Chapter Two
AN: More mythology and lots of dialogue. Glossary will be provided at the end of the chapter.
"Blood King, we have a serious problem."
"I'll say," Kenzi snarked. "You're here."
"Kenzi!" Bo hissed.
"Leash your pet, succubus, we have more important things to worry about," the Morrigan spat. "I'm as thrilled about my presence here as she is, but this is bigger than Light or Dark."
"Everybody out!" Trick shouted across the Dal. "We're closed! Official business!" The Fae left quickly, none of them wanting anything to do with whatever it was that brought the Morrigan raging in. Once everyone but the assemblage around Trick had left, the bartender turned back to Evony. "Now what's this all about?"
"The Otherworld, Blood King. This is about the Otherworld and the veil. It's tearing."
Bo and Kenzi knew by the wide eyes and indrawn breaths that this meant something terrible, but neither had any clue as to what. "Are you sure?" Trick whispered, and Bo was surprised to hear her grandfather's voice tremble.
"I was chased here by a couple scald crows; I'm very sure." Tamsin made a disgusted noise and the Morrigan arched an eyebrow at her. "I would've thought Valkyries liked scald crows. Or do they cramp your style?"
"Scald crows?" Bo asked, putting aside her confusion about the Otherworld and the veil in favor of what seemed like a simpler question.
"Battlefield scavengers," Tamsin replied, scowling at the Morrigan. "They inspire courage in some warriors and feast on the remains of others. They serve Mór Ríoghan."
"If they're yours, why are they chasing you?" Bo asked Evony, thoroughly confused.
The Morrigan rolled her eyes. "Your ignorance is painful, succubus. Not 'the Morrigan,' Mór Ríoghan: goddess of battle and strife and one of the first Dark Fae ever to have lived. The title of Morrigan is in her honor."
"If she was one of the first dark Fae ever to have lived, how did she send her crows after you?"
"Because the veil to the Otherworld is tearing," Trick repeated Evony in a resigned sigh.
"Samhain sure as hell won't help," Tamsin added, pouring herself another shot and downing it in one smooth movement.
"What does Samhain have to do with this? Can somebody please start explaining things?!" Bo protested, beginning to lose her temper.
"Slow your roll, succubitch; we'll spell it out for you," the Valkyrie replied calmly. Throwing back another shot, she began, "Samhain is the one day of the year when the veil between this world and the Otherworld is thinnest. The Otherworld is one of many realms that host dead Fae, but it's also home to a group of Fae that were tricked into living there: Fae called the Tuatha Dé Danann. The Tuatha were once the gods of what is now Ireland."
"Hurry it up, Valkyrie; this isn't storytime," the Morrigan growled.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm getting there," Tamsin waved her off. "Anyway, so the Tuatha live in the Otherworld along with a bunch of dead Fae and the more ancient of the sídhe. The dead Fae are all well and good, but the Tuatha and the ancient sídhe were trapped in the Otherworld against their will and will take any opportunity to break free. I'm willing to bet that several millennia spent basically underground are enough to piss anyone off enough to attack everyone they come across."
"Oh, honey, the Tuatha and the sídhe are more than just pissed," the Morrigan interjected. "They've been holding a grudge since the day the Milesian king tricked them out of this world. I'd've thought that battle would've been swarmed with Valkyries. It was the fall of a kingdom, after all."
"I was at the battle, not the negotiations," Tamsin shrugged, downing another shot. She was almost to the bottom of the bottle.
"So if I'm hearing this correctly, the veil – which is already going to be thinner on Samhain – is starting to tear and let through a bunch of Fae with a thousand-year grudge?" Bo tried to understand.
"Try five thousand years," the Morrigan corrected. "And that's only half of it. There's the possibility that the veil will be so thin on Samhain that it will tear completely, opening the door for every Fae in the Otherworld to take their vengeance."
"What did we ever do to them?" Kenzi protested.
"As far as the Tuatha and the sídhe are concerned, everyone in this world has taken what's rightfully theirs and they'll do anything to get it back," Dyson answered, his voice more grim than usual.
"I don't suppose there's some way to sew the veil shut?" Bo asked, only half-joking.
"You wish, succubus. Only the Tuatha and the sídhe have the power to close the veil and they're the ones who want to get out."
"But this has happened before," Hale spoke up. "I grew up sitting through a whole lot of Clan Zamorra stories and some of them involve the tearing of the veil."
"The last time this happened it was at the cost of thousands of sídhe," the Morrigan replied. "They sealed the breach, but the tear wasn't nearly as big and it was around Bealtaine."
"I must've missed that battle," Tamsin commented.
"You weren't invited," the Morrigan shot back.
"Hold up, there are sídhe here?" Kenzi asked, just as confused as Bo was. "I thought they were all trying to get out."
"You're looking at one, human," Evony replied, spreading her hands.
"Trick told me once that you're a leanan sídhe," Bo remembered. "So you're a descendent of the ancient sídhe?"
"Technically I'm a descendent of the Tuatha themselves, like all sídhe. But after that first tearing of the veil we became a rare commodity, and usually we're really hard to kill."
"Almost up there with Valkyries," Tamsin smirked. It was the Morrigan's turn to scowl.
Bo sighed. "Ok. So. Army of angry Fae knocking at the door. Par for the course. Plan?"
"Plan?!" the Morrigan shrieked. "You're doing nothing, succubus! All of this happened because of you!"
The air seemed to leave the room as the gathered Fae stared at Bo. "…Me? What…how is this my fault?"
"Don't think I didn't hear about your little stunt: crossing between worlds without a guide! Figured you'd just crash your way back home without even thinking about the damage you'd be doing?" Evony tangled her fingers in her hair and made a noise of both rage and disgust.
"When did you cross between worlds?!" Tamsin snapped at Bo. The succubus was about to snap right back when she saw the Valkyrie's expression. As tough as she was trying to look, worry brimmed in her bright green eyes.
"All I did was…jump from the Death Train…" Bo trailed off, slumping in her seat as the guilty realization draped across her shoulders.
"You jumped?!" Tamsin almost fell off her barstool. "You could have been torn to pieces!"
"Maybe if she had then we wouldn't have this problem!" the Morrigan growled.
"Evony," Trick warned, and the low foreboding of his voice and unspoken command for silence made her flinch despite herself. With that one word, he had become every inch the Blood King.
"Look, if this is my fault, then I have to be the one to fix it, whatever it takes," Bo declared, her expression one of decisive finality.
"Um, Bo-Bo, I hate to rain on your heroic parade, but you've already got the Wanderer to worry about," Kenzi noted.
Tamsin spat out the shot she had half-downed. The human's words brought all the pieces floating drunkenly in her mind into a much more sobering whole. "That was some mighty fine vodka you just wasted there, T," said human remarked, but Tamsin didn't fire off a retort, too concentrated on keeping her growing panic in check.
"Evony, what year did the veil tear the first time?"
"About 1100, give or take a couple decades."
Wracked with guilt, Tamsin turned to the succubus. "Bo, that's about the same time I made the deal with the Wanderer, and he's the one who put you on the Death Train."
"And if jumping from the Train specifically tore the veil, then that means the Wanderer would have to be on the other side, and that means…" Bo began with growing dread.
"…that he could be one of the ancient sídhe. Maybe even one of the Tuatha themselves."
Glossary (I broke out all my college notes for this chapter):
sídhe: Pronounced "shee."The ancient fairy folk of Ireland. The word "sí" can also refer to their homes
leanan sídhe: Pronounced "LEN-an shee" (they pronounce it incorrectly on the show). Literally "fairy queen" or "fairy lover." They act as muses to bards and poets but they also slowly drive them insane. The song "My Lagan Love" references leanan sídhe.
Mór Ríoghan: Pronounced "more REE-(g)han" (the "g" is there, but just barely). Goddess of battle and strife. Also known as a triple-form goddess, the three women named Nemhain ("ne-VAN"), Macha ("MA-ch(k)a"), and Badb ("bayv"), which brings us to...
scald crows: Servants of Badb present on the battlefield. It's said they leapt from spear point to spear point calling out to and encouraging soldiers in battle.
Tuatha Dé Danann: Pronounced "TU-a-ha day DAHN-an." Ancient Gods of Ireland that now inhabit the Underworld (if I'm reading my notes correctly). When they were defeated by the Milesian king a treaty was signed that would split the land between the Milesians and the Tuatha. The king tricked them by taking the land above ground and giving the Tuatha the land below.
The veil/Otherworld: The veil separates our world from the world of the sídhe. It is thinnest at Samhain and thickest at...
Bealtaine: Pronounced "beltane" or "BEL-tah-nuh." One of the four Celtic seasonal festivals, held in May.