Loud and clear [Fae]

[Aidan Evander Ó Cuinn]

3 February 2029

Aidan hated fighting. It’d always been his habit to flinch away from raised voices, or flee into the escapism of the Wildwood whenever it looked like someone was about to start a fight in the family tree. It was one of many reasons he’d always avoided druid town halls. They were boring, for the most part, with different members of the community complaining about issues only they cared about or long-winded descriptions of how they attempted to navigate the bureaucracy of Hy-Brasil’s and its many, many traditions. But every now and then, someone would start shouting and it would devolve into a free-for-all (where everybody would suddenly develop an opinion and the burning need to tell everyone else about it).

He was quite good at making excuses to skip town halls, and his parents usually let him get away with it. That had been especially true for all the years Aidan had spent on the mainland, since he’d found a natural excuse for why he couldn’t go home every time one of these meetings got scheduled. But lately his great-grandmother had been terribly insistent about full family attendance. Abria Ó Cuinn had retired ages ago, but made a dramatic comeback to the Council last summer along with quite a few elders from her generation. She was solidly traditional and deeply distrustful of outsiders and their customs. It’d caused a scandal, years and years ago, when his grandpa had married a mainlander who’d converted to the druid way of life. When his grandma had disappeared, some people said she’d simply gone back home. Others said Abria had taken care of her son’s ‘problem.’ Ever since then, she’d been suspicious of anything that came from outside and threatened their way of life. Aidan had been painfully careful to only share certain parts of his time abroad with her and constantly reassure the family that he’d come home soon. His insides wriggled with guilt, but this town hall…it really only proved him right.

Aidan had been terribly late and found a place to skulk on the edges of the massive meadow they used as a gathering space. By the time he’d stepped out of the tree line and into the light, the shouting had already started and he winced every few moments at the constant stream of complaints. Town halls were supposed to be an opportunity for the community, the Council, and the High Druid to all speak with each other. But an argument had long since devolved into a shouting match between members of the Council about all the problems the island faced from their tenuous relationship with the mainland – which everybody knew Fae was in charge of. Aidan tuned it all out and stared out into the near-darkness at a bowtruckle tree to watch them build a nest for ages until he noticed people rising from logs or blankets they’d tossed over the grass.

Once he was sure the meeting had ended, he began to slowly push his way to the center, gently nudging people aside and sidestepping all sorts of random animals as druids used their Animagus forms to more quickly escape the crowd. He gingerly stepped over a hare and finally caught sight of Fae, sandwiched between two angry druids that apparently hadn’t unloaded all their complaints yet. He sidled up to them and cleared his throat. “I need Fae’s help,” he said, interrupting one of the Council members in the middle of a particularly heated rant. “One of the griffins is all freaked out,” he clarified a moment later. The lie seemed kind of flimsy to him, but most people never seemed to notice whether he’d been present or not and Aidan had a reputation (even among druids) for being nuts about magical creatures. So neither druid said anything while they watched with narrowed eyes as he pulled on Fae’s sleeve and wound his way out of the gathering space.

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[Italics = Brasilic]

[fae iona cloudbreaker]

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The town halls were starting to become cumbersome and repetitive. Fae had lost the backing of the majority of the druid elders over the last few months, their belief systems coming into constant contention with one another. In their words, they had ‘give her a chance’ to bring things under control between Hy-Brasil and the mainland. They didn’t seem to understand that what the mainland did was never a directive caused by her actions; it was from the way they clutched their acorn necklaces and looked down on now generally accepted practices of their modernized counterparts. Hy-Brasil was so far behind in the world because of their chosen seclusion. How they couldn’t see that frustrated her so much. There was a reason she was chosen as the High Druid, and not any of them. Someone young to lead the island towards unprecedented times seemed like the most obvious direction that they needed to take, and yet the elders pretended that wasn’t the case.

Exhausted was the only way she could truly describe herself currently. Her hair had become perpetually drab, a dull grey that only gained its spark back whenever she left the island. She had started to field concerns from her parents about the building stress this was causing, but she merely waved off everything. This was clearly a test of her position as High Druid. All she had to do was merely last until the other members on the Council were changed again, and outlive all of their sycophants, and all would be well. But it was extremely clear that things were not going well on the island. The final discussion – which was a horrible word to use for the almost always one-sided arguments brought up by her supposed equals – was about cutting the importing of butterbeer to the island. A petty jab at Fae’s own personal tastes, if nothing else. Her counterpoint was that becoming to secluded again and removing ties with mainland traders would lead to them doing the same with their own goods. She was positive that the Wormwood family would not want to lose their business contacts on the other side.

And then it abruptly ended, and half of the council disappeared in the blink of an eye in their animagus forms. As if to flaunt what she lacked. To them, she was the unlucky one. A High Druid born in the wrong month and who was relaxed on traditions. If it didn’t go against every moral code of their people, she would have feared being overthrown. Instead, they were doing their best to wall her in and prevent her from doing her job.

From across the field, Fae caught the sympathetic smiles of her parents before they disappeared into the woods, headed back home. She needed time to think about everything that had happened during today’s meeting. And then once she had her thoughts organized again, it was back to the mainland and the Ministry to try and negotiate the more important bits that the Council wanted. Assuming she agreed with them. She barely had time to think about this though, as two locals got in her way and started to complain again. Something about an Auror that accidentally trampled a singular flower that had been planted three springs prior. Even though she was listening, she had started to lean heavily onto Merlin’s staff, her only support in all of this currently. A dead warlock’s magic stick was more of a friend to her now than the majority of her brethren. How silly was that?

She blinked back to reality as she heard her name spoken and saw that Aidan had appeared before her small group. He was asking for her assistance with the griffins. ”If you’ll excuse me,” she said to the two men, who scoffed at her escape. The herd had been fine this morning when she checked on them, so she was curious to hear what had developed since then. Upon her ascension to High Druid, she had to re-delegate her old job as island tour guide. She did not give up her care of the griffins though. Members of the Cloudbreakers had always worked with the herd.

Allowing Aidan to lead her away from her dissenters, her concern only grew slightly. They were smart creatures and were usually fine on their own in most situations. ”Is everything fine?” Fae decided to ask first, as a way to gauge the seriousness of the situation.

Aidan Evander Ó Cuinn ● 744

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[Aidan Evander Ó Cuinn]

Sometimes it was hard to see how much had changed until he was suddenly confronted by it all at once. For starters, Aidan gave a little jolt of shock as he glanced at Fae while they wound their way out of the crowd of lingering druids who hadn’t left yet. He hadn’t even realized how long it’d been since their last conversation until the light threw the dark shadows under her eyes into stark relief and painted her hair in a muted gray color. It hadn’t been that long since his last visit to Hy-Brasil, but he supposed after a moment of reflection that he truly hadn’t seen Fae in ages. And she looked pale and exhausted, even worse than those first few weeks after the fall of the barrier.

He'd changed since then too, although that was harder to notice than Fae’s spontaneous hair color changes. Aidan would’ve never dreamed of leaving Hy-Brasil to live on the mainland, or staying past his apprenticeship to work as a full-fledged vet, or dating a non-druid. And yet here they were. Aidan let go of Fae’s sleeve after a moment, once the two druids left the meadow and watched it fade into the distance behind them. He wouldn’t have grabbed her princess dress at all, since he’d long since given up on cleaning out the dirt from under his fingernails, but he honestly hadn’t been sure whether the others would’ve let Fae go without Aidan being insistent. His feet found a path naturally as they walked. The moon was still mostly full and there was enough moonlight to see Fae somewhat clearly, even though all the color seemed to drain out around them to be replaced by silver.

After several moments of walking in silence, Aidan was torn out of his silent observations of the Wildwood by Fae’s question. He laughed sheepishly as he admitted, “Oh, everything's fine. I lied.” Aidan generally tried to be honest, but he didn’t mind lying when it suited him. And just like when his ma demanded to know who’d finished the last of the cider, lying suited him in this case. Call it a rescue mission, or just a way to end the arguments. “Adair O’Cleary is the worst,” Aidan declared, shaking his head at the thought of one of the druids who’d been lecturing Fae. “He used to yell at me for not paying attention in class.” His old teacher had been one of the many reasons Aidan had hated classes, even the druid version of it. Aidan idly reached for his pocket and grabbed a handful of sunflower seeds – one of the many habits he’d picked up from spending most of his time around animals. He cracked one open, tossed it into his mouth, and snuck a glance at Fae. It was hard to read her expression in the moonlight. “Are you okay?”

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[fae iona cloudbreaker]

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Being led around by others was basically how the last few months had gone for her. There had been very little room for her own thoughts and conversations these days, outside of with a select few people. Her parents were busy with their own work, and as much as she wished she could curl up into a ball in her old room and forget about being the High Druid for a moment, she literally couldn’t. Then there was James, of course, and finding opportunities to meet up with him had become even slimmer as well. Even utilizing her metamorphmagus abilities had become difficult, as her security had recently changed, and they were now following the directions of the Council more than her previous guards had. At least she knew those ones were still on her side, and just being held back on the island for the time being.

But she let Aidan lead her away from the meeting, and all she could think about was what sort of mess the griffins had gotten themselves into this time. Usually it came down to hierarchy issues, and they’d aggressively pluck the feathers out of any that they deemed ‘inadequate’ as their leader. Which was sort of how she currently felt. Ironically enough, her hair color absolutely matched that of some of the speckled gray griffins. At least they stopped once they had selected a new leader. Eating themselves alive like the current Council was trying to do to her was far more animalistic in her opinion.

Fae blinked a few times as her confused brain processed what Aidan was saying. He lied? ”The griffins are fine then?” she asked, trying to clarify what he meant. While she did agree that Adair O’Cleary had always been of the stern sort, she could never call another druid bad. Unless they broke the laws and were kicked off the island. Being needlessly aggressive in his campaign against her though? That she could definitely get behind. ”Yes, well, I don’t think I should have expected anything less from him then…” Fae sighed. Adair had been like that for as long as she could remember, and always been a bit outspoken about her being High Druid. She always assumed that he disliked the way she approached combining druid education with that of the mainland and decided to take it out on her. Never mind the fact that a lot of the children looked forward to their time going to Hogwarts for exams. He must have had a particularly bad experience there himself.

”Honestly? No,” she admitted. Another long, drawn-out sigh escaped her. That had been happening a lot. The worst ones were when she had just woken up and hadn’t even gotten out of bed yet. ”I can’t figure out what all of this means. What my purpose in all of this is supposed to be. The Council was chosen this way for a reason, but so was I. And we are very clearly at a head right now.”

Aidan Evander Ó Cuinn ● 502

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[Aidan Evander Ó Cuinn]

Aidan took a moment to dreamily consider the griffin herd – the Cloudbreakers were their official caretakers, but Fae’s parents occasionally let him study the griffins and spend time with them. They occasionally got into fights, and once or twice Aidan had loaned out his best healing paste whenever one of the younger griffins got tangled up in poison ivy. The herd was one of his favorite parts of visiting Hy-Brasil, and occasionally a convenient excuse for getting out of chores. “Happy and healthy,” he reported with confidence, chewing on another sunflower seed as they walked along the path.

Unlike the griffin herd, though, Fae didn’t look either happy or healthy. His eyes lingered on her with concern, and Aidan found himself grappling with a sense of uselessness he didn’t know what to do with. Something was wrong. Clearly. But he was a little out of his depth here. He knew his animal friends at the reserve very well, and it wasn’t much of a chore to diagnose them. Sometimes they needed medicine, but a good part of their treatment was psychological – playing with them, lathering them with attention, just spending time quietly together. He was less certain what to do with Fae. She wasn’t exactly a porlock or niffler, and offering her some seeds felt like the wrong approach to take.

“The ancestors work in mysterious ways,” Aidan offered, rubbing his neck self-consciously at being unable to give a better piece of insight. His da said that a lot, always taking a laidback approach to whatever problem seemed to be confronting the family or the farm. Maybe he meant it to be metaphorical – like saying that life just happened – but every druid knew that the previous generations were a real and solid presence on the island. They were felt most strongly in January, when the druids observed all of their most somber traditions, but really they touched every aspect of their lives. Aidan tilted his head, like he might do as a dog, and deeply considered the problem. He steadily worked through the fistful of the seeds as he did, leaving the empty shells in a trail behind them.

Fae’s sigh was long and weary, and Aidan briefly glanced at her before craning his head up to look at how the rays of moonlight broke through the canopy. “It’s too bad they can’t see what we see,” he continued, his imagination having already pulled him out of his earlier deep concentration. He knew Fae was mostly based on Hy-Brasil, but she visited the mainland a good bit. And Aidan, despite being a good boy that (mostly) did as his family said, still hadn’t come back to Hy-Brasil. He’d chosen to stay longer on the mainland, for reasons that were beyond his ability to articulate. But it meant that he’d gotten the chance to love the mainland for himself, instead of whatever he’d imagined it to be while growing up. He shrugged and put his hands into his pockets. A question occurred to him, and he glanced at Fae inquisitively. “Are things as bad as they say?” he asked, a little self-conscious that he hadn’t been around lately to judge for himself. But as he looked around the peace and quiet of the Wildwood, he didn’t see whatever fears and dangers clearly plagued the minds of the Council.

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