"Through the Eye of a Little God"
Letterewe – 1651
Uallas had Nicnevin over to the homestead again about two weeks after her first visit. He told Cadha and Struana that the ancient lady was an old and distant relative of his. Cadha made the woman right at home, at first seeing to her every need as if she were a stray kitten or small child. The regal old woman surprised her, though; despite her wrinkles and her hobbling frame Nicnevin was every bit as independent as a woman half her apparent age.
"The good Lord looks out for dotty old fools," she teased, "and so I'm in quite fine a condition, I should say!"
Struana was less enthused about the old woman's visit, treating the woman like a scary leper until Nicnevin coaxed the little girl out of her shell. It helped that she had a chunk of refined chocolate amongst her possessions, and it was nearly as big as Struana's head.
"Ah, that's a special blend, they say. They make it only in Italy, so I'm told." She looked over at Uallas as the little girl chowed down on the sweet treat. "Although just when, exactly, those Italians started becoming known for their food is beyond me!"
The woman touseled Struana's hair as she spoke, and as she did her sunken old eyes narrowed a little. She smiled at Uallas as she spoke:
"Of course I couldn't possible enjoy such a decadent treat. Your girl, though, seems to have enough energy for the task. Doesn't she, Uallas?"
The man, who until now had been smiling warmly, suddenly lost his grin. He coughed and motioned to the little girl:
"Here now, Struana: don't... don't just go and wolf all of our guest's chocolate down..."
"Oh, but then that's what it's for!" Nicnevin chuckled. She looked over at Penance, that gentle grin still firmly cemented on her face, and held up a piece of the treat for him. "Maybe, perhaps, your young apprentice would appreciate it, instead, Uallas?" Again she looked up at the man. "It makes little difference, doesn't it? Penance, I think, has the energy for it too, doesn't he?"
Uallas swallowed hard. The man didn't respond to this, and as a result both children were able to enjoy their treat.
Penance couldn't complain about that, exactly.
The boy temporarily lost his room to Nicnevin, and he spent the three days of her visit sleeping up at the forge. It suited him fine— kinda like a campout, really— and the waning embers of the forge did wonders to keep him warm at night.
He wasn't always alone up on that hilltop, though. During Nicnevin's visit Penance was never quite free of that strange feeling of eyes on him, or the disquieting sound of footsteps skulking about in the tall grass. Shadows flitted in the night, and during the day bodies appeared and disappeared on the periphery of his vision: painted specters dancing through the treeline. Nicnevin's pagans were never too far from their lady's side, even as they kept their presence hidden from Cadha and Struana.
Uallas' neighbors visited them that first night, bringing up a fatted sheep and other fixings for a grand feast. On that day Struana ran about in the field, playing with the neighbors' two young children. Penance stayed around the house to help set up the meal, but he wasn't immune to the kids' hearty shouts and laughter outside. He got so distracted by it that Cadha eventually shooed him out, figuring that "if you're going to be so distracted by such childish merriment, then you'd be better off to join it than accidentally slicing your hand off in your carelessness, cutting up my herbs!"
That was a very nice way of telling Penance that it was okay to go outside and play.
Play he did, too. He worked up a hearty sweat chasing the other kids around, being chased, and— for just a brief moment— being a kid. It wasn't something he got to do very often, and whenever he did, he tried to make the most of it.
A tingle on the nape of his neck snapped him out of the game; when he looked over his shoulder he saw that ancient lady, Nicnevin, seated in a chair that had been brought outside for her, buried in the shadows of thick trees lining the edge of the field. She sat with that same perfect and regal posture she showed before. Her glassy blue eyes looked over the field with unwavering attention, much like a soaring falcon surveying the land.
So much about the woman intrigued Penance. She was unlike any other Immortal he'd ever met, or anything he'd come to expect from one of their kind. The fact that she traveled with her own entourage of pagan 'worshippers' only sweetened the mystery. He decided to take a break from his all-important horsing-around session with the younger children and seek refuge in the shade.
Nicnevin smiled down at the boy as he sat in the grass beside her chair, panting like an overworked dog.
"My own muscles grow weary, young Penance, just from watching you at play."
"Not as much as mine," he smirked. "Those kids're really tiring..."
The woman smiled, her thin lips curled like rolled paper strips.
"The 'others' can be quite tiring to be around, can't they?" She said. "Perhaps it's because they can feel it: their life force running on them, like sand falling through an hourglass. They must always be on the move, for fear of wasting those few precious moments given to them."
Penance nodded and looked over to the playing children, following the woman's gaze.
"One life seems to be enough for most."
Nicnevin chuckled- a dainty and controlled little thing- and she looked down at her lap, gently folding her ancient hands over one knee:
"'One life'," she shook her head. "Well, there's a notion. I can't sympathize with them. In fact I can't even remember much of my first full 'lifespan'. Nothing more than the basics, anyway: the raw facts. The feelings..."
The woman's wrinkled hands gripped her knee tighter, exposing her withered blue veins, and she kept her eyes on them, unblinking.
"...the feelings, well... they fade after a time. Disappear, even, as if they never even happened..."
Penance considered the woman's words as he watched Struana and the other children play. He blinked uncomfortably as he mulled the idea: would he forget about Struana one day? Cadha, too? What about his parents, and his brothers and sisters? No, he certainly wouldn't forget about any of them.
He really didn't want to live a life where he couldn't even place his own family's faces.
As Penance's troubled mind turned this problem over in his head Nicnevin's dull blue eyes looked over to him, and her gaze held on him as steely as the stare of a hawk. Penance was unfocused, put off-guard by the woman's words. He was thinking about what those words meant to him.
If only he'd thought about what those words meant to Nicnevin, well, things could have turned out very differently.
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Despite all the merriment of the day Uallas was quite distant from the frivolities, and the only time he even spoke to the boy was ordering him to help move a large mirror from the main room of the house to Penance's room, in order to accommodate Nicnevin's feminine needs. Penance made a joke about the fact that guys like him and Uallas could make do with a basin of water as a mirror.
"You'd think women could, too. After all: if they really don't like what they see, they can just splash their hands in the water, and you can't see anything: no more worries!" Penance laughed.
Uallas didn't laugh with him.
The boy lingered in the room after the man left, watching the woman as she gently repositioned the mirror to better catch light streaming in from the window. He noticed grease smudges on the glass, and when he reached up to wipe it down the woman gently rested a hand on Penance's shoulder:
"Ah, leave it," she cooed, smiling wistfully. She removed her braided silver necklace and set it on the nightstand, leaving that small golden butterfly at its center facing up. "Streaks and smudges are only a little matter. They can be quite comforting, in fact."
"Comforting?"
Nicnevin nodded, looking up at her reflection. It was distorted, marred with streaks from the grease, a little like a Gaussian blur, and the image that smiled back at her was less a whole person than it was an abstract figure: the idea of a human body, rather than the real thing. Hard features were replaced with vague shapes, wrinkles became blurred lines and discolored splotches of old skin became a seabed of beaming, nebulous whiteness.
"A mirror can be a disquieting thing. It's not so simple as a mere reflection of the body, sometimes. It can more like the totality of your own existence looking back at you, or even the eye of a little god, in a way." Nicnevin looked down at Penance: "You are Spanish, are you not?"
The boy nodded.
"Catholic, then?"
Again he nodded.
The woman shrugged, looking back up at the mirror.
"Christ is as good as any, as deities go."
"Who is it you worship?" Penance asked.
The woman's faded blue eyes squinted as she looked at her reflection, as if she were recalling a distant memory:
"The gods to whom I burnt my offerings are many," she answered. "Their names would be meaningless to you, and to anyone else alive, today. Even my good friends- the 'pagans', as you are fond of calling them- would find my gods to be an alien host."
"Who do your friends worship, then?"
The woman's bleak little smile returned. She shook her head, scoffing.
"Me, I'm afraid. Mostly, at least. Perhaps it's improper of me, exposing my own gift of immortal life to them, and indeed they view my 'power' with reverence and awe, naturally. But with my frail frame I'm afraid I would not last very long without their devotion. Beyond honoring me they also venerate the Source of our immortality, whatever it may be, exactly."
"Forgive me," Penance whispered, "but God is the only source of eternal life."
The woman's smile widened. She gently moved one hand over her hazy reflection, brushing off the grease along one small line. She exposed her pale blue eyes in the frame, and they stared back at the woman with a piercing gaze. She whispered solemnly, as if to herself:
"Then perhaps it's he who sees fit to leave one stranded on this side of the mirror..."
Penance furrowed his brow and looked up at Nicnevin:
"What do you mean by that?" He asked.
Nicnevin drew a slow breath and looked over at Penance. She smiled warmly, like a kindly grandmother, and she touched the boy's cheek with her palm. Sparks flew in Penance's brain, and his body coursed with energy given off from the old woman:
"Nothing, dear child," she said. "Nothing at all." She removed her hand from him, clenching and relaxing it a few times as she withdrew it. "I admire all that energy in you, young Penance. It's a thing to be praised. This place: it is truly a world for the young, after all..."
Penance left the woman soon after this, and still she kept her attention on that old and greasy mirror.
Three days later Nicnevin's little visit with them was at an end and she left the land, taking her shadowy pagan entourage with her. Life on the homestead could then return to normal.
But it didn't.
Six days later Penance left the Letterewe homestead.
He wouldn't be returning for nearly 250 years.
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Later that week Penance spent a torturous six hours scrubbing out the main flue at the forge, and when he finally came out of the building, soot-covered and coughing like an aged coal miner, he looked more like a tar baby than a boy. It was early evening, and already a chill was creeping in from the cold Atlantic waters beyond Loch Ewe. Regardless of the chill in the air Penance had no choice but to brave the frigid creek waters before making his way back up to the homestead, still shivering from his icy little bath.
Uallas was waiting for him, leaning against the door frame with a cool, uneven smile on his face. He slapped the boy's shoulder as Penance walked past him, and he motioned to the kitchen table:
"You're nearly exhaling icicles, aren't you?" He teased. "Come one over to the table and have yourself something hot."
That perked Penance's dour mood right up; the boy instantly had visions of a few fingers of scotch burning down his throat, and the vapors training out his nostrils like a warm and comforting breeze. But when he got to the table he found that the man was speaking quite literally: he had tea prepared for them, and Penance's glass was already waiting for him, steaming in the cold air like foam off a waterfall.
The boy's grin fell and he cocked his brow.
"Whatever," he muttered to himself. 'Hot' was hot, after all.
The pair sat in silence for a time, sipping their respective teas. Uallas only stared down at his cup, not looking Penance in the eyes, and when he finally spoke his voice was a dreary whisper:
"Penance..." he mumbled.
The boy looked up at him, eyes blinking.
"Yes?"
Uallas stared at the boy for nearly ten seconds. That sounds like a short amount of time, but sitting at a quiet table, staring at each other, that time was an eternity. And in that eternity Penance saw something twisting at the man, straining the corners of his mouth and nearly exploding from his very skin. The man opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it again.
"H- how's your tea?"
The boy smiled good-naturedly and ran his finger along the rim of the cup:
"It's good!" He said. "Really good, in fact. Y'know, it's got a neat little taste at the end, like black truffles, or something. A little rot, too, y'know... like..."
Penance blinked. He realized that his head was slowly bowing forward as he spoke, and so he raised it up. But then it went too far back, nearly hitting the back of his chair. It felt like his head weighed a ton.
Then he felt a dry, sticky prickliness in his mouth. His tongue burned.
And then his breathing slowed.
The boy looked over at Uallas in confusion, blinking erratically, gurgling as spit formed on the corners of his lips. Uallas merely sat in place, hands clasped before his chin, his eyes empty and cold:
"I'm... sorry..." he muttered.
Penance fell to one side, banging his head on the table. He landed in a heap on the floor, disoriented, his chest heaving as he struggled to take another breath. Uallas stood over the boy, arms crossed:
"I truly am," he whispered.
Penance's muscles failed him. Within another few seconds his heart gave out on him, and his vision faded.
