The light of the rising Moon touches the bark of the darag, almost teasingly, in fits and starts through the breeze-tossed branches of the other trees in the oak grove. His Mother’s touch gently wakens Coinneach; his awareness stirs, blinks—though his eyes exist as yet only in his mind, and the memory of the darag—and peers out into the dappled grove.
* * *
“What memory is this, m’darag?”
Laughter, slow and thoughtful. PATIENCE.
* * *
The nights are long in Alba, but not as long as they will be when the snow comes, and the cold damp. Night-birds pipe a few hesitant trills, and then fall silent. Only the owls call now, warning small things to hide. Unless it is their time, unless the owl’s hunger is greater than their need to continue.
Coinneach stretches, yawns.
A light approaches, warm, flickering, weaving through the grove. Fire. Which means a human—the Tirr Brai, Fae and Coin-Sìth and eich-uisge, need no fire to light their way on land or sea.
Coinneach would sigh, had he a body. Humans knew of the Gille Dubh, of course. They had legends of the wary, solitary Dark Men of the oaks. Some had more than legends; had met a Gille Dubh, had learned something of the ways of their kind, learned what angered them, and what pleased them.
And the bravest among them sometimes came courting.
None have ever come in that way to Coinneach. The local villagers know of him and his darag, of course; some leave tokens, small gifts, fresh-baked bread. One old man sometimes comes at dawn, or at twilight, and sits beneath the darag in companionable silence, one hand resting on its bark, as if sensing the flow of memories just beneath.
The other, though? Never. Coinneach is—even for a Gille Dubh—a lover of solitude. He has the companionship of his darag, a closeness no human, no Tirr Brai, could imagine. That is enough for him. What more could he need?
He can make out the form of the human, now. Short, fair of skin and dark of hair; young, if he is any judge, but old enough to carry a bow slung over his back, so an adult. The lad carries a fire-bowl in one hand, and a large shell, carefully, in the other. No doubt the shell is full of uisge-beatha, the water of life, the distillation of which seems to be a uniquely human gift. The Mothers knew the Fae had never properly worked out the way of it...
Coinneach is not sure how to feel.
The human stops, turns, uncertain. No doubt everything is unfamiliar to him by moonlight.
“My hope? Where are you?”
* * *
“This is not how it was!”
Silence.
“The human gave us no blood. There was never any meaning behind his words.” Surely he never called me his hope...
Silence.
“M’darag!”
PATIENCE.
* * *
The human approaches once again; hesitantly, casting about, studying each tree he passes. He is close enough now for Coinneach to see the way his full lower lip is caught between his teeth, close enough, even, for the scent of his tears to reach the darag, and through it to come to Coinneach.
And he is about to pass by, unseeing, unknowing.
Silence is simple. Silence is safe.
Coinneach borrows form from his darag, and emerges from the wood.
For an instant, the human fails to notice the movement behind him. Coinneach reaches out a hand, from which the last of the bark is still flaking away, and rests it on the human’s shoulder.
Startled, the human turns, the uisge-beatha sloshing in the shell, nearly spilling. Instinctively, Coinneach reaches out to steady the makeshift vessel. His hand covers the human’s, dark over fair.
Coinneach looks up, in time to see the human’s wide eyes staring at their hands.
“You are real,” the human whispers. His words are strange, indistinct, but spoken aloud, in a voice deeper than one would expect from his beardless face. Coinneach also hears the words in the rustle of leaves, the play of moonlight that make up the mind-language of Gille Dubh and daragin.
But Coinneach makes no answer. He does not, because he did not.
* * *
“How is it that what was, is different now?”
PATIENCE—
“You are our patience, m’darag. I am not. I am our change, our newness. But even I cannot change what has already been.”
A sigh, dappled moonlight and shifting branches. THIS IS NOT CHANGE. THE GIFT OF OUR COUSIN’S BLOOD OPENS A NEW DOOR INTO OLD MOMENTS.
“Our cousin? Fiachra?”
Silence, and space for light to dawn.
“He is both Fae and Gille Dubh...”
YES. HIS BLOOD GIVES US THE GIFT OF THE FAE TONGUE.
“And the humans of old spoke their own dialect of Faen.”
YES.
Shivering, as if with a sudden chill.
What did he say?
What is he saying?
* * *
The human offers uisge-beatha with an unsteady hand, his gaze locked with Coinneach’s. No doubt he finds the eyes of the Gille Dubh strange, deep brown flecked with shards of brilliant spring green.
Coinneach cups the human’s hand in his own. He admires the shell, larger than anything a fisherman might find off the coast of Alba. A treasure, no doubt. But more precious than the shell is the scent of the uisge-beatha. Coinneach takes the offering and sips, sighing softly with pleasure as the potent spirit sings through him.
“Are you pleased?”
Yes, he wants to say. And you are welcome here. But he cannot speak, because he did not. He nods, his hand tightening awkwardly around the human’s, because the human’s eyes ask his approval, as they did when this moment was new.
“I am Donnchadh.”
No knowledge of human language is needed to understand this. “Coinneach.” His voice sticks in his throat.
The human—Donnchadh—glances around, and carefully sets his fire-bowl on the ground, on bare earth far from the roots of the darag. When he straightens, his face is cast in shadow by the shifting flames and coals; he offers the uisge-beatha again, but this time his gaze is cast down.
Coinneach drinks, then touches Donnchadh’s chin with a fingertip, tilting his face up, from fire-shadow into moonlight. Gently he urges the human to drink, to share the water-of-life. It is not quite the same thing as sharing blood. But it is a sharing, and as such more than Coinneach has known with a human before now.
Donnchadh is startled at the offering, but sips. Coinneach can almost feel the spirit warming its way down the human’s throat.
“I am leaving. At sunrise. I am promised to the draoidhean, and now that I am of age, I must go.”
Coinneach-who-was hears only eagerness, and regret. And, perhaps, a reference to the druids, human folk held in respect by the Tirr Brai—especially by the folk of the wood. The humans send only their most perfect to the draoidhean, or so the story is told among the Tirr Brai. Coinneach is willing to believe the stories are true.
Donnchadh looks around the grove, his smile wistful. “This is where I learned to listen to the heartbeat of the world. And now I am sad to leave it.”
Regret, yes. Is the human sorry he offered uisge-beatha, in the way of the old promise?—afraid the Gille Dubh will see an offer where none was meant?
I will send him on his way. Save his pride, keep my solitude. The thought feels heavy. Coinneach thinks it is the weight of truth. Probably.
Donnchadh takes a deep breath. “I would say farewell to this place properly.”
Coinneach raises a hand to stop him.
Donnchadh, though, does not seem to notice; he steps into Coinneach’s arms, rests his hand on the Gille Dubh’s bare shoulder. “Let me stay with you tonight, until the dawn.”
* * *
“If I had understood...”
UNDERSTANDING CHANGES NOTHING.
“It changes me, m’darag.”
* * *
Donnchadh is daring, bold, yet in a way almost shy; even as he turns Coinneach to face the darag, raises his plaid, fumbles to anoint himself with some fragrant oil from the bag hanging from his belt, he murmurs. Soft, needful, broken words, only half understood. Yet wholly understood, then and now.
“Yes,” Coinneach whispers, as Donnchadh slowly pierces him. “Yes.” His fingers sink into the bark of the darag, join with it, wood and Gille Dubh together groaning with pleasure.
“Your turn is next.” Donnchadh sways, hot friction robbing Coinneach of breath. A hand moves Coinneach’s hair from the back of his neck; kisses fall there, small bites. Another hand reaches around, tightly grips Coinneach’s shaft.
Faster. Harder. Coinneach’s knees threaten to buckle. A strong arm around his waist steadies him.
* * *
“M’darag...!”
THE MEMORY DOES NOT PLEASE YOU?
“Why have you waited so long to return this to me?”
IT IS ALWAYS NOW.
* * *
Donnchadh’s plaid is unwrapped now, spread out on the ground, covering the tufts of hardy winter grass. The human lies beneath Coinneach, smiling, eyes reflecting the moonlight. Sweat gleams on his brow despite the chill in the air, and his hands are hungry for Coinneach’s body.
Coinneach, too, is hungry. He wants every taste of the young man’s body, every scent. He wants to see and hear how Donnchadh reacts when each place on his body is touched, tongued, tasted. He savors every moment, understanding at last the allure of this temporary joining.
To the Gille Dubh, and their daragin, nothing is temporary. Every moment is now, or it can be.
Donnchadh rocks under him, gasping, offering himself. Coinneach braces his knees against the rough wool, takes his weight on one hand, and guides his slick cock to Donnchadh’s entrance, probing, testing. He tenses, slides within.
“Please... yes, please, yes...”
Coinneach-who-was understands. Understands the hands, the eyes, the body, the needing.
“Yours, I will always be yours...”
Coinneach-who-is understands the words.
* * *
“Can you not bring him forward in time? Just until the dawn?”
Gentle breeze, the drift of a falling leaf. HE COULD NOT STAY.
“No.”
AND ONLY OUR KIND CAN TRAVEL THROUGH TIME WITHOUT DAMAGE.
“I know...”
HE MIGHT REMEMBER YOU, WERE HE TO COME TO THIS-NOW. BUT ON HIS RETURN... IN THEN-NOW HE WOULD FORGET, WOULD LOSE EVERYTHING HE HAS EVER KNOWN, EVERYTHING HE HAS EVER BEEN. WOULD YOU GIVE HIM THAT, IN EXCHANGE FOR WHAT HE GIVES YOU?
A sigh, long and unsteady. “No. Though true kindness might.”
* * *
The plaid is wrapped around them both. Coinneach’s head is pillowed on Donnchadh’s arm; the human’s leg is worked between Coinneach’s, his pale hand cups Coinneach’s dark shoulder. Coinneach closes his eyes as a kiss falls on his forehead.
His own memory of time-bound events is an ephemeral thing, waxing and waning like the Moon, his cradle-mother. But when he returns to the darag, this night will join the trove of moments kept by his darag, to be re-experienced anew at will, forever.
“Thank you,” Donnchadh whispers. “My heart.”
Coinneach does not need to understand the words to understand the emotion. And though this moment is as fleeting as any, it is also eternal, and he honors it, returning the words as best he can and seeking Donnchadh’s mouth.
Even in the depths of such a kiss, though, he can feel the fire of the coming dawn lick at his skin. He startles, coming up onto an elbow and peering through the trees to the east, toward the glow on the horizon.
Donnchadh follows the direction of his gaze, and sighs. “The stories say your kind cannot abide the sun.”
He scrambles to his feet and extends a hand, helping Coinneach to his.
They stand together, the darag between them and the sunrise. For the first time, Coinneach is reluctant to return to his tree’s embrace; he grips Donnchadh’s hard-muscled arms, wishing for an instant that his grasp could be enough to hold the human forever, as some of the Tirr Brai have done with humans.
No. This night is his forever, and that will have to be enough.
Donnchadh smiles, his smallest finger tracing the curve of Coinneach’s lower lip. “My heart will remember you always.” He leans in for one last gentle, lingering kiss.
Then his hands urge Coinneach back against the darag. “Fàilte, mo chridhe.”
Coinneach’s form melts into the wood, just ahead of the first rays of the rising sun.
* * *
“Thank you, m’darag.”
FOR THE MOMENT?
“For your wisdom, in not taking his memory from him.”
Coinneach’s awareness settled, down into the roots of the darag. In the darkness, those roots twined around and through the place which still held the softly singing memory of the heart buried there thousands of years ago.
The heart did, indeed, remember. Forever.
* * *
Union Station, Washington, D.C.
Silence stared unseeing at its reflection in oblivion.
Redness stirred, rose, fell back.
Or perhaps it was all imagination.
But who was left to imagine?