8

Ianto woke to the feeling of nausea, rolling to one side to throw up and then he blearily opened his eyes and looked around. What?

He sat up and focused on the strange thing he was in then remembered the Sherriff explaining what a box was.

Holly shit.

He was in a box.

"HEY!" he yelled, getting to his hands and knees "What the fuck!"

Something hit him hard and he yelped turning to see a man with a long stick poking it through the bars at him as he snarled at him like a fucking animal. "Shut up you prick!"

"What the hell are you doing? Ianto demanded "Let me out!"

"Not until the elders decide what to do with you!" another barked "Trespassing on our mountain. It's forbidden."

"I was on my side you fucking great pillock!" Ianto roared back, angry as all hell, the stickiness in his hair no doubt blood "you were on MY fucking side of the mountain springs ya fucking arsehole!"

They stared at him then one turned to the other "Did you hear that? Thinks he owns the place."

"You fucking arseholes" Ianto was on a roll, angry, concussed and thirsty too. How long had he been out? "I will rip your fucking heads off and shit in your necks ... I will tie your dicks to bricks and throw them off the falls … you fucking …"

"ENOUGH!"

A man stood there dressed in furs, his headdress that of a bear's head. "What is going on here?"

"That is what we caught in our stream!" one of the men pointed at Ianto.

"I want my knife back you thieving scummer!" Ianto snarled "I know you stole it from my kit. Fucking prick, I will rip your heart out and eat it!"

"OK. Let him out."

"What?"

"I want to see what he does if he is so determined to kill you for something you apparently did" the old man said "I take it you do have his knife? Give it to me. No weapons."

The man slapped Ianto's knife into the man's hand and he looked at it with interest.

"Me sister gave me that. Don't fucking lose it, when I have it back I will carve this one's balls off with it" Ianto swaggered as he got his bearings and the idiot tried to swing for him.

Ianto caught his wrist then pivoted, flicking him around his hip and that satisfying snapping sound was music to his ears as he followed through with a head-butt that broke his nose as well, then kicked him in the butt as he went down howling.

The old man stood gaping at him as the other young fool threw himself in a headlong tackle at Ianto who simply grabbed his clothing and swung the airborne idiot into the tree he had been standing by.

"Right" Ianto said calmly as the two men now lay groaning "You want to tell Tuck I want a word then?"

The old man blinked, then he nodded and a child appeared from nowhere, running hell for leather up the path as the old man laughed softly "Well now. Aren't you a bear."

"I'm a tiger" Ianto said as he took a deep breath. "I am a tiger and I fucking eat what I kill."

The man laughed and then came the noise of many people, led by the child as at least fifteen men flew down toward them. The two on the ground were feebly getting up at this point so Ianto turned and whacked one in the head to fall on the other one, then turned and sighed as he recognised one of those coming "Tuck! Hello there. Seems you lot are jumpy. Taking a man from his own back yard by force!"

Tuck stopped walking. Staring at him as Honour continued to race past and seize one of the men, lifting him to shake him "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING WITH THE WELSHMAN!"

"What?" the other one said dazedly.

"This is the Welshman who lives at the base of the mountain. He owns all the bottom part ... you know … said we could still use it?" Honour snarled "Hell's teeth. You're bleeding Ianto!"

"Fuckface here snuck up on me by the stream and whacked me in the back of the head, that's why!" Ianto was shaking with anger "I came to tell you all the girl you send down the falls is going to die. She was too badly hurt from the beatings and going over the falls into the rocks below!"

Silence, everyone staring at him as one slowly turned to look at the one still on the ground.

"Dapple? You said she ran away."

"She was boxed for several days from the injuries on her skin. Then she was chased, she came over the falls in front of me, I dove in and almost drowned getting her out but she was too badly damaged. The fall ws too extreme" Ianto said angrily "They think they can save the baby but I take it you don't want it."

"No. Not ours. She lay with one from down there. That horse thief!" someone shouted "We don't want his spawn up here infecting our children with filth!"

"Blue?" Ianto blinked with surprise "It's his baby? Ah …. Really?"

"We do not know. She would not say who she laid with…said he forced himself on her and she was broken but she had gone seeking one to lay with like a dog in heat… but … she knew the rules. A bonding not agreed to by the elders is not a godly one." Tuck nodded.

"A baby. A little baby … born form such violence and … no chance?" Ianto sighed "You simply cast it out as it is not what you agreed to? That is … that is not what I believe in."

"then you take it" Tuck said firmly "If you believe it is worthy of redemption for the sins of its construction. You take such a beast into your home."

Ianto sighed and looked around "How do I get home? Can someone point the direction to fucking fall in?"

"Let me take you" Honour offered sadly seeing the anger in Ianto's face "After all you have done for us … I am sorry such bad blood comes now. See? A curse, such a baby. A curse comes with it in the afterbirth."

"Bullshit. It's not even born yet, not breathed the air you are poisoning with your hate for it." Ianto pulled his arm back from the man he had thought a friend "Don't' worry. I will not seek your friendship again. Now I see why the townsfolk tried to warn me off you all. They were right. You don't need anything but your mountain. But know this… I remember my Gram, remember her telling me… where I come from … we belong to the dirt. Not the other way around. From the dirt we come, to the dirt we return and in between … we can ether shine like a diamond or stink like fucking mud!"

The leaders took a step back and Ianto seethed, cursing them in Welsh as he slipped and fell, grinding his teeth as he staggered down the trail in whatever diction he could. Down was good. Right?

"Ianto, wait" Honour ran after him, now afraid for him as he saw that Ianto was injured.

Back at the box Tuck turned to another elder who was sucking her cheeks in, then she looked at him long and hard "He is the one the Stag visits?"

"Yes mother. He is the one. I have seen it … he has touched it's face."

She sighed as she looked at the two bedraggled men on the ground and shook her head.

"Perhaps… perhaps he is right. The curse was not thrown away over the falls. Perhaps he had just revived it in the blood he has left in the dirt" she turned to walk slowly back to her hut as the others all looked at one another with fear.

She never spoke of such things.

Unless they were true.