The Adventures of Áine and Lodan
Eachtra Áine ag Lodan
[The Adventures of Áine and Lodan]
The sky was lightening towards dawn, but the sun had not yet risen and a misty twilight still lingered. Áine gently disentangled herself from Lodan’s arms and crawled out from beneath the hand-stitched quilts. She could hear the crackling of burning wood, and the aromatic odour perfumed the air within the hillside home. She glanced back over her shoulder at Lodan, still sleeping. In the flickering firelight, with the quilts bundled up to his chin, and his raven hair loose and flowing, he looked curiously childlike and innocent. Áine carefully bent down and kissed him on the forehead, and in his sleep, he smiled.
It’s good to have you home, she softly smiled at the thought, then quietly shuffled off to the kitchen where she set a kettle boiling on the stove. She was an old woman, yet this morning, she felt as though the tides had turned and the worst of the aging was now behind her. Áine sat at the kitchen table. By all appearances this is where her story might have ended “happily ever after,” but it seemed, as she thought of it, that this was far from the ending of a story, and closer to the beginning of a new one.
In the Spring… I’ll see to the garden first, then… Akkadia. I wouldn’t mind a stop at the Hart and Ale for a few either. There’s something to be said for a night of drinking with friends. I miss my old friends, but I like it out here too…
And Lodan… she sighed… my memories of him were banished for such a long time… such great love, and then such wretched heartbreak… I couldn’t bear to think about him, walking off and leaving all of us in the World of Men like he did… and Fand went after him… I despised her for that… I nearly cursed her… I don’t even know where Fand is now… ahhh, but that was such a long time ago…
I remember, too, as time reckoned by humankind passed, I thought he was forever lost to me… but then I heard tales of one like him… different names in different places… little hints here and there… and there was always the whisper of his spirit about those stories… I had to know if it was Him… I had always imagined that the stories were exaggerated, mere poet’s fancies and bard’s tales… I looked everywhere for him, and now I find him here… and he is even more beautiful than they painted him…
The tea kettle whistled on the stove. She poured the boiling water into the teapot and let the tea leaves steep. From the cupboard she took down two china cups, they were white with a pretty cobalt blue design of a meadow hand-painted on them. All of this she put on a tray and brought back to the bedroom, where she was shocked to find Lodan weeping, tears running down his face. She quickly put the tray down and went to him.
“Truly? Do you truly love me?” he asked through his tears.
She nodded, profoundly touched by the sight of such a strong, handsome warrior face marred by such emotion. Gently she brushed the tears away. “Why do you weep, my love?” she said to him.
He looked into her eyes… she felt naked there in his gaze, completely open and vulnerable,… just as he was to her now, as well. “I weep because I once thought that love was little more than another name for longing or lust. I weep because I left you and wed Fand… I… I thought I loved her…” he choked, “but you taught me what love really is. You taught me that love must grow of its own accord, it cannot be taken or made or bargained for.”
Áine hugged him to her in a warm embrace. “Do you love me now, Lodan?” she whispered to him.
“Aye, I do love you,” he replied, “as deeply as the fountains in their crystal pools at the foundation of the worlds.” He kissed her gently, and she felt the blood rush to her face, but the touch of his lips tingled pleasantly on hers and it left her feeling lightheaded, and wanting more.
“In the Spring… when we are better matched,” he promised.
Lodan picked her up and put her back in the bed. “You aren’t quite ready to be running around like a wild lass yet, Summer Queen… and before ye start protesting, let me remind ye how I found ye here?” he said in a voice that was like music. She closed her mouth in mid-protest, made a face at him, and then pulled the quilts up to her chin.
“Don’t ye be thinking you’re always going to get your way, mister…mister… Puddle Elf!” She grinned at him.
“Feisty one, eh?” He winked at her. “Shall I pour us some tea now, your royal pain in the arse?” he teased. She grinned at him.
When he’d finished drinking his, he tucked her in and then went in the stable and took care of the birds and Dubhealain. The cygnets were growing fast, and it wouldn’t be long before they’d need to make their home outside.
“Aye, you two will make a fine pair on the lake,” Lodan said to them, “and you can watch over our little queen when I’m not home, eh?” They bobbed their heads as if in reply. The cygnets were just starting to shed their grey downy feathers and the white plumage was beginning to grow in. They were, in fact, looking quite ugly at the moment, not at all what they would look like in another few weeks. And as clumsy as they were, they’d taken to herding the hens around like sheep, which was in itself a comical sight.
“It would be nice to go for a morning ride,” the black mare said to Lodan in mindspeak.
“Aye, it would indeed,” Lodan replied. So he got the tack assembled and they went outside, where he mounted. The snow muffled the hooves of the black mare. Lodan had been in these mountains for many lifetimes, it seemed. He’d seldom gone to Akkadia, preferring the wilderness to the city. When he did go, he always went wearing different guises, or appearing in other forms. As such, there were few in Akkadia who knew of him, and he liked it that way.
“Are ye ready, Dubh?” Lodan asked. The mare snorted and pawed the snow. “Let’s ride, then.”
He touched her neck lightly and off they went. Dubhealaín was of the Eacha Uisce [water horse], they were a special breed of Faery horse… very aware, very smart, responsive to rein and voice and touch… and they could mindspeak. The breath of horse and rider mingled, steaming, in the cold morning air. They crossed the frozen lake and went into the mountains. It was nice under the trees. Lodan kept Dubh to a walk, looking all around him as they went. He knew this wood, but every time he felt as though he were seeing it for the first time. The smells filled his nostrils; the pungent aroma of pine needles, the perfume of the cedars. He caught a glimpse of a big grey squirrel moving through the snow-covered branches of an oak, and paused to study the silvery web of a spider. They followed a deer trail through the woods.
From up ahead came the faint sound of rushing waters. It grew louder until they reached the stream, which was running high and fast. Spring melt was just beginning in the mountains, but it would be a few weeks yet until the snows were gone. Lodan dismounted and led Dubh on foot to a crossing. The deepest part of the crossing came to mid-thigh, but they didn’t cross the stream. Lodan let go of the reins and allowed the mare to drink. The current foamed around rock and root, and Lodan could feel the spray on his face as he reached down into the water. He cupped the icy water in his hands and drank deeply.
Very slowly he made his way slightly upstream to an overhanging root of a large pine tree, where he plunged his arm into the water and pulled up a speckled trout. He reached in again and pulled up another. He cleaned the fish with his dagger, and stuck them through the gills with a stick, then attached them to Dubh’s saddle… a nice breakfast when he returned to the hillside house. Carefully he washed and dried the dagger and returned it to its sheath.
Lodan mounted up again, and he and Dubh headed back to the house, but this time at a full gallop. The horse and rider were as one, and both enjoyed the burst of speed through the woods. When they reached the house, he led Dubh back to the stable, brushed her well, and fed her an extra measure of oats. He filled the buckets with water, and placed the blanket back on the mare.
When he’d finished in the stable, he went outside to the garden. It was still winter, but there were signs here and there of the coming spring. This will be a fine garden under Her care, but perhaps I can help the fruit trees along a bit, he thought. And so he walked around the stone wall and every now and then his hand reached out and he touched a branch or trunk here or there… and a green phosphorescent light arced from his fingertips as he worked his magics, lingering in wispy vapor-like clouds of glowing green about the garden.
For several weeks, Lodan stayed busy around the hillside home, clearing brush, fixing leaky windows, repairing gates, and clearing a log jam in a nearby river. One day while he was out in the garden, Lodan stopped what he was doing and cocked his head, listening… and suddenly he knew that the mystery of the mountains, and the deep enchantment of the twilight mists, had found a voice in the lake and would speak with him. Something changed in his eyes as he listened, that look of boyish innocence was gone, replaced with seething anger.
How dare he place a portal to such darkness in the Green! Doesn’t he Know of the Nightmare Forest where his kind flourish? Who gave him leave to do so? Lodan listened a bit more. No one gave him leave? He just did it without asking anyone?… Ahhhh, I see, the Enchanted Forest’s Guardian is away… this is why you come to me? Lodan nodded, more to himself than anything else. Yes, of course I’ll intervene… though he won’t like it, I’m sure.
Lodan turned around and stomped into the house, slamming the door in anger. Then he remembered Áine was napping, and cursed himself at his clumsiness. Áine wandered out of the bedroom sleepily and stood there in the hallway looking at him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I have to go attend to something, and…” he turned and looked at her, “Good gods, Áine, have you looked at yourself in the mirror today?” he said in disbelief at what he was seeing.
“What? No, is my hair a tangled mess again?” she asked, “it seems to have a life of it’s own…”
“No, not at all. You look twenty years younger, and your hair is turning a wondrous shade of copper!” Lodan went to her and brushed her hair with his fingertips, it was silky soft. He pulled her close to him and gently kissed her neck from earlobe to shoulder. “I might be gone for a while, but it’s needed,” he whispered into her hair, “and yes, I’d much rather stay here and finish what I just started, but I…” he kissed her some more, “…have to go and I don’t have time to explain.” Áine moaned involuntarily, and rather than let him get away without finishing what he’d started, dragged him into the bedroom and closed the door.
He came out of the bedroom an hour and a half later with a sappy looking grin on his face, packed a few things in his knapsack that he thought he’d need, and headed out the door with a spring in his step. He thought about taking Dubhealaín on the trip, then thought better of it. No, she might need the mare while I’m gone. And so he set off running in the direction of the Enchanted Forest.
He leaped and bounded over logs and rocks, through the trees, and it was as if they made a clear pathway for him the entire way. Indeed, it felt to him as if he was carried along. He ran for leagues without resting, barely pausing to take a drink from the streams he passed along the way. He didn’t remember stopping to sleep, it seemed as though he slept as he ran, and woke still running.
When he was nearly there, Lodan heard the sound of a deep laugh coming from up ahead, and when he arrived at the spot, he got there just in time to see a dark stranger step through a portal and disappear, the shadows following in his wake.
