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 Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2010 3:29 pm
 Flann poked her head out of the cave into the early spring sunshine of the mountains, inevitably marred by stormy clouds scudding across the shy turquoise of the heavens and the few remaining snowbanks that were giving way to delicate spring flowers. She squinted grumpily, not liking to be woken up so fiercely by the sun that pierced through the cloud cover of the new day. Sighing, she stepped out of her cave to see the day and to stretch.
The birds were already singing cheerfully in the sky, and since Flann had only just woken up, she wished they'd be quite. Shaking her dark red head and blinking her smoky eyes, she stretched, a snatch of a song or two coming inevitably to mind. Such were the songs that she couldn't help but sing.
Westering home wi' a song in the air,
Light of mah eye and it's guid-bye tae care,
Laughter and light are a welcoming there,
Isle o' mah heart, mah ain one.
Tell me a tale o' the Orient gay,
Tell me o' riches that come frae Cathay,
Ah, but it's grand to be waken at day,
And find oneself nearer tae Islay.
Westering home wi' a song in the air,
Light of mah eye and it's guid-bye tae care,
Laughter and light are a welcoming there,
Isle o' mah heart, mah ain one.
Where are the folks like the folks of the west?
Canty and couthy and kindly, our best,
There I would hie me and there I would rest,
At hame wi' my ain folks in Islay.
Westering home wi' a song in the air,
Light of mah eye and it's guid-bye tae care,
Laughter and light are a welcoming there,
Isle o' mah heart, mah ain one.
Now I'm at hame and at hame I do lay,
Dreaming o' riches that come frae Cathay,
I'll hop a guid ship and be on mah way,
And bring back mah fortune tae Islay.
Westering home wi' a song in the air,
Light of mah eye and it's guid-bye tae care,
Laughter and light are a welcoming there,
Isle o' mah heart, mah ain one.
The song sufficiently cheered her up and put a warm fire in her heart that she didn't really notice the new stranger practically on her doorstep, a stallion who also had ancestors back in the old country.
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Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:16 pm
Christian rolled over onto his back with a yawn and snuggled up to the warm body beside him. Smooth rays of sunshine sizzled against his darker coat, but even that held little effect. Only when the incessant kicks to his stomach grew did he open his eyes.
"-yer lazy arse. Oi said, let me go! " Jack rambled to his son angrily. The stallion imagined steam pouring out his ears. Even if he closed his eyes he wouldn't be able to escape that angry Irishman.
"Nnh." He snorted, blowing a great puff of air over the goat before rolling onto his hooves. Christian left without another word. As tired as he was he felt a walk coming on. The little valley he lived in was over run by wee ones - Usdia and their young, plus Jack. Every once in a while he had to break away from the day to day routine to feel like a man.
The further up the mountain he climbed, the louder singing became. Christian quirked his hear, keen to hear it. With a great leap he veered off course to the home of a little red mare. His fetlocks came to a stop seconds after he did, the bangs on his snout taking even longer. Like a great lumbering mass he stood there, blocking out the sun.
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Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2010 8:16 pm
Flann blinked as the song came to an end. She had acquired an audience, or, as she preferred to put it, another unwelcome guest who somehow grew on her, who knew why. This one...ahhh, this one looked like a big unicorn stallion from Strathclyde, which she had visited on occasion as a wee filly and sort of missed now. "There's somethin' I havenae seen in an auld lang syne, noo--someone frae Strathclyde up fer a ceilidh. Certainly, I wouldnae expect tae see someone frae Scotland here," she said, warming up much more quickly than usual to her Strathclyde visitor.
(Yay, explanation of Gaelic time! 8D
Strathclyde = valley of the river Clyde = home of Clydesdales
ceilidh = visit (archaic/properly); party, generally with lots of singing and dancing and storytelling (modern))
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Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2010 11:31 am
Christian smiled; a ghost of happiness that didn't reach his eyes. "You know of my homeland, but I do not. My mother had me when she came to these lands." His leonine tail flipped irritably to have brung her up so early. When he was forced to claim a parent it was his foster father that came to mind. "Your accents thick. I suppose you haven't been here long."
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Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2010 8:19 pm
Flann shrugged. "Less than a year and a day, laddie. 'Tis a shame you're no' frae Scotland, 'tis a wondrous place, wi' the storms and the mountains and the lochs...." She stopped herself before she got too nostalgic. "Was your mother a Highlander or a Lowlander, d'ye ken?" she asked gently, uncertain whether or not he knew, and whether or not he'd take offense at the question. Back in Scotland, this had generally been considered a fairly important question when meeting a total stranger who was also a Scot, but she could see from the irritable flip of his tail that it was a very touchy subject, his mother.
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Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2010 8:30 pm
"A shame indeed." He mused nostalgically. The stallion shifted his hooves uneasily and looked off to the side. "A Highlander, through and through. She taught me great respect for my pure blood and the history of our people." If only she had kept that same respect for herself. It seemed that as the years dwindled that same pride seemed to vanish from her like a leech sucking her dry.
"Most of my info comes from my foster father, whose Irish of all things."
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Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2010 8:51 pm
Flann lifted an eyebrow. "Yer father's Irish? Irish or Scots-Irish?" Flann didn't particularly care for either, but when push came to shove, she preferred the Irish instead of the Scots-Irish. At least the Irish sided with the Scots, whereas the Scots-Irish sided with England. Dirty Lowlanders. Flann couldn't really stop that thought from coming out, and she rather wished the thought hadn't crossed her mind, but she didn't care for those her family still told tales of bearing the black cockade when they should wear the white cockade.
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Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 11:38 am
"Foster father. Just Irish, nothing more." It wasn't that it mattered to him. They hadn't even met until they came to these lands and by then, Jack could have been a talking blob for all Christian cared. The only time he did care was when he was making it perfectly clear the distance seperating them.
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Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2010 9:54 pm
Flann nodded. So he didn't know. In retrospect, Flann was glad he didn't know, so none of her prejudices could interfere. At the mention of him being a foster-father, she cocked her head, confusion in her smoky eyes. "How did ye meet him, if he's no' yer father?"
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Posted: Wed May 05, 2010 8:15 pm
"Found me." Christian answered bluntly. He tucked his legs underneath himself to sit down on the ground. The muscles in his neck were becoming sore from looking down at her, though now it was harder than ever to see his eyes. "Took me to an Usdia valley and raised me like his own......why are you so curious?"
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Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 12:34 pm
Flann shrugged. "Och, it's no' often ye meet another frae the homeland, and I dinnae see many others 'round these parts tha' often." She peered at his eyes through the forelock that concealed them. "Ye look like ye hae a bonny face. Did ye get tha' frae yer mother, if ye kin remember her?" she asked more gently and in a more motherly tone.
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Posted: Tue May 25, 2010 9:31 pm
"I can never forget her." He stated it bluntly, though devoid of emotion. Even though he hadn't seen her in ages, he would never be able to forget her face, the way she smelled, walked, talked or the way she treated him. "I don't know my face enough to compare the two."
A random thought struck him with so much force that he blurted it out on the wind. "Did you know her? Her name is Freya. My step-father is Wes."
((Totally up to you as to whether she knows them or not. His mother is uni, like Christian, but his step-father was a kalona who terrorized the land.))
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Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2010 12:32 am
Flann cocked her head. She'd heard that Freya had been quite the beauty and Wes had been quite the demon, and had put the "AAAUUUGH!" in the Irish Aughiskey, as in the shriek of fear or rage. "Yer mother was supposed tae be quite the bonnie one, but yer step-father...yer step-father..." Flann trailed off into a soft silence at the concept of a son of a Highland lady and a Highland demon standing in front of her, chatting as normally as you please. He almost certainly had to take after Freya. Wes had been infamous in the Highlands.
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