Post by King Adam Aberdeen I on Jan 23, 2010 16:34:40 GMT -6
Mother and Daughter Across Space –
"Ah think the face of the child will suprise ye most of all." An elder woman sat beside the younger, but both of them had a face that seemed ageless, eternal. One of golden hair lay her head on the lap as auburn tresses from the other fell across her cheeks. "It will be beautiful. You, n' all of your siblings were beautiful children."
"Why has it come sae late, m'mother. Is a woman to bare child this late in life?"
"She may bare it longer than she thinks if it is wot the heart wishes, Changelin'. Promise me tha' ye will have more of them if your heart wishes it and the body wills it."
"Ah would give Adam as many as he wished. It was arranged tha' way nay?"
"By Destiny more than by the hands of parents. Be careful." She rises, cupping her daughter's face. Both appear to be maidens. Both appear to be nothing at all. She presses her face to her child's face, now to become a mother of a new generation. "Be careful. Take care, more than ye already dae. Heed them more. Ye will have happiness but make sure it comes at no price."
"I wish to pay nothin' more.."
That was a dream the Mo’r Oukselo'dair nan Gaidhlig Cinneach had more than 4 years ago that started it all, or so it seems... but we all know it takes more than just dreams... or does it?
Now Adam stood upon the balcony overlooking the crowd below… around him stood Aodhan age 10, Davina age 4, and the twins, Gabriel and Murieall age 2, and in his arms, the newest addition to the Aberdeens… Amhlai… Amy for short…
The roar from the crowd as he held up his newborn daughter… just as he had the rest… Products of faith and love… Those that cursed the barren Duchess now sulked in the bounty she now produced… heirs abundant to rule the land for centuries to come… Adam’s chest puffed out with each wave of thunderous applause for the Mo’rs Triath and Okesula…
Turning back into the bedroom, he walks proudly to her bed… Leaning over returning the babe to her arms… he stretches across the bed and kisses her forehead… “Thank yae mae dearest Beathag, faer yae ‘ave given mae years o’ happiness… and Ah luv yae lik’ none other… always ‘ave… always shall…”
Beathag laid back against the propped up pillows of the bed as she'd done nearly two years agone, astonishing the women who aided in the delivery of Amhlai with how well it went. Her age was still a favor in the amazement; no, the Baron Duchess was now seeming as fertile as a tilled field! There were four children she'd now born for Adam! By the age of forty, many women were raising the last of their children in the hopes of being honored with a chance to see the next generation. Beathag was the mother of one. By the hair on her head as golden as the dawn, and by the clarity of her eyes, she'd live to see her children's children well into their years advance.
No one could deny that the Mo'r Triath was handsome as his wife was beautiful. How right the Mo'r Oukselo looked with a baby in her arms! She accepted his kiss with closed eyes, marveling in the closeness. Years of closeness. Not merely one nor two, but they had been married for no less than nearly five years, together for a total of six. So long wherein a man did not die. So long, that she already knew the years would find him at her side until some God called them home together to recall for the company with adventures of life. Davina was the first of their flesh, and the twins amazed them for being a pair, but Amhlai seemed to penetrate straight into the core of a being. So new, so small, she already settled her elder siblings into hushed awe. "Amhlai," she whispered the name of the girl-child, bringing her close so both parents could marvel at her. The others bid them farewell, leaving them to the rarity of a moment's peace. "She's the tiniest one e'er tha' was born, e'en smaller than Davina... Such wee lil fingers. Ye blow on 'em, they curl n' blow away, like dandelion blossoms..."
As the babe, Amhlai, lay in her mother’s arms… Adam got a odd look upon his face as he looked to the portrait of Edme that they had painted many years ago… He got a cold chill, that sent goose bumps along his arm and neck. Could God had been so taken with Edme, that he gave the new babe features of Mother, Father, and adopted sister? He had to turn and look upon Mother and babe once more… How could he explain this to Beathag? Should he? Dare he?
He sat upon the bed with Mother and child… just as the other brothers and sisters entered and gathered around the bed. It would be the Ebony Prince that would say what he could not, that his newborn sibling would favor Edme… Adam and Bess would look at one another as a whisp of wintery air blew in from the slightly open window.
Edme Anstice Aberdeen was a child whom survived a Lowland skirmish during the earlier attacks on Scotland in 1327. How she had come to a then dock-walking merchantess by way of a landless knight became the sort of thing on which local history takes its peculiar flavor. In an Iverness market, a man came seeking milk for a bairin wrapped up in a torn banner. He was no better off as his face was dirt smudged, bruised, and needing to be shorn. Of all the persons that day he might have asked, it would be the merchantess whom took pity on the rag-tag lot. For her own means, she'd come to market only for a bit of bread. That day, each left with: bread, cheese, milk, and one another. Each invigorated a dead, empty place inside the other. Aodhan, to Adam, then known as Marco, became son while the other became father. Edme, to both, became a daughter. The child so favored Beathag it only seemed natural to adopt her, whilst Adam had no intention of leaving any of them alone.
To her eyes, no child could ever look the same as Edme. Every child would be exceptional, special in their own right. It wouldn't be fair, she thought, to hold her children against a child who did not even cross the threshold to her second year. Beyond the eyes of emerald green bright as changeling eyes, there lay a secret only if Adam were keen to see it. Edme had been a bright spot for a woman whom was then said to never have another child again. No one could deny when the family arrived to the island that Edme was the most lovely little girl to ever grace the castle. While her life brought endless laughter her death brought a wound that to some had never healed. To this very day, Beathag often sat under Edme's tree in the garden where many children now played. The Little Princess would have been five years of age now. If you looked on some days when the sun glittered through the branches of her tree, or in the spring when the flowers were heavy in the bower… a little girl's ghost would laugh. Like time, it too had changed. From a tiny babe to what she would have been. Her pale gold hair was often all that could be caught, or her laugh. It was the children whom most told her the stories of having an unseen friend with these features.
The secret was that while all of her children were precious, there was a place in her heart that Edme had taken all to herself. Innocent mouths told of the resemblance while Beathag only held the baby in her arms with a supposed casual mother's air. She entertained their ideas, but would not allow them to penetrate as deep as they did with fevered youth's belief. "Edme, favored the Norse sides o' us, she did... but Amhlaih is her own. Fashioned just as she ought be. N' tha' is enough for anyone..." Beathag could hardly breathe when the babe's finger brushed against her chest.
Adam got up and closed the window… across the white plain, near the tree where the Little Princess lay, he saw, or thought he saw, a lil girl leaning against the tree, her face bright with smile. He turned to face his family, the paleness of his skin soon vanished behind a flush. Ghosts?! He swallowed and choked back a tear… Walking to the bedside, he looked down and saw the babe, whom he must have imagined wore a similar smile. “Amy… Princess Amy, the Fair…” he exclaimed. “She is the heart of the home… with jeweled eyes and golden hair…” That is what he brought away from the vision of Edme… the connection made between the two entities…
The small girl-child leaned her head into the trunk of the tree. Her back followed, pressing with it the beautiful white dress she wore, her head filled with the Anstice flowers linking her forever to return to the world she left behind too soon. Just as Adam would think she were set to laugh? The apparition was gone. On the air that was the last of the outside before he shut the window to seal the inside, the forgotten petal of a white bloom grazed his hand.
"Amy, Amy the Fair. How sweet tha' be. Are ye nay just those words exact..." Beathag would not give any rise to the idea of how one child could become another, but she believed. Some way, some how, she knew that the pale white-gold hair and the jewel-green eyes of Edme were no coincidence that made mother and child identical, as they did now. "The heart o' the home, with jeweled eyes n' golden hair. Princess Amy the Fair.."
A family strong… Adam looks outside across the snow plain… his voice soft as if calling a roster, his warm breath fogging the window… “Mo’r Triath, Mo’r Okesula, the Ebony Prince, Davina the Calm, Murieall the Adventuress, Gabriel the Strategist, and now Amy the Fair…” Where did he get those titles? He turns to Beathag with a confused look and an accompanying smile… “Bess, Ah dunnae knaew where tha’ came from…” he chuckles…
"Ah think the face of the child will suprise ye most of all." An elder woman sat beside the younger, but both of them had a face that seemed ageless, eternal. One of golden hair lay her head on the lap as auburn tresses from the other fell across her cheeks. "It will be beautiful. You, n' all of your siblings were beautiful children."
"Why has it come sae late, m'mother. Is a woman to bare child this late in life?"
"She may bare it longer than she thinks if it is wot the heart wishes, Changelin'. Promise me tha' ye will have more of them if your heart wishes it and the body wills it."
"Ah would give Adam as many as he wished. It was arranged tha' way nay?"
"By Destiny more than by the hands of parents. Be careful." She rises, cupping her daughter's face. Both appear to be maidens. Both appear to be nothing at all. She presses her face to her child's face, now to become a mother of a new generation. "Be careful. Take care, more than ye already dae. Heed them more. Ye will have happiness but make sure it comes at no price."
"I wish to pay nothin' more.."
That was a dream the Mo’r Oukselo'dair nan Gaidhlig Cinneach had more than 4 years ago that started it all, or so it seems... but we all know it takes more than just dreams... or does it?
Now Adam stood upon the balcony overlooking the crowd below… around him stood Aodhan age 10, Davina age 4, and the twins, Gabriel and Murieall age 2, and in his arms, the newest addition to the Aberdeens… Amhlai… Amy for short…
The roar from the crowd as he held up his newborn daughter… just as he had the rest… Products of faith and love… Those that cursed the barren Duchess now sulked in the bounty she now produced… heirs abundant to rule the land for centuries to come… Adam’s chest puffed out with each wave of thunderous applause for the Mo’rs Triath and Okesula…
Turning back into the bedroom, he walks proudly to her bed… Leaning over returning the babe to her arms… he stretches across the bed and kisses her forehead… “Thank yae mae dearest Beathag, faer yae ‘ave given mae years o’ happiness… and Ah luv yae lik’ none other… always ‘ave… always shall…”
Beathag laid back against the propped up pillows of the bed as she'd done nearly two years agone, astonishing the women who aided in the delivery of Amhlai with how well it went. Her age was still a favor in the amazement; no, the Baron Duchess was now seeming as fertile as a tilled field! There were four children she'd now born for Adam! By the age of forty, many women were raising the last of their children in the hopes of being honored with a chance to see the next generation. Beathag was the mother of one. By the hair on her head as golden as the dawn, and by the clarity of her eyes, she'd live to see her children's children well into their years advance.
No one could deny that the Mo'r Triath was handsome as his wife was beautiful. How right the Mo'r Oukselo looked with a baby in her arms! She accepted his kiss with closed eyes, marveling in the closeness. Years of closeness. Not merely one nor two, but they had been married for no less than nearly five years, together for a total of six. So long wherein a man did not die. So long, that she already knew the years would find him at her side until some God called them home together to recall for the company with adventures of life. Davina was the first of their flesh, and the twins amazed them for being a pair, but Amhlai seemed to penetrate straight into the core of a being. So new, so small, she already settled her elder siblings into hushed awe. "Amhlai," she whispered the name of the girl-child, bringing her close so both parents could marvel at her. The others bid them farewell, leaving them to the rarity of a moment's peace. "She's the tiniest one e'er tha' was born, e'en smaller than Davina... Such wee lil fingers. Ye blow on 'em, they curl n' blow away, like dandelion blossoms..."
As the babe, Amhlai, lay in her mother’s arms… Adam got a odd look upon his face as he looked to the portrait of Edme that they had painted many years ago… He got a cold chill, that sent goose bumps along his arm and neck. Could God had been so taken with Edme, that he gave the new babe features of Mother, Father, and adopted sister? He had to turn and look upon Mother and babe once more… How could he explain this to Beathag? Should he? Dare he?
He sat upon the bed with Mother and child… just as the other brothers and sisters entered and gathered around the bed. It would be the Ebony Prince that would say what he could not, that his newborn sibling would favor Edme… Adam and Bess would look at one another as a whisp of wintery air blew in from the slightly open window.
Edme Anstice Aberdeen was a child whom survived a Lowland skirmish during the earlier attacks on Scotland in 1327. How she had come to a then dock-walking merchantess by way of a landless knight became the sort of thing on which local history takes its peculiar flavor. In an Iverness market, a man came seeking milk for a bairin wrapped up in a torn banner. He was no better off as his face was dirt smudged, bruised, and needing to be shorn. Of all the persons that day he might have asked, it would be the merchantess whom took pity on the rag-tag lot. For her own means, she'd come to market only for a bit of bread. That day, each left with: bread, cheese, milk, and one another. Each invigorated a dead, empty place inside the other. Aodhan, to Adam, then known as Marco, became son while the other became father. Edme, to both, became a daughter. The child so favored Beathag it only seemed natural to adopt her, whilst Adam had no intention of leaving any of them alone.
To her eyes, no child could ever look the same as Edme. Every child would be exceptional, special in their own right. It wouldn't be fair, she thought, to hold her children against a child who did not even cross the threshold to her second year. Beyond the eyes of emerald green bright as changeling eyes, there lay a secret only if Adam were keen to see it. Edme had been a bright spot for a woman whom was then said to never have another child again. No one could deny when the family arrived to the island that Edme was the most lovely little girl to ever grace the castle. While her life brought endless laughter her death brought a wound that to some had never healed. To this very day, Beathag often sat under Edme's tree in the garden where many children now played. The Little Princess would have been five years of age now. If you looked on some days when the sun glittered through the branches of her tree, or in the spring when the flowers were heavy in the bower… a little girl's ghost would laugh. Like time, it too had changed. From a tiny babe to what she would have been. Her pale gold hair was often all that could be caught, or her laugh. It was the children whom most told her the stories of having an unseen friend with these features.
The secret was that while all of her children were precious, there was a place in her heart that Edme had taken all to herself. Innocent mouths told of the resemblance while Beathag only held the baby in her arms with a supposed casual mother's air. She entertained their ideas, but would not allow them to penetrate as deep as they did with fevered youth's belief. "Edme, favored the Norse sides o' us, she did... but Amhlaih is her own. Fashioned just as she ought be. N' tha' is enough for anyone..." Beathag could hardly breathe when the babe's finger brushed against her chest.
Adam got up and closed the window… across the white plain, near the tree where the Little Princess lay, he saw, or thought he saw, a lil girl leaning against the tree, her face bright with smile. He turned to face his family, the paleness of his skin soon vanished behind a flush. Ghosts?! He swallowed and choked back a tear… Walking to the bedside, he looked down and saw the babe, whom he must have imagined wore a similar smile. “Amy… Princess Amy, the Fair…” he exclaimed. “She is the heart of the home… with jeweled eyes and golden hair…” That is what he brought away from the vision of Edme… the connection made between the two entities…
The small girl-child leaned her head into the trunk of the tree. Her back followed, pressing with it the beautiful white dress she wore, her head filled with the Anstice flowers linking her forever to return to the world she left behind too soon. Just as Adam would think she were set to laugh? The apparition was gone. On the air that was the last of the outside before he shut the window to seal the inside, the forgotten petal of a white bloom grazed his hand.
"Amy, Amy the Fair. How sweet tha' be. Are ye nay just those words exact..." Beathag would not give any rise to the idea of how one child could become another, but she believed. Some way, some how, she knew that the pale white-gold hair and the jewel-green eyes of Edme were no coincidence that made mother and child identical, as they did now. "The heart o' the home, with jeweled eyes n' golden hair. Princess Amy the Fair.."
A family strong… Adam looks outside across the snow plain… his voice soft as if calling a roster, his warm breath fogging the window… “Mo’r Triath, Mo’r Okesula, the Ebony Prince, Davina the Calm, Murieall the Adventuress, Gabriel the Strategist, and now Amy the Fair…” Where did he get those titles? He turns to Beathag with a confused look and an accompanying smile… “Bess, Ah dunnae knaew where tha’ came from…” he chuckles…
