Deireadh an Turas

by Rahalia

Author: Rahalia

Archive: m_a, my site. Anyone else, please ask.

Category: Romance. Well, it's more a mood-piece, really.

Pairing: Conall (Qui-Gon) / Ruairidh (Obi-Wan)

Warnings: None - it's nice stuff, honest!

Disclaimers: Oh, the usual. The names are mine anyway...

Feedback: If you'd be so kind!

On the stereo: Capercaillie 'The Whinney Hills Jigs' and 'The Harley Ashtray'

Author's notes: This is a companion fic to 'Manchild.' I was asked to write the same type of story, but without the sad ending. Song quotes are from Enya.

Summary: More Celtic wildness.

Éist le mo chroí; tabhair dom do neartsa.
[Listen to my heart; give me your strength.]

The wind moves slowly through the leaves up here; a lazy drift, almost as though the very clouds are tired. The evening is warm, the sun now just a burnished glow reflected on the sea. I stand, half-hidden by the stone wall, watching him.

He has not moved in the longest time; both feet planted firmly as though he were a part of the rocks he stands on. He has watched the sun dip below the horizon, and I have watched its glow haloing his beautiful long hair, giving to it a coppery sheen that matches my own.

"Ba dheas an lá go hoíche. [The day has been beautiful.]" His soft voice reaches me on the breeze.

Beautiful indeed. Watching him watching the sun setting was only the end of my day. Waking up in his arms was the start of it, and as mornings go this one could not have been bested. I opened my eyes with the dawn and I lay there in a contented state; in full contact with warm skin behind me and with a heavy arm flung carelessly over me. I recall smiling as the sky that was visible through the window lightened from the deep indigo of night. Through shades of vermilion and gold it finally glowed a bright, if pale, blue: the blue that I see in his eyes every day.

"M'anam, mo chroí."
[My soul, my heart.]

The greeting was drowsy, falling from his lips in an understated purr. In that respect, Conall reminded me so much of Aoibhneas; the small cat that graced our home with her occasional presence. The soft pad of paws and the swish of a tail had recently multiplied as she had brought with her on her next visit six further damp little noses. The house was now reigned over by these seven mewing tyrants; and Conall was a faithful subject.

It warmed me through to my heart to see him play with the cats; teasing them with the leather thong with which he usually bound his hair, and pulling them out of perilous falls and tumbles with those great, gentle hands of his.

Ah... those hands...

To see them full of squirming kitten was to remind me of the moments when they were full of squirming Ruairidh; for Conall had all the ability of the Gods to melt ice and crumble mountains with those hands. How he had laughed when I likened his fingers to the roots of a tree, but he understood the meaning of my words. Could a tree not topple a castle if the roots went deep enough into the foundations? The earth holds untold power, and my reward for that admiration was a demonstration of the power of those fingers. Ah... how he'd made me ache!

We rose from our bed into the bright coolness of the morning, dressing each other between kisses. As always, Conall folded my kilt into place, binding it about my waist with my thick leather belt before I performed the same ritual for him.

Our days were always ones of few words, but what words we did speak were chosen with reason and care. Words of love, of toil and of necessity. What we have goes above and beyond anything more; an unspoken understanding of what is needed and what should be done. Quite often we barely speak at all, save morning greetings and a word of love before sleep. But it doesn't matter. There is empathy in our companionable silence.

Sounds... Of course there are sounds. Soft whimpers, low moans, hoarse cries and gasps. Think you that we have no voices? The sound of Conall's cries when he is buried inside me could shift the heavens, and the softness of his sleeping breath is as calming as summer rain upon the roof.

We prepared a simple meal to break our nightlong fast. Conall cut bread with my knife and our eyes met over the copper blade and bronze haft; a silent recognition of what it was created for, and an offering of thanks for the small corner of the field that waved golden wheat in the dying light of the sun.

The cries of the child that had found the cluster of precious ears still ring between us. He ran to the crag; too late to prevent the first deep cut but in time to prevent the breaking of two hearts.

I had seen Conall many times over many years before that night; my gaze resting on his distant, graceful form as he reached to pick apples, stooped to reap wheat and stretched out the aches of his long, powerful limbs. There, they told me, stands the man you may have to kill on a day when the crops fail, for he was in his youth as you are now: the chosen child of nature.

Yes, I had seen him, and I no more wanted to kill him than I had wanted to be chosen myself. He was chosen for the colour of his eyes; the colour of deep, dark woad; just as I was chosen for the hue of my hair: the copper of autumn.

To choose a murderer because of his colouring... Barbarous! I wanted no part of it, but it was custom and the Elders would brook no argument. I was given the knife that evening and told that I knew what to do. Of course I knew: I had been shown many a time; had even performed the ritual on occasion with a lamb or other such animal. Time and again they made me cut into helpless animal flesh, witness blood and believe in its power to heal the earth.

Those poor lambs...

We eat no meat, Conall and I, for the memory of those innocent beasts that I cut. Outcasts, both of us now; we live far from our homesteads. Here, close to the sea, where we are sheltered by the trees and have earth enough to grow food for ourselves and herbs for the cats to roll in. It is a happy place; so much different from what could have been were it not for the sharp eyes of that little boy.

Every night before we sleep, I place a kiss to the soft skin of Conall's ankle; apologising for the wound and trying to heal the scar. Every night he raises my head and forgives me, but still I am compelled to do this.

We eat the bread and drink the milk I have taken - with a whispered word of thanks to her - from our goat. Sitting on the grass and facing the ocean, the morning air is warm on our faces and gives us a lusty appetite. We kiss out there for long moments; our bread forgotten.

We have everything we need here: food, water and milk. Sometimes I will take a copper coin to market and buy wool cloth to make a new kilt, or a cloak for chill winter days. We till our ground, we tell our stories, and we love one another.

And that is enough for anybody.

"Tabhair dom ghrása, Ruairidh."
[Give me your heart, Ruairidh]

"Go deo."
[Forever]