Partner

Una gets a little nostalgic but when he says he's high... he means it. He's not all there. And the changes that happen only happen when he's near is tree, which from what I've seen is actually a direct connection to Mother. Una is recharging and is very powerful when he's in the shadow of his tree.

Not as powerful as Vera, who can only use power when she is at her tree. And... has about a thousand Sidhe to back her power.

Speaking to Mother is a lost art, one which Una and Vera do not teach to very many people. And they most definately do not do while around Ayato, which is. Odd. But Ayato already has an odd sort of tingle when he's around Una and Vera.

This ended up being very long. Una talks most of the way because of his high and he also. Kind of suggests something that I've been wondering for a while. It's quite hidden though.

Those who read Sequel will likely recognise the "other" option for where the program's Sidhe could have gone.

Read, Review and Enjoy.





The flight was not fun. Changing altitudes were not fun. Elevator rides, he swore, made it buzz like crazy. No one saw them but for Koln and Taln. An hour of his chest insisting on popping and twitching every time the helicopter moved. Then they landed in a little field in the middle of a gorgeous forest. All green leafy trees, no pine, no birch, just a canopy. The helicopter settled into this tiny place and touched down, shutting off completely. Mik and Paw and Lillow stepped off the helicopter with Una.

“You sure you-”

“No. Told the partners I was talking to the troupe, told the troupe to count and check our gear, then stow it. It will take them several hours. And give me a chance to test the skills of the others. Now. Good sir, mister captain of the. Helicopter, take my cane and my hat please, I will not need them under the canopy.” Una handed the cane and hat to the pilot and the co-pilot tried to give them a fold out wheelchair, “we won’t be needing that.”

“But sir. There is forest for miles and miles around.”

“Trust me, sir, we will not need it. Now,” Una pulled little flashlight from his pocket and handed it to Paw, “he can’t see in the dark, recall.”

“Auh.”

“Let’s go, at a slow pace,” Una murmured.

Mik made it to the edge of the canopy before he called for a rest, leaning against a tree. It was an old tree, bigger around than he was but obviously not the old time tree. Not big enough for more than a person to sleep in. He glanced up at the leaves, at the small buds about to open and he leaped away from the tree.

“That’s a-”

“Oh, did I not mention?” Una murmured as Paw chattered at the tree, laid a hand on its rough surface, “must have slipped my mind. Old time trees are colony trees. A root of one of these trees can lay dormant for years before they grow again. This whole forest is the tree. Yet is an individual tree at the same time. The specific tree we are going to. Is like as not the eldest of the trees and is a bit deeper.”

“Not even the Sidhe have said that the old time trees are-” Mik looked at Una and stopped short as the immortal grinned, “what’s special about this tree?”

“It is mine.”

“Yours?”

“The tree that began this colony was mine. I have seen how people build. Dig down and lay foundation and destroy existing root systems. Laying pipes and cords underground. But apparently when your forefathers looked at this forest, at my tree, they saw something so spectacular that they declared it a national nature reserve. Thus. No digging was done. Three other such reserves exist. Each with an old time tree at its heart. There is one, that I almost selected for you two. The old time tree grows between two mountains, its colony taking up the pass. Just beyond the pass there is a huge valley and in the valley is a glacial lake and apparently an old house built to the side.”

Paw jerked away from the tree, “I know that place.”

“It belongs to Mother born. I can tell by the feel of the place, by the way.” Una paused, “it makes me all tingly just thinking about it.”

Mik looked at Paw, Paw grinned and said, “what tribe is mother born?”

“Hmm? No particular tribe. But Harella-shay had a few… tumbles. With Sidhe. Produced a few children. Each tribe she visited and each tribe she gifted at least one child. Dog was her favourite.”

“She liked it doggy style,” Mik muttered and tried to laugh, only to end up coughing.

“Dogs were loyal. Fiercely loyal. To this day, only a handful of dogs have ever become pieces for others. They had the most children born to them. And your Muan there. Is a glorious example of Mother born.”

“You’re Mother born, aren’t you?” Lillow muttered, “Mother born means-”

“Born of Mother.” Una grinned, “but in those Sidhe, the blood of the gods run thick.”

“Should have shown him the tree,” Mik muttered, pushing off the tree and walking a short distance before leaning against a tree once more. The others followed him along.

“The tree? I saw many trees while at the program. Which needed tending?”

“No, the family tree,” Lillow said, setting the mesa on the ground so the little beast could toddle about, “Paw drew it on the wall when we were trying to find out where the sparkly male came from.”

“Muan?”

“Yes. All the other females fight over him. Want to breed him,” Lillow shrugged and plucked a branch of a nearby tree, chewing on the edge of it, “I know he’s different but he doesn’t appeal to me.”

“Because he doesn’t like you,” Una responded, sounding very amused, “you’re young and. Called for?”

“Spoken for,” Paw replied, helping Mik off and deeper into the canopy. The light dimmed so much that Paw turned on the flashlight and held it pointing to the leaf strewn floor of the forest.

“And Muan wants Lel because Lel didn’t want him. Wanted to be saved by Muan, perhaps, but didn’t want Muan. Not for his blood or his prestige, not for the rank that bonding with Muan will bring him. I wonder where the alpha is.”

“The what?” Everyone looked at Una.

The immortal’s eyes seemed to change colour in the half-light. Mik swore the pupils elongated. Swore there was something very animalistic about the immortal all of a sudden. Did he change in the dark? Or was it just this dark that altered him.

“The alpha of Muan’s tribe.” Una responded, moving a little further in, thusly moving the rest of them on, “Muan, if the alpha were dead, would become dominating and, considering his specific tribe, would be driven by the basic instinct of creating more of himself.”

“He’d… hump everything in sight.”

“He’d create a harem of females and would dominate the males until they were nothing more than slaves to his breeders,” Una responded, “I’ve seen it happen in the past. The breeders are quite well treated and the alpha, as children are born, slowly comes back to his senses. What’s left is a tight knit tribe with a breeding alpha at the center. Otter always has a breeding alpha, though the alpha’s children must prove themselves to the tribe before they can take rank.”

“So. There are more of him out there?”

“The alpha is still out there. What you have is a well beaten male, ehm. Well disciplined. He is beta to the alpha, means they are the breeding pair of the tribe. If people thought they had control over the tribe, as per what Muan has told me about his tribe, then there was always two, alpha and beta, who bred and produced children for the next generation. She’s going to come looking for him. Likely is already searching.”

“Why does that sound like a threat?” Mik muttered, pushing off the tree and venturing deeper into the forest, “sometimes you’re helpful, sometimes. You just.” he paused halfway to the next tree, taking several breaths before continuing, “seem to be out to get us.”

“Mm,” Una sighed out and moved ahead of Mik, “I sway, between wanting the Sidhe to succeed and wanting the people to succeed, and here, in the shadow of my past. Mm.”

“I think he’s gone mad,” Lillow whispered.

“No,” Paw murmured, sliding between Mik and Una, “he’s the same as the trees, power all over the place.”

“I’m not using power. It’s how Mother born react,” Una sighed out, “well. How I react. How Vera reacts. But we all need our trees, at some point or another, the comfort of home, of our starting point. Of course. Here’s the marvellous part of this. If this is my place, if this is where I was born, then three days travel with a laden troupe and travelling slower than normal, is Cayallista.”

“Ruins.”

“Ruins to you. But if you recover enough, I suggest you make the trip, suggest you walk in the Death hall. Carved into the living stone by generations of Deaths. Like nothing you’ve felt before.” Una placed a hand on a tree, “my schedule has been interrupted. By now, I would be halfway to Vera by now.”

Mik and Paw shared a look at the repetition.

“I sleep, she is awake, she sleeps, I stay awake and she comes to me. We need each other, we bounce off of one another. Two pieces of a whole, her first sleep was shortly after my maturity.” Una sighed out, hand moving up and down the tree, “it is best for us, Vera and I, to sleep in our tree, but mine has been growing after people cut it down time and again. I haven’t slept here in. Gods, must be a hundred thousand years.”

“How are you feeling, Una?”

“High, high as your satellites are, no doubt, it is impossible to explain to others what it is like to be in her presence.”

“Whose?”

“Mother’s. Ask Lel, if you ever see him again. He knows. He and Muan both. Do you mind if I sing?”

“By all means,” Mik said, taking Paw’s arm as they walked on.

The sounds that came out of Una’s mouth, Mik didn’t think was possible, was easy to come out of those vocal cords. The notes varied mid-sound and Una never seemed to run out of breath. Una’s eyes were closed as he walked, head tilted back just slightly. Mik didn’t really know what Una insisted on singing.

Until Una lagged behind and Mik turned to check on the immortal.

All of the buds, on all of the trees, were in full bloom. The trees seemed more vivid in colour, as if the sun shone brighter because Una sang. The mesa, toddling along beside Una, was doing a little hop, skip dance about Una’s feet as the immortal walked.

“Uhm.”

“I feel peaceful,” Paw murmured, tugging Mik along, “he’s given us his tree. Of course he can have the three seeds. From this growth.”

“What’s he singing?”

“He’s singing to Mother. He’s asking her to bless us. Well. That’s what it feels like anyway.”

“Do you recall him singing before?”

“Not him. But a woman, there are tattered, fragments of existence in history where we gathered around her and she sang to us, but with how broken it is, likely this information came from outside the tribe. Oh,” Paw came to a stop.

“What?”

“I can’t reach the others. Not with him singing like that.”

“So?”

“The great dark space we can’t cross. I think I know what’s across it.”

“Is it in the west?” Una asked, passing by them, drawing their attention ahead of them.

And all of a sudden there was a bend in their path and around the bend was a huge wall of wood. Of bark. Mik leaned back and looked upward, at the canopy hundreds of feet above him. He spotted the elevator above, slowly making its way down. He stepped to the side as Una beckoned him to move.

“Yes, in west.”

“I’m betting it’s even worse in the middle of Norash, but you can feel something on the other side.”

“Yes,” Paw leaned closer to Una while rooting his feet beside Mik, “yes, Vera is cause of black.”

“She would be. The first Sidhe Harella-shay created, she gave unto Vera to guard. The original blood line is still there. Under her care.”

“Which tribe are they?”

“Tribe?” Una looked at Mik, puzzled, “they are the Sidhe.”

“But. Paw is Sidhe and he is cat.”

“Hmm? What?” Una looked from the bark to Mik.

“Paw is of the cat tribe, what is the tribe Vera looks after?”

“The Sidhe.”

“But which tribe?”

“Mik. Vera looks after the Sidhe. The original Sidhe. From them broke off each of the tribes, but the original Sidhe… well. Muan likely shares close… what do you people call them… genes… with them. But even in their shadow he is a commoner. He is people compared to the gods. Well. Not quite that.”

The elevator settled on the ground and the Sidhe standing on it grinned at them. Eyes were familiar. Mik frowned and struggled to recall the face.

“Jay.”

“Jay!” Mik exclaimed, looking up, “is my mother here.”

“Come,” Jay motioned and they gathered on the elevator. The Sidhe pulled the elevator up, via the pulley. At the top of the trunk the elevator jerked to a stop. They stepped off and Mik turned to look over the edge of the trunk.

And he looked out across the canopy. All the little trees around them lived in the shadow of the larger tree and the larger tree was nearly as wide across as the pool room. This was meant to be the communal area though so Mik looked up instinctually. Up above it looked like nests had been made out of branches. Sleeping areas, private areas.

“Wow.”

Paw grinned at Mik, wrapped an arm around him, “just wait until you feel better and we can romp.”

“Romp.”

“In branches.”

“Romp in the branches.”

“Good amount of fun.”

“Sounds like good amount of splinters.”


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