I should have been drunk at that point. Three cups of this pissy wine would have sunken before. Now, I allowed myself the llow pleasures of being tipsy. I simply used the lightest touches of magic to refuse to beco drunk. An easy body change.
"Another!" I said rowdy. "Morgana, you told a final tale on our journey here. Another!"
She looked at with a small smile of amusent, "You an the history about the mounds where we all almost died?"
"Like that but different."
She drumd her fingers on Iris' round, soft belly.
"Hmm..."
"You know plenty of history. You used to never stop talking about it. He is asking." Iris prodded her verbally.
Morgana bit her lip.
"Though he was no Arthur or even comparable to my father Uther, built by his mother Gowather, the first of the Pendragon line - Aein the First - fed black ravens on Ferisdarm ramparts. In the wars against the first people his daughter Aein the Second or the Slayer led a vast host of our people against them and their foul foreign rcenaries. These Sundran rcenaries are powerful enough to battle Romans legions. Battle after battle went on and on and on. The sixth battle put the Sundrans to flight. The eleventh was a most severe contest and the Sundra's leader was felled by Aein's hand alone."
"In truth, if not for the Ro's expansion we would have been taken over by the Sundrans. The Fae Lords abandoned the first people, there is no evidence to show they would not have done the sa to us. Now, however, the Sundrans collapsed and joined under Minerva, the greatest of Jupiter's children."
"That's not much of a story. More history facts told in a boring way."
Morgana rolled her eyes.
"I suppose the tale of how Arthur beca High King. The gathering of a hundred of our greatest warriors under the fellowship of three kings against the Northern host of ten thousands led by Eleven Kings and Queens is recent history told in a boring way."
I shrugged. I suppose it would make a bland Hollywood movie that was at once too complicated, over simplifying and stuffed with cliches.
She looked up, thinking.
"Kenneth was the first prophet, if the lessons I was taught are true I share his blood through my Mother's line."
"I don't know this one." Iris comnted.
"First prophet sounds interesting." I added.
"Well, Kenneth said he was an unremarkable farr for many years of his life. Unlike rlin who claims even before his first spell intelligence and wisdom above all others."
"That tells a lot about this rlin." I said with humour.
Morgana looked at .
"Sorry." I apologised.
She took a breath and continued, "One day when digging the soil, Kenneth claid a voice told him to dig for stones white as snow. If he did so, and clutched these stones when bathed in snow atop the highest mountain during a full moon's night in the land he would gain the power of foreknowledge."
I blinked as I tried to make sense of that one and decided to let it pass as a weird magic thing.
"A knowledge useless to him, but essential for so of his descendants. He made no suggestion to what Fae he may have spoken to, if any. The voice is unknown and it's like has never been recorded again."
"Ohhhh." Iris said, copying my spooky hands motions.
I chuckled.
Morgana continued, "When he woke from his frozen slumber, he saw a union of four won empowered by magic. It was a fateful mont. The power of four is the making of covens, the breaker of bones and the shapers of clans and lands."
"So, he gained the power of foreknowledge. It gave him nothing, but misery. He told others only that which was too much for them to bear or too cryptic to be helpful. It gave him no insight into his own destiny. Burdened with knowledge he was quick to tell clans such as the Kenites their doom in posterity and flee their angry retribution. Furious at his own power, Kenneth shut himself off from magic living a crippled life. He had four sons. His most loved of which died in petty fray of which Kenneth had no warning of."
I exhaled heavily, "Damn, that is a sad tale."
She raised her cup, laughing bitterly "Welco to my family!"
I shared an awkward glance with Iris. One which Morgana spotted.
"Who knows. Maybe I will be the exception." She chuckled at the statent. Clearly not believing it herself.
"So, the morals of the stories are magic is all powerful to mundane folk, humans can fight the Unseelie because they bring about their own downfall and magic/power causes the caster misery and cannot stop the destiny and death."
"That is one way to look at it." Morgana said with a shrug. "Let us play fair. Stranger. Tell us a story."
The intense glare in her eyes and her tense posture told that I wasn't going to wriggle my way out of this one.
"I was boring before I ca here. The two of you are the most interesting thing to ever happen to ." I say honestly and lightly.
"No, no no. Co on, tell us sothing juicy. I poured my heart out with my morbid family tale."
"Well, it might not be quite as personal. I was born in a world where there is no magic, but we have machines as good as magic. Where I ca from, Ro had fallen. It's complicated. The empire split in two. One part fell roughly where I think we are. The other one to the east lasted for another thousand years."
"No magic." Iris said her eyebrows creased.
"Ro had fallen." Morgana said with an unblinking stare.
"Yes."
"That wasn't a story." Morgana pointed out.
I shrugged and rattled off Humpty Dumpty. "That better?"
"Not really." she said with a smirk.
"What about you, Umbra?" Iris asked politely including the Witch.
"Yeah, what stories do you have to tell?" I encouraged.
Umbra drumd her fingers on her chin, thinking.
"Magic is like cooking."
"What?" I asked.
She put her hands up in defence, "Give a mont."
"Sure."
"There is planning and preparation, and learning and morising a recipe can be tricky. But once you get practice it cos easy, even though it takes so effort."
"Alright. Your point."
"Witches learned to fly from fairies. But it requires no spellwork or prepartion. Even though it is a great demand and can only be done for a short while it makes for a great escape."
"How did witches learn to fly from fairies?" Morgana asked.
I nodded, interested to know.
"Well long ago there was a girl. She was lost in a great forest and her head drowning in doubts as she grew increasingly desperate. Before long she ran herself ragged and rested on the roots of an elm tree. When she woke with the sun's light; she was startled by the huffing of a boar and her eyes grew to the size of plates eyeing its tusks."
"Oh dear." Iris pitied the made up girl.
"The boar charged for so offence the girl had unwittingly caused. But this girl was a witch and cast a charm, 'You cursed big boar, no more tore or roar, with you're terrible tusks, see and adore.' The spell worked, but too lang she spake and a pound oot her side the boar did still take."
Did her accent and words change?
"The boar pacified fled, leaving the girl bled... of blood, a pound of her flesh on its tusk."
Did she try and fail to make that rhy? She's not the best, but the story is pleasant enough.
"Then ca along an ancient youthful looking fairy hair like fire and erald eyes. 'In the forest you are, little girl. What are you doing? Back to bed little girl' She waved her hand the blood no more."
"'Thank you!' , the girl said with a bow of her head. Out of air, the fairy conjured and placed a white cap on the girl's bowed head. 'Soar' did the fairy cry and into the air they ran. Over trees, and hills and into clouds wet they sped. The fairy led the girl over the forest and down below into the village bringing her into bed."
"Her mother was unhappy to see her child still alive, after into the deep dark woods she dropped her by, and so a cri the mother declared and to death the girl was put. Death's door creaking apart, but the fairy returned and doffed the girl with the white cap, 'Soar' cried the fairy and the girl echoed. Soar she did and ever since the white cap has passed among witches who need only cry once 'soar' to learn flight evermore."
"Damn, to the death the girl was put." I paraphrased.
"Whatever for?" Iris asked.
"So nonsense no doubt." Morgana opinionated.
"No clue." Umbra answered frankly. "I forgot most of the story to be honest."
"Sensed that." I said, "Still interesting."
We relaxed a little more after, ntally digesting the stories we had been told. Everyone I sensed was sexually frustrated, llowed out from the stories but not quite in the mood for frantic sex. We were cuddled up, with in the centre, which made the whole situation more arousing, and more comforting. Iris drifted to sleep first, then I did.
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