Break #10.5: Another Island—Ireland
Celty felt nothing in particular when she stepped off the plane and onto the airport. She was too busy to sit there and absorb it all and react. There was customs to deal with, there were languages to decode. She had Gaelic and English, but she had to translate to Japanese for Shinra, and that was not a skill she was used to exercising normally; and furthermore, the dialects had changed since she had been there last. The place was modern. It was not the place she remembered—that was fine. But it didn't feel quite like hers anymore, and that was a peculiar feeling.
She didn't feel much of anything when they stepped onto the blacktop, and got into the taxi. She took out the itinerary Shinra had prepared, and followed every step. Shinra slept soundly on her shoulder, exhausted by the trip.
They arrived. She pushed an incoherent Shinra out of the cab, and slid herself out after him. She felt—something was there when she stepped onto the Earth, but the impression went as soon as it came. They got settled; Shinra gave up on staying up late and went to bed. Celty told him she needed some time. And she did.
She walked outside again, and snapped her shadows. It wasn't her black catsuit she wore now but her tarnished-silver knight armor from the old days. She had business with Ireland. Nations and countries, particularly islands, tended towards sentience, and only the twilight people could sense that being—and were bound by it.
She stepped out on the bare earth, and squished her toes in the mud. She sighed. Shinra would have disapproved—it was dirty. But she couldn't do this any other way. Because—aaaah, yes: this was Ireland yawning beneath her, whispering beneath her feet, flowing with power, boosting her strength, healing the bond that had been broken.
She had missed it. Achingly so, though it had always been in the back of her mind, and having forgotten as much as she had, she was rarely conscious of it.
I've come back, she thought.
The flow of Ireland's life-force shivered once, pooling around her feet, then went back to its normal flow, leaving behind only the sighing of wind over grass and rushes.
She was free to stay or go. She was only one of numbers of sentient beings living on its soil.
She smiled a little. I live somewhere else now, she told the land.
In response, the land bent to listen, crowding her a little intimidatingly. What she was about to do—it was tantamount to a citizen renouncing their home citizenship to the national consul...
I am leaving for a new home, she thought firmly. I must go. I have something—a family, with a human. You must let me go.
Ireland thrummed about her, pressuring her, reminding her of the difficulty involved. But she pressed on, and it receded, leaving the faint sense of unease behind it under a shivering thread of moonlight—she may have granted the right to an audience, but there would be a test. The land's lazy ripples told her of its unconcern, that few succeeded at this task and it doubted she would stand up to the challenge, all too secure in its own abilities of coercion.
When the sense of Ireland was finally gone, Celty stood breathless, reeling a little, feeling as if she had been hypnotized. She shook herself out of it, rinsed her feet before she went back inside, and crawled into bed next to Shinra.
She dreamed.
It was only a few hours, but she dreamed of herself having many lives. They were the lives of stories that she had heard before, of other twilight folk whom she knew of but had never known, the whispers that were passed down over the centuries as gossip races through a town. She was the subject of many fairy-tales, all repeating the same theme, over and over, always in the role of the fairy-wife: the elf-woman, the selkie, the mer-maid, the dryad, the nymph, the swan, the enchantress. They all ended nearly the same way. Promises broken, she returned home, husband cursed or dead. She left when the rules were broken. She had to. She'd known when she made them up.
And in between the dreams, the Irish people of the twilight spoke to her as one. This was the test.
Dullahan, do not part from us. We are home. We are family. You are us. Who would you be without us? Will you be nothing? Do not forsake your being! The throng shrilled this last, hitting a high note as they thrilled with fear: fear for her, fear for each other, fear of death. But even so, she knew they were wrong. We are tales, we are stories told by human cradles, we are ancient and we exist forever and always. We abide by no rules but our own. We follow the dawn of time, and now you would desert us? Do not forget you are ours. You can never leave our kinship. You cannot be other. You will be cut off. Your immortality will fade as the falling of leaves—is that not all that you are? Is that not enough? Is that not why we have earned the envy of mankind?
It is not all that I am, Celty repeated, over and over. I am not all of what you are. Some of me is my self.
Strange child! They hissed, when they had tired of asking questions with no answers. There must be something. Something always brings what is ours back to us! What is your price? What is your rule? Your principle? You must remember. It was part of your making: the strongest part of you.
Yet, Celty thought, I do not need to be strong for always.
The twilight people paid no attention. Set apart, stay away. Love, love—love, for love of a human is dangerous to your kind. Love is only love, love alone! Love alone, and death comes. What will you do then? It is your doom. You will be lost. Why yield to death's power, why submit yourself to the ignoble end? It is not too late, not late yet; fate may yet be repealed. It is not needful, it is without reason. Repent of your foolishness before us. They pressured and harried her.
But she broke away at last, and spoke back to them. It is only death...and death is not my enemy. I do not fear it. I would not abandon love to live on for another few centuries. I would not leave before that time. I will not be selfish of my time. I would live as fäerie, and die a human, and remain ever in the tween. It is my wish to make.
You will be compelled, and the fury of reckoning will come to you, taunted the twilight people. Test your husband human's faith and he shall swear an oath! We will be proven aright. We are always proven right; and every woman comes back to us, as they are bound. Just once, just once you will be tempted, and fall!
Never, she swore, and the people of the twilight vanished away. It is unnecessary. I will not!
The dream melted, smoking, emitting strange, intoxicating, lacy fumes that smelled like a cobweb burning. She awoke. Celty opened her eyes to sunlight and birdsong, Shinra at her side. She shook her head to clear it, and blinked to take in the scene. This is where she belongs. For she has chosen, and she will be a good wife as a Dullahan.
Celty sank back under the blankets. With this, the ceremony is complete, as the twilight world has concluded the condition of marriage has been met, and she is no longer recognized as one of them: not until the day she abandons Shinra, or dies. With luck, Shinra will never have to know what, exactly, she has given up. She kissed his cheek, and went back to sleep.
The twilight world would not bother her after that night, preferring to leave the ravages of time to prove their prophecies. She would prove them wrong. And perhaps—perhaps they would change, as one of their number changed.
She would not be homeless again. Without Ireland at her beck and call, she could form alliances with other nations. And this she intended to do when she returned to Japan with her husband—as soon as she found a patch of ground to walk barefoot, that is. A new land would become her strength. For it was impossible to stay where she had been, and there was much to look forward to where she would be.