Revival

[Thaumantica]

Men's Spring in the Ring Finals
Caitekurke, Nieveland

Kian MacLennan dodged one, two, and three punches before catching an elbow to his wrist and doubling him over towards a weak and battered knee. His opponent doubled down by tackling him and swarming him with a weight of punches and slams until he and the entire arena drew silent and were unable to move. The refereeing official was drunk and stumbled into the cage as Sean Harvey began dumping knees into Kian's lifeless ribcage.

"ENOUGH!" Sean Harvey's coach screamed as he ran in and tackled his man while secondary officials supported him. "IT'S NOT FUCKING OVER UNTIL THE WARREMARAN DIES!" Harvey raged, throwing smaller punches and kicks at the lifeless MacLennan. Kian was beginning to stir now and could hardly raise his gloves beyond his eyebrows as he was surrounded by medical officials to choke his oxygen and fill his ears as the crowd found their voice again in whispers and jeers.

Kian flexed his neck and abdomen to stand back up but was still too dizzy and disoriented, his arms being slapped down now by medical officials trying to put him on a backboard. "I . . I can . ." Kian exclaimed before surrendering to velcro straps, the oxygen mask, and a ride to the nearby hospital.

As he was declared Niommonach Martial Arts champion that night Sean Harvey declared the blood feud between Gunnvale and Warremara over. This feud dated back to a route of retreat back in the Nievish revolution where Warremarans backed out from a Gunnvale offensive on the Engells. The hurt on the Gunnvalian pride after being gunned down had carried over for decades and had been played up by promoters of this year's event.hFor some fans it was a moment of national healing, whereas for others the near murder of Kian MacLennan begged at the nation's civility.

It was not a friend or family member who hovered over Kian when he woke, instead it was his state club manager. "You need to get up, I nee-, Warremach need you to get up alright?" the elder manager growled from behind a thick mustache. Kian grabbed on to the man's track suit causing his IV tube to rattle and roll like a snake.

"I mean it, you're scheduled for Sylvanian fights next week and you can't stand up? Who's going to pay for the children back in Warremara?" the manager accused, throwing Kian's weak grasp away. "National Health will bid you another evening here, but don't expect a bed in Warremara tomorrow."

"I can still win . . " Kian rasped beyond his mending ribs.

"Don't fucking tell me, show me boy!" the state organizer demanded.

 

[Thaumantica]

Crossing the Thaumantic

The flight from Caitekurke and Charleroi was a weekly affair, no more or no less than a tradeoff of privileged Nieves able to explain or buy away the controversial visit. Thousands, perhaps even millions of Niommonach descended lived in Westernesse by now but virtually none were permitted basic visitation back to the socialist state today.

From the hospital Kian was helped by friendly, careful, and loving nurses who kissed his cheek and wished him home in heaven. The state club manager pushed MacLennan in a wheelchair to the airport gate, 10:15 P.M. for an early arrival in Charleroi the next morning.

"This is it son." the club manager said, "you have a ticket in hand, but I won't wheel you backwards or forwards. Do you understand me boy?"

Kian coughed and squirmed in the chair, finding his legs again since his knockout and his balance. "What's going on here mate?" he demanded.

The state manager sighed and zipped down his tracksuit enough to reveal the end of his sweat drip. "Listen, I don't care if you put on a glove over there for Christ's sake: just go and live a life beyond Warremarra won't you?"


"Aye" Kian agreed, "I will."

Groaning the fighter stood and stumbled until reaching a stewardess who recognized him from the night before. "Who is this turnip faced lad?" the young lady asked her friends before holding on tighter and dearer to stop him from falling.

"I've always heard all Warremarach were Post-Delegationists, and he sure looks like what one deserves - all bloody and beaten - ain't he?" an older stewardess mooed.

"He's just a man," another with age between posited, "he's not good, he's not bad - he just is - and he is who he is. Don't get caught up in it lass!"

"I can take it from here lass," Kian offered before stumbling again beneath his weakened shin. The man collapsed again, this time on the tiled floor of Caitekurke International Airport in front of just a few passengers and employees. Now the stewardesses rallied and grabbed at the young man's joints to stand him up - making way for male passengers who shooed them away and guaranteed his passage to the plane.

"I won't leave the lad" the first stewardess declared against a man who tried to take his left shoulder from her, "he has my safe passage and I won't rest these eyes until he's seen safe passage!"

Caitekurk to Charleroi or Charleroi to Caitekurk was, again, always a once-a-week affair and drew a crew of regulars. These were "Capital Inspectors" who dealt business with the new world's most evergreen promising nation-state and likewise athletes and celebrities who achieved circuit travel beyond the socialist state.

"It was 1979 and I had the Sylvanian down to rights, he was called Aaron Reid I think, and he beat me back with a volley in the balls - HAH!" an elder Nievish athlete confided in MacLennan. "Huh?" Kian asked. "Well, being beat isn't the end is it? Look at me all these years later, I'm the voice of international tennis for millions!"

"Fuck you mate" Kian croaked, "I'm not a voice, I'm a . ."

"You're no one boy" the tennis voice replied, "you're just a broken boy, aren't you?"

Kian slumped and coughed before his savior, that first stewardess batted the tennis veteran off. "He's a lush, don't listen to him Kian, he owes the Pelasgians a finger and toe or two if I recall as well!"

"Best get some rest before Charleroi then, eh, just a wink?" the tennis voice dodged.

"Ain't know one in Charleroi, how will I survive?" Kian asked the lady stranger aloud.

The young lady stepped over his legs and sat in the window seat, pulling him and his legs away from the speeding cart of booze to the rest of the cabin. "My name is Catherine and I was born in Sylvania on an extended Catholic Mission."

"Does that make you a Princess of the Pines?" Kian joked.

"Nigh, but it does let me stay with you until you've healed over there" Catherine replied with a soft grip and smile.

 

[Thaumantica]

Charleroi

Many of the men who had spent the flight interacting as brothers immediately dissociated as soon as the Nievish flighted touched down in Charleroi as if they were strangers or enemies. Most shook their heads and grimaced at Kian, reciting a commonality of the statement "you're on your own in the free world."

When the rest had cleared it was just him and the stewardesses who remained until the pilots retreated to them. "CHRIST ON THE CROSS, OI, I KNOW YOU!" the co-pilot begged, "why you fought my cousin in the 2020 lesser-island standoff in Bhaelintin. He was the Paidrigsbrig Patriot, eh?"

"Aye, I remember Peter" Kian replied, "he's quite alright now ain't he?" he asked, feeling himself again for the first time in two days.

"He took your beating and let the old lady take a lash," the co-pilot said with a laugh, "he went right by her and started training lads in the gymnasium."

"Well then!" the elder stewardess screeched, ushering the others offboard, "a week in the free world, I want all of you ladies back a day early and dressed to fly - am I right?"

"You're right" the stewardesses groaned as the pilots tipped their hats to them and the downed fighter.

"I'm fucking fucked!" Kian cried aloud to Catherine who shushed and quickly left with the rest. "I can't, I bloody can't!" Kian cried, throwing himself on the plane's floor in tears. The carpet there was treaded and stunk of sour beer and whiskey from socialist reserves, it caused Kian to gag and cough again with great pain in his ribs.

"Who told you to get up then, are you daft?" Catherine jabbed as she returned with a wheelchair from the Charleroi airport. "Do you have any fight left in you?" she asked with arms crossed above the wheelchair.

Kian spit down in the rotten rough carpet and dug his aching elbows and knees into the floor. Instead of standing he grind face forward three times before reaching the metallic embrace of the chair. There Catherine pulled the fighter up and rested him in the chair with whispers of confident words until they were off the ancient Nievish plane.

"The Sylvanians want to think of themselves as tough and intolerant," Catherine said as she wheeled Kian through the airport, "but they have the same soft heart as you or I, and don't let them deceive you otherwise."

"Deceive?" Kian asked.

"Do you know what revival red is, the color?" Catherine replied.

"Of course, I wear it - we - don't you?" Kian struggled.

"No, the world you and I see is not the same as they do. Do you think I understand your fights in the ring the same as you?" Catherine asked.

"No, why would you, you've never fought!" Kian declared.

Catherine laughed and pushed the two of them out the doors into a bustling Charleroi. "Aye, well you've never traveled have you?"

 

[Thaumantica]

Charleroi Continued

Catherine wheeled Kian towards a bus stop just short of the bench. "We can't take these wheels with us can we, unless you have an Engell pound you've been hiding from me?"

"I'm hiding nothing Cat!" Kian groaned as he found his own unsupported footing for the first time in two days.

"Cat?" Catherine asked with a squint, "I didn't know we were familiar - what do I call you now: Ki? Would right call you cocksucker!"

"Fuck you!" Kian rapped back, stumbling a bit. "What happened to the soft lass in Caitekurke?"

"I don't have to answer for you here, I don't have to answer for the church, state, or anyone." Catherine offered as a presentation of reality, "best get right with this mate, although I love ye - no one is . . "

"What?" Kian interrupted, "you love me, and what does that mean here?"

"Not much if it's not legal," Catherine snorted back, "I won't sign a protestant prenup if you won't!"

Kian slumped into a lightpole at this, the busy citizens of Sylvanian Charleroi darting past him with purses and briefcases purposefully.

"It can be like that," Catherine offered, "but maybe you just need to pick up your step!" she declared before walking into the buzz of Charleroi's downtown intentionally.

Kian followed aimfully, dodging children and dogs until the intensity of men and women caused him to be hit by their briefcases and purses. Kian was laid out in a public square when Catherine returned to him, shooing off pigeons looking for a peck. "Look, I'm sorry I put you through that" Catherine offered, "I just figured it was what they . . what you wanted . ."

"Cat, I am nobody here" Kian replied, "if love over here is some legal arrangement then count me out, stop propping me up so I can get punched down again."

A Sylvanian man tipped his had and nodded, passing the Nievish two carefully in the square. "Alright then, I won't make a scene if you don't" Catherine said behind a heavy Nievish accent, "so take my fucking hand and let's go get a bite to eat. Have you ever had minced meat as a 'burger' or a ' hot dog'?"

Kian took her hand and accepted the challenge with some whimsy, "I've never eaten a dog - is that legal here?"

Instead of stopping to poke fun at him she took his and and walked him through Charleroi further where walking and nature paths met baseball diamonds and hot dogs were sold. She bought them, knowing Kian was broke, and watched as he nodded, chewed, and chirped in approval.

"What's next Kian MacLennan?" Cat asked the mending fighter.

Kian grabbed his ribs and shook his head, "I'm to meet with a promoter in what they call the suburbs here tomorrow to . ."

"Fuck it then, fuck them right, I have a flat here and we can just bloody chill until . ." Catherine offered until being interrupted. "No," Kian barked back, "I have to do it, and I must go back. You go back every week don't you?"

Rather then replying Catherine drew his hand and led him back to that flat she had told him of. There she showed him a shower and offered him a couch, which he accepted without second thought before collapsing to sleep. "Yes, I have to go back." Catherine replied as Kian sawed through a thick loud snore. "I lied to ye, didn't I?"

Catherine pulled out a pamphlet and placed it in Kian's willing fingers with the title 'Comosachd', or power and potential. Smiling she snuck behind the man and crept to sleep herself, carrying a bevy of cult instruction for the next waking.

 

[Thaumantica]

"Whatever happened to a morning spot of tea?" Kian crowed over a steaming mug of coffee, "they drink roast beans here?"

Catherine squinted at her countryman and shook her head in disbelief. "Sometimes I do forget how sheltered ye are, don't I?"

Feeling the drink's jolt and a movement in his morning constitution Kian chose not to protest any further. Before him also was a frozen breakfast sandwich comprised of pork, egg, and cheese sandwiched by bread called 'Engell Muffins'. Kian had never tried frozen food before but found it pleasing enough.

"I can cook you know?" Cat offered defensively.

"I know," Kian granted, "I'm grateful for a Sylvanian brek nonetheless. How can I pay you back?"

Catherine was on her phone now, another puzzling thing for Kian who had never won a smartphone lottery in Warremarra, and rather than pressing the point he watched in awe at how the light danced on her eyes as she flicked away at the glass screen.

"Comosachd" Catherine replied after a spell, "you haven't touched it have you?"

Kian whisked the pamphlet from his pocket and placed it down on the table between them. "I know this is a banned tome dearie, do you travel with it on Nievish land?"

"I leave my banned books here where they're hardly banned, naturally," Cat said with a little laugh. "You'll repay me by reading up, won't you?"

Hesitating for only a moment Kian nodded and picked up the pamphlet and put his green eyes to work.

 

[Thaumantica]

Excerpt from the Comosachd Pamphlet:

"The bodies from both sides of MacKinnon's first charge were left to rot in Rosie's Marsh for five long summer weeks in 1921. Early attempts at retrieving to bury the dead by the Anarcho-Protestants and the Engell Mercenaries were sniped down by our Catholic cause without mercy. The first was an unarmed platoon carrying a white flag who were shot down without hesitation. Second came mourning women, wives of the fallen we presumed, who we dispatched on MacKinnon's orders after he shot dead a parish companion of his who refused. Finally came nuns and monks, prisoners of the other side, and we shot them down too when ordered.

Day after day and week after week these bodies belched ill humor into the air that stirred all manners of crow, wolves of the isle we thought were extinct, and flies whose swarm of buzzing wings haunt me day to day. The crack of a rifle shot is something I still witness without a shudder, but the millions of flies buzzing at my eyes, ears, and mouth after digging away at the festering flesh still awakens my terror twenty years on. When I drew lots to crest the trench to gaze for a counter-assault my eyes often fixed on three corpses: a protestant officer, a Laird I think, whom the crows fancied for his shiny buckles and armor between feeding; a nun I had shot myself in the bosom who seemed to sink into the marsh quicker than the rest; and finally my brother Kian who sat up against a tree facing back at our line before dying of his wounds."

Kian MacLennan looked up to see Catherine was gone. Sure he had heard her moving about, but when he checked around the flat it was certain that she had left while he entered the mind space of comosachd. The author was anonymous, understandably so, and he was describing aspects of the Nievish civil wars that Kian had never read before. There was a sanitized presentation of this conflict he had been taught in school and watched at the cinema that simply was not playing out in this first hand account.

Excerpts continued:

"MacKinnon's Lairds hardly believed in socialism let alone our Catholic cause. As a member of his guard I was privy to eavesdrop of many a laird who bemoaned the very tenants of our effort and made feeble attempts at his life. MacKinnon lied to all of them, turned each against each other, and consequentially garnered their levies by promising the Socialist World Vision independent of the gentry. MacPherson was a Laird who remained and seemed to understand the game: he kept equal company with the socialists and the clergy; prayed on his hands and knees in the morning and dispatched Anarcho-Protestants on their hands and knees in the afternoon. Kinnon and Pherson clans, no doubt, will strangle and hold these islands for generations with their inherited brutality."

Kian reflected on that with the knowledge that the Kinnon clan had clung to power for almost a century until Almskeepher Pherson last year.

"There was no thousand man charge. Instead, we as MacKinnon's Guard & Warband stole over to the other side on a night on the fifth week and discovered a diseased contingent of AnProts who had stopped shooting back two days before when they ran out of ammunition. The Engell Mercenaries were gone by then, gone from the war entirely and sailing home from Dunrichie, but MacKinnon would claim we overran them on a 'second charge'. This was not offensive to any of us, but the killing that was ordered when the protestants were overrun changed me, changed all of us further. I think history will show that the Anarchists burned down Mathanar or that it was an accident, but it was our Warband who started that inferno that burned down Nieveland's second city and maimed so many thousands."

Today Mathanar was entirely brick and stone, Kian recalled, but again this version of the story contested a historical national view that everyone in Nieveland recited without a doubt.

 

[Thaumantica]

"How does it feel to be dead, Kian?" Catherine chirped when she returned some hours later with arms weighed down with tens of plastic bags.

"Look lass, I get it, this'un lost his way in the Cause, but . . " Kian protested before Cat cut him off.

"Lookie here you daft cunt," she said with a laugh before dropping all of her bags carelessly and producing that modern smartphone. "Don't fiddle with it like your King Pattie, just hit the triangle KIan."

It was a video from Nieveland's Breakfast Companion. Kian winced when he saw his mother, sisters, and then a line of cousins aunts, uncles, and even the family dog pacing around on a football pitch. The Warremarnan Alderman was there too with the Cardinal Gallagher holding MacKinnon's Manifesto and the King Padraig's version Bible. The national guard was there too, armed and eyeing Kian's family closely and in them now he saw the author of Comosachd.

"I am bereaved to report that my son Kian MacLennan is lost," his mother said in the video before the Cardinal put a hand on her shoulder. "Nigh, dead. Dead to this, I'm sorry, dead to the . . I canno' . . ."

The widow MacLennan was pulled back by guardsmen and his oldest sister Rosamund stepped forward with her husband and two wee children. The two held hands and stared directly at the camera together. "You've wandered Kian and now you're lost to us." Rosie lamented.

"The Niommonach pronounce KIan MacLennan dead in state and communion with the Nievish Spiritual Vision." Rosie's husband Alex read from a script in his hand. The crowd surrounding them booed began throwing things at Kian's family.

"ENOUGH!" Kian shouted before chucking the phone at the wall, shattering the little device to pieces.

Catherine sighed and began picking up the items from all of her bags. There was profit from little things like foreign pharmaceuticals, candies, and even kitchen utensils that the Nievish banned. Her flight from Caitekurke to Charleroi every week was mostly cabined by such stowage. Imports from Sylvania, where many Nievish had settled before the struggle, were somehow inoffensive to Guardsmen who accepted light bribes for blind eyes.

"I have to go back and fight!" Kian shout*ed before having his wrapped and still bruised hands pulled back together by a consoling Catherine.

"I've petitioned ye for asylum here," Cat offered in a hushed voice, hands squeezing his so much that they hurt beyond belief.

"So now the Sylvie's know, and what do they want?" Kian demanded defensively.

Catherine pursed her lips and shook her head, "They're like our Natties Kian, I won't lie ye, but they want us to bring ourselves towards freedom . . towards the truth . . you've read it haven't you?"

"Aye, I've read it well enough. Where is he now?" Kian demanded.

"His name was Cole MacLennan and we think he was your Grandfather, Kian." Catherine said with a turn of the head of skepticism herself.

"But he's dea . . a trai-" Kian responded reflexively.

Catherine unwrapped one of her smuggled bags and produced small plastic bottles of Sylvanian rye whiskey that she threw out for herself and Kian. "I knew him Kian and I beg ye sorry he never knew you."

A flood of thought and terror flooded Kian's mind. He was a terrorist, his Grandfather too apparently, an undead enemy of the Nievish Spiritual Vision that dominated his life until just now.

"The old man came here and wrote his tome," Cat said pointing at the pamphlet, "No one wants to help us, not the Sylvie's or PeeDee's, they're afraid of the fight they'll get generationally unless it's burned like Dunrichie."

When Catherine had met the elder Cole MacLennan, 95 already then, he had pinched her ass and asked her where the livestock were kept. Her handlers reminded her that there were always different versions of reality and that his was regressing towards the revolutionary state. This state was filled with food, clean water, and a job with predictable alms that the Sylvie's called taxes.

"Where's he buried, I'd pay my respects?" Kian asked with some desire to pay respect.

"He wasn't lad, he asked to be dumped in a marsh like his victims and we obliged him." Cattherine responded with personal separation from that event. "I thought he died in the third charge but," Kian offered hesitantly,"but apparently I'm dead now too."

 

[Thaumantica]

An evening passed. Catherine offered to ride Kian but he lost his cause when she began speaking Engellexic rather than Nievish.

"Figure yourself out lad," Cat advised back in Nievish, knowing he wouldn't any time soon. Kian was hardly her first stowaway from the mother country, but he was the most handsome and useful to the counter-revolution. She left him on the couch and retired to her bed where she sobbed, tomorrow already she had to make the return flight to Caitekurke. Would Kian still be alive when she returned or a victim of his own suicide?

Up before sunset Catherine checked on him before rolling off with her smuggled goods. He was awake when she planted a kiss on his forehead, and they both knew, but both pretended that he was fast asleep. The weekly flight to and from the new world and old country was her lifeline, she could hardly stop it for another strung out NIomonnach.

Kian followed the instructions of a plastic wrapped brekkie sandwich when the sun begged him off the couch and watched suspiciously as the frozen bugger popped off within Cat's cookspinner as he called it. The result burned his fingers, mouth, and tasted so much worse than she had served him the morning before as it was dry like a leather boot to the face.

A knock on the door drew Kian up. "What's that then, collecting alms are ye?" he replied suspiciously through the feeble little door.

"If I could I would, but Cat said you might be angling for a brek didn't she?" an older woman replied with arms crossed from the other side of the fish-eye door hole.

"How many of us are there here?" Kian cracked without opening the door.

"I dunno young Laird, I never did mind the numbers, deuteronomies, or the peter's or paul's." she replied, already turning to walk way.

Kian unlatched and unlocked the door and squinted out at the old lady who turned and curtsied as rudely as a theater hooligan. "I'll play along because I'm hungry, but tell me who you keep at your bedside?" KIan asked defensively.

"King Padraig's Bible, who else?" the old woman replied as she hurried a few steps to her own apartment door just down the hall.

With a few steps and an entry through that door Kian found four children chowing down on eggs and a fried bread that they doused with brown liquid. "What's that then?" Kian asked one of them. "From the trees?" the young one replied in broken Nievish, "Know a math?" he continued as he pressed a pencil in KIan's hand.

Numbers were international, Kian rejoiced, but he wondered why this boy of his size had not been beaten for not solving the task himself. The older woman began shouting at them in the Protestant Engell tongue and they scattered for their synthetic shoes and shouldered sacks.

"We have a machine, Laird Kian, but I now you can wash these dishes better can't ye?" the old woman offered.

Kian nearly choked from the third plate he was stealing from, "a machine?"

"Aye, I don't wan't to ask you twice though - a debt is owed now?" she said with a grimace.

Kian stacked the plates and then the utensils as if he was serving at an almshall. "You can take the hag out of Nieveland, but not a Niommonach out of the hag!" Kian said with a curt smile.

"Welly Wellington," the old woman replied in her accented tongue, before" switching back to Nievish: "I'm the widow of Ian MacIan and I do take in children of the Revival." she said with arms crossed much deeper and and tighter than before. Kian was already scrubbing dishes then but the widow crossed his eyes from the bevel, "Aye?" Kian barked.

"Hurt my Cat and I'll skin ye, know thee that!" the old woman replied.

Incredulous Kian continued to scrub away and turn over dishes with wonder the water was still hot minute after minute. "I thank she, I thank ye, but I am a stranger here . . . an interloper!"

"Beyond the isles we are all interlopers," the old woman offered kindly, "my name is Sinead and if you scrub as ye do now you have a home on this level."

"Sinead, I . ." Kian replied before she cut him off, "We do need the toiler plunged, split system dusted, and please be waxing these tired floors before morrow!" Sinead shouted before slamming the front door behind her to go off to market.

 

[Thaumantica]

"I'll forgive ye this once young Kian," Sinead sighed upon her return, "but on the morrow please join us for brek' without your soiled gutties."

Kian looked down at his still Warremara mud crusted shoes and then across towards her hose and house slippers. He simply nodded, he had forgotten and figured that since everyone on scripted Sylvie TV wore shoes inside it was the custom, but he was deeply embarrassed and vowed to sweep immediately.

"The wee ones will at school's end, do not deny them their chores." Sinead replied.

A knock on the door, an odd one at that (five plus one), beckoned Sinead to the door which she opened without hesitation. Four men stood outside with a mix of boots, loafers, and trainers without daring enter within. "We would have the . ." their leader inquired before before Sinead interrupted: "have'em, he's pulled his own for today."

Kian met each of them with a handshake or a nod with none of them speaking or offering a foreigners' smile. The leader put an arm over his shoulder and guided him downstairs and back on to the streets of Charleroi for an exchange of cigarettes and lights, again still in silence. It was a relief to be back in the presence of Nievish men: not constantly nipping at heels or badgering as the women did.

"You can get on well quite well here if you hold a job, pay yer' alm-er-taxes, and avoid their politics." the leader said with a calm gaze out at the buzzing streets of Charleroi.

"How long have you been dead?" Kian asked carefully.

"Five years, my Catherine was named Penny and she was greeted with execution in Caitekurke for spiriting me away dun'Sylvie." the leader replied with a hard stare.

Kian said nothing for some time and entered their somber mood. Another man, much older than the rest, piped up next: "I did know your Grandfather who founded this revival."

"I've been meaning to say, but ye all are so committed, but Cole MacLennan, yer'founder, wasn't a MacLennan at all, he was adopted from the stables when the real Cole took a hoof to a head some days before his marriage to the MacLaire's who did know the difference." Kian offered with familial honesty. Whether Kian descended from Cole or the stable boy, who bonny Annie MacLaire was known to fancy both, was a matter of gossip that the Church at least had settled before Cole and Annie were pronounced dead for leaving for Sylvania.

"Not sure it matters now, our Cole . ." the leader began before Kian cut him off: "it mattered my father some. Why'd he leave his wee ones behind and steal away their mother?"

At this several nodded or sighed, dragging away at their cigarettes. "I did leave my wee one back in Shipkenny, does the name Fergus MacKenzie shiver your knickers?" the leader, Fergus MacKenzie, inquired.

"Aye, I do recall your death. Your wife and children did'na cry and that riled us." Kian remembered aloud.

"Inside there are eyes, ears, and a conscious for what they will do Kian. The church follows up on them over there, even some of the alderfolk, to make sure entire clans aren't wiped out by the Pherson's or Kinnon's. Here on the outside, especially back then boy, they would send a squad to wipe an escaping family from existence." Fergus offered. "I left me family behind because I know they're protected while I serve the Revival abriad. I do suspect that Cole or the stable boy lef'yer'da for no other reason."

 

[Thaumantica]

Oifis nan Nàbaidhean, the Neighbors Office (Caitekurke)

A suite from a long dead composer from the Rheinbund, deemed inoffensive in Nieveland, softened the stale office of the so-called Nàbaidhean who carried out the intelligence effort of clipping the wings of Nievish traitors and escapees. Lyle Gilmour pressed in on his pencil in anticipation of something and anything to happen when the flight from Charleroi to Caitekurke pinged in as expected at 1500 hours.

"We've got her commandant, a Catherine . . " an agent said before Lyle perked up excitedly: "yes, finally, she's done and we've caught the lass!"

Kian MacLennan's abandonment of the Niomonnach had enraged so many and that stewardess Catherine Morrison had made no small scene of nursing over him at the airport and onboard by loyal passengers and socialist inspectors. She was dead to rights, Lyle rejoiced, this was hardly her first suspicious spiriting away of a questionable Nieve but this was one that she would surely serve or catch bullets for.

Excited, Lyle nodded and snapped his fingers towards the whiskey table which no one in the office hesitated from after a long drought of failed stings. They waited to begin clinking glasses until a guardsmen reported her fully detained: pushed into an empty room with eyes covered, mouth gagged, and both arms and legs bound. "That's right then," Lyle gleamed with a smug smile "let's drink to Nieveland!"

Before even half of the "to Nieveland" cheers could be heard the red phone was ringing. Lyle knew not to drink but watched as everyone did besides old man Gillepsie who turned white. Lyle handed him one so he had two but Gillepsie combined the two and downed it as one.

"Commandant Gilmour answering for the Neighbors Office of the one true and Socialist State of the Niommonach!" Lyle declared as his staff heard and began to sheep and quiet down.

"The Almskeeper congratulates you on the capture of the betrayer, the enemy, the traitor Catherine Morrison." none other than Aelis Pherson wormed into the commandant's ear.

Smugness on cloud nine Lyle Gilmour began tapdancing softly for his team who were cheering in whispers and slow movements as he held the wired phone from shoulder to ear.

"I need a catch and release though, you can do that can't you my boy?" Aelis asked confidently.

Lyle stopped dancing and grabbed for a concrete wall. "A-a-release?" he cringed aloud incredulously. "We catch, we never release!?"

"With respect to your office I called ye, so don't make me put in writing: the lass is to be released." Almskeeper Pherson ordered. "We are not ready to say goodbye to her at home if that rests your conscious."

Lyle was not one to argue with a superior let alone the keeper of alms so he he replied "nigh" and reflected on the last part. The Neighbors Office had not conducted an execution of a traitor overseas in half a century, at least to his knowledge at hand, and it intrigued him some that the Almskeeper was suggesting this slyly.

"We stand ready to enforce the Nievish Spiritual Vision among Niomonnach and those who wander astray!" Lyle declared. "Good work and good night." Pherson responded with a quick hangup. Kian MacLennan's pronouncement of death with Cardinal Gallagher's attendance had caused a rift in the Socialist State's relationship with Holy Tibur and the Almshouse was girding its loins.

Caitekurke International Airport

After being shoved into a broom closet and cuffed, blinded, and gagged Cat had been loaded into a body bag, pushed on a carriage and loaded into a van that never rolled before the process was reversed until only her gag and sack covered her in the closet. Crying she removed them in the dark and emerged to a casual and disinterested airport. Guardsmen did not meet her eyes and she doubted any of these regulars participated, rather they looked on and pulled at their cigarettes for the wage.

The smart phone with contacts of the Revival was dutifully left away back in Charleroi and only her brain held the damning information here in-country. Clearly they knew more now, or was this just a scare tactic for a unicorn of a dual citizen who traveled to and from Sylvania and Nieveland as she did? The other stewardesses and the pilots were merely Niomonnach who kept a small approved territory at a hotel just outside of the airport and only joked at leaving it.

Six days now separated her from the return flight and it horrified her as if it would be six hundred years. Crying still and leaned up against a hard concrete wall a family approached her, Nieves to a kilt, sharing smiles at what adventures were had in Engellex. "I'm sorry lass, but you're looking sore for home and we miss it too." the father offered, pulling her up with a wink. The mother crossed her arms and left a grimace that could have killed Catherine twice.

"We missed home too!" the children rejoiced, "in Engellex they do not have holy songs or dance for wee ones on morn', they don't even eat what we do!"

"What do they eat then in Engell?" Cat smiled, wiping her tears some.

Fists on hips one of the boys responded, "Funny you ask Miss, because it's neither pottage nor porridge, but meals from the tin like they're in the war or food so cold it would burn our fingers."

"Is it right then?" Cat asked them.

The family looked at each other for a time before the mother answered: "All's right within moderation, even the tinnies and frozen ones. Be well will you lass?"

 

[Thaumantica]

While the other flight staff kept a flat in Caitekurke and stayed at motel in Charleroi it was the reverse for Catherine Morrison. The best and most regular of hers turned her away claiming irregularity with her passport, whereas a sometimes second claimed full occupancy. Neither establishments were telling the truth and the same three guardsmen were making faces every kilometer along the way that she had not settled as they trailed her. It was getting late and she decided to simply Nieve-it and stay at an almshouse bunk where questions were rarely asked.

Inside there were not questions but rather arguments about Pope John Joseph's speech. She never got involved in their affairs, the homeland Nieves, but then again nor did she in Sylvie ones where she had actually been born. "We been washing Tibur's feet for fifty, nigh, near a hundred years?" a service lady asked with confusion of her timeline.

"It's been that and more, hag!" a drunkard from a top bunk bellowed "There weren't no charge of the Papal Bull when MacKinnon did charge three times against the Anarcho-Protestants!"

There was a turn happening here Catherine thought silently, not a Revival of the one her allies in Sylvania wanted, but a deeper inward turn towards the uglier side of the Niomonnach when they felt pressure from the outside.

"Cardinal Gallagher was there for us when we survived the rolling blackouts last summer's past," a younger boy offered from another high bunk, "he kept our fans on here so we dinna bake in this house while Alms' MacPherson dangled on life support."

The longtimers laughed, one reminding: "they simply forgot about the northern parish while the south and southeast baked out most of its rats."

"SHITE, ROLLOUT!" someone screamed and everyone in the hall began scattering. Catherine and some of the others unsure if they were wanted or guilty of a crime froze and watched as guardsmen poured in to "roll out" everyone inside. She was hardly arrested now, but it was clear that anywhere she would go: even an almshouse, would be tested and molested until she returned to Sylvania.

 

[Thaumantica]

Onward Cat found a trainwaiters bench that seemed clean, well lit, and even had CCTV. She did not mind being watched with that, she still had her trail from the guardsmen who were already tired of the trail. She knew not to lay down and rather sit or hunch over so as not to be arrested for sleeping publicly outside of an almshouse.

It was cold though, and she shivered to sleep until being awoke a few hours later by a railworking crew led by a woman. "I'm not sure you're ready to work lass, but we'll have ye at least for a morning tea?"

That was enough for Catherine to lumber up and follow them to a trailer where workers already huddled with porridge and tea cups while the morning radio creaked slow sleepy music. Soon the Breakfast Companion tones of morn' jolted them to a frenzy she had long forgotten and a happy voice greeted theirs to wake up from the troubles of yesterday.

"That's good isn't it, the Breakfast Companion?" Cat offered her neighbors. "Aye, I think Ballyclaire has a tennie star to beat'em with." her neighbor offered.

"Beat who?" Cat asked.

"Well she's beaten the Warremaran, they're a beaten one aren't they? But if she can climb that Engell ladder we think she can put to rest the Nords." her neighbor replied before being shocked to her feet by a whistle. All besides Catherine trudged out into the muck to figure labor and figure out the next few steps of Pherson's high speed folly.

"Jus'slip on a uniform and wander about in the bog like the rest do and you'll shake your guards," that original railway worker offered Cat. Catherine undressed in the mostly empty trailer and put on the workers uniform without question and found herself nearly unable to walk without losing her new boots in the mud on the other side.

Tens were trying to making this project work while a hundred more squatted or milled about unsure of what the ten were doing. The guardsmen had watchtowers but had not advanced them in some time knowing that the rail's advance was slow going or likely to advance until the end of the rainy season. When she had gone far enough where no guardsmen could see or dare trudge she took off her boots and began her escape on foot.

"Clock in and out, or does a wage matter to you?" a half caring railwayman asked, a common phrase he asked a few times a day when folks like her absconded this ruinous task. With hope that this idiotic project led to somewhere she could crawl with hands and knees through the muck that day Cat tried it herself.

 

[Thaumantica]

Trees spray painted with crosses marked a path forward that hardly unpleasant after a spell. This was MacKinnon's Preserve, before that the King's hunting land where nature hardly touched blossomed. She washed her feet of Caitekurke's rural bog in a charming brook and decided on donning the boots again with full knowledge blisters would punish her doing so. Still, she had urban feet that had hardly walked nature harder than kept grass in the garden. She shared this leg of her journey with angry squirrels of the native Nievish variety and birds who, unlike the ones she was used to, were not used to humans themselves and fluttered away at the crack of a twig beneath her boot.

She walked for hours wondering if the railway worker had been a spy from the Alms who hoped she would die from exposure alone out here. Rather then stopping she pressed forward all evening after eating greens she had picked throughout the day with no certainty besides TV documentaries that these would not kill her. They were bitter, and the water she drank from the brook clear but frightening for a citygoer. After another day of walking the blisters on her feet had inflamed and she figured she would soon set in with infection. At dusk she saw a marten, her first outsize of Caitekurke's Zoo, who paid her no mind as he crawled down a tree and passed her carried down the trail ahead. Catherine followed, what other direction was there but forwards now, and she beggared belief when the marten led her to a short stone wall that he perched atop before looking back and sprinting towards a village lit only by moonlight. Woolen cows and cattle stared emptily at her or simply did not turn their furry asses around. The marten was slowing down now as it approached a small block of coops for chickens or ducks and wise to this she sat in the field where bovine pies had not recently been laid.

Cat thought she owed the marten that after guiding her out of the preserve just when she had resigned to spending another night leaned up against a tree. If she approached now with him surely she would roust a guardian dog who itself would chase off the marten from its evening eggs. The marten checked everywhere around the coops first knowing that some birds laid well outside of their coop and found one that the farmers had missed. It was not beyond catching a mouse either so it then checked feeding stations around the farm until the most dangerous gambit availed itself: approaching the coops themselves where an old guardian dog likely rested with ears that listened for the martens claws with rancor.

Human given days of the week meant nothing to either animal but tonight's bright moon garnered another advantage for the old dog when human voices and lanterns emerged from the inner village to approach the fence. The marten froze for a moment, watching the dog run to greet them excitedly, but knew the heist was off. It ran back across the field quickly only slightly angling around Catherine its unconcerned return to the preserve. The humans held some lanterns but were set upon lighting a bonfire near the barn. She considered what to do next with a marten's mind: the whole village was likely here for whatever this was, surely she could go around them and steal supplies to keep moving forward, but when the fire was lit and music and voices began singing a cheery tune she decided on approaching them directly.

Still ill fitted in a railway worker's uniform she entered at the edge of their circle where she was paid no special mind. The children were running about playing games while most of the men were either playing an instrument or clinking tin cups with something locally brewed or stilled. Cat approached a cluster of young ladies who concerned themselves with mending clothes while others made merry and introduced herself. "So very sorry to intrude, but I am a traveler in need of an almshouse to stay this eve." Cat said, unsure if folk this old fashioned still curtsied.

"You're the second this year, third overall." a young woman with a scar running down her face replied before continuing "You're not from Caitekurke and with that plain accent of yours you're hardly from Nieveland. Only interlopers know not that Lady Pherson's bastard rail runs near the road ways leading north where motor coaches and lorries sprint for several miles beyond the bog. Walking for this long though the King's means you know nothing here."

Catherine sighed and nodded, too tired, hungry, and beaten down to argue or offer an aye.

"I am Mhairi, and we'll have your title and tale after you've been sat and supped some here with us." Mhairi offered with some degree of warmth. Soon Cat had a plate of turnips, potatoes, and a leg of duck that she wished she could gift the marten. In her mug was a small table beer rich with rye and only the slightest tinge of alcohol that the middling aged children were drinking too. Her minder Mhairi was drinking something stronger she knew when she let her hair down and joined a quicker dance with mixed but surely single men and women in something that resembled more of a melee skirmish than a dance. One young man was deeply scorned when Mhairi fluttered away to another, and that one angrier too when she moved on from him.

When the music stopped Mhairi waived them all off and pressed herself aside Catherine who was still cleaning the duck's bone to the marrow with her teeth. "I'll have your name now, lass" Mhairi half-ordered through a smile, heavy pant, and sweat on her brow. A slower song was playing now and married couples shooed off the scorned lads and lasses to have their own special dance.

"Catherine, and you ken right I'm not from here." Cat replied with hands folding and rested over her thighs before continuing, "I did grow in Sylvania with a Catholic Mission from Niomonnach parents and I visit here mostly for work and wages."

This offended the eavesdropping women some but they tried not to let it show. Leaving and coming back to this village for work was frowned upon let alone the nation. "Aye, I believe you Sylvie for you dinna' title a clan, and I believe ye travel wide and far with such bonny soft face. But tell me true Sylvennach: why do you walk through the King's alone dressed like a laborer?"

Cat considered this for a moment before divulging the truth that would offend them deeply, but not the most. "I smuggled treats and trinkets from Westernesse and was offered labor to defer a year's detainment." she confessed as a half truth. This was the common sentence for what she had officially been arrested for.

The women's circle sighed or let out a "Lord save ye" with hands marking a cross over their hearts. Mhairi was unimpressed and moved in close enough that her and Cat's noses were nearly touching. "There's more to this tale, Cat of the Sylvennach, and I'll hear it over cups in the barn with ye or I will inform a Neighbor." Mhairi threatened, that deep scar on her face shining almost as much as her green eyes in the bonfire's light.

"I'll have your cups then." Catherine chose, afraid still to enter a closed room with so many Nieves outside. Up until now, some twenty something years of life, she had always felt and identified as Nievish. It was only here in the deepest darkest old country that the moniker Sylvennach felt true. She regretted not stealing from them and running away like a marten now, it surely would have been simpler for both sides, and this village may have attributed the losses to faeries to their folksy wee ones.

Inside the barn stood cows, their nursing calves, and a booting bench that Mhairi sat her willing captive down with no less than a liter of the heaviest drink the men were cross to part with until they saw who she was sequestering in the barn. The barn doors were closed behind them and barred, leaving Cat and Mhairi alone with stirring cows frustrated by the human merriment outside and only the bonfire's flame granting light within.

"Miss Catherine, you did ask our humble village Corcolmen for an almshouse?" Mhairi asked rhetorically before pressing a heavy cup directly into Cat's lips until she grabbed on and sipped, "we are not so wealthy to support a house, but you are granted this barn and I shall be your guardian to see you're unmolested this eve."

"Thank ye I . . " Cat attempted through coughs and wheezes from the heavy drink which hardly had a taste at all, it was almost pure alcohol and burned her throat as much as it began to burn her brain. The pain of from feet was beginning to subside in symphony with this, but Mhairi was already pushing he cup back at her forcefully. "Another."

When Cat was done with the third guzzle she was sickly already and happy when Mhairi retrieved her cup before she collapsed deeper into the booting bench and half wall as a cow careened and mooed in disturbance on the other side.

"My fee', they're so, I just nee' a bunk and I'll," Cat crowed from a stupor. It wasn't good enough for Mhairi yet so she pinched her captive on the ear and pressed another drink into her which she took partially before coughing and spitting violently into the floor.

"You wouldn't last another day out there lass, so tell me true why you're running!" Mhairi beckoned, propping Cat back up to lean against the bench and inspecting her boots more for the first time. There were red spots on both and she felt pity for a moment before considering what tiding this traitor might bring to Corcolmen. Mhairi unlaced and pulled off the traitor's boots which caused Cat to scream and squirm in agony. Worse then was the pulling of the socks which had mixed in with popped blisters and foot growing into the rancid socks.

With what light she was afforded Mhairi saw that indeed these wounds were angrily infected. A spy of the Niomonnach would never try this gambit just to inspect the village, they were too well marched and risk adverse to show up like this. The rail line was still four days of walk from here Mhairi pondered, inspecting veins running up her foot to see if they were running red towards Catherine's heart yet. These soiled hooves in hand Mhairi wondered what she should do with them now, she was neither chemist nor a healer with herbs so she placed them down as gingerly as possible and beckoned someone from the other side to hear her call.

"Is she from the state?" a male voice replied. "I ken not, but she'll be in need of healing or she'll be dying slowly in here for a week or more."

"Dawnie is to be fetched, keep pressing!" the male voice instructed.

Mhairi was hardly an interrogator, she had simply spent a year in Caitekurke after she ran from home. In Caitekurke she was assaulted and raped using the knife that gave her he large scar on her face in a southeasterly almshouse. This made her "worldly" and worth the risk of locking in with a spy to the village that kept her at its fringes of trust still.

"You hoofed it too far and too long to dodge a rail sentence for smuggling chocolate or fancy yarns, they would have turned you loose in a week from the rails. I think you're a problem for someone in Caitekurke and you know something they don't want Niommonach to know. Am I close yet, lass?" Mhairi asked, standing over a stirring Catherine who was choking back tears now.

"There's - there's a revival . . " Catherine began speaking in Engell, at which Mhairi squinted and shook her head. "Canno' Engell" she replied, "Nievish please?"

"COMOSACHD!" Cat cried out, reaching up to find the bench with her hand before being pushed back down.

"We don't bandy that word around lightly here, revival, I really ought seek a Neighbor now!" Mhairi growled as she held her weight strongly over Cat's so she could not get up. Dawnie was being let in now and was swearing deeply about cow pies and interloping filth but was prepared with herbs and city medicine none the less.

"No, I won't do it here," Dawnie argued after inspecting Catherine's infected feet. "She needs to be washed from mop to hoof and placed by hearth before I start, not laid out in the nursing barn!"

Mhairi shook her head, this interloper was still too dangerous to be outside and perhaps it would be better for Corcolmen if they took her back to the King's and tied her to a tree for the faeries to gorge on.

"A revival led by MacLennan, MacKenzie, and the widow of MacKian!" Catherine cried out.

"Oi, she's already given over to terrors" Dawnie shuddered, "too long in the King's does that to a soul."

Mhairi made the decision then and asked the village to treat Catherine in a clean home to recover. MacKian had been Laird on this side of the King's and died in a small revolt in the 80s. Not so distantly the MacKian's were kin and that meant something here. The Sylvennach was telling true now, and Mhairi would help see her mended even if it meant marrying the mayor's handsy son.

"She's escaped from a loonie asylum, Dawnie" Mhairi called back and would tell the others, "they will let her die if we turn her over to those monsters. It's our Christian duty to heal her fast and give her to the sisters."

 

[Thaumantica]

So it was when the embers of Corlcolmen's bonfire were pushed over with earth that Catherine was taken to Mhairi's home where she was undressed, bathed, and put down by another small fire. Mhair's home afforded her gas, but no electricity. Candle light exposed Catherine's tattoos to Dawnie who hissed defensive prayers and drew more crosses than could be counted this late and after so many drinks.

"These herbs will mend feet but not the soul," Dawnie declared as she mixed an assortment to rub into Cat's wounds. Catherine was well passed out now, soothed by the bath and now cooling under the herbal poultice.

"You're claiming you don't have a spore stowed away for that?" Mhairi jested. Dawnie simply turned and squinted as if she was made of hellfire. "Ye promised to tell no one of that remedy?" the herbalist demanded.

"Aye, and I shan't." Mhairi promised, for from it and its vision she had returned as living from dead after her assault in Caitekurke. She inspected Catherine in full then by accounting for every piece of the physical her. "She has the nose of a Frank and the hair of a Nord."

"Sylvennach . . " Dawnie said with a knowing nod, "and too tall for our kind, mark me!".

Mhairi lifted Cat's eyelid to ensure she was both asleep and dreaming before responding, "She dun'kin it yet, and it's not ours to mark it for her."

"How does a bonny Sylvennach such as she learn to wag the Nievish tongue and, look at her marks, she's tattooed King Padraig's cross over a shower of the first nation's words. From the asylums like ye said!" Dawnie begged.

In Caitekurke Mhairi had met many tattooed, the permanently painted ones, and learned that some truly believed in what they wrote on skin while others committed it on whim on a night of sin. Cat's Niomonnach tattoos were only beginning to fade, but not so fresh that they had recently been inscribed Mhairi noted.

"I would take her to an angel on morrow." Mhairi declared.

This sent Dawnie into another spitting fit but Mhairi reached out and stopped her hands from drawing more crosses. For Niomonnach angels did not come from heaven, and certainly not the homeland, but rather angels were nursing ships docked or roving at sea that treated women afflicted with child and many other manner of problems a person did not want their community doctor to know and spread throughout the town.

"I ken the mayor will fetch for the Neighbors soon, and he's right to. This one would hurt Corcolmen simply by drawing breath where she don't belong." Mhairi said. "She came to us on Ionasoidsche, or did you forget why we were dancing when she came strolling in?"

"Aye, it's so" Dawnie reflected. Ionasoidche was both a celebration and mourning of a Gunnish noble lady, born to Corcolmen, who had promised her heart to a a man in Gunnvale before being promised by her father to the new King in Caitekurke. The years of their union were marked by famine everywhere besides Corcolmen, if legend can be believed, and still born children throughout the land until Iona carved out the king's heart and brought it back to her promised one in Gunnvale leading to revival of crops and births everywhere. Corcolmen held the festival with absent mind of the details, mostly cherishing a local lady who punished those in Caitekurke and their king from Ballyclaire.

"To hold her here, this Sylvennach, would due curse us," Dawnie spoke in a superstitious whisper, "an angel will haunt our coast on way north to Robshire when dawn shows, there's hardly time now."

Mhairi sprung up ran for a set of keys from her grandfather who passed not three months prior. "Oi sweet Mhairi, that buggie will never start!" Dawnie moaned, leaning into couch to sleep for what was left of the night.

"It'll start or I'll call you a hag!" Mhairi declared dancing out the door. Dawnie half stood up in rage before collapsing down again and gazing at Catherine, dead to this waking world with alcohol and herbs pumping through her veins. "Hurt my Mhairi and I vow I'll skin ye Sylvennach!" Dawnie declared before she heard the old man's engine roar on for the first time in a year after three tries. This woke Cat too who began an escaping role from bed to floor that Dawnie stopped knowing the young one hadn't the sea legs.

"Don't come back then" Dawnie said with the warmest smile to both Mhairi and Catherine who took hold over Mhairi's shoulder. Within a year Corcolmen would be run through directly by the high speed rail, all of its homes and established structures struck down, and the folk here would scatter variously to kin or cities for refuge. Dawnie was unsure if she would suicide then or offer service as an interloper somewhere deeper in Gunnvale.

"It's a weekly flight, no more no less" Catherine began telling them hazily in the Engell tongue, to which both Niomonnach exchanged a confused grin, "but when freedom reigns we will fly farther than Engell or Nord sailed with a revived vision as Niommonach" she finished back in Nievish.

"To the angel then!" Dawnie whinged as she put Catherine up and over her own shoulder, hosting the young lass together to the groaning buggie. Before Mhairi could turn back Dawnie pulled her in and planted a kiss on her cheek. "You're on then, and remember what I said?" Dawnie asked.

"Dun'come back." Mhairi replied with solemn regret.

 

[Thaumantica]

Charleroi, Sylvania

A light rain covered the windshield of Fergus MacKenzie's auto but Kian was already checking the doors and mirrors for a possible escape. The woods were growing greener and darker as they drover into the Sylvanian hearth.

"Had a laugh and taking me to die? Kian queried, checking and finding his passenger door was unlocked for a roll.

"We're going plinking, relax." Fergus replied incredulously.

Kian opened and closed his door a few more times as they sped down a country highway over 50. Fergus did not have any electronic control over any door and simply kept driving.

"Reysburg Family Range," Fergus read when they rocked over a series of speed bumps into a world of shooting.

Sharp cracks met Kian when he exited out on the auto, but as if commanded they stopped after a a command voice told them to stop over loud speaker.

"You practiced single combat for Warremara, hand to hand" Fergus explained, "here everyone practices their right to strike down the oppressor with a bullet."

A few days ago Kian would have been uncomfortable with that sentiment, but now he was open and willing to taste the taste of revival that Fergus offered.

"We're not rich, Kian, meet you a Sylvie lass and maybe she'll loan her Pappie's?" Fergus offered with a laugh. The .22 rifle and box of rounds were the same as boy and girl scouts competing through lanes 3-10 that day. Kian quickly learned his lane and the rhythm of the range.

Rather than shit talking, as Nieves would, the Sylvanian kids simply made faces at Kian and he started to learn a new language besides being shouted down by the range manager. By the end of the day Kian had plinked a boy scout to total victory over everyone else by shooting into his lane beside him.

"He'll collapse at nationals and didn't I tell ye not to get involved with Sylvies?" Fergus demanded, pulling the spent rifle up from Kian.

"Aye, but he had the Warremaran determination." Kian reflected.

"And ye have determination of a dead man, Kian, and I will school you not beyond here!" Fergus cracked.

"Be it so little Laird," Kian cracked back, "tell me how your Cat died?"

Fergus drove for awhile, adjusting the radio between stations before settling towards static and then pulled it over towards the last farm pasture before returning to Charleroi. "My Cat was a plant named Penny," Fergus confessed after offering and lighting a cigarette for them both. Kian did not smoke but he pretended for the old man's sake.

"Before Cat we had Penny and she was double dealing with the Neighbors," Fergus said, "and she did ride many of us before repatriating back to the Niommonach state."

"How many of you did Cat ride?" Kian asked defensively. "None so far as we," Fergus replied honestly, "but we think her dead now. Lady MacIan has not hailed her now for five days."

"Cat was an adoptive of ours, a dual citizen, and we have another in the pipe now" Fergus offered.

Kian shook his head and opened that manual door again, "I'll hoof it from here then!' he ordered up which Fergus stopped the auto and waved Kian out.

Fergus rested his engine and heart for awhile and watched Kian MacLennan strike out on his own for awhile until he was beyond a dot on a darkening highway and then drove out to meet him again.

"I'll die before ye in this revival, Little Laird, don't take it too personal!" Fergus offered with windows rolled down.

"We're not dead yet," Kian rejoiced, "nor shall we be in this brotherhood."

Fergus nodded and pushed his door again.

"Do ye pledge allegiance to a Rygaard then?" Kian asked when he was belted and back in the car with Fergus again.

"Catherine did, the next Cat as well - I think she's called Rebecca also adopted from the Sylvennach." Fergus recalled.

Kian punched the glove box and groaned. "Catherine is alive, I know it!"

"Hot for Sylvennach?" Fergus both jested, "look online and have a dash at the Nordo-Frankish gash. But you know what I lied to ye, I did have a hump on Catherine, I think most of Charleroi has at this by now!"

The MacKenzie had been riling him for at least an hour now searching for a snap, and finally he did. Kian heaved and considered his situation for a moment before hurling himself into Fergus who quickly lost control of the car and rolled into an electric pole, sending both of their skulls into the dash. The two struggled for a knife or a neck as their concussions rolled in, dizzying and offsetting the previous sense.

In Kian's pocket lasted a .22 round, a left behind he had lied to the scouts and range master. There was the mini rifle in back and he made a jolt for it, but MacKenzie was rounding for the boot too with the same idea. There they met hand to hand where Kian held the advantage, hurdling knees and elbows into the MacKenzie until he stopped moving and next breathing.

 

[Thaumantica]

Oifis nan Nàbaidhean, the Neighbors Office (Caitekurke)

The red phone was ringing again but Commandant Lyle Gilmour was frozen, considering a hundred ways he might off himself to avoid what was coming.

"Commandant MacNealy did jump from the cliffs near Pente's Pass," Lieutenant Gillepsie offered carefully, "choose your own fall . . "

It was ringing again, and once again Gilmour did not answer. In just 48 hours the entire Sylvennach operation had gone tits up. Catherine, the foundling, was missing and not yet confirmed dead while their agent in the Charleroi Revival Movement had just been reported so across the pond.

"Someone really needs to pick that up!" Gillepsie reminded the room, looking towards the younger lieutenants. Commandant Gilmour stood and began unpinning his indicators of rank, leaving them on a table next to the phone he had been neglecting. Without speaking or making eye contact Lyle left the room and building with hopes of never being heard from or seen again.

Like carrion crows three stood and made a run for the pins. McGill, Craige, and Woode began swatting, pushing, and pulling at each other while the phone rang on. Concerned, Gillepsie stepped around the trio and picked up the phone: "Gilmour will jump, ma'am, if na' I will follow him with a pistol to see it through."

"The entire unit needs to jump." Almskeeper Pherson growled, a flurry of voices and shouting coming in around her end. "Tell me this MacKenzie didna' die with . ."

"No badge, no smart one in his pocket ma'am. We ran him by post." Gillepsie shot back, happy that he had insisted on not committing to a digital footprint with MacKenzie. "We did learn of his departure from others in their movement from socials from Nievenet, not from our own neighbors, but the deceased we follow who write back home by Sylvie."

"Will they know he was ours, MacKenzie?" Pherson asked as she sequestered herself to a quieter corner way from fluttering aides and guardsmen.

"Not today, tomorrow, nor a fortnight ma'am" Gillepsie replied, "but they may ken it with the postage and have one who can read through the lines about Niomonnach history and foraging the sea for . ."

"And the lass, when will you bring me her Commandant?" Pherson interjected, bored with the MacKenzie affair already.

"If I were your Commandant, ma'am, I would lay off the attack on she and this comosachd." Gillepsie advised as if he were talking down one of the last four or five cocksure Commandants he had watched pass through. "This movement feuds worse than the MacLee's & Mayne's, heheh, excuse the tellie reference, my dear one still watches them on recording."

"M&M from the 90s?" Pherson begged aloud before bursting out in laughter, remembering Nieveland state media's strange but lasting attempt at making a situational comedy about two clans constantly feuding and forcing one another into shotgun marriages.

"Aye, the same Lady Alms'," Gillepsie affirmed through a boring smile, "the heart wants what it cannot and should not have and I do know this Catherine of the Sylvennach will circle back to Charleroi to that broken MacLennan lad."

"We have really stepped in it, haven't we?" Pherson asked with a sigh.

"No use dragging the waste about now then," Gillepsie said before flicking off the young crows from the commandant pins, "ought wash ourselves off before putting another foot forward o'er there."

"Do see Mr. Gilmour off then, and good morning to ye Commandant?" Pherson ordered and asked.

"Gillepsie, and we will see him bagged before the Companion ends its brek." the new Commandant confirmed.