HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY FROM HIBBS THE BEAR WITH 2 SHADOWS

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone.

Maewyn Succat was the real name of St. Patrick, who died this day back in a time where myth and history eerily blend. It is said he used the shamrock to explain the Trinity, the Three who are One.

He was either Scottish or Welsh, or some even say French. Being a Lakota, Irish, British blend myself, I can relate.

Some legends state that he drove the snakes out of Ireland and contested with the very Sidhe themselves, but readers of my THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS know the truth :

{Hibbs, the bear with two shadows, and the first hawk of all creation, Little Brother, are wandering the always dangerous dreamscape of the mystic bear's slumber.}


CHAPTER FIVE
WALKING THE PATH OF SHADOWS

As a young cub, Hibbs had often sat under the Twisted Oak, staring up into the endless depths of night. Long, long hours he had eagerly listened to GrandMother’s voice on the breeze which had so tickled his ears. She called him her little Wakan Witkotkoka then and had ruffled the hair atop his small head as she spun tales of the reality that darted out from behind the rocks and trees which he so foolishly called the world.

“See how you sit, arms hugged about your knees? The grass is soft is it not? Like the lap of one who loves you. For, indeed, it is the lap of one who loves you -- as it is my lap. From me, you -- and all living things come -- you are my children. But you are my most beloved, for you love me back.”

Hibbs remembered how the cool, yet strangely loving, breeze had ruffled through the soft hair of his cheek as GrandMother had kept on, “But be not blind to your brothers and sisters. No, learn from them. Read them as now you read from those scrolls I have brought you. Each brook, each stone, the very sky above you, is there for you to learn from.”

Hibbs had felt his furry nose tweaked then. “Bright days, dark nights, both are but reflections of me. Nowhere will you walk that your foot will not be touching me.”
GrandMother’s voice had grown hushed, “Except the path through Dreams. There the ground is what you make it. But even there, my love will be at your side. And the Great Mystery, of course.”

More GrandMother would not say, for the Great Mystery had come by his name honestly. But rather than be frightened by her silence, Hibbs had been bolstered somehow. How powerful and endless must the Great Mystery be if he could not be contained by mere words. But GrandMother had hinted that she had come from him. And if he had created her so terrible in her power, yet so endless in her love, how wonderful he must be.

And now as Hibbs walked slowly through the utter darkness, he whispered, “How wonderful he must be.”

Little Brother snorted, “Wonderful would be to give us a torch.”

Hibbs smiled dry. Death might just be within arm’s reach, yet the lessons he had learned on GrandMother’s lap made this moment rich and deep, and in a very strange sense -- healing. Thanks to Estanatlehi, Hibbs truly lived each beat of his heart. His grin soured. That heart might not have many more beats left to it, if the smell on the air was any indication. Jasmine, wrapped in fresh-shed blood.

“Begin I do to think that there is no way to win in this dream of yours.”

Hibbs smiled sad. “Perhaps there is a way to lose more slowly.”

Little Brother pecked the top of his friend’s massive head. “Like a winter chill do your words warm.”

The hawk pecked again at Hibb’s head. “So many scrolls you read and still you cannot light our way!”

Hibbs frowned. What had Plato said in that other scroll? That the eye was the prison of the mind. Two-Leggeds saw what they expected to see. The young bear sucked in a deep breath. What was he expecting to see?

Light, of course. But if you thought about it, you didn’t actually see light. It was too fast. You only saw slower things by it. So for Two-Leggeds, light was on the edge, so to speak, the last thing you almost saw before things got too fast for you. He nodded his great head. Like Plato often said in his other scrolls : for the mind to stumble was to fall into darkness.

Little Brother humphed, “It is said the body of the Sidhe is made of movement swift as light. For them, like water is light, something to be touched, bathed in --”
The hawk stiffened, “ -- to drown intruders in.”

Hibbs smiled grim. “Thank you, Little Brother. Now, though blind, I begin to see. And like I said before : my vision, my rules.”

The Sidhe’s reality was a two-edged sword. Now, the legends of fallen angels began to make some sense. If light was to them something slower to reach out and use, then what Two-Leggeds called solid -- flesh and earth -- must of a necessity be seen to them as thinner, harder to make out. Two-Leggeds must seem as clouds. And for Two-Leggeds, the Sidhe seemed misty, half-real. No wonder that the Sidhe seemed to be able to walk through walls and rocks, for to them, they were as clouds. Hibbs grinned like a wolf. Like he had breathed the wood into being earlier, he would breathe Little Brother and himself into the swifter realm of the Sidhe.

And since this was the kingdom of dream, with the thought came the reality.
Little Brother dug his talons deep into the young bear’s wide shoulder. “Is anyone ever happy you to see?”

The world had blinked into view as if the Great Mystery himself had drawn back the black curtains in a sudden sweep of his invisible arm. Hibbs stiffened. He and Little Brother found themselves surrounded.

By Sidhe.

Angry, outraged muttering buzzed through the milling Sidhe. Hibbs shivered. Not at the sight of so many otherworld beings, but at the sight of the strange chamber he and Little Brother found themselves in.

The very air was black fire, swirling in eye-aching patterns in the living twilight of the ballroom. Electric white mists slowly snaked up from the black and scarlet marble floor. And the elaborately dressed Sidhe seemed to float upon the surface of those mists. The Sidhe were so elegant, so regal, so beautiful -- and oh, so deadly.
They were easily as tall, if not taller, than Leandra, dressed in intricate patterns of colors that seemed to burst from the silken fabrics that flowed from their slender bodies. All the colors Hibbs had ever seen, and some he had never before seen, burned in silent fire along their flowing clothing.

Long gowns of sparkling silk cascaded in the wake of these nightfall creatures with the ethereal bodies and the predator eyes. They had been dancing some complex, intricate dance when Hibbs and Little Brother had suddenly appeared in their midst as if from nowhere.

From the looks in those flat eyes, Hibbs dryly noted that it would seem that he and his brother were as welcome as a muscle cramp. The males, much fewer in number than the females, began going for the hilts of their swords. Their spring-loaded bodies made Hibbs feel clumsy and without an ounce of grace. Until he looked at the females, who put their male counterparts to shame.

The doe-eyed faes, in their sheer satin gowns, flowed effortlessly across the sea of mists. As they neared, Hibbs caught their perfume. They smelled of jasmine and fresh-shed blood. Some of that blood still glistened on their wet lips.

Movement snared Hibbs’ eyes. Up high from the dance floor sat three diamond thrones. Two on one level. The third, in the middle and on the next level higher. Three faerie queens stared at him as if at a bug scuttling from their soup bowls. The Queen of raven hair, whose movement had caught Hibbs’ attention, took a delicate sip from her goblet of -- Hibbs sniffed to confirm the sad tale told by his eyes -- blood. Sidhe blood. The young bear snorted. It would seem that the Sidhe ate their own. They must be very civilized indeed.

She looked as if she disapproved of the world in general and Hibbs in particular. She raised an eyebrow at the male Sidhe. As one, they drew their swords.

Little Brother snorted in contempt, “Bold are they against an unarmed guest.”

The second Faerie Queen, whose hair was a hot sunset, sneered, “Guest? We sent out no invitations to savages.”

Hibbs ignored the males, whose eyes were only a little less sharp than their swords, and instead looked at the highest Queen, whose hair was living lightning and whose piercing eyes were of winter frost. There was something odd about that hair -- as if it were but an illusion somehow. No matter. Let her keep her secrets. He had enough of his own. He smiled sad. Savages? Perhaps. But he was young enough to wish to tweak up-turned noses and so decided to quote one of his favorite tale-spinners, Aeschylus.

“And even in our sleep, pain, that cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon our hearts. And in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of The Great Mystery.”

The High Queen, of Caesar jaw and Cleopatra eyes, jerked as if stung, and in words, like a rippling brook given life, said, “Why are you here?”

Of course, as usual, Hibbs hadn’t a sure answer. Now, his guess might have been excellent, or it might have been full of worms. But Estanatlehi hadn’t raised a grandson idiot enough to make guesses in front of a roomful of enemies. So he decided to be as vague as Estanatlehi herself. And in trying to be wise and mysterious, he, of course, hit the truth dead-on. So much for the wisdom of young bears.

“I find myself where I am needed.”

The High Queen again jerked as if bee stung. “There are layers of truth to what you say, bearling. Were you wise just now or were you most foolish?”

Little Brother snorted, “If guess I had, mine would be foolish.”

The High Queen gave a smile of pain. “More true than you meant, First One.”

The hawk shook its head. “That would be of the bear you speak.”

The Raven Queen sneered, “You wish.”

“Wish I do that your roosters put down their toothpicks.”

The High Queen gestured, and a long sword of sharp diamond rose from the mists. “Bearling, take this if you would and disarm them yourself.”

The male Sidhe bristled like thorns. Hibbs sighed. He breathed upon the sparkling sword. It blurred and broke apart in a cloud of flying butterflies. Now, it was the High Queen’s turn to bristle.

Hibbs bowed his massive head slightly. “No offense meant, your Majesty. But I do not like swords. The moment you pick one up, you become like it, an instrument of death. And I am a healer.”

The Queen of Fire leaned forward and hushed, “Then, who are you here to heal, bearling?”

Hibbs smiled, “Say that fast three times.”

Hair of living flame whipped over her forehead as the Queen sat back stiff. “I find you not amusing at all.”

Hibbs sighed, “You are not the first to make that discovery."

The Raven Queen pulled herself up tall and deadly. "Why are you here?"

Hibbs was beginning to wonder that himself. And that fact made him irritable. He fought it. And he lost. Then, it suddenly occurred to him who the High Queen was. And suddenly he knew why he was there. Promises to keep.

He sighed, "If I did not tell The Morrigan's mother, why do you think I would tell you?"

Hibbs turned to the High Queen. "By the way, Queen Ogygia, the Morrigan says she remembers ... everything."

The queen's eyes of winter frost became slits as they first stabbed into the young bear, then flicked over to the males. "You have swords. Kill him."

The hawk slapped the bear aside the head with one wing. "Once. Just once, think before you speak!"

From the floor, out of the slowly weaving mists, thrust a long, rune-carved staff. The male Sidhe flinched as they read the ancient language, long forgotten except by those who fell. And drifting upon a strangely warm breeze, from a fresh-hewn crypt, came the voice of a heart that refused to surrender.

"Brave and true bear, you kept your word, gave my message. Now, I give you a weapon within a weapon that even one such as you may wield."

Hibbs took it within his great paws. It trembled in his fingers as if alive and happy to be held once again. By the Great Mystery, what a staff. It felt sturdy, yet light, but also mystical. There was more to this weapon than met the eye. The sudden fear in the male Sidhes alone told him that.

He spun it in a fluid figure eight pattern as GrandMother had taught him long ago. He smiled. Yes, even a healer like he might defend himself with a weapon like this.
But not unless he had to. Hibbs looked this way and that, hoping to find some path of escape that didn't involve the breaking of heads. Perhaps it was this seeking of his that opened his ears. Or perhaps the power of Surt was such that it could penetrate the young bear's dream when Leandra's could not. Whatever the reason, Hibbs heard the not-so-gentle rumble of Surt, the Father of All Fires, high above him in the darkness.

"Hibbs, you dolt of a bear! Sleep on your own time. We have a situation here."

Eyeing grimly the steadily approaching Sidhe, Hibbs snorted, "Oh, really? And you think I'm having fun?"

"I do not care if you are having cake and tea with the High Queen herself. You are needed here!"

Hibbs began twirling the staff faster as the Sidhe motioned to one another for a flanking advance. "So, Surt, it seems like years since I was awake. How have you been?"

"Like dung. Now, that we have caught up, would you get your sorry pelt to the Waking World?"

"Spit on my foot."

"What?"

"Give me an anchor to hold onto, brother."

"Oh, gladly."

And with a stab of hot agony, Hibbs was awake. All but one of the howls belonged to the three Faerie Queens. But Hibbs' was louder.
*******************************************************
In keeping with the Celtic motif of this blog, here's a video that hopefully will appeal to all of you :style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">

BLACK ROSES IN AVALON!

The LOVE LIKE DEATH trilogy concludes :

Not even the eclipse of myth is forever. But eclipses return. And currents exist that are eternal. One such current is Love.

It binds the universe together.

Listen. Can you hear it? Can you hear him?

Blake, son of Man, is calling out across the night skies. What is he saying?

Remember.

Remember the strangled dreams, the shattered illusions that dropped from your bruised fingers long ago as a child. Still Time can be transcended. If you but remember ...

that love is forever,

that love cannot be taken from you,

that wounded hearts and minds but cast it from them in despair.

Listen.

Listen as Blake tells of haunted Avalon, broken by bloody Civil War. Of his love for the moon and the sun : the Last Fae and the alien drinker of souls.

Listen to his memories of BLACK ROSES IN AVALON :

The orphan, Blake Adamson, has been running for his life … or has he been running from it? One part of his mind says he is delirious, dying in the burnt ruins of his orphanage. Most of his mind insists what he is seeing and enduring is all too real.

His heart wants to believe the world he sees is real. A heart that is torn between an alien drinker of souls and the Last Fae. Loving both the sun and the moon may be his death. But Blake Adamson cannot help himself.

In an attempt to escape the enraged demigod, Abaddon Sennacherib, Blake and Fallen, the Last Fae, have left Victorian London by bending time and space,

using an ancient enchanted blade as a rudder. The two fugitive lovers find themselves far in the past … to Avalon.

Avalon, where life is illusory and deceptive, as are its inhabitants. In Faerie, nothing is as it seems, and even the simple act of uttering a name can be fraught with danger and death.

Blake and Fallen have appeared close to the Crystal Castle at the bottom of Lake Sayrade. The Dancers of the Myst float on their icy blue crafts upon that lake. And their Queen is Danis Nokkes, punisher of all false lovers.

Blake insists he is not false … just over-committed.

The distinction is lost to the sadistic Queen. To the Sidhe, mortals are but toys and pawns in their power games. They love to make the epitaph small and the death large.

In escaping the sadistic Queen, Blake and Fallen clash with the feral Wyldaelfen. And blood and destiny ensues.

In the midst of enemies in Broceliande Forest, they fail to skirt the Shadows of the Erinnyes and their dark queen Dinselle of the Golden Skin.

Atop the King and Queen of Avalon’s unicorns, Blake and Fallen evade the Wild Hunt as they race across the flying boulders of the fabled River Sambayton high in the skies of Avalon.

Until in the crystal and gold palace of Caer Wydr, Blake and Fallen endure the dark ritual, Diathke, ending the Avalon Civil War by paying the fearsome cost for love eternal.
***
http://www.amazon.com/BLACK-ROSES-IN-AVALON-ebook/dp/B005GQN03C/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1313029711&sr=1-1
***

FALLEN in LIES THAT LOCUST TELL

{"Imagination is the eye of the soul."

-Mark Twain.}

Fallen, the last Sidhe, awakens in a British insane asylum with no memory of how she came to be there.

Earth has been invaded. But the good are too busy pointing their missiles at one another to notice.

It is up to Evil to defend this world's shores against alien invaders. Why? Evil considers Man their toys. And Evil does not share.

Here is the beginning of that tale told through the eyes of Fallen :



The spark of an anguished soul flew past me in the night. I shivered as her light drew back the curtains of my mind.


I would have cursed her had she lingered. But Death was impatient. Words breathed through the mists of my awareness.


"Darkness yet in light. To live half dead, a living death. And buried but yet more miserable. My self. My sepulcher."


My mind roughly brushed aside the dry leaves of Milton's broodings. No time for self-pity.


Yet too much time for all eternity. Enough! I was here for a reason.


And as always that reason was death. Always death. The why was unimportant. There was always a logical why for Abbadon.


The where, however, was another matter. And when might illuminate the present darkness of my mind as well.


Keeping my eyes closed, though tempting, would but delay the inevitable. I opened them.


Only a peek through slit eyes. After all, my ears told me that I was not alone. I frowned. A hospital room?


I reached out with more than my ears. My spirit shuddered as the ragged claws of madness raked it from down the hall.


An asylum. A Sidhe inprisoned within a madhouse. How utterly fitting.


I ran my long fingers along the rough sheet beneath me. A state asylum obviously. Even better.


But what state? My awakening consciousness was stubborn in its ignorance.


I bunched up the sheet in my fist in hot frustration. A sharp intake of breath from the next bed. Her scent came to me.


I smiled. And the air in the room grew chill. Only a human.


And I?


What was I?


From the corner of my eye I saw the human in the next bed begin to shiver. No matter. The human was not important. Time and place. They were.


I flicked my eyes to the barred window. The glass. Thick, dense. Like the humans who made it.


I studied the face reflected in the barred window.


High cheekbones, seemingly intent on bursting up and out of flesh that shimmered as if coated with stardust.


A living waterfall of honey-wheat hair, looking more like a lion's mane than any other earthly word I could use.


My eyes.


I shivered looking at them though they were my own.

Large, slanted fae eyes chilling even me with their lack of warmth or mercy. Their color the burnt-out ends of ancient days.


Under my fingertips a pebble. I nodded. A mere speck of stone. But it would do.


The pebble shot from between my thumb and forefinger like a bullet. An electric circuit died, wailing its death song in tones higher than humans could hear.


I smiled like a wolf. We would have visitors soon.


More the pity for them.


I drew in a breath from the cold breeze bleeding from the wounded window. The sharp tang of Autumn.


Oak. Ash. Thorn. Decay.


Rotting leaves, mottled in bright hues of strangled life. The dark and bloody soil beneath them breathed out its lineage.


An aching sadness hollowed out my chest. The Misty Isles. Albion. England.


I whispered, the words feeling like dewdrops of blood on a wounded doe, "The lonely season in lonely lands."
***
When a star is born, what song does it sing?
I think it may sing this one :

FALLEN IS THE NAME I CHOSE_SO LET ME FALL

The most memorable heroes or heroines you have ever met were archetypes.

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung believed that these archetypes were the result of a collective unconscious.

This collective unconscious was not directly knowable and is a product of the shared experiences of our ancestors.

If we can tap into the collective unconscious with our heroine, then we will stir the hearts of our readers on the unconscious level, insuring that all important reader identification.

Fallen, the heroine in this blog of late is the archetype, "La Belle Dame sans Merci" :

“... darkness yet in light, To live a life half dead, a living death, And buried; but O yet more miserable! My self, my Sepulcher.”

John Milton {“Samson Agonistes.”}



LET ME FALL

"Let me fall,

Let me climb,

There is a moment when fear

And dream must collide."



I am the last of my race. I am Tuatha de Danann. And, no, human, that does not mean elf, or fae, or damned. I take that last back. I am damned.


"Someone I am

Is waiting for courage,

The one I want,

The one I will become,

Will catch me."


I have no memories of my youth. Youth. The word is a mockery to me.

Though I look a young woman, I have lived centuries which I do remember. I remember when the sphinx had a nose,

when the pyramids were caressed by shimmering limestone,

and when courage and honor were not hollow words.

Yes, that long ago do I remember.


"Let me fall,

If I fall,

Though the phoenix

May or may not rise."


Then how do I even know I am Tuatha de Danann? The knowledge sings to me from the depths of my spirit in the night.


Its melody mocks with teasing glimpses of a time long gone, yet unborn.


"I will dance so freely,

Holding on to no one;

You can hold me only

If you, too, will fall

Away from all your

Useless fears and chains."


How do I know I am Sidhe? It is the face which mocks me from the mirror.

High cheekbones which seem intent on bursting up and out of flesh which shimmers as if coated with stardust.

A living waterfall of honey-wheat hair, looking more like a lion's mane than any other earthly term I could use.

Large, slanted fae eyes, chilling even me with their lack of warmth or mercy.


"So let me fall,

If I must fall,

There is no reason

To miss this one chance

This perfect moment;

Just let me fall."


But enough about me. What do you think about me? On second thought, do not tell me.

What care I what humans think of me? But I lie. I do care. At least about what one human thinks of me.


Roland Yeomans. DreamSinger. He is Lakota fairy tale come to life. He is the shaman who sings dreams to life. And he will tell me my beginnings or die.



"So let me fall,

If I must fall,

I won't heed your warnings;

I won't hear them."



My mind is churning with images humans could not comprehend as I sway up the steps of the Art Nouveau house,

that is just one of the doorways into Roland’s psyche.

Just its name alone is punishment to think, much less speak : Jugendstilhaus in der Ainmillerstrabe.

Once it had been the home of the infamous Countess Franziska zu Reventlow,

her erotic lifestyle and cosmic nonsense had inspired and broken the hearts of an entire generation in Munich.

Now it has to settle for being the most elite restaurant in the city.

No knocking on the door. This restaurant is much too elite for that. Only a rare electronic key will work … a key based on the silicon ingrams of Roland’s own brain.

I have mine in my longer than human fingers. Roland had sung this establishment into being along with most of Munich back when he used the pen name, The Brothers Grimm.

I slide the key through the black slot whose color matches my short-skirted version of a S.S. uniform.

True, I am some seventy years out of date. But what is seventy years to a Tuatha de Danann?

A mere hiccup in time.

I remember Wagner trying to teach me German ... among other things. I go cold inside. I remember too much, feel too little.

I enjoy the glares of the pompous patrons as I roll my hips to the back table reserved for DreamSinger alone.

The maitre d' nearly breaks his neck getting to me, but I am already seated, making sure my short skirt is hiked up suitably indecent to induce doomed desire.

He stands trembling over me as I take out my copy of The Spirit as Adversary of the Soul by old Ludwig Klages from my skirt pocket.

I am almost through with his nonsense. Seeing how close he can come to the truth, while stumbling right past it always makes me chuckle.

The maitre d' isn't close to chuckling. "Fraulein, you simply cannot wear that uniform in here!"

"Sure I can. What is the matter? Afraid those power brokers to our right will find out your grandfather wore this uniform for real?"

He spins around so fast he leaves an after-image. Roland clears his throat across the table from me.

“He cannot help his past.”

I study this strange man. His eyes. Damn, his eyes. They look as if they have seen all the pain in the world … and have felt most of it.

“I’m tired of this dancing, DreamSinger. Who am I?”

Roland looks truly surprised. “I thought you knew. You are La Belle Dame sans Merci .”

"Is that my name or my nature?"

"Both."

I sit back in my chair. I had been right, after all. I am damned.

***

FALLEN'S NOT JUST MY NAME BUT MY NATURE

Ever try saying "No" to a fallen angel?

Fallen read all the comments on her last sentence in Summer's blogfest yesterday, especially Words Crafter's,

and suggested, with pointed forefinger nail tracing her name on my throat,

that today's post undoubtedly should be the lead-up to her last sentence.

I wisely agreed. I may be slow, but I am not glacial.



It is the year 1936.

There is a strange battle going on within the Hindenburg as it sails around the towering statue,

Christ The Redeemer, in the skies of Rio de Janeiro.

Fallen, from my WORD PAINT and FAIRY TALE blogfest entries,

is fighting her double she created from her own glamour in a crisis.

Now her daemon is on a murderous rampage. It is up to Fallen to end the

madness before the daemon attempts suicide by exploding the Hidenburg :



I reached out with my mind and bent the patterns of time/space to my will.

The world blurred, the deck changed shape beneath my boots, and I stumbled as I now stood outside the cabin door leading to the enormous chamber of hydrogen gas bags.

I instinctively looked to the right, the side of my body without a heart.

There, at the far end of the hallway, was my daemon born of my fae glamour. She felt my eyes on her and whirled about, actually hissing at me, her knife springing up.

I bit the insides of my cheek and bent space again.

She leapt back in shock as I appeared right beside her, slashing with my own knife. With a fluid grace, she leapt onto the railing of the stairs leading down to the engineers' catwalk.

I leapt onto the opposite railing. We slid down, our knives slashing, blocking, and darting as we surfed down the metal banisters.

Down we sped, our daggers clicking and sparking down into the darkness.

My daemon was giggling, having the time of her life. Why not? One of the damn sparks from our knives was sure to ignite the hydrogen and blow us both to hell.

We reached the bottom of the stairs and the end of the railings.

We leapt straight at one another. We were too evenly matched. We blocked each other's thrust as we passed each other.

On a wicked whim, I stretched out my neck and kissed her full of the lips. She spat in my face.

"I always wanted to do that," I laughed. "But I kept getting lipstick all over the mirror."

Then, we hit the catwalk in a roll and bounced up into the metal struts that crisscrossed above us in an upside-down triangled jungle gym.

She swung out her long legs to slam me in the chest.

But that was what I would have done, so I had swung lower, patting her hard on the butt as I slid underneath her in a sweep.

She sailed over the catwalk onto the metal struts on the other side of the pathway. Damn her.

While I had been trying to rattle her, she had been setting herself up into the exact spot she had wanted :

right over the huge silver gasbag full of deadly hydrogen.

She did a little flip and dived straight down towards it,

her black knife stabbing out. I called up the Power within me and bent time to appear right under her, on top of the gasbag.

I blocked her knife. She rasped like a stabbed lion. She reached out with her left hand, grabbing a girder for support.

I straddled the gasbag, a boot on a strut on either side of it.

We thrust and parried in a flurry of movement that my eyes couldn't even follow.

"It doesn't have to be this way," I panted.

"Why the hell not?," eerily came my own voice at me from my daemon.

"I made you, fool. I can make the hunger go away. I promise."

"Idiot! Can you make the emptiness go away, too? If you can't stand being you, why did you think I could?"

As our knives sparked against one another, I cursed myself. The engineers who worked here even wore felt boots to keep even the smallest sparks from happening.

And here we were making like sparklers right above enough hydrogen to blow us clear out of the sky.

"I'll kill us yet," she screamed, and with a wild swing,

dived through the wires and netting that held the uppermost gasbags and out through the silver fabric that covered the zeppelin's frame.

The lunatic. She was going for the engine car. Instinctively, I started to jump to the right of the jagged hole she had made.

Then, at the last second, I dived through the silver skin to the left of the hole. The rough fabric scratched my face and tugged at my shoulders.

A mighty blast of cold winds smashed into me as I flew out of the Hidenburg.

I flailed out with my left hand and grabbed onto the fluttering fabric, whipping myself tight to the zeppellin's side.

My glamour had been waiting on the right side, knife held high to skewer me. Seeing me come out an unexpected way, she howled in rage.

"Bitch!"

Dropping down to the wide, sprawling tail-wing, I yelled over the terrible winds,

"That's Queen Bitch to you."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the huge granite face of Jesus.

Hell, we were still circling that damn staute. The two of us had to be making some spectacle of ourselves to any stray unfallen angels.

The two of us :

edging around each other on the Hindenburg's elevator flap, under a fifty foot swastika, in front of an open-armed, stony faced Jesus.

It was the stuff of a Wagner opera, complete with two suicidal valkyries. But you first, daemon.

The forty mile an hour winds making a wheat-gold halo of her hair, my daemon shrieked, "You can't win."

Then, she struck. I leapt right at her, parrying her attack, giving her another kiss, to throw her off-balance.

It worked for Bugs Bunny. But this was more Greek tragedy than cartoon.

She hit the flap in a skiddering roll, popped to her feet, and wheeled around to face me.

She wiped her mouth as if my lips were diseased.


We danced about each other, diving in thrusts of knives and claws in a flurry of blocked attacks.

The terrible winds threatened to blow us off the wing at any moment.

The water sparkling beneath us, the city moving slow around us, the remote stony face of Jesus regarding us.

They all blurred as only the features of my daemon stood out in sharp detail as if burned into my mind.

A shredded piece of tarp flew from the hole straight into my left eye. My daemon took advantage of my shock and leapt up onto the side of the Hindenburg.

Then, like a scurrying monkey, she clawed her way up the side. I jumped up after her. But she had too much of a headstart.

I would have to bend space to reach her. But for a second I would be off-balanced and vulnerable. And in that second, I would be dead.

She scrambled to the top seconds ahead of me. She spun about atop the sloped, silver surface. She raised both hands into the air and screamed.

"Top of the world, Ma. Top of the world!"

She suddenly glared at the giant granite face of Jesus. "What the hell are you looking at?"

And in that split second of inattention, I bent space and appeared before her. I flung both arms around her in a crushing embrace. She bit at me. And I planted a third kiss on her.

But before I did, I whispered in the tongue of my race, "Come home."

Inside my mind, my daemon screamed, 'Not this way. Not this way!'

I had run out of time to talk sense to her. Like I had said, I had given her being. I could take it back. And I did.

I drew her into me in the breath of a kiss, a long kiss good night.

She shivered in my arms, then I heard a faint mental wail : 'No! Not sucked up like a drink. I'm alive, a somebody, a ----"

And then, she was gone, and I whispered, " -- a memory."

I stood alone on top of the Hindenburg, the winds nearly blowing me off. The remote, staring eyes of the granite Jesus stabbed into me.

Staggering at the impact of the winds, I snarled at Him.

"What are you looking at? I wish the hell you'd tell me because I do not know."

The words bled from me. "I do not know."

And so did I, Fallen Rabshekah, last of the Tuatha de Danann , slip past the stony, open-armed grasp of Christ the Redeemer.

***

FIGHT BLOGFEST_PREY FOR ME_GHOST OF A CHANCE Interlude

Ever try saying "No" to a fallen angel?

Ghost of Samuel Clemens here saying I didn't have it in me to do it.

Here is Roland's entry (with the fallen angel's thumbprints attached)

for J.C. Martins' FIGHT BLOGFEST.

http://jc-martin.com/fighterwriter/2010/08/17/fight-fight-fight-blogfest/comment-page-1/#comment-271

It is the year 1936.

The battle is within the Hindenburg as it sails around the towering statue,

Christ The Redeemer, in the skies of Rio de Janeiro.

The fallen angel from Roland's WORD PAINT and FAIRY TALE blogfest entries

is fighting her double she created from her own glamour in a crisis.

Now her daemon is on a murderous rampage. It is up to the fallen angel to end the

madness before the daemon attempts suicide by exploding the Hidenburg :



I reached out with my mind and bent the patterns of time/space to my will.

The world blurred, the deck changed shape beneath my boots, and I stumbled as I now stood outside the cabin door leading to the enormous chamber of hydrogen gas bags.

I instinctively looked to the right, the side of my body without a heart.

There, at the far end of the hallway, was my daemon. She felt my eyes on her and whirled about, actually hissing at me, her knife springing up.

I bit the insides of my cheek and bent space again.

She leapt back in shock as I appeared right beside her, slashing with my own knife. With a fluid grace, she leapt onto the railing of the stairs leading down to the engineers' catwalk.

I leapt onto the opposite railing. We slid down, our knives slashing, blocking, and darting as we surfed down the metal banisters.

Down we sped, our daggers clicking and sparking down into the darkness.

My daemon was giggling, having the time of her life. Why not? One of the damn sparks from our knives was sure to ignite the hydrogen and blow us both to hell.

We reached the bottom of the stairs and the end of the railings.

We leapt straight at one another. We were too evenly matched. We blocked each other's thrust as we passed each other.

On a wicked whim, I stretched out my neck and kissed her full of the lips. She spat in my face.

"I always wanted to do that," I laughed. "But I kept getting lipstick all over the mirror."

Then, we hit the catwalk in a roll and bounced up into the metal struts that crisscrossed above us in an upside-down triangled jungle gym.

She swung out her long legs to slam me in the chest.

But that was what I would have done, so I had swung lower, patting her hard on the butt as I slid underneath her in a sweep.

She sailed over the catwalk onto the metal struts on the other side of the pathway. Damn her.

While I had been trying to rattle her, she had been setting herself up into the exact spot she had wanted :

right over the huge silver gasbag full of deadly hydrogen.

She did a little flip and dived straight down towards it,

her black knife stabbing out. I called up the Power within me and bent time to appear right under her, on top of the gasbag.

I blocked her knife. She rasped like a stabbed lion. She reached out with her left hand, grabbing a girder for support.

I straddled the gasbag, a boot on a strut on either side of it.

We thrust and parried in a flurry of movement that my eyes couldn't even follow.

"It doesn't have to be this way," I panted.

"Why the hell not?," eerily came my own voice at me from my daemon.

"I made you, fool. I can make the hunger go away. I promise."

"Idiot! Can you make the emptiness go away, too? If you can't stand being you, why did you think I could?"

As our knives sparked against one another, I cursed myself. The engineers who worked here even wore felt boots to keep even the smallest sparks from happening.

And here we were making like sparklers right above enough hydrogen to blow us clear out of the sky.

"I'll kill us yet," she screamed, and with a wild swing,

dived through the wires and netting that held the uppermost gasbags and out through the silver fabric that covered the zeppelin's frame.

The lunatic. She was going for the engine car. Instinctively, I started to jump to the right of the jagged hole she had made.

Then, at the last second, I dived through the silver skin to the left of the hole. The rough fabric scratched my face and tugged at my shoulders.

A mighty blast of cold winds smashed into me as I flew out of the Hidenburg.

I flailed out with my left hand and grabbed onto the fluttering fabric, whipping myself tight to the zeppellin's side.

My glamour had been waiting on the right side, knife held high to skewer me. Seeing me come out an unexpected way, she howled in rage.

"Bitch!"

Dropping down to the wide, sprawling tail-wing, I yelled over the terrible winds,

"That's Queen Bitch to you."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the huge granite face of Jesus.

Hell, we were still circling that damn staute. The two of us had to be making some spectacle of ourselves to any straying unfallen angels.

The two of us :

edging around each other on the Hindenburg's elevator flap, under a fifty foot swastika, in front of an open-armed, stony faced Jesus.

It was the stuff of a Wagner opera, complete with two suicidal valkyries. But you first, daemon.

The forty mile an hour winds making a wheat-gold halo of her hair, my daemon shrieked, "You can't win."

Then, she struck. I leapt right at her, parrying her attack, giving her another kiss.

She hit the flap in a skiddering roll, popped to her feet, and wheeled around to face me.

She wiped her mouth as if my lips were diseased.


We danced about each other, diving in thrusts of knives and claws in a flurry of blocked attacks.

The terrible winds threatened to blow us off the wing at any moment.

The water sparkling beneath us, the city moving slow around us, the remote stony face of Jesus regarding us.

They all blurred as only the features of my daemon stood out in sharp detail as if burned into my mind.

A shredded piece of tarp flew from the hole straight into my left eye. My daemon took advantage of my shock and leapt up onto the side of the Hindenburg.

Then, like a scurrying monkey, she clawed her way up the side. I jumped up after her. But she had too much of a headstart.

I would have to bend space to reach her. But for a second I would be off-balanced and vulnerable. And in that second, I would be dead.

She scrambled to the top seconds ahead of me. She spun about atop the sloped, silver surface. She raised both hands into the air and screamed.

"Top of the world, Ma. Top of the world!"

She suddenly glared at the giant granite face of Jesus. "What the hell are you looking at?"

And in that split second of inattention, I bent space and appeared before her. I flung both arms around her in a crushing embrace. She bit at me. And I planted a third kiss on her.

But before I did, I whispered in the tongue of my race, "Come home."

Inside my mind, my daemon screamed, 'Not this way. Not this way!'

I had run out of time to talk sense to her. Like I had said, I had given her being. I could take it back. And I did.

I drew her into me in the breath of a kiss, a long kiss good night.

She shivered in my arms, then I heard a faint mental wail : 'No! Not sucked up like a drink. I'm alive, a somebody, a ----"

And then, she was gone, and I whispered, " -- a memory."

I stood alone on top of the Hindenburg, the winds nearly blowing me off. The remote, staring eyes of the granite Jesus stabbed into me.

Staggering at the impact of the winds, I snarled at Him.

"What are you looking at? I wish the hell you'd tell me because I do not know."

The words bled from me. "I do not know."

And so did I, last of the Sidhe, slip past the stony, open-armed grasp of Christ the Redeemer.

***

FAIRY TALE BLOGFEST entry_LET ME FALL_GHOST OF A CHANCE Interlude

Samuel Clemens here, and this is my selection for Roland's FAIRY TALE BLOGFEST entry

http://steppingintofantasy.blogspot.com/2010/08/fairy-tale-blogfestcontest.html

This snippet once more involves the fallen angel from his WORD PAINT entry

and is Roland's take on "La Belle Dame sans Merci" :

“... darkness yet in light, To live a life half dead, a living death, And buried; but O yet more miserable! My self, my Sepulcher.”

John Milton {“Samson Agonistes.”}



LET ME FALL

"Let me fall,

Let me climb,

There is a moment when fear

And dream must collide."



I am the last of my race. I am Tuatha de Danann. And, no, human, that does not mean elf, or fae, or damned. I take that last back. I am damned.



"Someone I am

Is waiting for courage,

The one I want,

The one I will become,

Will catch me."



I have no memories of my youth. Youth. The word is a mockery to me.

Though I look a young woman, I have lived centuries which I do remember. I remember when the sphinx had a nose,

when the pyramids were caressed by shimmering limestone,

and when courage and honor were not hollow words.

Yes, that long ago do I remember.



"Let me fall,

If I fall,

Though the phoenix

May or may not rise."



Then how do I even know I am Tuatha de Danann? The knowledge sings to me from the depths of my spirit in the night.


Its melody mocks with teasing glimpses of a time long gone, yet unborn.



"I will dance so freely,

Holding on to no one;

You can hold me only

If you, too, will fall

Away from all your

Useless fears and chains."



How do I know I am Sidhe? It is the face which mocks me from the mirror.

High cheekbones which seem intent on bursting up and out of flesh which shimmers as if coated with stardust.

A living waterfall of honey-wheat hair, looking more like a lion's mane than any other earthly term I could use.

Large, slanted fae eyes, chilling even me with their lack of warmth or mercy.



"So let me fall,

If I must fall,

There is no reason

To miss this one chance

This perfect moment;

Just let me fall."



But enough about me. What do you think about me? On second thought, do not tell me.

What care I what humans think of me? But I lie. I do care. At least about what one human thinks of me.


Roland Yeomans. DreamSinger. He is Lakota fairy tale come to life. He is the shaman who sings dreams to life. And he will tell me my beginnings or die.



"So let me fall,

If I must fall,

I won't heed your warnings;

I won't hear them."



My mind is churning with images humans could not comprehend as I sway up the steps of the Art Nouveau house,

that is just one of the doorways into Roland’s psyche.

Just its name alone is punishment to think, much less speak : Jugendstilhaus in der Ainmillerstrabe.

Once it had been the home of the infamous Countess Franziska zu Reventlow,

her erotic lifestyle and cosmic nonsense had inspired and broken the hearts of an entire generation in Munich.

Now it has to settle for being the most elite restaurant in the city.

No knocking on the door. This restaurant is much too elite for that. Only a rare electronic key will work … a key based on the silicon ingrams of Roland’s own brain.

I have mine in my longer than human fingers. Roland had sung this establishment into being along with most of Munich back when he used the pen name, The Brothers Grimm.

I slide the key through the black slot whose color matches my short-skirted version of a S.S. uniform.

True, I am some seventy years out of date. But what is seventy years to a Tuatha de Danann?

A mere hiccup in time.

I remember Wagner trying to teach me German ... among other things. I go cold inside. I remember too much, feel too little.

I enjoy the glares of the pompous patrons as I roll my hips to the back table reserved for DreamSinger alone.

The maitre d' nearly breaks his neck getting to me, but I am already seated, making sure my short skirt is hiked up suitably indecent to induce doomed desire.

He stands trembling over me as I take out my copy of The Spirit as Adversary of the Soul by old Ludwig Klages from my skirt pocket.

I am almost through with his nonsense. Seeing how close he can come to the truth, while stumbling right past it always makes me chuckle.

The maitre d' isn't close to chuckling. "Fraulein, you simply cannot wear that uniform in here!"

"Sure I can. What is the matter? Afraid those power brokers to our right will find out your grandfather wore this uniform for real?"

He spins around so fast he leaves an after-image. Roland clears his throat across the table from me.

“He cannot help his past.”

I study this strange man. His eyes. Damn, his eyes. They look as if they have seen all the pain in the world … and have felt most of it.

“I’m tired of this dancing, DreamSinger. Who am I?”

Roland looks truly surprised. “I thought you knew. You are La Belle Dame sans Merci .”

"Is that my name or my nature?"

"Both."

I sit back in my chair. I had been right, after all. I am damned.

***

WORD PAINT BLOGFEST_THE LIES LOCUST TELL_GHOST OF A CHANCE Interlude

{"Imagination is the eye of the soul."

-Mark Twain.}

Samuel Clemens, ghost, once more. Roland was the blogfesting-est fool I've ever seen.

Still, I had not the grit to stay with him until the end -- so I owe him to keep his word for him.

He entered the WORD PAINT BLOGFEST :

http://dawnembers.blogspot.com/2010/07/announcements.html

He was good in painting with words -- no time any more so than in this odd story of a fallen angel who awakens in a British asylum with no memory of how she got there.

The way he described how a fallen angel views life gave me the shivering willies.} :



The spark of an anguished soul flew past me in the night. I shivered as her light drew back the curtains of my mind.


I would have cursed her had she lingered. But Death was impatient. Words breathed through the mists of my awareness.


"Darkness yet in light. To live half dead, a living death. And buried but yet more miserable. My self. My sepulcher."


My mind roughly brushed aside the dry leaves of Milton's broodings. No time for self-pity.


Yet too much time for all eternity. Enough! I was here for a reason.


And as always that reason was death. Always death. The why was unimportant. There was always a logical why for Abbadon.


The where, however, was another matter. And when might illuminate the present darkness of my mind as well.


Keeping my eyes closed, though tempting, would but delay the inevitable. I opened them.


Only a peek through slit eyes. After all, my ears told me that I was not alone. I frowned. A hospital room?


I reached out with more than my ears. My spirit shuddered as the ragged claws of madness raked it from down the hall.


An asylum. A Sidhe inprisoned within a madhouse. How utterly fitting.


I ran my long fingers along the rough sheet beneath me. A state asylum obviously. Even better.


But what state? My awakening consciousness was stubborn in its ignorance.


I bunched up the sheet in my fist in hot frustration. A sharp intake of breath from the next bed. Her scent came to me.


I smiled. And the air in the room grew chill. Only a human.


And I?


What was I?


From the corner of my eye I saw the human in the next bed begin to shiver. No matter. The human was not important. Time and place. They were.


I flicked my eyes to the barred window. The glass. Thick, dense. Like the humans who made it.


I studied the face reflected in the barred window.


High cheekbones, seemingly intent on bursting up and out of flesh that shimmered as if coated with stardust.


A living waterfall of honey-wheat hair, looking more like a lion's mane than any other earthly word I could use.


My eyes.


I shivered looking at them though they were my own.

Large, slanted fae eyes chilling even me with their lack of warmth or mercy. Their color the burnt-out ends of ancient days.


Under my fingertips a pebble. I nodded. A mere speck of stone. But it would do.


The pebble shot from between my thumb and forefinger like a bullet. An electric circuit died, wailing its death song in tones higher than humans could hear.


I smiled like a wolf. We would have visitors soon.


More the pity for them.


I drew in a breath from the cold breeze bleeding from the wounded window. The sharp tang of Autumn.


Oak. Ash. Thorn. Decay.


Rotting leaves, mottled in bright hues of strangled life. The dark and bloody soil beneath them breathed out its lineage.


An aching sadness hollowed out my chest. The Misty Isles. Albion. England.


I whispered, the words feeling like dewdrops of blood on a wounded doe, "The lonely season in lonely lands."
***

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY FROM HIBBS THE BEAR WITH 2 SHADOWS

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone. Maewyn Succat was the real name of St. Patrick, who died this day back in a time where myth and history eerily blend. It is said he used the shamrock to explain the Trinity, the Three who are One. He was either Scottish or Welsh, or some even say French. Being a Lakota, Irish, British blend myself, I can relate.

Some legends state that he drove the snakes out of Ireland and contested with the very Sidhe themselves, but readers of my THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS know the truth :

{Hibbs, the bear with two shadows, and the first hawk of all creation, Little Brother, are wandering the always dangerous dreamscape of the mystic bear's slumber.}


CHAPTER FIVE

WALKING THE PATH OF SHADOWS

As a young cub, Hibbs had often sat under the Twisted Oak, staring up into the endless depths of night. Long, long hours he had eagerly listened to GrandMother’s voice on the breeze which had so tickled his ears. She called him her little Wakan Witkotkoka then and had ruffled the hair atop his small head as she spun tales of the reality that darted out from behind the rocks and trees which he so foolishly called the world.

“See how you sit, arms hugged about your knees? The grass is soft is it not? Like the lap of one who loves you. For, indeed, it is the lap of one who loves you -- as it is my lap. From me, you -- and all living things come -- you are my children. But you are my most beloved, for you love me back.”

Hibbs remembered how the cool, yet strangely loving, breeze had ruffled through the soft hair of his cheek as GrandMother had kept on, “But be not blind to your brothers and sisters. No, learn from them. Read them as now you read from those scrolls I have brought you. Each brook, each stone, the very sky above you, is there for you to learn from.”

Hibbs had felt his furry nose tweaked then. “Bright days, dark nights, both are but reflections of me. Nowhere will you walk that your foot will not be touching me.”
GrandMother’s voice had grown hushed, “Except the path through Dreams. There the ground is what you make it. But even there, my love will be at your side. And the Great Mystery, of course.”

More GrandMother would not say, for the Great Mystery had come by his name honestly. But rather than be frightened by her silence, Hibbs had been bolstered somehow. How powerful and endless must the Great Mystery be if he could not be contained by mere words. But GrandMother had hinted that she had come from him. And if he had created her so terrible in her power, yet so endless in her love, how wonderful he must be.

And now as Hibbs walked slowly through the utter darkness, he whispered, “How wonderful he must be.”

Little Brother snorted, “Wonderful would be to give us a torch.”

Hibbs smiled dry. Death might just be within arm’s reach, yet the lessons he had learned on GrandMother’s lap made this moment rich and deep, and in a very strange sense -- healing. Thanks to Estanatlehi, Hibbs truly lived each beat of his heart. His grin soured. That heart might not have many more beats left to it, if the smell on the air was any indication. Jasmine, wrapped in fresh-shed blood.

“Begin I do to think that there is no way to win in this dream of yours.”

Hibbs smiled sad. “Perhaps there is a way to lose more slowly.”

Little Brother pecked the top of his friend’s massive head. “Like a winter chill do your words warm.”

The hawk pecked again at Hibb’s head. “So many scrolls you read and still you cannot light our way!”

Hibbs frowned. What had Plato said in that other scroll? That the eye was the prison of the mind. Two-Leggeds saw what they expected to see. The young bear sucked in a deep breath. What was he expecting to see?

Light, of course. But if you thought about it, you didn’t actually see light. It was too fast. You only saw slower things by it. So for Two-Leggeds, light was on the edge, so to speak, the last thing you almost saw before things got too fast for you. He nodded his great head. Like Plato often said in his other scrolls : for the mind to stumble was to fall into darkness.

Little Brother humphed, “It is said the body of the Sidhe is made of movement swift as light. For them, like water is light, something to be touched, bathed in --”
The hawk stiffened, “ -- to drown intruders in.”

Hibbs smiled grim. “Thank you, Little Brother. Now, though blind, I begin to see. And like I said before : my vision, my rules.”

The Sidhe’s reality was a two-edged sword. Now, the legends of fallen angels began to make some sense. If light was to them something slower to reach out and use, then what Two-Leggeds called solid -- flesh and earth -- must of a necessity be seen to them as thinner, harder to make out. Two-Leggeds must seem as clouds. And for Two-Leggeds, the Sidhe seemed misty, half-real. No wonder that the Sidhe seemed to be able to walk through walls and rocks, for to them, they were as clouds. Hibbs grinned like a wolf. Like he had breathed the wood into being earlier, he would breathe Little Brother and himself into the swifter realm of the Sidhe.

And since this was the kingdom of dream, with the thought came the reality.
Little Brother dug his talons deep into the young bear’s wide shoulder. “Is anyone ever happy you to see?”

The world had blinked into view as if the Great Mystery himself had drawn back the black curtains in a sudden sweep of his invisible arm. Hibbs stiffened. He and Little Brother found themselves surrounded.

By Sidhe.

Angry, outraged muttering buzzed through the milling Sidhe. Hibbs shivered. Not at the sight of so many otherworld beings, but at the sight of the strange chamber he and Little Brother found themselves in.

The very air was black fire, swirling in eye-aching patterns in the living twilight of the ballroom. Electric white mists slowly snaked up from the black and scarlet marble floor. And the elaborately dressed Sidhe seemed to float upon the surface of those mists. The Sidhe were so elegant, so regal, so beautiful -- and oh, so deadly.
They were easily as tall, if not taller, than Leandra, dressed in intricate patterns of colors that seemed to burst from the silken fabrics that flowed from their slender bodies. All the colors Hibbs had ever seen, and some he had never before seen, burned in silent fire along their flowing clothing.

Long gowns of sparkling silk cascaded in the wake of these nightfall creatures with the ethereal bodies and the predator eyes. They had been dancing some complex, intricate dance when Hibbs and Little Brother had suddenly appeared in their midst as if from nowhere.

From the looks in those flat eyes, Hibbs dryly noted that it would seem that he and his brother were as welcome as a muscle cramp. The males, much fewer in number than the females, began going for the hilts of their swords. Their spring-loaded bodies made Hibbs feel clumsy and without an ounce of grace. Until he looked at the females, who put their male counterparts to shame.

The doe-eyed faes, in their sheer satin gowns, flowed effortlessly across the sea of mists. As they neared, Hibbs caught their perfume. They smelled of jasmine and fresh-shed blood. Some of that blood still glistened on their wet lips.

Movement snared Hibbs’ eyes. Up high from the dance floor sat three diamond thrones. Two on one level. The third, in the middle and on the next level higher. Three faerie queens stared at him as if at a bug scuttling from their soup bowls. The Queen of raven hair, whose movement had caught Hibbs’ attention, took a delicate sip from her goblet of -- Hibbs sniffed to confirm the sad tale told by his eyes -- blood. Sidhe blood. The young bear snorted. It would seem that the Sidhe ate their own. They must be very civilized indeed.

She looked as if she disapproved of the world in general and Hibbs in particular. She raised an eyebrow at the male Sidhe. As one, they drew their swords.

Little Brother snorted in contempt, “Bold are they against an unarmed guest.”

The second Faerie Queen, whose hair was a hot sunset, sneered, “Guest? We sent out no invitations to savages.”

Hibbs ignored the males, whose eyes were only a little less sharp than their swords, and instead looked at the highest Queen, whose hair was living lightning and whose piercing eyes were of winter frost. There was something odd about that hair -- as if it were but an illusion somehow. No matter. Let her keep her secrets. He had enough of his own. He smiled sad. Savages? Perhaps. But he was young enough to wish to tweak up-turned noses and so decided to quote one of his favorite tale-spinners, Aeschylus.

“And even in our sleep, pain, that cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon our hearts. And in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of The Great Mystery.”

The High Queen, of Caesar jaw and Cleopatra eyes, jerked as if stung, and in words, like a rippling brook given life, said, “Why are you here?”

Of course, as usual, Hibbs hadn’t a sure answer. Now, his guess might have been excellent, or it might have been full of worms. But Estanatlehi hadn’t raised a grandson idiot enough to make guesses in front of a roomful of enemies. So he decided to be as vague as Estanatlehi herself. And in trying to be wise and mysterious, he, of course, hit the truth dead-on. So much for the wisdom of young bears.

“I find myself where I am needed.”

The High Queen again jerked as if bee stung. “There are layers of truth to what you say, bearling. Were you wise just now or were you most foolish?”

Little Brother snorted, “If guess I had, mine would be foolish.”

The High Queen gave a smile of pain. “More true than you meant, First One.”

The hawk shook its head. “That would be of the bear you speak.”

The Raven Queen sneered, “You wish.”

“Wish I do that your roosters put down their toothpicks.”

The High Queen gestured, and a long sword of sharp diamond rose from the mists. “Bearling, take this if you would and disarm them yourself.”

The male Sidhe bristled like thorns. Hibbs sighed. He breathed upon the sparkling sword. It blurred and broke apart in a cloud of flying butterflies. Now, it was the High Queen’s turn to bristle.

Hibbs bowed his massive head slightly. “No offense meant, your Majesty. But I do not like swords. The moment you pick one up, you become like it, an instrument of death. And I am a healer.”

The Queen of Fire leaned forward and hushed, “Then, who are you here to heal, bearling?”

Hibbs smiled, “Say that fast three times.”

Hair of living flame whipped over her forehead as the Queen sat back stiff. “I find you not amusing at all.”

Hibbs sighed, “You are not the first to make that discovery."

The Raven Queen pulled herself up tall and deadly. "Why are you here?"

Hibbs was beginning to wonder that himself. And that fact made him irritable. He fought it. And he lost. Then, it suddenly occurred to him who the High Queen was. And suddenly he knew why he was there. Promises to keep.

He sighed, "If I did not tell The Morrigan's mother, why do you think I would tell you?"

Hibbs turned to the High Queen. "By the way, Queen Ogygia, the Morrigan says she remembers ... everything."

The queen's eyes of winter frost became slits as they first stabbed into the young bear, then flicked over to the males. "You have swords. Kill him."

The hawk slapped the bear aside the head with one wing. "Once. Just once, think before you speak!"

From the floor, out of the slowly weaving mists, thrust a long, rune-carved staff. The male Sidhe flinched as they read the ancient language, long forgotten except by those who fell. And drifting upon a strangely warm breeze, from a fresh-hewn crypt, came the voice of a heart that refused to surrender.

"Brave and true bear, you kept your word, gave my message. Now, I give you a weapon within a weapon that even one such as you may wield."

Hibbs took it within his great paws. It trembled in his fingers as if alive and happy to be held once again. By the Great Mystery, what a staff. It felt sturdy, yet light, but also mystical. There was more to this weapon than met the eye. The sudden fear in the male Sidhes alone told him that.

He spun it in a fluid figure eight pattern as GrandMother had taught him long ago. He smiled. Yes, even a healer like he might defend himself with a weapon like this.
But not unless he had to. Hibbs looked this way and that, hoping to find some path of escape that didn't involve the breaking of heads. Perhaps it was this seeking of his that opened his ears. Or perhaps the power of Surt was such that it could penetrate the young bear's dream when Leandra's could not. Whatever the reason, Hibbs heard the not-so-gentle rumble of Surt, the Father of All Fires, high above him in the darkness.

"Hibbs, you dolt of a bear! Sleep on your own time. We have a situation here."

Eyeing grimly the steadily approaching Sidhe, Hibbs snorted, "Oh, really? And you think I'm having fun?"

"I do not care if you are having cake and tea with the High Queen herself. You are needed here!"

Hibbs began twirling the staff faster as the Sidhe motioned to one another for a flanking advance. "So, Surt, it seems like years since I was awake. How have you been?"

"Like dung. Now, that we have caught up, would you get your sorry pelt to the Waking World?"

"Spit on my foot."

"What?"

"Give me an anchor to hold onto, brother."

"Oh, gladly."

And with a stab of hot agony, Hibbs was awake. All but one of the howls belonged to the three Faerie Queens. But Hibbs' was louder.
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In keeping with the Celtic motif of this blog, here's a video that hopefully will appeal to all of you :