A Day in the life of the Brother I
He was in a dark place and something was prodding his cheeks.
"Alba! Alba!" He grumbled before opening his eyes to stare at an auburn haired boy, only about 5 years old. He was loud and annoying. North Ireland. He turned his head to look over his shoulder.
"Hey Brother! Brother! Alba's awake now!"
And angry voice shouted at them. "That's because ye jus' woke him ye ninny! Dinnae I tell ya not to wake him!"
Scotland sat up, scowling at the young North Ireland, just as a 6 year old Ireland ran up to them. He tackled North Ireland, sitting on top of him. He gave his younger sibling a rough noogie, messing up his tangled hair more. Ireland managed to talk to Scotland at the same time.
"Sorry aboot tha' Alba! Ye ken North Ireland! He cannae keep his pussie shut fer nuffin'!" North Ireland pushed up, knocking Ireland off balance. He turned on his brother, with balled fists, and began fighting with him. They were tugging at each other's hair and cloaks and throwing punches as hard as they could.
This 'fighting' was common for them as children. None of the fights were ever serious and were considered a form of playing to them. In some ways, they were closer to animals than humans. Scotland grinned and joined his brothers in the fight.
He was 10 years old, nearly 11, but he was still a good fighter. It didn't take long to wrestle both of his brothers to the ground.
Soon it was an all out brawl between the three brothers. Kicking, biting and clawing wildly at each other with all their strength. It ended after a short while with the three boys lying on the grass, breathless but grinning and laughing loudly. North Ireland was the first one to talk naturally.
"That… was… fun…" Ireland gave a weak shove to him.
"Sh-shut… up… ye ninny…" Scotland flopped over and pushed himself up to his hands and knees.
The play fight didn't end without any injuries. It rarely did. Luckily most of the fights ended in mainly bruises, and sometimes a couple of small cuts and bad bite marks. (The worst one was when Ireland forced Wales to fight with him and ended up breaking one of his legs. He got into big trouble for it. Of course that wouldn't happen for a few more years when Wales is big enough to fight.)
He had a bruise just under his left eye from one of Ireland's punches and a big bruise on his stomach from a rough kick from North Ireland. He body had some other bruises but he didn't keep track from who they came from in the midst of the brawl. He was the best off.
Ireland had a black eye as well but as well as a bruise on his cheek. There was a bite mark on his arm and his shirt was slightly torn at the corner. He probably had a few more injuries than Scotland but
North Ireland was the worst by far. He had four bruises on his face and his nose was bleeding a little. His bare arms had red marks too, showing that he was going to have bruises later. There were two angry crescent shapes on his hand from when he accidently put his hand in someone's mouth and they bit.
"Oi! North Ireland! Yer nose is bleedin'"
"Whit?" He touched his nose with a small hand and looked at the scarlet liquid on it. "Cack!" Ireland shoved him again.
"Donnae swear, ye edjit!"
"Aye! Mind yer coorse language. If màthair hears us agen, she'll yell at us!" North Ireland pouted as he was scolded by his older brothers.
"Aye…" He made to wipe the blood from his nose with his light green cloak but Scotland grabbed his arm.
"Donnae dee that either. Wait here!" Scotland stood up and ran into the bushes. He appeared a few minutes later with a huge armful of soft, fluffy moss.
"Use this." North Ireland nodded and grabbed a handful of moss. He held it to his bloody nose. "North Ireland. Ye cannae use yer cloak like tha'. It's a gift from out màthair. Look afta it, aye?"
"Aye." Ireland looked at Scotland carefully. He always noticed how much Scotland cared for their mother and any gift that they got from her. Scotland looked up at the sky. The sun was high.
"It's almost lunch." He looked at the two Irish boys. "Where's Iggy and Cymru?"
North Ireland tried to speak but was muffled by the moss so Ireland took responsibility in answering.
"Wales will be with either the sheep or the dragons or both. He's always playing with them and Iggy will probably be with him or somethin'." Scotland nodded.
"Let's patch oor selves up and go find them."
"Aye." The other two brothers stood up, North Ireland abandoned his moss. Scotland still had a pile of moss in his arms.
The three children began running though the dense forest. The leafy ferns that squeezed themselves between the thick trees were wet with dew and ran. The branches were low and moving was hard. The boys were used to the surroundings though and didn't think twice about the dozens of tiny scratches that they got from the low branches and close trees and thorny bushes as they easily navigated through them, using their short heights to crawl under and over any obstacle. Fairies soon joined the sprint, along with a couple other magical creatures. They finally broke out of the edge of the woods and into a field.
The grass came up to their chests and the whole place was covered in patches of ferns, moss and heather. They looked around grinning at the view before them.
It was a wide and open space. In the background, you could see huge hills, covered in trees or heather. There were many white dots on a particular hill that the brothers knew were sheep. (A/N – I'll talk a little about this at the end.) This was their country, their mother's country, Britannia.
The fairies stopped and hovered by them. "Sirs! You three are a mess!"
They looked at each other. They had scratches from the wild run and twigs and leaves tangled in their hair and clothes. Scotland had a particularly bad one on his cheek that was bleeding. They laughed a little while the fairies scowled before joining in the laughter.
They were nearly always a mess from running around wildly, fighting in mud and acting like little animals. Britannia didn't usually reprimand them for being so filthy. They were young boys who lived away from normal humans in the forests where they were raised and grew up in.
A gnome approached them. "Do you three need anything? Your mother did leave us in charge to make sure you stay safe." Ireland didn't miss the flash of disappointment and rejection that flashed across Scotland's face. Their mother wasn't here again today. Soon Scotland was grinning again though.
"Aye. We need some clooth to patch oor selve up." The gnome nodded before scurrying off. The brothers watched him leave, pulling out the twigs from their hair and clothes.
Suddenly North Ireland gasped and pointed excitably down the hill. "Look! Brothers! Unicorns! And they're coming this way!"
The two turned their heads to see a wild herd of white horses running in their direction. They were beautiful, almost glowing and their pelts the purest white, and on their heads were a single, twisted silver horn. They flattened the rough landscape in their trample.
The boys suddenly began cheering and whooping with their arms in their air. They cried out loudly to the horses who continued their canter, ignoring the three small, wild children. The horses rushed past them in a stampede, almost trampling the children. The children stood in the middle of the herd as it split and rushed around them.
Scotland suddenly started running alongside them. Seeing their older brother do this, the other two quickly joined in. The horses were a lot faster than them but the boys tried to keep up and remain in the herd with them.
They screamed with delight and ecstasy at the freedom of running with unicorns. Soon though the herd left them behind and they slowed to a stop. They were breathing heavily again but still grinning widely.
To their surprise, a couple of unicorns stopped and stayed with the children. They seemed interested in the little boys who had tried to join their canter. A unicorn trotted up to Scotland who held out a scoop of grass. It sniffed it before, nudging his hand with its snout. He stroked it gently.
"Yer a beauty…" The second unicorn went up to the Irish boys and they cooed over it. The fairies caught up with the boys.
"Sirs! Are you okay? All we saw were the unicorns surrounding you and when the dust and the unicorns cleared, you were gone!" The fairy sounded panicked.
"Aye! We're dandy!" Scotland said cheerfully. North Ireland was busy, talking excessively to the unicorn while Ireland tried to get him to be quiet without scaring away the animal.
The gnome reappeared, out of breathe, and the horse snorted at the tiny man. He carried a sheet of light brown material.
"Here you go, sirs. It came from the elves." He said gruffly.
Scotland knelt down, placing the moss on the ground. He took the fabric and ripped a huge stripe from the cloth. He lifted up his shirt and packed a little moss on the large bruise on his stomach. He wrapped the cloth around the moss, keeping it in place. The other brothers followed suit, wrapping up any serious bruises. Scotland folded up a little bit of moss in a small square of brown fabric. He placed it on his cut and used another strip of material to tie to his face.
When the three were done, they resembled mummies. A fairy sighed before fixing their bandages so they looked neater and had less loose bandages. North Ireland grinned widely.
"Now let's go find oor wee broths!" The unicorns suddenly knelt down by them and they gaped at it.
North Ireland suddenly jumped on the closest one, a little too roughly so it whinnied in annoyance. Ireland yelled at him for being too jumpy and maybe hurting the unicorn. Ireland pulled North Ireland's cloak backwards, forcing him to the back of the animal, so he could sit up front.
Scotland laughed at this while North Ireland pouted about not being in the front. Scotland had a unicorn to his self.
The fairy and the gnome were shocked that two wild unicorns would stop for humans but this was beyond amazing, letting the boys actually ride them.
They rode them uneasily as they gripped the mane of the speedy majestic animal. They found that the unicorns were taller and more muscular than regular horses.
(A/N – Scotland, the Highlands in particular, is wet. Very wet. In fact the wettest place in Europe. The Highlands, where I live, has the greatest average rainfall in Europe and the wettest summer too. Now it may seem that this would be good for the plants living here but to be honest, most of the plants are weeds or grass or trees. Hence in the past, people didn't try to invade Scotland for farming land but grazing land. Our hill are covered with sheep and cows! We just let them roam wildly as well! You take a drive through the hilly areas and you see sheep standing in strange places… Like the middle of a cliff with a 20ft drop below and a 15ft climb above. There is hardly any fences and they just eat random things they find. Scottish sheep are tough sheep in other words. And excellent mountain climbers too.
I'm leaving to go to Turkey for a fortnight in about…. 1 hour.
Since I didn't have time to finish the Story 7 and 8 chapters and I didn't want to abandon you for two weeks with no up-dates so I decided to post this story! Hope you enjoy it.
REVIEW PLEASE!)