? Go rest at home, as his son had tried to threaten, but Faolan only snorts to imagine going home with all its painful silence. Searching seems like a better idea, and let his family call it hopeless wandering, it’s better than nothing, and it guides him from one moment until the next. When everything is gone, sometimes one step in front of the other is the only thing one can do, and he is very familiar with this type of dance.

He isn’t quite to the river, too busy debating which way to go, and which way he went last, when Faolan stops in his tracks. Empathy has a distinct feel to it after a while, and familiar people tend to hit it when they wander too close. His own empathy is wrapped up tight and stuffed in a box for safe-keeping on most days, but a stupid part of him hopes he’ll feel Fiona long before he sees her. This tug on his empathy, this familiarity, is enough to make him flinch for a moment, a desperate hope in his gut, one that’s swiftly doused as he prods it a little more. Not Fiona, no matter how similar they are. Gods, how hadn’t he noticed from the moment he met her that she was Fionn’s daughter? 

“Fionn,” he calls, swallowing his pride and his discomfort, picking up his pace and stopping. Just short of Fionn, unable to step closer when it feels as though an invisible wall is sprouting between them. It’s barbed with their last words to each other and poisoned by all the things to come after. Oh, and how that stops the breath in his lungs, too. What stories they have for each other, if they could give the other a chance to speak them, if Faolan can find a way back in. Does he want one? Hell if he knows. Faolan studies him, taking in the changes that two centuries have done to them both. “Where have you been?” Not for two centuries, no, Faolan isn’t sure he wants to know, because opening the door for those questions opens the door for the rest. But here, in Lethe, where was he while his daughter was gone? “Did not think you would be coming back.” And that’s a lie, he thinks, as soon as its out. Fionn is loyal, and his running is only the same trait he and all the other Meadowes share. “That you would want to,” he corrects with a weary sigh.

fionalaughlin‌:

Persistence is key when it comes to her father. (Her father, her father – still, the thought is new enough to stop and start. Almost unnatural. Almost.) Regret will keep her up at night later on, she’s sure of it, but for now she pushes forward, arms wrapping tight for both of their sakes. Or so Fiona thinks, at least at first. His shuddering breath and rigid shoulders nearly send her reeling back, unleashing another bout of apologies until something caves. No way to be sure what comes first: the folding of his chest or the crumbling of the walls her uncle had taught her to assemble, but no matter which it is, Fiona is suddenly enveloped. By arms still so wrought with tension, by feelings that take all of her breath away, though she can only take partial ownership of them.

A belated answer is what she gets to more than one question, a glance of memory hitting her with staggering force even as she forces some begrudging distance between herself and Fionn. She’d hoped to hear him with more clarity, but instead she’s handed a fluorescent hum, an unforgiving shriek of machinery, and a staggering silence afterward. And then the wailing again, his and hers. Grieving together. All of it in an almost undecipherable cacophony, if only she wasn’t who she is. A familiar scene. One she’s borne witness to more than once, each time with utmost regret. But never more than now as the fate of her mother occurs to her with the weight of a sinking stone. She could look into what preceded it. She could know. But unlike with the truth of her father, Fiona knows suddenly that she wants this bit of ignorance. At least for now. Not exactly bliss, but better than the alternate. “No,” the girl finally murmurs, her father’s apology jarring her eyes open. Can’t be sure when they’d closed. Can’t be sure when these tears appeared, either, but she can only shake her head against them. Her own arms have wrapped around herself as some simple means of consolation. Self-soothing. The means of a child left alone. 

“No, you shouldn’t, um,” her bottom lip quivers and she shakes her head again, shame and tears leaning into her words. Arms unravel and cheeks are swatted at before Fiona gives another attempt. “I’m sorry.” Familiar territory. Makes it easier, even as watery gazes meet with so much between them, shared and otherwise. “I believe you. That she… that she loved me.” It aches to say, so sweet and so sore. Her sentence stammers in its midst, the foundation bowing under the weight of it all. “And I-I’m sorry for you, and for Aurora. For, um, my mother. That you had to go through that.” Unimaginable, almost, the panic, the pain. She’d seen it from strangers at work so frequently. This suddenly intimacy with it, though, is deafening. “You must’ve been so afraid.” And how can she possibly feel anything but pity for her father, then? (Her father, her father – who hadn’t raised her, but who’d held her. Who’d maybe even loved her, brief as it was.) Pity and guilt, that’s what it is. A baby to care for in in the midst of all that mourning. A burden even then. “I’m so sorry. For that, and um, for this. I-I shouldn’t have asked that of you.” Retelling that story, or caring for her for that fleeting period? No way to know.

There’s a ringing in her ears still and Fiona initially tries to fight against it until she realizes it’s a welcome sort of sound. One that’s staggering to her even now, so foreign, so wanted. Now is not the time, except for the fact that it lifts this shroud. It bonds them with something other than these bouts of loss. “That thing you said,” her lips quirk with the approach toward the foreign sound, but she gives it a go all the same with how it echoes in her. “A cuisle. You, um, you called me that before, right?” Before. Before their separation, a quarter of a century’s worth, before she’d started anew, before she’d taken on a life that wasn’t hers at all. It could be his memory, it could be shared, but it’s sturdy and sure like the arms that had held her as a child, even among the tumults of all of this pain. A cuisle. “Do you mind me asking what it means?”

How was it so difficult, and so... so unstoppable, at the same time? Take the wrong stone out of a wall - at least, the walls he remembered, stacked high between the sheep fields of home - and the whole thing came down. Even the sheep knew. Which was why they didn’t jump; it hurt, to fall. Same reason Fionn hadn’t said her name in... in nearly thirty years, apparently. Aurora. That long. Because it hurt to fall, and so his heart did, cracking and bruising all the way down. Believed him? Fionn sniffed, snuffled, eyes away. Why would she believe him? And yet - if anything, he was glad of that. If Fiona was going to make a mistake, tonight, if she was going to make the specific mistake of believing anything he had to say, believing in him, at least she’d picked the truest truth he had to give. Her mother had loved her. Would have loved her. 

Still did, if you believed in that sort of thing. Fionn could, sometimes. Only sometimes. Hallucinogens worked wonders, didn’t they? A magic all their fucking own. 

Hadn’t he told her to stop apologizing? Hadn’t she told him? Oh, they weren’t going to manage it, between them. “No, you - you’ve the right.” Fiona did. She had the right to ask. “She’d want you to know, anyhow.” No, Aurora would have wanted to tell her. How had he finished his drink so fast? More rightly, how had it taken so long, given the circumstances? 

Fionn set his emptied glass down, tapped his fingers on the worn table, nervously, needy for distraction. A cuisle, echoed back at him, wasn’t it. Stupid slip, that. Stupid. Sharp, too. He took a deep, deep breath, nodding, uselessly. “It’s -” his hand had found its way to those stitches, padded by thin, peeling, damp bandages. He pulled his damn fingers away, quick, curling them in on themselves. “Ah... it’s Irish. Gaeilge. That’s - there’s a fae language, you know -” except, she might not, and that was his doing too, “but I... I spent a long while, in Ireland. Sounds more like home than anything else, so...” So what? Why would she care? “Means my pulse. Like - like the beat of my heart. A cuisle mo chroi.” Didn’t have to break it down any more than that, did he? Not that he could, at the moment, throat wrung tight and hoarse. 

He should have gone the other way. Should have turned around and left town, stitches be damned. Stitches and all the rest. Fionn had pushed to his feet before he could pin himself down (easy enough, wasn’t it?) swaying, hands braced on the table. Quick. He’d have to be quick. “I’m...” he swallowed, a sick, shameful heat gathering behind his ribs, creeping up his backbone. Whispering. Coward. Bastard coward. “I just have to step out, a moment, aye?” Fionn slid off the bench, out into the bar, eyes on her. Eyes on eyes so much like his, Christ. His daughter. So much like her mother, like him. Hopefully not like him, at all. “I’ll - I’ll be back.” Liar. He stepped back, wavered. “Promise.” That, with a weak, pale smile. Fucking liar. 

salley gardens | fionn & fiona

isolde-allard‌:

“And where would that be? If you don’t mind me asking” the woman asked politely. His accent gave away he hailed from the Old World as well. Ireland, probably. “That’s true. But I was always more keen on listening to someone else play it than attempt to do it myself” she admitted, unashamed to reveal she’d rather appreciate someone else’s art than make it her own in that particular case. Isolde followed his gaze to the piano she’d been admiring and then back to the stranger, offering a nod as only form of reply. She didn’t own a piano, and hadn’t owned for many decades, and seeing that gorgeous Bösendorfer was making her wish to remedy that as soon as possible.

“I take it you’re a newcomer, then” she mentioned, as his words surely made it sound that way. “I hope your stay in Lethe has been pleasant so far. It surely is an unusual place but it has much to offer” Isolde told him with light smile. Whether he was simply visiting or staying for a long period of time, she could only hope the odd occurrences of Lethe weren’t making him judge the town and its people too harshly.

“Ah, plenty of places. Galway, if I have to be particular. Or Skibbereen... Tralee, even. Hard to choose, you understand.” Fionn sighed, with fondness. It’d been too long. Ought to go back to visit, someday. Soon. Soon as possible. Ought to get out of this town, this state, this country, away from... from everything here, and go home. But she’d been talking about the piano. He shrugged, could see what she meant. “Fair enough. I’m a magpie for new songs, myself. Can’t learn those from listening to my own music, now, can I?” A warm kitchen, a packed pub, a swaying deck - these were fine classrooms, in Fionn’s view. Places of and for people, filled with the sounds of them. Best schools in all the world. 

Newcomer. Always, wasn’t he? Even if he’d been a place before, the people were always new by the time he came back. Grandchildren and great grandchildren, and more, down the line. Fionn chuckled, barely. Thinly. “I am that. And it hasn’t been. Pleasant, that is...” he drew the bow across that violin’s strings, heart juddering to the sound of it, warm and sweet. And sad. “Won’t be staying long, I imagine. Though, I’m sure it’s... fine enough, yeah.” That laugh, then, had some more body to it. With a shake of his head, Fionn sawed out another ripple of notes, closing his eyes, borne up on the sound. Beautiful. Far away. “No offence, at all.” 

nysawalsh‌:

Nysa had never been a fan of that saying no honor amongst thieves. Could they turn against each other in a second just to save the skin on their own backside? Yes, a thousand times yes. But, the only people she had actually worked well with on a job were other thieves. Others who didn’t play by the normal rules of law and society. Sometimes, and most of the time in her own experience, you played nicer with those like you. 

“Just old-fashioned or an old soul as well?” Nysa questioned as she sipped her drink and raised an eyebrow at him. There was something in his manner of speech that made her suspect he was one that was much older than he looked. Perhaps that or he was just simply European. “I enjoy the things in life that are extravagant. And free.” She retorted with a smirk. Priceless jewels, works of art by the masters, and anything else she could get her hands on. Why, those were a few of her favorite things. “Oh, but I have been out there. In the real world.” She quoted his accent. “But, I’m on a vacation. A girl deserves one after hard work.” She lied smoothly, not even caring if he didn’t believe her. “You are right about that. The council doesn’t seem like they let anyone have any real fun.” She smirked and eyed the bartender. “I think he might if you cut him in a little piece.” 

Good question. “Matter of perspective, maybe,” Fionn sighed, considering. By any mortal measure, obviously, he was bloody ancient. They threw numbers around so easily, they did. Without weight. A thousand years? And some? That slipped into the incomprehensible. But in the company of his own kind... a millennia, that was nothing. Passed like chaff in the breeze. So fucking smug about it, too. As if surviving, when you were nigh invulnerable and safe away in your Tir-Na-Nogs and Thrice Tenth Kingdoms, was any grand achievement without something to show for it. Like songs. 

He raised his glass to their little agreement, there. Though, like as not, she was thinking something rather different. That was alright. “A vacation,” Fionn eyed that, openly skeptical. Washington? Christ. “Here? Just when I thought I could trust your taste...” Smirking, he set his well-shuffled cards aside and drained his drink, beckoned to the bartender for another. Flush, a bit too-ready, he knew, to spend. Too warmly buzzed to mind. “Your council. Yeah, heard about them. Bit of a mess, I’m told.” Back to playing with the cards, hands moving on their own, the cut and glide of the deck such a delightfully familiar feeling. These modern ones, they moved so nice, smooth, sturdy. Less personality, maybe. But for the sake of a slick move... 

Fionn toyed with them, giving that bartender a surreptitious sort of glance. “Mm. Another night, maybe. Once we know each better.” Had to know your bartender. Didn’t shit where you drank, after all. Generally, Fionn treated bars with due respect. Didn’t like to overstay his welcome - didn’t have to, there was always another place to drink, another town to stumble into. Which he’d be doing soon enough, no doubt. Obviously. Any day now. Just - his next whiskey had arrived, blissfully interrupting that whole line of thought. Nick of time. “What do they do, anyway? The council. When somebody has a little too much fun, eh?” Fionn asked, curiously. “You have police. Don’t recall seeing anything like a gaol.” Police meant punishment. What sort was awaiting, in Lethe? 

aerynshephard‌:

She shook his hand diligently, judging him positively based on his firm grip. She nodded then and said “O Eirinn, that’s nice. Ah, okay. Let’s learn the ropes together, I suppose.” People in the store had stopped congregating since Fionn had stopped playing, and she felt at ease without watchful eyes upon her. “Jeez, I knew I’d be spending a lot of money today, didn’t expect it to be a fortune,” Aeryn chuckled as he gathered her essentials and handed them over. She made a mental note of the vinegar and brought the items to the checkout line as he trailed behind her. If she wanted to do this, she’d have to gain the muscles to lug this thing around. And she wanted to do this, she wanted to add something to the world, even if it was just a little tune. “The park sounds nice, Fionn. Are weekends okay? Late mornings, early afternoon, early evening. I’m free whenever, I just need to have a set time to write in my schedule.”

“Aye, that’s what it’ll be. Learning as we go...” Fionn rocked on his heels, rarely still, looking about the shop and pacing around in the queue. “Music shouldn’t have a price, I would agree,” he sighed, and genuinely, too. Capitalism. Bloody scourge. “Fucking disgraceful, really. Wasn’t the way, back when...” Back centuries before this girl, here, had twinkled into the world. Shouldn’t get nostalgic, like that. No good ever came of it. 

The park, then. Suited him fine. Music in the open air was a lovely thing. “Afternoons, I think. Weekend afternoons...” he trailed off, pondering how it was that people lived with that sort of thing. A schedule. Sounded dreadful. “The bandstand. I’ve never seen anybody out making use of the poor thing. Good a place as any.” That’s what it was there for, anyhow. Right? Right. Reconsidering the stack of purchases she’d laid out on the counter, Fionn added the capo after all. She’d need it later. If she really meant to take her new hobby seriously. They’d see. “Right. That’s my work done, for the moment, I think,” he mused, drifting away down the racks. “See you at the weekend! That’s both days! Bandstand!” In her schedule. In his. Teaching, again - terrible idea, really. It hadn’t been his, had it? Christ, if only his memory was this bad around the times he’d best like to forget. Fucking contrary, it was. Blame it on the drink. Which, at the moment, he was in pressing need of.

Teaching. The fuck had he been thinking, eh?  

matty-miles‌:

Matt jumps up to his feet, stretching his back and cracking the neck. The life in Lethe is rather boring and stagnant, isn’t it? As much as he has grown to like this rustic days, he needs some refreshment time to time. Something deep down in his rootless soul demands disarray, to unravel and unhinge. All these little incidents, brawls and messing around, simply appease the thirst for the time being, never truly quench it… In short, he really needs a better hobby. 

“Ah, you’re that weird fiddle guy.” Matt snaps his fingers as he remembers. “Well, I dunno about Terry but this barman doesn’t mind.” It is rather odd. Terrance’s is not the kind of bar you would expect to hear some jig. It’s a watering hole, not some medieval tavern. But it’s an interesting change. “I know jackshit about violin, man. Some old-fashioned folks seem to like it, so keep it up.” He puts out his cigarette between the finger and tosses it over his shoulder. “If you wanna perform regular, we do have some musicians playing every now and then. I can hook you up, y’know.”

Weird fiddle guy. He’d been called worse. Fionn shrugged, nodded. Ah, so this was the other barman, was it? Lovely. Going to stay on his good side, then. “Well, I’ll thank you for your service,” with a tip of his hat, appreciative. “Rather a lot of old-fashioned types around here, yeah? Strange sort of town...” Circling around this little sort-of crime scene, Fionn found a patch of wall out of the wind, to lean on. Fuck, he was tired. Awfully. 

“Could you?” He chuckled, something about the idea oddly funny. Not bad. Just... funny. “Can’t say I recall the last time I played with anybody, tell you the truth. Not that I make a poor bandmate. Just don’t stick around too long, as a general rule...” Fionn flicked some ash, careful to avoid the out-cold unfortunate soul on the pavement. “Wasn’t planning to change.” Wasn’t. Past tense. Was not, previously. Was he, now? Changing? Didn’t do that much. He took another lungful of smoke, held it. “Never do know, though. Might take you up on that.” Winding back into the dark, carrying on his way, Fionn passed his firestarter a wave. “See you at work, then?” 

END.

gwendolynwade‌:

“I try.” However, as per usual Gwen’s tone didn’t sound like she did. No matter what was said, one can never figure out if she was genuine or not. “A pleasure in which my deceptive brother can fuck around with.” deadpanned the elder hybrid as she waved her hand off as if it was nothing. Once the instrument is given to her, without a doubt she was going to hex it, just in case her dearest brother chooses to be an ungrateful fuck. He’d be wise and choose not to disrespect her, especially since she’s unpredictable now as a Riverborn.  

“Fair enough.” she replied at the man’s reasoning. “Perhaps it’s your shady demeanour that’s throwing them off.” suggested Gwendolyn with a grin. He was definitely a handsy fellow, going from instrument to instrument. “Oh?” Her brows arched with intrigue as he spoke about the truth behind his findings. Dark hues travelled towards the saxophone case and at his suggestion, the CEO chuckled lowly and shook her head. “Coming from this town? Not surprised. I don’t mind the occasional scam though, especially when I’m getting this for someone who deserves it.” Looking around, she glared at the shopkeeper and stated, “Prior to paying though, a generous discount should be evident on the bill.” Her tone was different this time, as if they didn’t have a choice but to do as she said. Glancing back at her companion, she tilted her head to the side and asked, “So if you don’t work here, did you come from a different instrument shop? Or are you simply a wandering musician, sampling the fine collectibles that Lethe supposedly has to offer?” 

“I like to think trying counts for something, eh?” Most of the time, he did. Mos tof the time, he could. Shady? Fionn gave that a stare, appalled, clearly, at the implication. “I have to stay out the sun. I’m Irish.” Technically. Sort of? Close as he was to anything. Tucking that violin under his arm, he fixed a pointed look on her saxophone, yeah, right, that thing, which was clearly worth more worrying about than the antique he was about to duck out with. Very soon. When the moment was right. The clerk was getting flustered, hands on the case, looking back through the stacks. For a supervisor, maybe. Somebody to confirm that they weren’t fucking this up. This woman, here, she had some clout, some presence; he could understand the sweating that was going on across the counter. Felt a little bad, even. Just a little, as he stepped back, casually as he could. Best to get gone before the clerk got backup...

“Oh, me?” Fionn smiled, as winningly as he was able. “Just, ah...” There. The click of the saxophone’s catches, the case folding up as the clerk lost his nerve.  “Sampling, yeah,” that, with a wink, as he set a cigarette between his lips. And reached out to swing the door wide open for a pair of lovely, brilliant ladies with excellent timing shuffled in, their dachshund wheezing ahead. A stroke of luck; he had those, now and then. 

Violin and bow clutched close, Fionn slipped by those old lovelies and zigged into a passing knot of shoppers, flowing with the current of Lethe’s lovely town square, walking just fast enough to get some ground between him and that shop. Before he ducked into the closest sidestreet and made a proper bloody run for it, grinning like the rotten thief he was. END.

katiakjar‌:

When the stranger first explains how she got to the hospital, she simply stares at him, save for the small furrowing of her brows, and slowly slouches more into her seat. A look settles on her features, one that shows she doesn’t believe him, but she never says it outright.  – - Well, that’s until she casually blurts out as she reaches for a magazine, “Working here, we learn a lot of lies from patients. ‘ I ran into a doorknob, ’ ‘ I eat a full serving of fruit a day,’ … ‘I ran with scissors,’”- She peaks over the magazine to gauge the man’s reaction for a quick moment, then decides to look away. “You don’t have to tell me anything, obviously. I just hope that’s not what you plan on telling your doctor. If anything, tell them you got jumped. - Actually, no. Then they’ll bagger you about getting the police involved. Never mind. You actually know what you’re doing. Go with the scissors-thing.” Katia sighs, tossing the magazine back on the table. Her pain medication has definitely kicked in by now which made sense to all of her rambling. Katia was also excited that there was someone here that look just as worse off her.

“Me?” She asks, looking back over to the man. Like him, she wasn’t going to tell the truth. Slowly, a smile graces her lips as she looked away, around the room, in thought. She has to laugh at his suggestions though. Her shoulders shake gently. “No. No feral cats. They are sly, though. Naturally, too. You have to give them that. – - Sleeping walking. Fell right into a glass table. It’s a miracle I made it out alive.” Katia looks at the man then, keeping a grin. After what had happened with Luke, Katia was a little confused about how she now thought about people. She thought she was a good judge of character, now, that had been slightly skewed, as much as she hated to think it. This man before her now, though… Well, he seemed like fun. A bit of a mess. But she couldn’t talk unless she was going to say the same thing about herself because, without a doubt, she is too.

“You remind me of a thin ivory statue.” She concludes after staring shamelessly at him. Placing an elbow on her armchair, and settling her chin on her closed fists, she looks him over with slightly glazed eyes. Seeing none-the-less. “A disheveled, thin ivory statue.” If Yuri were here he would laugh and steer her away. Katia pouts for a moment. She missed his laugh… But he wasn’t here to save Katia from her nonsense. It was unfortunate for both herself and this sculptured stranger. Katia continues to look at him closer, eyes narrowing gently. Not with hostility. She just trying to place what Fionn reminded her of. “Like an image of silver…”  Then, wide eyes and a gasp. “Like the moon. A moonbeam.” Yes. There it was. Pearly skin, wide broody blue eyes, and a sensitive face.  Yes. He reminded her of the moon.

So she was in medicine, herself. Christ. He didn’t tend to wind up being friends with such people. Too many judgments passed. This one, though. She was, to his rather expert awareness of such things, rather blasted on something or other. And... pleasant enough, so far. Not being the one to actually do his paperwork or prod his wounds was helping her case. “I will, aye,” he came back, not about to be swayed. Had a few centuries of experience, after all. Got him this far. 

Not that here, at this moment, had much to recommend it. 

“Glass,” Fionn echoed, eyebrows ticking up. “Glass table. Well, suppose you are, yeah, right...” Absolute shite, he’d wager, but. No more of his business than his tattered guts were hers. They didn’t owe each other honesty. “God bless.” He smirked, fumbling to remember which way you were meant to cross yourself. There were a few. Eyes, testicles, wallet, watch... with a huff, he gave up. Not like it mattered much. More for the joke than anything. He’d gone looking through churches, before. Christ knew there were plenty, especially in the parts he’d spent his younger years around. Just, he was never sure what, precisely, to look for. There’d been a story he read, once - something about a troop of faeries, the little darling bewinged types that people liked to slap on calendars and such, these days. Crossing a priest’s path. Asking about the life hereafter, if they had their place in heaven. Lamenting that no, no, they did not. Sounded like something a priest might write, to him. But he’d just had to challenge the notion, contrary creature that he was. To go searching. Seek and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. He’d sought. He’d knocked. Fuck all had come of it, but that was fine enough. Fionn needed no bloody miracles. 

And that beast with the seven backs or whatever it was, that sounded like no good at all. 

But that was all rather besides the point. Weren’t they a pair of ramblers, today? He squinted over, puzzled by her sudden swerve into... whatever this was. “Do I, now?” Ivory. Silver. Moonbeams. Pretty things, at least. “Alright, then.” Fionn shrugged deeper into his seat, his threadbare coat. “Afraid I’m all out of poetry, at the moment,” he tried for glib, there. Didn’t quite manage it. Sounded as sore as he was. “Quite fuckin’ remiss of me,” a croak of a laugh, there. “Consider yourself rain-checked, eh?” 

And who could play it well enough If deaf and dumb and blind with love? He that made this knows all the cost, For he gave all his heart and lost.

William Butler Yeats, “Never Give All The Heart”

ytel1338‌:

“What’ve you gotten yourself into?!” Ytel shrilled at the sight of Fionn in agony. “Good God must I be the big brother for all my friends?” he exaggerated, laughing it off. He blinked as Fionn failed to explain his distaste for Lethe. It left a sour taste in his mouth, but he would have to pry into that later. “That’s what it’s called, arschloch! I am nobody’s servant. I work for good money, labor with my hands, my abilities. You remember the earthquakes I used to make. You stay here, find a comfortable spot to sit at. I’ll get the beers and find you in a moment.” Though Ytel sounded pissed off as ever, Fionn would know it was his usual temperament, especially when handling Fionn’s dramatic ass. Ytel snuck into the quarters and pilfered two bottles of Blue Moon, weak shit compared to what they used to brew overseas, but a buzz was better than sober. They could at least agree on that.

“What have I got myself out of would be the more flattering question, don’t you think?” Fionn grimaced, a little affronted. All about perspective, wasn’t it? As for big brothers... he huffed, scowling. Didn’t need anymore of those. The one had been enough to suffer. A long, long time ago. 

But he’d rather not think about that. 

So he nodded along, working up a wiry smirk. “Aye, yeah. Hard to forget.” Even with a few decades of drink and... other things, in between. “Best make that moment a short one. You know me.” Fionn flashed a hand open, flickered his fingers in the chill night air, the fine, sweet haydust. “Gone like a wish on the wind.” He raised his eyebrows, mock-serious. Ytel, talking about memories. If Fionn left a mark on anything, he figured, it was in how he left. Quick as a horse at the gate, tearing up the dirt and heaving for the horizon. Made to run. Or something like that, anyway. 

Dragging deep on his cigarette, Fionn closed his eyes, waiting. On Ytel, and the weather; could hear the thunder rolling in the distance. Like the guns they’d served alongside, decades past. Decades - what were those, to things so long in the world as them? The snap and smolder of a match, that’s all. A moment. And they’d shared some of the worst. Strange to think. Well, some, not all - in Fionn’s case, anyway. This particular lifetime, here, had started to pull ahead. Decisively. 

henrikenton‌:

“Fine. Then I’ll be on my merry way, Mr. Doe.” Her arms fell to her side and Henri spun on her heel back the way she had come, back to her home to journal about the narcissistic asshole she had come by today who felt he was above outside help. Who found the grass a better comfort than a bed. Maybe he was a nymph, for all she knew. 

Thank Christ. Or whoever else was available, at the moment. He wasn’t fussy. Left to his devices, blessedly, Fionn wove his way into the deep, green hush of the woods. And - was that fucking rain? Squinting up, he nipped out his cigarette, for later. Rain. “Ah, you shitey bastard,” he grumbled, glaring into those bruise-purple clouds. Mysterious ways, something, something. Planting His footsteps upon the storm. Or was that the sea? Whichever. Pride goeth before a fall, Fionn remembered that much. A fall into a wet, cold copse of ferns, the bed he’d made for himself. 

It’d do. 

END.

Cillian Murphy as Michael McCrea in Perrier’s Bounty (2009)