Aftermath

Being sick as could be while trying to work really cuts down on the amount of writing you can do.

Until Una went off the way he did, I had forgotten that he hasn't exaclty settled back into his routine. He doesn't often do that.

I do like Durth's little metaphor.

Read, Review and Enjoy.




The troupe set up alongside a small creek. The few small children there were played in the water together, giggling and laughing as several Sidhe watched without actually watching. Durth stopped at Una’s fire, crossing his arms as he considered the troupe master.

Una looked up at Durth, blinking several times before he realised his hat was off. It was those purple eyes, gorgeous, certainly, but Ashun had those same eyes. Una had said himself, that the fool who had made Ashun hadn’t been stupid enough to add people to the mix.

“What are you?”

“What?” Una looked startled, pupils growing wide for a moment before they settled back to their regular shape and the man looked about for his hat. Which apparently someone had taken, for it was not where the man reached to, “whatever do you mean?”

“You aren’t people, you aren’t Sidhe,” at least, Durth was fairly certain Una was not Sidhe, “so. What are you?”

Una’s lips pressed together, the man gave his head a shake and closed his eyes for a long moment, “What makes you think that I am anything more than-” the man looked over at Durth and sighed, “of course, my slip up was what exactly?”

“That Ashun’s maker,” Durth stepped closer to the fire, “was not foolish enough to add people to the mix, but your genetic material was added.”

“Ah,” Una paused for a very long time and sighed out again, “well, you are correct, I am neither Sidhe nor people.”

“Which would make you daemon? God?”

“God?” Una laughed, “oh, my dear boy, no. Though. Some have worshipped me as such, just as they worshipped Vera as such.” Vera, Vera. Durth’s mind stumbled backwards, trying to recall where he had heard that name before. A mythological figure, “I am immortal.”

“No one is immortal,” Durth said quickly, “not even the gods are immortal, if you recall. You may be long lifed, but a few hundred years is normal for a Sidhe so for a daemon-”

“I am not a daemon,” Una snapped at Durth, spitting the word as he did so, “daemon must serve their god and daemon are slaves to their lords. I am neither slave nor do I serve any power that I deem undeserving of my loyalty.”

There was something very un-people, very unlike everyone else of the troupe, with how Una’s voice changed in anger, how his lips moved to enunciate words that were not his native language. The troupe master stood from his place and seemed to grow in the darkness that was the night.

“I am one of Mother’s children. Caught between god and people, forever in a limbo, I can never return to my creator, I will never look my maker in the eyes again. Do you know what that’s like? To spend hundreds of thousands of years wandering the lands and feeling her touch but never being able to touch her? The glory of all that is around you is nothing compared to being in her presence and I will never again see her face or touch her hand. Agony, that’s what it is, pure agony.”

Animalistic. It was frightening and yet strangely comforting to Durth. That the man who was wanting to court him was not even a man. People could be liars and thieves and bastards, every one of them. Sidhe were not enough like him to be interesting but Una. The man walked a thin line between animal and people but was not people enough to be tainted by the wrongness that was found throughout the population.

“Why are you so pissy about it?” Durth asked, “surely over the course of a hundred thousand years you would have grasped some philosophical existence about yourself and gotten over your temper.”

Una paused, one hand just away from himself as if he were about to point and tell Durth to go, the emotion drained from Una’s face before something dangerous played over those features, “I’ve spent most of my time humping anything in sight.”

“So says who?”

“The people.”

“So,” Durth shrugged, “kill the ones that say that.”

Una made a choking sound, “why would I kill whoever got in my way? Yes, they will come back to life but that would also upset certain beings who, while they cannot kill me, can cause me an awful lot of pain.”

“You don’t have to kill a man to kill him, you simply need wipe away all his memories.”

“Wipe away the sins and so the innocent shall thrive,” Una muttered, “I’ve heard those words before.”

“And they are as true now as they were then-” wait. What? “When a child becomes unruly and starts smacking you with the rattle you’ve given him, you take away the rattle, you don’t shake a finger at them and hope they do better.”

Una settled down immediately, “You want me to take away the rattle of the people?”

“That sounds wrong, no,” Durth said, running a hand through his hair, “the people have a right to live and thrive.”

“But they’ve been smacking Mother and the Sidhe and the gods and who knows what else with their rattle, the one that they stole in the first place, so why shouldn’t it be taken away?”

“Because free will-”

“They didn’t steal free will, Durth,” Raya stepped into the fire light, “the people stole power. The Aniege line were meant to be the servants of the gods, the priests and the only ones with power. Then the people bred with the Aniege or stole the children of the Aniege or whatever else they thought of, bred in the colours that should never have been in the people, bred in the power to use for themselves. The people stole power from the gods.”

Durth frowned, “but-” the Aniege, the group that Raya worked for wanted to get rid of power that could not be controlled, or all power in general except those that suited their purposes? Those that believed in the old ways?

“I came to find Durth,” Raya muttered, “I thought perhaps you were stealing some unchaperoned time with him but here I find you two debating myth and philosophy.”

“Just an old argument that has yet to be answered,” Una murmured, “There is quite a bit of distance between us, as you can tell.”

“That there is,” Raya muttered, “come, Durth, time to go.”

Durth nodded and left the little ring of firelight. Raya turned to follow him a moment later, stepping in beside Durth. The younger man was silent until they were almost to their own fire.

“I’m disappointed in you Durth,” Raya said quietly.

“Why?”

“You’ve put distance between yourself and Una.”

“He wants the people to keep their stupid rattle.”

Raya muttered something under his breath in another language, something that sounded absolutely exasperated and annoyed as if he had had this conversation before, “He’s a pacifist, Durth, and look around you. The people in this troupe either have power or have the potential to breed power. Those he feels most comfortable around are those who have power or are in some way connected to the gods. Regular people are like shells to him. He can’t make a connection with an idiot.”

“Which is why I shouldn’t just smile and nod and tell him that he’s right,” Durth responded as they stepped into the light of the fire, “especially when he’s not right. You, you plan to rid the world of power but at the same time protect him.”

“I don’t plan to rid the world of power,” Raya responded, stressing the word ‘world’ “it has, however, fallen to me to settle this once and for all. The people have used power to wage their wars and build their civilization, power was used to destroy their civilization. No person should be higher or better than the gods.”

“Then no person should pass judgement on those with power.”

“Unless the person who passed judgement,” Raya said, turning to Durth, “was a god and simply passed on the duty to someone more capable.”

“You claim to hear the voices of gods?”

“Hear them, see them,” Raya muttered.

“You’re mad.”

“What is madness?” Raya asked Durth, “did you know, during civilization, power still existed? But that these people were seen as mad, treated as mad, pumped full of pills and shuffled into padded rooms where they lived out their short existences and then died. They were seen as mad. When Noren stepped forward and declared for all the lands to hear that he was going to unite them under one country, under one name, he was seen as mad, treated as such. Madness is simply a predetermined condition of civilization. There is one, albeit small, country that believes that if you are atheist, you are mad and are treated as such. So. How do you know what madness is?”

“A man who goes about killing people for a voice only he can hear.”

“Oh, you’ll hear it too,” Raya said quietly, “all in good time, Durth, and you will hear the voice of a god in good time.”

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