Partner

Depending on whether I can theft someone else's laptop to work on another project... this may or may not be updated again tonight.

As per the Sidhe question? Did I intentionally name them as such to represent the Celtic faerie like people? No. But when I was younger I was obsessed with all things Celtic... and Roman... and anything ancient... or mythological... okay, so I'm still obsessed. But I hadn't read anything about the Celtic mythology in years when the Sidhe first appeared. They were faerie like, they were impish. They were the giggling sprites that people saw between the trees, that were rarely seen or heard from, that people left milk out for at night in hopes of gaining favour with the gods. The name itself just popped into my head...

Then a year or so ago I was googling my worlds... as I was drunk and bored. And found the Celtic Sidhe... possibly found them again... and I was surprised to say the least. The fact that the name seemed to fit? Made me more than pleased with it, as at the time I was considering on changing it.

The people are not humans. They call themselves the people, like we call ourselves human but ... lets say a few hundred years ago? native americans weren't exactly considered human. The word of the people's language that means people is Galendahr. If this was written from a Sidhe perspective it would litteraly be the other way around. The Sidhe word for people is, unsurprisingly, Sidhe. So they would say that they were the people and the Galendahr were the "other"

I created this world some time around the first ice age that was mentioned, when there were no gods or cities and only villages and states of war. There was an emporer and I think I encountered the boy-king's society (they were a beautiful people) but no... no humans have ever populated the world. Although they did try... but that would be a story for another time...

So the answer is basically, the Sidhe here are not the Celtic Sidhe or Aos Si and the relation to them was completely accidental. In a "oops, I just made potato chips instead of scallop potato" kind of way.

There is a lot of opportunity for male/male in the world, which is why I luffles it so much, it's just whether or not it's possible to write it coherently... like Namesakes? Not so coherent. But I tend to write more with the character's personality and the main character there was a half-breed Sidhe on the verge of destruction.

I really should stop talking and just let you read.

Read, Review and Enjoy.





A week later, with a few days left to his vacation, Mik’s mother caught him with a dreamy look on his face. Every day he thought of Paw, he could hardly put the Sidhe from his mind.

His mother gave him a knowing look and poked him as she sat. He took the mug of tea from her hand and gave her a weak smile.

“Well?” she murmured, wrapping her hands around her own steaming mug, “You seem to enjoy the garden more now than you did as a child, you know.”

“I didn’t recognise it then,” Mik replied, “I knew what you were doing, but I couldn’t see what you saw in it, I couldn’t see what would happen after you toiled for years and pruned back the bushes and cared for the trees. I saw a bare backyard, a dirt heap that no one else wanted to live on because nothing would grow here. I thought you were crazy.”

“And now?”

He adjusted in his seat, taking a sip of his tea to give himself some time to think, “Now I see the garden. I see what you were working for all those years and I wonder how I could have missed it. But that seems to be the way of my life. I have a good thing and yet I don’t see it until it either blooms right in front of me or I lose it.”

“Mm,” His mother sipped her own tea and squinted at the oak tree, “Jay wants me to meet his family.”

“What? So soon?”

“Yes. He says that their garden is just a heap of dirt that nothing will grow in,” She murmured, “and I, I want to show him the garden that it should be, that it could be. I’ve done a great deal for these plants, but there is nothing more I can do. Put in man-made objects, certainly, but…” she shrugged, “I prefer to tend and mend, not …” she took in a breath, “not watch what has already bloom come to blossom once more while there is more out there that needs mending. This is not a solution, this was only a first attempt. Now that I have the knack for it, there is so much more I can do.”

“He said he tried all your secrets, it didn’t work for him.”

She smiled knowingly, “oh no, he didn’t try all of my secrets.”

The two sat in quiet solitude for several minutes, sipping their teas and watching the sun rise over the garden. The plants began to bloom before their eyes, almost like magic, as the sun kissed their vibrant leaves.

“He has a garden. Nothing like this. All in pots, tucked away in a room of our apartment. He’s always moving them about, like he doesn’t quite know how best to place them. Put worms in the soil, supposed to help he said.”

“They do,” his mother nodded along, “they recycle the soil, they eat the waste and produce fertilizer that aids growth.”

“In amongst the plants he has buckets and pots and vases of water, just leaves them standing like that. He’s always searching for something more to add to it.”

“Rocks. Real pieces of wood. When the garden began blooming, I found that the growing things were not enough. Every garden needs its rocks, needs the weeds and the bits of wood and the dog bones and yes, even the cat shit from the damned neighbours who can’t control their pets. A garden cannot be called a garden unless it is un-tamed otherwise, it is simply a bed.”

Mik looked at his mother as she set her tea mug aside, “He doesn’t exactly take my advice when it comes to the garden. He huffed when I suggested watering the plants.”

“I am sure that if he is tending the garden as you say he does, then he knows what they need. Too much water, like too much sun, will kill a plant,” she nodded to herself as she descended the steps of the porch and began searching through the bushes of flowers that threatened to consume her walkway, “just as too much love will spoil a child.”

What could he say to that? His experience with gardens was little to say the least. Over his time at the house he had begun carving on the porch, exercising rusty skills and equally rusty tools.

“Here,” she presented him with a hunk of wood, what looked to be part of a thicker branch, worn smooth by time and a heavy, speckled rock covered in dirt, “take these to him. Perhaps he will enjoy them as much as I have.”

“Isn’t that… the rock Piho slipped on?” Mik recalled it as he spoke, recalled how the pink speckles had been covered in blood, how Piho had screamed.

“It is. But you have to put the good and the bad into your garden, not just the good,” his mother motioned for him to take the items and Mik took them from her, holding them in his hands as if they would break, “I don’t want some stranger looking at that rock and thinking that it doesn’t belong simply because it’s a rock.”

“Thank you…” Mik murmured, looking at the items for a long moment before he set them beside him on the table.

Both were silent. His mother picked up her tea once more, sighed out and took a sip. Mik looked over the garden.

“He has green eyes the colour of new leaves,” the words were spilling out of him before he realised it and when he did realise… he just didn’t want to stop, “black hair that is silky to the touch and a voice to die for. He likes to garden and swim and he giggles at everything and acts impish when he’s in a good mood. He fits against me like we were made for each other.”

“Does he have a job?” she murmured in response.

“He…” Mik smiled just slightly, “is a historian. He’s young, he’s well educated and he’s a… an immigrant.”

“Ah.”

“When I met him, he could barely speak our language and there were a few… misunderstandings… but we got past that and… and now … I just…”

“Do you love him?”

Mik blinked away the errant tears that came to his eyes when his heart skipped a beat, “Yes, yes, I think I do love him.”



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