Awa' Frae th' Stone

[Tycat]

Bratach Bhan Chlann Aoidh

History
Clan Mackay (Gaelic: Mac Aoidh) is an ancient and once-powerful Scottish clan from the far North of the Scottish Highlands, but with roots in the old kingdom of Moray. They supported Robert the Bruce during the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 14th century.

Septs of Chlann Aoidh would to include Aileanach, which would become Clan Allan in later centuries. The clans of MacKay would go on to have bitter feuds with rivals such as Sutherland, Sinclair, Donald, Gunn and Ross, but in a lea far from his croft a fiery upstart would be running for his life from an angry MacKinny lad, and without much of his clothes. This is the story now, where history ends, and the once Highlander Sheldon Aileanach became an outlander of the misty world of the Core.

[Tycat]

Spoiler: Disclaimer about the language • show

[For anyone reading below, I realize Scots dialect is difficult. I will start with it and add some for flavor, but I'll be switching to a clearer dialect as the entry progresses. This isn't because he suddenly lost his accent half way, this is to imply that it is an internal narrative, and I don't want anyone confused (should anyone be reading this!) because I think posting a dictionary would cheapen the spice of it all. Traditionally, stories were told as song and orally to bards who would pass them along. This isn't a journal, and it isn't written down anywhere. But for story telling purposes, this might be how it is told to those who would listen. And even more technically, it might be Scots Gaelic! But who wants to read that? Enjoy.]

Nae, ah dae na ken awa ah git 'ere. Tho' iff'n ya listen, ah'll tell ye ae ah ken...an' ah ken what ahae seen wit' me eyes, howe'er be unthinkable. Unimaginable. Fantastical... For this is the story of how I became lost from our world, should you ever hear my tale sang in the Highlands I knew and loved deeply.

It all started with a girl, as what good tales don't? But she was a married lass, and I was the scoundrel that caught her eye. Bonny, like the feeling you get with the warm winds brush over the first thaw of spring, and you can smell summer on it. A rose nae too young, nae too bloomed, nae too plucked, but bulbous and buxom like lips of the of a lass what berry stains them and all too sweet like it. Her smile drew upon me the sense that life eternal was a stone's throw away from her hand. Her hair glittered like spider silk, wet in the morning dews, and I just had to touch it once. She was trouble for me, and knowing it, I did what any hot blooded Scotsman would.

Now, I am not saying it was the reason I was running frae MacKinny with me kilt n' boots an' not much else. But I'd be lying if I tried to spin it an innocent moment of my life. I heard the gun shots some where aft my trail, barreling through the yawning lea where I'd find a foggy river what to hide within. Och, but I should have known it, when I felt the water cradle my bode in warmth and cool all at once. I wade still, covered by fog, and watch the bank. His voice rang out, and his gun echoed. I couldn't help by smile that I was a freeman. His voice, urgent and angry and boiling red faded as though to say I was drifting silently down the river. Further awa' frae the lea, frae MacKinny, and who'd know it, frae th' stone - which if'n ya don't know it, the Stone is me home. Quagmires and craggy hills, there you'll find it. The strong hold of clan Aileanach.  Sheep baying and grazing the grass between each of the spotted gray hills, horses neighing and romping freely aboot. Mither's cookin' asailng the air like salt on the shore.

I found quiet in the water, naked and alone. There was no hollering, no guns. There was birdies or dogs, or clatter of any kin'. In fact, I was sure I had died a moment. Peaceful, cloudy fog blinded me in white-gray, an' tho' I cannae see, I felt the one near by what take me there. A ferry man in the fog. My feet touched the soggy bank, and out of the water I crawled with me few things - my colors, my boots, a cloak of Aileanach. I coughed to expel the fog from me, like smoke had gotten its way into me. And every pace I came on my knees from it, the water silenced, then vanished like nothing. I heard the crackling fire first, then the chatter of the dark folks. No direction my eye lay did I see the Highlands or anyplace I had known. I wondered in search of myself.

It was then, as they say, I learned that I was taken. Och, but the magic of this aft' life be great, and we'll get to that. Lo' for now, I came to dwell in the misty world.

[Tycat]

Bua Nó Bás

Ah cannae say ah'm afraid, tho' ah cannae lie, neither. Pairt o' thi' world 'olds grand appeal an' ah ken tha' it's mine life to live with it, but na, ah cannae say ah'm nae afraid. From all I have seen, I can attest to the direness of my situation. I am not the free man I thought i'd be coming to to this misty world. Nae, instead, I am a prisoner, shackled by fear and fighting for survival. I see it in their faces, the fowk in toun. Empty, gray like their city, like their sky.

Victory, or death.

I must fight, day in and day out. Fight for a meal, fight for a warm bed. Fight to survive. I have seen beasts rise on hind legs and sweep armored men off their footings, maws of blood and foam and eyes of rage, sickness, hatred. Victory, or death. I am a prisoner in a gaul of fog. Iron bars of mist, shackles of magic I cannot even begin to understand. But, Och, I tell ya, this dark world holds true to the kindest of moments. Sweetness an aftertaste of the gritty, bitter and snell world of which I am thrust upon. I am the outsider here, the one who doesnt' know it, cannot expect it, and who forgets to breath upon miracle after miracle, Jesu, and after miracle again. I haven't the fear of it, nor the wisdom of it. I cannot even devise it, this strange new world of mine and all the creatures in it.

Ae ah ken trouthe - victory or death. Bua Nó Bás. I must live throu' it.

[Tycat]

Och, ah'll haste ye back. Th' misty world that which swallowed me whole 'as deigned to spit me frae't again. No word o' Eva, no shadow o' kin fowk. Th' years passed me up in a way that lapsed the day or two lost in the white endless nothing ousside th' gray city. Ah cannae sae 'ow long it's been, or right ma 'ead aboot it. Another terror o' this world which 'as crept in th' aft' o' my once simple life.

Ah canna only sae true, tha' th' ale ah musta 'ad to be th' bes' o' this life. For ah cannae remember a thin' aft' tha' day Eva gave me th' knife. How long must it have been, for now I am lost once more. The misty world taking the grandest piss on me this day. I wondered and heard word of Christian folks. Having to know it to be truth, I looked for them. A young sister no smaller than a wee lass, and a dour monk received this one, shouting pict for the sight of me. Och, an' ah suppose she's no saxon, which leaves my head troubling itself for more truth - how the misty lands hunts it's rabbits, by time or by whimsy?

These and many other questions will wait. For now, I seek Eva.