Out of the Blue

[Niabh]

Five days later, on a morning when an early drizzle gave way to a crisp, cold, clear sky, a raven arrived with its wings banded in blue and white. It blinked curious amber eyes as it turned its head to take in the peculiarities of Glenn’s home, then turned to Glenn himself, unafraid, but maintaining a distance a fraction too distant to be only politeness. The letter was new hide, bone-white, with no ghost of previous words hidden in its grain. The ink was metallic blue, and caught the lamplight in glints of sapphire.


From Moirin Brennan, High Bard of the Bard’s College, to Glenn of the mortal lands, well-met.

It is unusual that one of my bard would recommend me to you without recommending you to me, though the vagaries of the dreaming realm are known to be unreliable. Nevertheless, ventures into that realm are recorded, when possible, and those prone to wander are well-known, so there may be some documentation of your interaction. I make note that your raven bears the Niall colors and wonder if there is an association to that house that may provide a clue. But this need not delay us in the present.

Word of your people does reach us with some regularity, but always so little that it is picked to bits in days and leaves one dissatisfied. An established fact seems that your people are much more far-flung and diverse than our own, that mortal men of the North may not be at all as they are in the South, and what holds true with one faction may be reversed in the next or absent in another, but that these are largely matters of manners and customs and different gods and are not born in them.

Among your people I have seen a certain hunger for what is outside themselves. I have wondered if that is the true difference between us. The Tuatha have no such hunger nor such longing. We who claim our line from the Mother were born of a mystery, and the mystery is no different flesh to us. You who claim your lineage from the earth are born of only clay. On some points we cannot ever touch, and this is one. There is sorrow in each of us for that loss, but only in lacking it do we find our possibility. For your kind, it propels. In your efforts to grasp the mystery, you create. The mortal kind creates all things in abundance, things found in every common hand and things unique in all the world, to possess in part the one thing your kind will always lack: the true magic. And like every mortal cursed to blindness, you do not see that creation is your measure of that magic. Perhaps that conjecture does not satisfy. Perhaps you thought it would be different. Perhaps you take your gift for granted. Now you understand how we feel about glamourie.

For us, the glamourie is a pursuit, ever to be true, to be truer than truth, to be the very thing itself, to be the epitome of what that thing may be. It is to blur the boundaries of what is and what could be, to come as close as one may be to making substance from nothing, to compress the measure between ideation and manifestation to a thought, a gesture, to instinct. It is an art, the only art. Through it, we seek the limits of what is possible. There are those who protest this interpretation, as I am sure you may object to the summation of humanity above. I’m not entirely convinced myself, but it is as near to the truth as I may understand it. My path toward that truth is to wring meaning for meaning, to rake the past for clues, to peer into the future so far as it presents itself, to seek absolutes in the understanding that there may be none. In any case, rest assured that there are many quarreling factions over the matter, though the belief grows especially amongst aesthetics, of which there are many among us, as you might expect. You are perhaps fortunate that the College draws few aesthetics and more philosophers. Aesthetics revel in the beauty of the possible for its own sake, and as its own end, but we of the College are more prone to define it.

Write again and tell me what you were born to and what calls you to the mystery.

[Glenn]

"Raisins." This was to the raven, a herald to an offering of twenty upon a small plate. "If you prefer rumcakes, I can arrange it next time. I'm working on rumcakes with raisins but I'm mostly acquainted with very stubborn bakers. You only want to buy pastries from bakers who see themselves as artists as much as they do businessmen; you can taste the passion. Stubbornness comes into play though." With a wane smile, he looked back down to the letter and prepared to compose a response.

Moirin Brennan,

I am a Tulthurian of no small ego, but I have learned my lessons well, even if I do not always abide by such learning. In letters, I am one of very careful boundaries. I am discreet above all else. Still, I make no attempt to fool you or misguide you. I am of no illusion that I will be able to hide a great many things from you if these are things you truly wish to learn. Because I act in good faith, I anticipate the same. When relevant, all manner of things may be discussed. We are quite a ways away from any of that, however. Hopefully, this is but the start of a story between you and I. So at times, I shall be vague, but I will not attempt to deceive. I suppose I shall also attempt promptness for reasons that are self-explanatory.

It is wrong to think of this, as we so often do, in terms of strength and weakness. We are short-lived, vulnerable; we lack the ability or the luxury, perhaps, to have a true accord with Nature. We redirect it and endure it and mitigate for it. We try to measure it and understand it through the studying of its patterns, but each of us only has so many years to work with. Moreover, beset by the consequences that comes from our lack of understanding and the need to survive nonetheless, people choose shortsighted and selfish paths. Yet this friction, and the differences you have mentioned, create growth and progress even within ourselves. We are constantly exposed to different ideas, different mindsets, different competing goals. All too often, this creates an imbalanced distribution of resources where the mightiest are able to convince the few to oppress the many, but still we, both the oppressor and the oppressed, create. There must be a way to keep the fire of creation burning bright without such unjust kindling but it is endlessly intertwined with our freedom, including our freedom put the singular needs in front of the collective, to prize the short-term over the long term, to oppress one another. I imagine you will find this as disappointing as I do, though maybe not as heartbreaking, but having been in power and out of it, and having met so many of my own people and others, I have yet to even begin to work out a solution. Instead, it is a matter of doing good at the margins and over time, of decreasing want and need as much as possible, of valuing and disseminating art and culture in clever ways, of convincing people of their own worth and the worth of their fellows, even those different than them. It is a work bigger than me, the work of generations, for our time is so short.

To learn of you is to explore the idea of glamourie. It took me quite a while to realize this. To know any people is to understand how they communicate with one another and with themselves. In some ways, the glamourie makes you unknowable to an outsider. It is a language I can never learn to translate for it is mutable and shifting. I suspect I would find patterns within one person's glamourie over time, but another person would have completely different patterns. I can understand it symbolically, admitting that it will be a superficial understanding at best. But then, my understanding of it up until now, was always as a practical thing (not without artistry, of course), whereas you present a much more spiritual explanation. And here I must caution myself to start slowly and move methodologically. In the future, I will contrast it with our own writing, something that can be an art as well, and perhaps spiritual as well, but that creates its own sort of permanence. I am very appreciative that you are willing to communicate with me in this way for I can imagine now that it might almost feel blasphemous.

I was sold in the womb. The written word showed me the possibilities of my world so that I might escape to live in it. My people spend so much of their brief existences simply staving off their own premature end. I strive for something more than survival. As of late, the only more that I have managed is the striving itself. In those terms, it is hardly better. I wish to be better once again.

Glenn

[Niabh]

From Moirin Brennan to Glenn, greetings.

In all your explanation of the ways of humanity, for all its short-sightedness and self-interest, you mention no mitigation by either gods or governance. Is there no such authority among you? For it is evident that you, being many and far-ranging, would follow various gods and leaders, and that by their natures these forces might be in opposition to one another, so that each is apart from the others and may have no interest in their neighbors’ welfare. But if their governance is of no use to conquer the misery of the people, what hold have they, that you could not overturn them and seek better? Here we say, “The belly does not abide by law,” meaning that if a queen cannot keep her people from desperation, there is no reason for them to obey her. So diverse and numerous a people cannot be expected to be in concord, particularly if they are rendered desperate by need. If there be no unifying force above them, no one they may rely upon for their well-being, then by nature they turn to selfishness to survive, and there is no judging that. It is the will of no good god that their people should suffer, and if a good queen finds she follows an ill god, she should turn against it, and if she refuses to turn against it, then her people will turn against her.

It is a paradox that all liberty must be found within the Law. The Law must serve as a limit for those who cannot see beyond it. It provides structure and purpose for those who without it would be guided by self-interest. It guarantees surety for those who are weakest and places checks on those with the most power. In doing so, it creates a baseline equality that none may fall below or rise above. My people have known always that we are blessed by Law and that by virtue of this blessing, we are obligated to uphold it. In truth I must wonder now if the human notion of freedom is different to our own, for it seems that humans regard freedom as the liberty to do pursue whatever they may conceive, and, as your minds be given to creation, you conceive horrors. Here, creation is the domain of the Mother, and is held sacred. We do not let ourselves forget that we, too, are her creations, and that she formed us most wonderfully to be her example.

To understand glamourie, you must understand that the gifts of the Mother were given us for the purpose of creating joy. We have found its other uses, but its primary function is the delight of beauty and variety, that each may seek their own expression of this joy both for their own delight and that of others. Then, too, there may be delight in confusion, in the unexpected, in the sudden twist, but only that the truth may be revealed in the end, for there can be no confusion without there also be revelation, lest that confusion sour to betrayal. There can be no selfishness in glamourie, for it is bestowed upon all equally, therefore we are free to please ourselves and others and to challenge ourselves in our artistry, always to the end of creating a perfection of seeming that can only bring more joy to all. Because of it I believe we have come to value joy above all things, and to abhor that which does not engender it. For this reason, the Law becomes part of our joy, for within it, we have freedom and stability enough to pursue the better parts of life. It is why I wonder that your own people do not use your varied gifts to create more things of beauty, that all may be delighted by them.

What would you say is the best thing your people have made? What things would you wish there to be more? What is it that you would create, if there were stability enough to pursue it? What is the law for you, and does it allow for joy?

[Glenn]

Greetings Moirin Brennan,

As noted previously, those of the South and those of the North may be quite different. Moreover, those in the North may be different from one another. I spent many years in a land that was a crossroads of sorts, a place where those who had nowhere else to go often found themselves, and there they interacted with those who had toiled for generations upon generations. It bred conflict and strife and understanding and creativity. It depended upon the day and most especially on external pressures. When there are few, there is a luruxy to find fellowship with one's neighbor. When there are many, bodies may band together, but less so hearts and minds.

This is to say that there are many forms of government and many beliefs in many gods. In my travels, I have encountered those which may be looked upon by many as gods, but think for a moment of one of my people, one who has not traveled, one whose parents had not traveled, nor their grandparents. What if one of your people were to arrive, glamourie in hand. Could this Tuatha claim to be a god here? Might they be seen as such?

Consider instead of a true god, one that creates, one that infuses, one that drives progress forward or sets the stage for a true beginning. We can suggest or map or theorize about the notion of consciousness of these beings, if they perceive sensory stimuli and inputs as we do or if their omniscience is such that we cannot begin to imagine it. Your people may not think along these lines and may not see the utility in such theory, but do stay with me for a moment as I hope I may be able to explain. Let us say these gods act over the span of centuries if not millenia. In that case it would be very unlikely that one of my people would every directly see the hand of this god, save for what has already been created, what, to them, has always been there. Nor would they likely know anyone who had directly seen that hand. Nor their parents. Nor their grandparents. Do true gods then directly impact us? It's quite hard to say. Any act of capricious chance could be attributed to them. Certain acts that might potentially have other explanations could not be. It leaves us in a precarious situation where dogmas are uncertain and contradictory.

It leaves us open for manipulation, well-meaning or malicious, through those too certain of either Truth or Untruth.

We have similar (though not the same) issues with leadership. While there are many different sort of governments, often they are defined by their ability to protect others as you say. Given our relatively short lifespans, the loyalty necessary to raise and command armies requires a proper means of succession. More often than not that is heredity, which in and of itself is precarious at best. Who is to say that the child will survive, or that two children born in order to account for that risk might not end up opposed to one another? Who is to say that the child will have the wisdom of the parent? Or the good health? What of outside forces, divine or otherwise? Years of bad crops could send a neighbor to one's door with sword in hand. So on, so forth. There are similar risks for democracies; we have devised secure systems but the clever can leverage these selfsame external factors to chip away at these in time.

Speaking of time, let us consider that you and I, writing to one another in good faith with good intentions, have an abundance of that and we can delve deeper in any of these areas in the future.

To answer your question briefly and to suggest a way to offset some of the concerns mentioned above, our greatest creation is writing. This is what we can use to spread ideas and truths over distance, temporal and geographic. It allows you and I to communicate now. It creates a sort of permanence relative to your glamourie's fluidity. You can build on unstable ground but we cannot. We can discuss this more in time as well.

I ask you in turn, given that your people do not have the same vulnerabilities as our own, what is it that you strive for. Through what do you find purpose? What do you hope to achieve? What would you consider a succesful life?

With respect and regard,
Glenn

[Niabh]

To Glenn Burnie, greetings.

Young Angus sent the wind to speed the raven to bring your letter to me, for it found me in the library with my hand on the hide that bore the record of mortal men who have lived among us. The verified accounting is five hundred, two score and three, and even I found myself surprised to see so few when the record is so long. Legend and common custom attribute the number to be much higher. It has always been said that the proud Oisins were born of mortal seed, for they do breed reliably, but the charge has been flung to disparage so many that we may never disentangle truth from slander. In any case, there are none now living.

When we lived on the Mainland, we would set snares for the bright, the beautiful, the witty, the wise, and on a certain day, these would wander off, and no mortal eye would see them again. Others, though, sought us out. Some had heard rumors of our treasure, and some were fools, simple fools, who thought that we could give them what none can offer. Some were mere wretches who heard that the Tuatha are glad and gay and wanted for nothing. And there were, too, that breed of which the records cite a scant handful, who came for no reason but that they must know the truth of us or perish. The children we always kept, but the rest, the Queen bore judgement. There were but two outcomes: to die among us, or to leave so altered they could no longer live among their own kind.

With these letters, I see a third possibility.

The College craves knowledge of the world beyond our shores. Few have made the journey, and fewer still return. There are forces that seek to discourage us from the pursuit of knowledge that is the hallmark of our vocation, and that will misconstrue our communication. I would not wish to see those eyes drawn toward the Mainland. To this end, I offer my own raven. Bear the banner of the Nialls at your peril.

For your questions, I would not speak as though there is one object we all strive for, for we too have our north, our south, and as many directions between as one may lay eye to, as for what we desire day to day, year to year, mother to daughter. We strive to preserve the world for our children. We strive to bring children into the world we assured for them. We strive for peace and plenty, for from these all else follows, but by what means one pursues that goal is a matter of ability and opportunity. Therefore, for my part, I seek those whose talents might contribute toward those goals and present them with opportunity. These are gifts to be honed and polished and nurtured, for they will be better for it, and all will be bettered through them. Such did Leabharcham believe in her time; so did she charge the College at its inception, and so did I vow when I took my bands. Our work must not be stifled or perverted, but buttressed and increased through such exchanges as this.

I could not say if one of the Tuatha might be taken for a god amongst your people. Surely you are better placed to speak on that. A great Queen, I am sure, could craft glamourie so potent that she could summon the dread and awe of the gods, but could a mortal man be fooled by such display? Would this not run counter to your hidden god, whose scale is so infinite that its influence is imperceptible to you?

For those among us who seek to understand the nature of the gods, a consensus is that all gods spring from one god—that is to say, Dannan, the Mother—and that among these gods, they are defined through being both themselves and their substance. It is well-known that in the First Days, Dannan trod the earth, and there were many who perceived her in her true form and knew her for who she was. Dannan is the world, the very earth and stone and growing things, but she is also herself, of her own form and consciousness, though this form and this consciousness is so enormous and so incomprehensible that those who witness is may not know it for what it is. Might we, who live so long, see more evidence of this force than you could perceive in your brief span? This last proposal pleases me, for it agrees with the theories of some of our own scholars.

A matter of scale. A matter of balances. That image pleases me too.

[Glenn]

"I'm not going to read you every letter," which was the exact amount of pleasantries that Benedict had long come to expect from Glenn. It wasn't a greeting. It wasn't even a positive statement. It was him tempering whatever he was about to offer before he'd even offered it, doubly notable as Benedict had not even asked for anything, "but it's best to do it with Moirin Brennan's letters for now for now. Exact words." To be fair, or unfair but unabashedly truthful, he didn't tell his raven most of what he and Fionn were saying to one another, neither in exact words or even carefully redacted summaries. It may have been a sign of a shift in their relationship. It may have just been him treading carefully. Or it may have been Glenn being cagey in light of what was about to come. Sometimes one as talented and self-destructive as Glenn Burnie could be evasive through the fullest of disclosures. It was a gift.

"She seems pleased with this arrangement." That, in and of itself could be a trap. On some level, whenever dealing with Tuatha, one should always be on the lookout for traps. For the sake of one's own sanity, however, that had to be balanced with a modicum of common sense. What was her interest? Yes, there were natural inclinations to be factored in (more so with Fionn given her ancestry than most ), but the High Bard listed quite reasonable rationale for what she wanted and how she think she might get it. Trapping him for sport or amusement or even some sort of desire to enforce hierarchies would be counter-productive. "It's a good thing, but a little worrying for her to be so direct about it. If not a trap, it could at least be a test. Or she could simply be that direct, seeing that our goals are so thoroughly in alignment. She wants it more badly than I do, it seems, and I need be careful of that as well," though he did not further explain why.

Then, of course there was the political aspect, and that's why he had to be direct himself. "You know that I don't want to put Fionn at any sort of risk or in any difficult position at all because of this. Obviously it's my preference for you to take the letters back and forth, for your sake and mine, but if you are unmistakably identifiable, then we should likely take her up on the offer to use her raven." There were other things he might offer, but here he would show (even though he attempted not to do so, instead gazing back down at the letter) an extra iota of care. Best to gauge Benedict's reaction first.

[Niabh]

"It's not that I mind her using her own raven," said the raven, although a tiny bit of him did. Presenting himself to the High Bard herself, cool and amused and ensconced in a powerful bubble of her own authority, made him feel terribly important in a way even serving the Niall Queen did not. The Queen was a daily reality, and their long intimacy had turned her into less of a remote, aloof figure and into a mere woman--delightful, beautiful, capricious, but as much flesh-and-blood as Glenn. Some of the sacred dread faded once he'd seen her shuffling about in the mornings with her hair in corkscrews, sand in her eyes, trying to curse a fire into lighting. The High Bard, who had never been anything but unfailingly courteous to him, had an eerie presence wholly unrelated to any glamour. To present himself to her held the weight of privilege. It was, he realized with small surprise, a bit like presenting himself to Catch, without the unsettling sense that she might abruptly shift and bite his head off. "Probably the High Queen's spying on them, too, though you gotter be pretty shifty to spy on the Bards College. Too many people with the Sight. They'd see you coming from a league away."

Still, it was a bit of a disappointment, as well as a stark reminder that whatever Glenn was after, it had crossed him into the High Queen's territory, and thus her potential scrutiny. He could quite understand why Moirin wouldn't want Herself looking toward the Mainland.

"That could be some of it, you know. Moirin might have sensed your intentions. If you're straight with her, she'd know. She might not have any reason not to be direct about it, at least as long as it stays at exchanging ideas and stuff." He gave two quick hops that brought him to Glenn's feet, and twisted his head upside to peer at him, curious. "I know why I think you need to be careful, but why do you think you need to be careful?"

[Glenn]

Whatever Glenn had or did not have with Fionn was its own tangle. It was unique. The stuff of stories, albeit the most boring stories one might dream up. He's bored. She's lonely. They speak of ideas and ideals. They get in each other's way because they refuse to be direct with one another and when they try, it's somehow even worse, because they don't know how. It was a valid story, a meaningful story. It was the sort of story that no one would pay even the tiniest bit of money for, that would die within a generation were it an oral tradition. That said more about the audience than the story itself, because it was real and true and full of all sorts of interesting emotions not oft examined. It meant, however, that he wasn't at all experienced, in a recent sense, with dealing with a friend being disappointed through something related to him. Whatever interacting with Fionn prepared him for, it wasn't so useful or direct.

Long story short, he had expected this to go much more poorly. He had prepared for that, even in the few minutes of reading to himself, reading aloud, and making the subsequent statement. Ultimately, Benedict had asked a more pertinent, less personally driven question. Glenn doubled back for just a moment. "If there are other places you want to see, I'm happy to send letters to them, but we'll have to take care not to cause unneeded trouble for Fionn, that's all."

Why did he think he needed to be careful then? "Politics and Fionn aside (as that's clear and on the page), I have opened a door. Behind this door is something that a very powerful, very knowledgeable person wants. She wants it for the sake of wanting it as much as anything else, which makes her both more and less rational when it comes to it. I currently am very happy to provide it and to receive what she has to offer in return, making it feel fair and equitable and balanced; she likes that." All well and good. "I have no means to close the door. She is as insatiable as I am, but likely far more driven and with deeper powers to bring to bear." At that he paused and smiled the faint smile of a Glenn Burnie who felt like he needed to be careful but rather enjoyed the notion as well. "I could go on but it would get a tad repetitive, I'm afraid. You get the idea."

[Niabh]

"I get it," he said, and he did--probably a bit more clearly than Glenn. He was still openly astonished that Glenn had been able to send a letter to the High Bard, cool as you please, and that she had replied as though this happened every day. Maybe the High Bard's typical day was filled with far greater anomalies than this--they were fending off the High Queen, after all--but a letter from a tultharian, unsolicited, merely inquiring, was pretty damn anomalous, even if it presented no ill portent. Maybe Glenn was an ill portent all by himself. Certainly he didn't tend to make things easier. "The College doesn't like politics but they end up drawn into them all the same. I reckon when you're assigning baird to high houses, it does come down to politics, one way or another. Maybe since I'm a Niall raven, she maybe got a little wary we were trying to drag the College into Niall business?"

The we was a bit presumptuous, as it included the raven, but Glenn also seemed to be including the raven into this business, which chuffed him to no end. It felt a little clandestine, particularly as they were leaving the Queen out of it. His loyalty to her remained strong, and he couldn't shake the constant nagging that perhaps she would be cross if she knew, even though she had largely disowned him.

"If she wanted any of this stuff, Glenn, she could just take it, one way or another. You saw what Ainrid can do. But she don't sound like she's demanding. If anything, she's putting herself out there. It sounds like she wants you to know what you're getting into. I mean, I've tried to tell you what you're getting into and you keep barging on ahead. Do you think you could keep up with her? I mean, if she doesn't just try to pry your head open and extract what she wants?"

[Glenn]

"I should know more about it, and it's not the first thing I want to ask her," or the seventh even. It could potentially make it seem like he was a catspaw set up by Fionn to get certain information. The notion brought a slightly deeper smile to his face, one he tried to fight so as not to have to explain it. It wasn't the notion itself but the quick bit of mental gymnastics he ran himself through as he triple checked to ensure that no, he was not exactly that. The dream had been entirely about the child. There was no way of knowing that Glenn would ask the question that he did to get the High Bard's name. All of that was born of chaos, not artifice. He would have been eternally embraced with Fionn if she had somehow orchestrated this, but it was far too unlikely. Still, best to always spend a few seconds checking and best not to smile quite too much. No reason to worry Benedict.

Instead, "I'll try not to get too friendly with her raven. I imagine the College ravens care far more about the status of their deliveries than the contents within. A severe lack of curiosity for those surrounded by so much knowledge." It was a careful bit of framing but at the same time, so low stakes and casual that Benedict was free to air any grievances his heart desired.

That left the question he didn't quite expect however. "As of a week ago, no, not in the least." And here it came down to just what to introduce into this specific conversation. "Fionn and I speak much of consent and it having value for the sake of itself, a new notion for her maybe, but one she can also draw upon recent enough events to help grasp. Here, that's less the case, but were the High Bard to take instead of iterate back and forth with me, she would get knowledge but not understanding. The biggest hurdle to leap between her people and mine is not whether or not she can know something, but the translation between her experiences and her culture, shall we say, and mine. To have us discuss it provides her with a far richer understanding, so long, as you say, that I am up to the task."

And he just admitted that he was not, which turned that smile he was still trying to fight a little sheepish, which ironically enough had the effect of it fleeing all the more slowly. "I am not up to the task of interacting with Fionn, let alone her, but without a push, I will not be up to almost any task of any meaning. She will make me better. This necessity will make me better. If I am ever to be better again, this will show it. And I woefully need to be better, Benedict."

[Niabh]

Fortunately for Glenn, the raven could only parse the barest few facial expressions. Humans showed their teeth for reasons unfathomable to a creature with no teeth. Their features seemed rubbery and contorted into displays that had no outward bearing on their surroundings. At best, the raven recognized a smile as "happy." It was good that Glenn should be happy, even thought, at present, the raven could see no overt reason for it. Perhaps he was happy that Moirin seemed receptive. It was better than the alternatives.

Still, he was curious. "Better than what, exactly? How does this make things better? I thought the point of this was to be able to talk to the Queen."

[Glenn]

That was a fair question. Having a raven around was helpful for a number of reasons. For instance, he had a tendency to ask questions that one otherwise might take for granted. Glenn had little to do currently but think and that did often lead to introspection; things rarely felt right and natural anymore. Everything took a certain level of effort. That made it all the more tempting to leap forth when something did feel right, as this did.

Yes, it was best to pause a moment, and that's exactly what he did, rubbing at his eyes with his left thumb and forefinger, a squeezing motion connecting the two at the bridge of his nose, before he looked back to Benedict and answered. "You are correct. Part of this is to have a richer, more fulfilling external life outside of Fionn so that she does not carry the full burden of me and so that I have more to offer her when we communicate, either directly or indirectly. Moreover, there are many things I wish to know dependent and independent of her, and this line of correspondence should help me learn many of those things."

These things were well and good and they were all certainly interconnected but none struck at the heart of the question and the heart of what Glenn had just said. "I have survived her, as dangerous and volatile as she is. Yes, I have not come out unscathed, but considering the stories, the tales, the records and history, for me to have so long a connection with her, I am surprisingly hale, very likely no less sane than I was at the start." That could be debated and very likely said more about his level of sanity a few years prior, but that was, to some degree the point. "I have not been turned to an animal or whisked away for a century. Nothing like that." He did spend most of his time talking to a bird, but the bird was a better conversationalist than most people in the town anyway; that hardly proved anything. Back to that earlier point then. "And part of that, I think, is because I'd already reached a certain sort of bottom, the same sort of malaise that I spent much of our earliest letters accusing her own people of. I'd lost my power, my lover, my purpose, my life. Whatever comeuppance I was to receive for my pride and hubris from her and her kind, well, it'd already happened. This provided a certain sort of inoculation and has protected me, but that fact doesn't better the truth that I started from, and have for the most part persisted in, quite a woeful state."

Whatever emotional and intellectual nourishment he had received through his interactions with the Queen had been enough to keep him alive, to flame a spark within him and keep it from going out entirely. When she was alone in this world, that was perhaps enough for both of them. Now it was not. "With the High Bard, my state is a luxury to a degree; the lack of personal ambition means she can be open with me in ways she might not be able to otherwise, but if I cannot rouse myself awake once more, if I cannot find that certain dynamism that had once defined me but has long since fled, if I cannot keep up with her and satiate the insatiable, then she will take what she needs by picking over my bones." Dramatic? Perhaps, but that made it no less accurate. "I can't press forward without something to push myself against, and if it is a wall of my own making, with Moirin Brennan nipping at my heels, well, that is exactly the sort of thing I have always been able to work with, and the potential harm is minimized primarily to myself. I am not playing politics or playing god with the lives of the people of Myrken Wood. I will be better because I must be better. Otherwise, very likely, I will end up as nothing at all."

[Niabh]

As Glenn spoke, the raven found himself wanting more and more to fidget. This above all else was why, back home, Benedict had been consigned as a secondary, inferior Raven, a deliverer of practical, workmanlike messages to people whose opinions didn't matter: no one had been able to train the fidgets out of him. It got worse when he found himself questioning things, which was the other reason he would never be a Court Raven. Questioning was even more ill-mannered than fidgeting.

Balanced on one foot, he tried giving his earhole a really good scratching, but it did not much improve things. It still sounded a little tuneless to him.

"You and I both know this ain't what she meant all those times she told you to get out of the house and get your head outta your arse," he croaked flatly. "She wanted you to reconnect with your own folk. Instead you're going round learning more about hers. Is it all just something to do for you? Or do you plan to do something with it?" The rhyme of the sentence knocked around his head a moment. He cocked his sharp face to one side. "Huh. That was a lot of 'do's' all at once, wasn't it?" Straightening, he piped a quick tune: "Doo-dah-doo-dee-doo..."

Quick as it had come, the little tune dribbled away. The raven clucked and forgot about it. As though he'd picked up the tenor of Glenn's inner aside, he gave a harsh little cry. "Ha! This is what you call sane? This is lunatic." He chuckled softly. "You survived by the Queen's grace. She never did more than prank you, and that only when you were being a total prat. Actually, let's not even dignify this with survive because I don't think you were ever in danger."

That wasn't exactly as true as he would like it to be, but only due to the uneasy margin of error that was the Nialls' reputation of never apologizing for an execution. There was still the whole Catch thing, simmering away. And now there were stakes. But stick to the subject between them; second-guessing at this stage would only turn into a mess, except now he was second-guessing and the thought he kept running up against was an odd pebble whose shape he could not quite describe.

"So...is that why you kept askin' her about how she can go on so much longer than you and not get tired of everything? Because you thought you had?"

[Glenn]

The problem with talking to Benedict is that he asked fair questions. They weren't always the right questions. Sometimes they weren't even good questions. But they were always fair ones. And Glenn Burnie could not easily dodge fair questions asked directly. It simply wouldn't do. It wouldn't be sporting. That's not quite the whole of it but it was probably close enough. That's not to say there he couldn't answer obtusely both to himself and to the questioner, but he couldn't simply deny an answer.

In this case, like many cases, it was all interconnected anyway. "In the stories, and I hate to go back to them, Benedict, but they exist for a reason and we have learned years back now to accept that reason even if we don't particularly like it," presumably he was including raven and man together there to make that 'we' but there was simply no way of knowing. "In the stories, it's after the human brushes up against the fairy queen that he finds he can't go back to his old life. The food doesn't taste as sweet, the air is heavy around him, he trudges through life, so on and so forth," he waved a hand dismissively but not with much gusto. It was its own form of punctuation.

"With me, that's where I began. I was already there. There are no stories like that. You might get a bored housewife or a restless vagabond but those aren't the same thing. They still end up at the place where I began. And wherever I began, I am no longer in that place now. At the start, I could not be with my people," if the people of Myrken were his people, and he still seemed to think so. "Now, I cannot be with my people. I certainly cannot be with her people. That's not the answer. But perhaps I can still touch both worlds. And," ah, there was the wist, not much of it, just a small amount, but certainly in his voice and in the way he looked slightly up and away from his friend, "maybe that's enough. Because it's not a small thing, not really, not considering how I value the worlds and how I might impact them more indirectly than I could directly given who and what I have become. Maybe even more than most people could directly."

Somewhere in the bird's words there had been a question. Somewhere there needed to be an answer. "So no, I did not ask her about malaise over the centuries because I thought I had it; I do think that her people would be more prone than mine. I am an exception and that wasn't the point. And yes, I do think that there is something to do, but I simply do not know enough yet to know what that right thing is. I am learning now and now I will continue to learn," and for Benedict's sake, whether he liked it or not, there was a bit more forcefulness in Burnie's voice. This was more a declaration, "and if I find that there is something that would likely do more good than harm, I will do it. If I learn otherwise or cannot learn to the level of satisfactory certainty, then I will not act. It's as simple as that."