Chapter Five Dairmuid
“Why didn’t you come in?” Bonwit moans in my arms. “I’m dying, I’m dead, I’m gone!” he wails, head lolling back.
“I tried! I can’t get in the house. I... I bet you a golden harp that Saz rigged this house somehow. I can’t get in unless I’m invited—that’ll be it. I still got you out, didn’t I?”
“Oh, yes, the wind scooping me up and throwing me out of the window was very useful, Dair,” Bonwit groans.
“She fought like a hellcat! And she believes the child is hers, or she’s taken it to her heart as if it were.
She would have ripped me limb from limb if you hadn’t swept me up just then.
I may still be damaged beyond repair. Tell me mam that I always—”
“Tell her yourself, if you ever bother to visit the poor woman,” I growl, dumping Bonwit (gently) onto the soft forest floor in the strand of pines that spans this little village of houses. I feel bad for Bonwit, but he’s not dying.
My son, on the other hand... I don’t know what Saz has in mind for him, exactly, but I know I’ve put him in harm’s way by not giving her my soul. But there’s no guarantee that I wouldn’t have put the both of us in her power if I had made such a bargain with her.
I pace, head bowed, then thrown back. It’s good that my power extends to this mortal plane. And my powers reached into the house. Perhaps I can whisk my boy away with the same gusts that I just deployed?
I picture it—and imagine the red-haired beauty flinging herself between me and the babe, her raging voice and clawing hands, her desperate sobs...
“She fought for him as a mother would fight to her last breath to save her only son,” I whisper, mostly to myself.
“I said that!” Bonwit snaps, sitting up and moaning as he rubs his chest. “I’m half-perished! And for an immortal, that’s saying something.”
“You’re just soft,” I toss out before I think better of it.
Bonwit curls his knees to his chest, glares, and sulks, his dramatic moans increasing.
“She looks soft, too. Graceful. Lovely. And yet when my son was threatened... Like an October storm, where the days are hot, and the winds are cold, and the explosions in the heavens rattle the earth!” I warm to the subject, voice so full of admiration that Bonwit has to comment.
Loudly. “No! Dairmuid, you’re not falling for the human lass you have to get your babe from, are you? Why wouldn’t you just woo your way into her home instead of putting me through such tortures?”
Because I didn’t think of it. And I still don’t know what to do about the child once he’s free from this realm. Certain things I am sure of. Love him. Protect him. Give him a grand, wild childhood like I had, only better, with far less time at Court, and far more fun and fishing.
But the teachings that fathers ought to give a son, about being a man, about marriage and home, and life and death, and trust and wisdom? I cannot teach a boy those things. I haven’t mastered them myself.
“How did he look? Was he well? Does he have horns?” I whisper that last question with a wince.
“He is beautiful,’ Bonwit stops groaning long enough to speak in a croon, his lips pursed in a simpering grin.
Lovestruck.
“Really?”
“A beautiful babe. No horns. No tail, unless it’s awfully tiny. Red eyes, but crystal clear, like rubies in the sun. Skin like yours, not even a tinge of pink.”
“Wings?”
“I never saw, but if he does, they weren’t big and bat-like like his mam’s, that’s for sure. They’d be tiny, but then again, he’s not old by mortal standards—or even by immortal ones.”
“True, true.” More pacing.
I have options.
Trickery. Bargains. Get into the woman’s house. Take the child, which is rightfully mine.
Wooing. Romancing. Pretending my interest is in the adopted mother, not the child.
Force. Dark magics. Bad bargains, evil doings. Death.
It wouldn’t be the first time fae have killed. Historically, it’s been for something far less grievous than holding a faeling hostage.
“She doesn’t know she’s done anything wrong. She can’t be harmed, this woman. Her defense of my son grants her protection from all the children of the Tuatha Dé Danann,” I intone, as if I can speak into being.
“It may also be that she cannot see that anything is different about the child,” Bonwit points out. “Humans only see what their minds wish. Usually, something shocking has to occur for them to see a being’s true form.”
“Like a child being thrust into their lives and a man flying into the child’s nursery to whisk him away?” I say drily.
Bonwit shrugs and looks a bit bashful. “That may do it. In which case, she ought to be able to see that your son is not quite human in his appearance. She may not have realized it until after she pummeled me, or she may have realized it before. I don’t know.
I do know that humans don’t have our deft ways with the fruits of the field and fermentation, but I know they still make a mean pint of something alcoholic, and I could use it.
Are you of the mind that we keep watch without ceasing for... weeks? Months?”
“Saz hinted that her power is growing. She needs the child before then, I think. I will keep watch until that time passes if we are not successful before then—but we will be. Must be.” I let out a frustrated sigh.
“You go and fetch your pint, if you can now miraculously move. Where does one get such things?”
“Humans have taverns and shops, m’lord.” Bonwit drops my title at the end in a tone that clearly means “you great lard brain.” “I’ll bring you back something.
I think you’ll like human food. You help them grow it and harvest it, after all.
It’s not light and airy, not so refined or fresh tasting as what we normally eat, but it’s ... It has such a bite, Dair.”
I am relieved we are back on friendlier terms. “Does it?”
“Mm.” Bonwit nods, a serious frown on his rapidly bruising face.
“I think... I think it’s being from the mortal realm that does it.
Everything tastes like it might be your last bite, so much sharper, sweeter, or more savory.
Everything about the mortal realm reminds you that things change.
” He looks at me. “I know you don’t like that. ”
He’s right. I’ve spent years in my realm, eons in my little crumbling castle, perfect in its imperfections, wild enough and peaceful enough, and most importantly, only changing when I want it to.
I didn’t want a child. I didn’t want a rebellious, traitorous succubus as a lover. I never wanted to visit this mortal realm and learn more about humans.
“If we eat their food, are we bound to them the way they’re bound to us?” I ask, eyes still on the windows of the house holding my son.
“No, there’s no bargain here. Things are paid for in coin or service, or given as free gifts.” He snorts at that and shakes his head. “Seems some fae could learn from mortals, if you ask me.”
“Could be.”
An idea suddenly strikes me. “Bonwit!”
Bonwit is on all fours now, groaning and holding his ribs as he works out standing. “What?”
“The energy here lures creatures of other kinds to the mortal realm. Saz found it. We had no trouble getting in, but I could feel the slightest resistance. We’ve seen vampires. Gargoyles. Do you think there are any of our blood here? Pooka, Banshee, Morrigan?”
“Ooh, I don’t know, Dair.”
“Well, in your quest for food and spirits, keep a sharp eye. If you find any who owe us allegiance, tell them to meet me in these woods. Meanwhile, I will figure out the best way to peacefully extract my boy.”
“Oh. And the dog.”
I look at Bonwit sharply. “You left the dog?”
“No, you left the dog! I got my teeth knocked in.”
His teeth are perfectly fine, and I roll my eyes at Bonwit’s gift of storytelling, but my alarm grows. “I thought you had it.”
“Wouldn’t you have noticed before now if I had it?” he snaps, finally on his feet, limping towards me with a glare.
“I’m a bit preoccupied knowing that Saz may sacrifice that baby to take its half-fae soul!
” I hiss. “And you’ve just given the human mortal a gift!
A gift of a fae, not a bargain, not a change, not a trade, an out-and-out gift.
That means we owe her a boon. And who knows what she’ll want? What if she wants to keep the baby?”
Bonwit’s face is stricken. “She... Well, she wants to keep it anyway, Dairmuid. It’s her child, in her mind at least. She wants it more than her own life, for she was willing to fight, unarmed, in the darkness, against an immortal, just to protect the babe she’s had for only a few days.
” His eyes are starlight bright in the darkness now, silvery and piercing.
“There’s no bargain you can make to take a mother’s son. ”
But Saz willingly put him at risk. Will willingly kill him. Only took my seed to grow a bargaining chip. He’s a pawn to her, disposable.
She was not his mother. She was his creator, growing plants for cuttings. She doesn’t need him, only parts. Doesn’t love him, only needs a piece of him.
I still haven’t seen him, but my heart has already started to grow around this unreachable son, roots growing as fast as a young pin oak. I blame myself that he’s in danger. His life, his peril—they are all because of my selfish, thoughtless ways and my silly, lustful, trusting nature.
“Bonwit, I have to save him and shield him,” I whisper, my heart overflowing with fresh misery. “I love him already, and it is all my fault he is not safe and loved in the bosom of a family that will cherish him.”
“One, it’s only half your fault,” Bonwit says, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “Two, the boy is in such a family, but he will surely need protecting more than even his hellcat of a foster mother can provide if Saz comes to call. We owe her a boon, do we?”
I’m tempted to say that Bonwit owes it, but technically I left the pup in my botched rescue mission, so... “Yes, we do.”
“Hmm. I’m sure you can find what it is she wanted before the child arrived on her doorstep, Dair. Find that. Offer her that.”
“What if it’s something I cannot create or provide?” I shake my head. Some fae are so much more powerful than me. So much more cunning. It’s probably the reason Saz chose me.
That, and my looks.
Bonwit hums, which isn’t a good sign. When he doesn’t flap his jaws, that’s more concerning than all the howling and lectures in the world. “Do you know when her power is at its peak? How long do we have?”
Thinking in hours, days, and time is tricky for someone who has never used it. “Samhain, likely. Perhaps even in the autumnal equinox, but she’d be a fool to try her hand just then, because that is when I’m at my strongest, too.”
Bonwit taps his fingers on his chin, muttering and counting. “That’s either in ten days or about six weeks.”
“Weeks. I hate that word. It’s such a useless term,” I grumble.
“You are so spoiled,” Bonwit hisses. “You think that all other time spans are pointless unless they're the ones in our realm. You know that these humans only get eighty years or so? A fraction of the time we’ll ever see, a day or two in your splendid courts. And you never mingle with them—you know why? Because you like to play with your woods and creeks, your rain and starlight. If you came down to the mortal realm more often, you’d have to watch them wither, age, and die. You’re soft. Your heart can’t take it.”
I turn on Bonwit, dark green cloak flying out behind me, eyes slitted in anger.
But I don’t speak. Because he’s right.
I don’t like that humans have such short little lives—and yet, when I’m here, the time does move differently. I don’t think we’ve been here more than a few hours, but it seems so long.
“Do you come back,” I ask, voice harsh, “and kiss the same maid each year? It must seem like a day or two to you between festivals, and do you watch her age? Do you have the heart for it, to frolic with her one night and bury her a few later?”
Bonwit’s mouth opens and closes. To my surprise, his bruised face twists up, and he blinks, eyes suddenly glossy. “Only the once.”
“Oh. Bonwit, I...”
“That’s why some fae stay in the mortal realm, and do their work from here, m’lord,” he informs me in a stiff voice.
“To stay in this time with them. To live the way they do, and savor being alive. Not immortal, not undying. Alive, meaning there is an end. It’s frightful.
It’s beautiful. It’s a rush that only the bravest can enjoy, and only love can make you brave enough.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go find that pint. You figure out a plan.”
Bonwit half-limps, half-stalks away and leaves me in the dark, feeling worse than I have ever felt.
I’ve hurt my oldest, dearest friend and companion with my words—and by flinging him into danger I should have faced.
I’ve lost Saz.
The pain sits in my soul so suddenly, so hard, that I can’t breathe.
We weren’t in love, but it was... It was special, I thought.
Easy, passionate, and we were so different.
I believed there was something so magical in finding a succubus with the character to choose something better than a life of soul-stealing and death.
I didn’t expect it to last. I expected we’d get bored with one another, just as I’ve done a hundred times before.
I never expected her betrayal, or for us to share something as intimate as a child and her not tell me.
The pain burns and blossoms, spreading. I’ve lost my son before I even met him.
I have to get him back, and I don’t quite know how.
“I have to get into that house. To be invited in. That’s the first step,” I murmur in the darkness.
While Bonwit is away, I stalk around the little village of houses, seeing how wide it spreads.
It’s quite far, but there are no shops, no churches. Just houses and little areas for children to play with swings and sandpits.
And “for sale” signs.
I blink in the darkness at the oddly reflective green and white sign at the crossroads in this little housing village.
“Pine Point Townhomes: New Section Open. Thirty lots from the 200,000s. Community playgrounds. Wooded lots. Contact Silverman First Fiduciary.”
It might as well be a language of the lower depths. I understand “wooded lots” and “three bedrooms.”
And “for sale.” I understand “for sale” quite well.