Many things could be said about Senan. He was cold, rude, and snappy, among other worse or sometimes praising comments.
But he wasn’t oblivious.
He walked along the river side for maybe about five minutes before pulling something silver and glinting out from who knows where and turning around to hurl it at something behind him like he was trying to catch something big for dinner.
With a yelp, the person who had been following him dove behind a tree just in time for the sword to sink into the trunk – right where the person’s head would have been if he hadn’t moved. The hilt of the sword vibrated with the strength of the throw. The follower poked his head out from behind the tree and watched chips of bark fall to the ground with wide eyes.
The person then slowly shifted their gaze to Senan. Senan perceived the look to mean he was horrified, but he was not close enough to discern the layer of red on the follower’s cheekbones. A slightly crooked smile peeked out, carrying infinite ambiguity. Whether or not the person was actually scared… no one could guess.
The stalker stepped out from behind the tree and waved enthusiastically at Senan. “You seem to have misplaced your sword!” he called out in an amicable manner.
Senan scowled. “Yes. I was aiming for your head. My mistake.”
“No problem! I’ll bring it to you!”
The stranger, surprisingly, managed to pull the sword out with ease. It was clearly embedded in the trunk by at least a foot. Senan’s eyes narrowed. This person shouldn’t be underestimated.
Once they were closer together, Senan could see that the stranger was rather handsome, a gentle smile on his face. He was also quite muscular, and a frustrating inch taller than Senan, but the atmosphere around him was such that Senan felt no threat from him. What was he doing following him around then?
“Here you go,” he said, passing the sword over hilt first. His voice was also quite deep. It commanded attention. Too bad Senan didn’t much care. He took the sword with a blank face and turned to leave without a second thought.
However, as he walked, a presence came up on his right side, walking along with him as if they were now great friends. “I’m Cormac. And you?”
“…”
“Oh, come on now,” Cormac chided. “You don’t have to be cold just because you’re a beauty. You can let that inner friendliness shine.”
“…Sean. Go away or your head rolls. Why are you following me in the first place?”
Cormac pouted. “So mean. I’m just accompanying you. What’s the hostility for?”
“I don’t know you. Go away.” Senan started walking faster. His free, peaceful two months was already off to a bad start with this interruption. He had to get out of this city too. If someone recognized him, they might end up trying to drag him to the palace to be made a council member. They wouldn’t be able to take him anywhere, of course, but he didn’t need to be impeded. If they reported back to the lord that he was leaving the city, however, guards would most definitely be sent after him.
Diarmuid didn’t much care about making him a council member. Making him a wife, however, was his utmost priority. At the moment, he probably thought Senan was just lounging about at home, hiding. He couldn’t find out otherwise.
…Would this guy tell him? Suddenly, he looked over at Cormac with a sharp gaze.
“You. You weren’t sent by lord Diarmuid, were you?”
Cormac blinked slowly. “Do I look like a person that would be able to even look at lord Diarmuid? Why? Do you know him? And why would he be looking for you?”
Senan sniffed and kept walking. It was unlikely that this person had ulterior motives. In fact, he might be a little mentally unstable. The matter of Senan taking his father’s place in the council was known by a few higher up sidhe outside of the council and some of the general public had knowledge of it, but not all, so it wasn’t surprising that Cormac didn’t know who Senan was or what his status was. The matter of Senan marrying Diarmuid…only his family, Diarmuid, and Diarmuid’s two most trusted council members knew of that.
“Nothing. Forget I said anything,” Senan muttered.
Cormac shrugged. “Fine. So where are you headed?”
Senan stopped in his tracks again. Why was he still walking with this person? Grabbing Cormac by his collar, Senan suddenly used magic and flung him away by fifty feet. He didn’t let out a single sound, and seemed to be frowning disapprovingly at Senan even as he flew through the air.
Senan felt that he had thrown him far away enough that he would get the message and stop bothering him. He continued on his way with a sigh. So much trouble just trying to leave the city. Ridiculous.
After traveling for another few hours, the border between An Uaimh Bhinn and what was called “The Desert” by many. It wasn’t desert at all of course. They were in a giant forest. But because only the bravest sidhe dared to live in the very heart of the Tir Na Nog and it was home to many monsters, most sidhe considered it barren land. The magic in this area was very unstable. However, cutting through The Desert was the fastest way to Toradh, a city known for producing people with all kinds of skills and specialties. It was also the only city in the Tir Na Nog with a potions master.
Potions were one of the most difficult skills that required magic. It required more finesse and control than most sidhe were able to drum up. If done wrong, a potion could kill someone with one sip. If done right, it could bring them back to life. It wasn’t something to mess around with. Senan had been entranced with the art of potions since he was young. His family didn’t care much for his ‘hobby’ insisting that he should pay more attention to politics and paperwork.
To which he responded, what politics? There was one ruler and a bunch of figureheads pretending to have a say in what happened. There wasn’t any point in learning that stuff.
He was home-bound for a long time for that remark, but he spent the time studying a secretly acquired book on potions and was able to use it to his advantage. But there was only so much a book could teach him. He had read many books since then, but nothing could compare to actual experience. He planned to use his two months to learn a lifelong skill that could bring him joy and keep him busy while he ignored his future husband.
And if said husband got too handsy, he could make a potion to make him impotent.
If Senan didn’t really want to marry Diarmuid, why didn’t he just hide out like he did today and avoid it?
Well, it wasn’t that simple. He had been betrothed to Diarmuid since he was only fifty years old. And it wasn’t a bid for power on his father’s part. His father was already a council member; there was no higher he could go without killing Diarmuid and that was pretty much impossible. Aiming to have his descendants – grandchildren – be able to be the lord one day could have been a possible motivation – but Senan was male. Unless they adopted, it wasn’t happening.
The truth of the matter was that Diarmuid had been the one to propose marriage. It had come out of the blue. Senan hadn’t spoken more than two sentences to Diarmuid in his entire life at that point. He was just someone that he needed to pay obeisance to whenever they crossed paths. Then the request for a betrothal came with the explanation that Senan had stolen Diarmuid’s heart, and while his family was ecstatic, Senan thought that there must be other motives behind it. No one just fell in love with someone after seeing them a few times, right?
Love had to have a deeper root, didn’t it?
It did for him.
Senan was lost in his thoughts and didn’t realize that he had already crossed the boundary some time ago. There was an ominous rustling all around him, but he didn’t see anything moving. Senan sighed in his heart. How troublesome to come upon a monster directly right after leaving the city.
Monsters were different from sidhe. They were usually huge creatures, with an animal’s intelligence and a human’s malignancy. Frequently they were regular animals that had wandered into the Tir Na Nog and become mutated by the unstable magic in the region. When brave sidhe wanted to practice their skills on real, living creatures, they typically came here to face the monsters.
Senan stood in place without changing expression as a snake the size of three buildings slithered around him, it’s head popping up right in front of him to hiss down at the foolish creature that had wandered right into it’s grasp. It was indeed a snake, but it appeared to have the ability to change the colors on its body to match the surroundings. Doing this, Senan walked right into the circle it had created, thinking he was stepping over roots and too distracted to look closely.
But this snake…really, how boring. It was planning to squeeze him to death and eat him? Quite unoriginal.
As he looked up at the snake, he didn’t notice the figure that had continued to follow him all this way. Cormac rushed toward him as fast as possible, a look of real fear in his eyes, as if he was about to lose something precious.
Senan was still looking at the snake with his cold silver eyes, un-moving, when the beast struck, sharp fangs the size of his whole body about to clamp down.