Demons of Roan Inish

Faerie tales from beyond the veil to the streets of RhyDin

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Kruger
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Demons of Roan Inish

Post by Kruger »

Demons

When you feel my heat
Look into my eyes
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide

Don't get too close
It's dark inside
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide
~ Imagine Dragons


He’d lied, it wasn’t the first time, it wouldn’t be the last. His lies were as innumerable as the scars on his body. It wasn’t much of a lie, and surely if Jewell knew the truth behind it she’d understand. She’d spoken of the beach though, and part of him had hoped she really wanted to do that. The rest of him knew that it shouldn’t happen. It was where he could be tracked to if any were trying to do so, once there however things would be all but impossible.

Clothes in the sand were all that was left of Kruger, they lay where he’d left them before striding towards the waves and the water. One more thing that was something he refused to talk about with anyone. He swam beyond sight of the shore, it had been a long time since he’d made the attempt. The sailors knew the island he swam towards. Fishermen avoided the place. It wasn’t dangerous, but an island full of seals meant the waters nearby were well fished already by the creatures.

The first of them circled him when the place was still far from him. The large male took several turns before rocketing off towards the island ahead of the smith. Kruger pressed onward, pulling the water with cupped hands and breathing rhythmically. The lighthouse far distant didn’t give him enough light to see the group of seals slip into the waves. It wouldn’t take long for the knowledge to come, there were five of them, four more large males in with grey and black hides. Spots ghosted across their fur and for some reason he felt like it meant something. There was a fifth as well, a pale female swimming fast though she was always somewhere in between the others.

The first and largest of the males dove deep then rose beneath Kruger, slamming his body hard and swimming away. Kruger paused only a moment before continuing on his course towards the island. The strikes came more rapidly now, the smith knew when the remaining males lined up before him that he would be allowed no closer. He stopped his swim and moved to tread water. He didn’t feel the chill of the water like most might. It was a sensation that only went skin deep on him. His foot kicked and sand struck his toes, so the smith stopped trying to stay afloat and stood. He could barely touch, but the purchase was enough for him to bob with the waves and talk as he needed.

“Closer… just a little… enough to stand please.” He spoke just loud enough to be heard by the animals that were now swimming circles around him. Silence met his ears for the space of several heart beats, then there was a squelching bark from the pale seal. Kruger stepped forward, the waterline dropping on his body rapidly. He pushed for as much as they would allow, moving far enough towards shore that his naked torso was fully revealed. The ebbing waves revealed naked hips as well, he could see the dark shapes moving on the island, hear their barks of alarm and outrage for his presence. It was clear that he had reached the end of the seals benevolence.

A touch on his shoulder forced a flinch out of him, the hand was wet, wrinkled and far too human. The shadows near him had changed, four men tall stood in the water close enough to stop him if he tried to make a run for the island but far enough away to afford him some privacy with the half-naked woman that had touched his shoulder.

“The island is forbidden to you.” The sound of her voice was the clarion call of a conch shell played by experienced lips. Kruger turned his back to the island, eyes focusing on the Selkie before him. Her hair was as pale as the hide of the seal had been, and her eyes the color of the sea on a cloudy day.

“Still? I’ve done nothing wrong.” Kruger’s lips compressed, when they threatened to pull into a frown he pressed even harder. His amber eyes close the salt must have been bothering them since they were so near to tearing up. Her palm touched his cheek, and pushed backwards to the hinge of his jaw before her fingers traced the jaw back to his chin. She lifted his face, he hadn’t realized he’d lowered it. He opened his eyes on a face young enough to be his daughter.

“You’ve grown so old, we were right to deny you. You’ve always been more land walker than Selkie.” Her words drew anger from him, his brows compressed and he jerked his face from her touch. The four men started to move but the woman lifted her hand and they fell back into a stance that was the very precipice of death.

“They still call to me, talk to me so loudly. This is not fair, I am punished for an accident of birth.” His words were acid. He didn’t need to define it for her, she knew he heard the voices from the waves. She even knew what it meant that he could. She shook her head sadly, they’d had this discussion before long ago.

“You need only do one thing to be allowed to come ashore Aristotle.” Was that hope in her voice? Did she really regret what had happened? He looked at her searching for the answer from her. She took a step back from him, her face expectant. “Change.” She said the word with an inevitable finality.

“I…” Hope was dashed just that quickly. Kruger’s jaw worked silently, he bit his upper lip and took a ragged breath before he could continue. “…I can’t.” The words were bitter from him, the one thing he couldn’t do that kept him from joining them.

“Then I fear you cannot come ashore. I am truly sorry.” She was, he could hear it in her. She didn’t come closer to him, or try to console him in any way. “Do not return here.” The woman stepped around him and walked towards the shore. The men fell in behind her protecting her exposed back from him.

“Can I at least see her? I swear I won’t come closer I will leave just after if you will let me see my mother.” His head turned as he asked, something in the words stopped the woman. She looked back at him and there was pity in her eyes.

“She was taken during the winter. A white shark, it was quick… The herd still feels her loss.” She didn’t move, Kruger had turned at the news and looked at her with horror.

“Why did no one come to tell me? I deserve that much at least don’t I?” There was no answer from the woman, she slid back into her seal skin and swam away towards shore. “Grandmother… please don’t I deserve even that much?”

Kruger felt the sand hit his knees, on the shore the shadows disappeared the warning barks silenced. The colony of seals had shifted further inland away from the water. All that was left was the crash of waves on the beach, the wind sweeping across the bay, and the keening of the smith.

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Image Credit: Selkie, by Selina Fenech
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Kruger
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Won't Let Go

Post by Kruger »

Bother

I wish I had a reason
My flaws are open season
For this, I gave up trying
One good turn deserves my dying
You don't need to bother
I don't need to be
I'll keep slipping farther
Once I hold on I won't let go till it bleeds
~ Stone Sour


He’d gone once, seen her once just after his apprenticeship had ended. Kruger had meant to go again, had considered it many times and always let things interfere. Let them, that was a fair assessment, deep down he was afraid to go out again and face them. Twenty years should have meant something though. Now there wouldn’t be another chance, and he had only himself to blame. Kruger pulled himself from the water, fatigue having set in well before he found the shore again. The sand stuck stubbornly to wet feet as he closed the distance between him and his clothing. He wasn’t alone, and hadn’t been for some time. That was the mistake that his mother’s people always seemed to make with him. They never understood that the same voices that spoke to them did the same for him.

They’d told him of the forms following behind, that they’d slipped into the waves half an hour after the smith had set off for the mainland and RhyDin. It made sense that they would wait so long, they were easily outpacing his crawling strokes. He wouldn’t try to avoid them, he had no desire to. If there goal was to take him to the bottom, so be it. Nothing on the swim back, he was certain that they could have caught him. What was holding them back?

The moons kissed his skin as he stepped from the water, it wasn’t the first time they’d seen him this way. He was tired, but he moved with a quiet confidence towards the pile of clothing he’d left behind. That was when the voice came. “You’re him aren’t you?” Its tenor was adolescent, it held no undertones of anger or hate, just a simple curiosity that had Kruger turning. The boy was young, or at least he seemed to be. His hair was light, and he had the eyes of the sea. If the smith guessed he’d have put him in his mid to late teen. It was hard to tell with Selkie, his own grandmother still looked a decade or more, younger than he did.

“What do you want?” Kruger was annoyed, he didn’t want to play questions and answers with this kid. He wanted to get as far from the sea as he could. Why did the keep casting him adrift only to hang on when he was ready to let go? The boy flinched, and Kruger realized how hard he sounded. There was something about the kid’s face that had him looking harder. “You have her eyes, not the color but the shape. That changes nothing for me though.” The smith pulled on his small clothes and the denim pants he’d left lay.

“She talked about you, talked about you a lot. You certainly don’t seem like much.” The boy’s arms crossed his bare chest. He was fit, and probably prettier than Kruger had ever been. He’d gone haughty, doing his best to sound superior, or so the smith assumed. It was bluster and would disappear the moment Kruger actually did or said anything confrontational. He had spirit, and that was something at least.

“Maybe so, what’s your name kid?” The boys eyes locked onto Kruger’s face, or rather to the wolf branded into his left cheek. He’d seen it happen before, people looking then when they realized they were they did anything they could to not look at the brand. That was the phase the boy had just gone into. He peeled his eyes away, Kruger did him a favor and turned around so he could grab his shirt. There was a hiss from behind him, the sudden intake of breath from a sight unexpected. The whip scars laced across his back like waves on the sea.

“Murtagh, you get in a fight with Bán Siorcanna or something?” Some of the haughtiness had left his voice, but there was still defiance in him. Kruger ignored it, pulling his shirt on over his head and obscuring the sight.

“It’s a different world here kid, your name means sea skilled. Funny that you waited for me to come on land before trying to kill me.” The huff of a scoff sounded behind him. Maybe the kid wasn’t here to test him after all. If not then what did he really want? “What then? A reunion, am I supposed to throw arms around you and spin you around in celebration? Surely you’ve heard, I am not one of you.” Kruger sat down and brushed at the sand on his feet so that he could don his socks and boots. This had him facing Murtagh again.

“That isn’t the opinion of everyone, just the ones that matter. They don’t exactly ask me what I want.” Murtagh shuffled his feet in the sand, he kept his eyes fixed on Kruger and his chin jutted out defiantly again. “S’why I snuck out when they weren’t looking. I needed to see you, let you know that she never forgot, right up until the day that Bán took her.

“You’re wrong…” At Kruger’s words Murtagh’s eyes began to widen, his lips pursed and he appeared to be ready to bite something off the smith. “You were seen, someone left the island after you did.” Kruger worked the laces of his boots and stood up, he was no longer looking at Murtagh though. A new shadow appeared from the waves. He jerked his head at Murtagh to turn him around. It was one of the four that had come with Ailbe, his grandmother.

Murtagh turned in place and looked at the older Selkie who stepped onto the beach. Kruger could just make out the words the boy whispered to him. “Dubhlainn, our mother’s newest husband, he killed my father four years ago. He was chief among those who refused to grant you leave.”

Dubhlainn was even taller than Murtagh, and he moved like he knew how to use the blade at his hip. “Murtagh, you shouldn’t be wandering, and you certainly shouldn’t be associating with… this.” The disdain for Kruger oozed from Dubhlainn, his mouth was a sneer beneath a nose that looked like it smelled something foul right beneath it.

“You are not my keeper Dubhlainn, I’ll go where I choose.” Murtagh said all of this, and Kruger could tell he meant it, but Dubhlainn’s hand locked on the boys arm and he began to pull him back towards the water. Kruger watched for only a moment before saying something.

“That’s no way to treat my kin, Black Blade.” Kruger wouldn’t give the Selkie the honor of speaking his name in his language, instead he spoke the meaning of it which had the tall man stopping in his tracks. Another of those light haired Selkies, though this one had scars on his body. Kruger knew they were from fights, his skin was different than Murtagh’s as well, graced here and there with the ghost of spots.

“It shouldn’t speak to me, it should just go on its way and leave the discipline of Selkie children to Selkies.” Dubhlainn’s hand slid to the hilt of his sword, it was still strange to see a sword in the possession of a Selkie. Kruger watched that hand warily, it was clear the man hated him though he’d done nothing to gain the man’s ire. At least he hadn’t done anything yet.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t think about pulling that thing, or ‘it’ will break you apart.” He’d said it on purpose, he wanted the man to draw on him. There was no surprise in him when he did, only the flash of hands that shot out, one caught Dubhlainn’s wrist. The other grabbed him as though he were any fighter in The Outback. Kruger lifted him easily and threw him further up the beach toward the cliff face. High overhead were the homes of Rhydin’s wealthy. They were too far away to hear the scuffle going on below.

Kruger hadn’t brought weapons. He wouldn’t have drawn them if he had, he wanted to pound flesh with his fists, to feel ribs snap as he worked blow after blow into Dubhlainn’s body. He’d never feared anyone with a weapon no matter how skilled. He’d punch as hard even if Dubhlainn were wearing plate armor. Get inside, destroy the arm that wields the weapon then destroy the man. Kruger smashed his forehead into Dubhlainn’s face and felt the man’s nose flatten.

Kruger felt hands on him, he heard Murtagh trying to stop him from killing Dubhlainn. Dubhlainn’s eyes were wide as he looked at Kruger who had yet to raise one angry cry. He’d donned his clothes with more emotion. “Faolin!” The word came out like a curse from Dubhlainn.

Kruger laughed as he let Murtagh get between them. “Wolf? Yes that’s me, taking what’s mine, but it was you, all of you who made me this. Look on me and know what you’ve done!” Kruger was shouting now and not just at Dubhlainn anymore. Murtagh put his shoulder under the larger man, the sword retrieved from whence it fell. Murtagh looked over at Kruger like he was some kind of animal.

“That’s right boy, take him away…” Something odd struck the smith then, a thought that had been plaguing him since his grandmother had walked away from him. “Wait! Murtagh! She said taken… Ailbe said taken not killed!” The pair of Selkie were well into the waves now.

Murtagh finally turned about, he words were just audible over the crash of waves. “No one returns from Bán Siorcanna, Faolin.”

Nothing returns from White Shark, but no one had seen her die. Taken, two seasons gone now. Why hadn’t they come, they should have sent him something. What about this White Shark? Could he be some other sea shifter? Kruger wasn’t sure about anything anymore, least of all if he should gain any hope. His next stop would be the libraries.

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