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kin dails
Less than twenty minutes out of Elmthorpe they were on the outskirts of misty Kin Dails with its waferish clusters of shops and houses below pitched roofs of woodsy green, baked clay tiles nestled among rowan ash, yew and pine trees. The skate slipped under lanes, came to a sliding stop and opened its doors with a fwoosh. They made their way through a chilly, sparsely lit slate lobby to a deep and barrowishly slabbed opening at the north end of Running west way on the high banks of the Running river.
Under broken clouds, wandering flocks of girls strolled by shops and inns. Here were sundry clanniners, their scattered bairn in arms along with moppets, maedchen, maegden and shees, many on bicycles and some riding bunchberries, those shared, bright orange-red bikes left about most thorpes and towns, kept up by spindly, alikely hued robots in the whist hours after sunrise. At a crossway by a gwli a bunchberry cut in front of them and a long legged girl holding on tight from behind to the one she'd dutched with flashed a witchy smile at Gormglaith. The bike hit a bump and she bounced, her chin length, snow streaked strawberry hair flying up as they whisked out of sight by the corner.
With straw thatch windblown in the cool crisp air Gormglaith gazed at skies of trundling clouds over low, weftish buildings faced in stones, clunches, wackes and sheer corundums as flocks of birds flew in vees far above the churning water.
From afar Slinn's front windows seemed dark blue but let through true hues up close. Within were keenly lit wigs, robots heedfully hatched and sized to look like any girl in outward cast and shift, loitering in sundry clothes, klompen and so on. Beyond weirish blue doors Gormglaith and the banshees were greeted by the linen shop's sharply woven smells as a shee in yellow longstockings staggered nigh in keened klompen, hollow, black and pitched so far forward, the tops of her linen sheathed feet faced them whilst behind her ankles big heel balls were pushed up, jutting out and lifted on high. Thus she walked only by craft and barely so at that, thrusting her hips with shoulders thrown back for whatever steadiness there was to be had.
"Hi Sparkenbanes," she said, smirking with witchily put boredom and a shrug so shallow it hardly happened.
The wrap of rainbow hues over the shee's ribs matched her hair of banded colours, chopped short in a swatch swaying across the shaved back of her neck. Earrings lurked about and she wore a blue nose ring on the faal betwixt her nostrils.
"Hey, Greer!" said Gwenhwyfer. "Meet Gormglaith Hafgan Halsen, from Elmthorpe!"
"Haunted, Gormglaith," answered Greer, hair swishing as she nodded towards the fitting lair.
Gormglaith shrugged and followed, grinning back at the banshees.
Standing naked with hands behind her neck, Gormglaith was scanned head to toe by a skein of red laser slashes and strobing flashes as Greer peered at a spinning goblin.
"If thou'lt wait I'll bring something for thee to try on..."
"Ta!" said Gormglaith, sitting bonily on a bench, her chalken, blue green veined skin as if inner lit before the lair's smooth, black flint walls. Glancing about, her gaze was snared by a life sized, slowly spinning cast of... Gormglaith with wan smile, eyes blinking, in sandy hued Slinn's linens with bright red Dutch klompen. She flicked her eyes to swap out colours and cuts, settling on a natty, short black cutty sark, open fingered black armgloves under the sleeves, then pink longstockings with a tuck-over wrap and for the last, big black wooden klompen like those she had on.
"Here we are."
Greer held out neatly folded, new white linen.
Gormglaith knitted her brow at this gear of Eachdraidh, pell twillen longstockings if ever there were. Woven neach for each in sundry weights and hues, pulled up to the breastbone over a true straight waist, here was one of the first fylgjic runes of gathered x2, a deft, steadfast and footed slice of clannin life for thousands of years.
"Glen Pelyn linen," said the shee, "a fourteen gauge, three upon six looped weave with a Snotrian wrap."
Gormglaith pulled the cloth over feet, legs, waist and ribs, nudging the wide, swirlingly pleated wrap snugly up under her chest. Watching the looking glass as her black cutty sarked, pink longstockinged ghost stood by blinking through a leveled gaze, she nodded lightly.
A deep dark blue skeletal robot slouchily brought and handed her a sleeved and collarless white cutty sark of cloth like the longstockings but heavier and slippery inside. This fell high about her waist with abiding fit, its hems embroidered with a widely known Sparkenbane braid from threads of the same hue but in sundry thicknesses. Lastly the robot held up big, raw blond alder wood klompen still smelling of sawdust. Gormglaith clopped out to pithy nods.
"Gasping! Findabair would kick a shawn trews seein' me in this gear!"
They lingered to watch the wigs whilst Greer gabbed with Gormglaith, then walked south in a light throng, staring here and there into shop windows as a steady wind blew through their hair.
"A Ben chee inn!" Bairrfhionn said breezily. "I always come here when I'm in Kin Dails."
This was a sprawling low house flaunting skeins of sheer and frosty walls under a deep eaved, hipped and shallow pitched bright orange roof. Set on the middle of its long peak was a closely gapped stack of seven flat and thick, dish shaped quartz wafers widening steadily from the smallest bottom one to make up the shape of a top, which looked rather like an upended gore from any line of sight and was always inner lit a clean bluish white even in sunstorms.
Going through the latticed door they met three twins in blue indigo longstockings and deeply embroidered cutty sarks. Big steely grey eyes peered from canny faces beneath high foreheads, long white hair pulled tightly back into thin braids woven with bright ribbons tumbling to the smalls of their backs.
"Hi Bairrfhionn," the middle one said shyly.
"Hey Siusan!"
"Raonaid, Siusan and Taithleach Glynnis Galads..." whispered Bairrfhionn as they walked on, "bairn sisters... plighted wyrd witches... norns! ...and so too wanton. They're only in their sixties, after all. Never mind I've heard no more than a dozen words out of Taithleach since I've known them."
Gormglaith glanced back as Taithleach looked over a shoulder and thrust out her crimson, lapping tongue, flashing red dab set smack in the middle.
The maegden from Elmthorpe was slackjawed as they came into the airy inn and were greeted by an edgy waif neachly clad all in black down to oversized klompen. She led them to a board next to a wide window looking on white-topped water churning by boulders the size of houses.
Then came Brighde, a skinny, fig breasted ben chee with board flat belly, green nose ring and short, thick, flax freaked milkish hair. The sides and back of her head were shaved to the ear tops and a chalken cleft sloped in the narrow teardrop flue of wan longstockings with heavily sewn seams splitting the backs of her legs from high waist to the bighty heels of thoroughly thrashed raw wooden klompen.
"Hey Sparkies! Who's the duck?" she asked, shrewdly eyeing the new face as goblins popped up in front of the three girls taking their seats.
"Hey!" said Gwenhwyfer. "This is Gormglaith Hafgan Halsen and... Brighde, the cloven ben chee of Kin Dails," she put with a smirk (at Bairrfhionn).
Brighde twirled her eyes and held out a yarnishly veined hand. A bit later she was back, stalked by a bonesome robot which handily set before Gormglaith and Gwenhwyfer what they'd both asked for, blueberry shakes with Swiss cheese and summer squash butties. Bairrfhionn got one of bloody ox and toothily tucked into it.
Clanniners and shees gabbed among flirty ben chees like Brighde. Gormglaith spotted someone, in pine green linens and a thorough simper, framey shoulders under ruddy braids, hands grasping the edge of her seat. Sitting with her so close was a spindly, twiggish girl whose big ears peeked from long ginger hair of many freaks and shades which fathomed upon thewish thighs also in pine green. Now and then she kissed her sister on the mouth or cheeks leaving many red echoes. Two more alikely clothed clanniners sat with these two. One had chin length ginger hair swept away from a thoughtful looking face and it took a while to see she and the outgoing one were twins. The fourth had blazing locks cut much like Brighde's, a rainstorm of freckles and glittering grass green eyes which seemed to make speech needless. Later a cake bearing its grove of kindled wax candles was brought on and everyone at the Ben chee inn yodeled one way or another for the clanniner's birthday as she leaned back on her palms grinning like a maedchen, cheeks littered with red kiss smudges, thighs together, shins and Frisian klompen splayed awkwardly afar. She blew out eighty-seven bright flickers with a single breath, then sat with a gummy smile amid thick bane smoke.
At another board sat twins of middling height, heedlessly slender with wide set blue eyes, sunken and wraitish, set above straight long noses bearing sparkling nose rings. Each had short white hair split on the left, combed over in a straight lock hiding half her face whilst falling to chin length on the right. With Snotrian white longstockings hiked up fast to all but flat chests they sat leaning against each other, heads in tilt, withdrawn and cool. Crosswise three birrish girls sat laughing and talking, their backs to Gormglaith. The twin at left smiled in some answer as the other raised her chin, threw a lasering stare from behind a dripping lock of waxen hair and puckered full pink lips... at Gormglaith.
Flustered, she looked down at her glassish dish and when she peered up the girl was slouched on her sister's shoulder, sipping coffee, gazing off afar and looking bored out of her mind.
"Did she luzz thee a kiss?" Bairrfhionn asked, startling Gormglaith again as she took a sip of purple berry shake.
"Yeah, I think so."
Bairrfhionn smirked.
"Those are the Leighs and that's Kyle. Don't mind her, she's a flirt. They're builder witches. The two in black are Camble and Cait. They tug freayll for Westwreathe sleds. Kyle's twin Kale plighted much later by the bye. The shee in grey with the hips is Rhan Raine Sparkenbane Leigh, Blairie girl. She was a scollagyn at the Wrath, not with us... before... did pailtfylgjic at Fen Glioon then came straight back to Grasp and taught string spells for sixty some odd years. I happen to know she spins the nest with a titanium hand. They're all in their mid hundreds now. I think they're dishing us. I hope th'artn't too ruffled..." Bairrfhionn put with a lopsided grin.
Gormglaith laughed giddily, quickly putting hand to mouth as she rundled her head towards a long board seating more than a dozen twin sisters with fresh, evenly put faces alike even to platinum nose rings, straight light bane blond hair falling down their backs, slate blue grey linens and wan yellow klompen. The dish in front of each held roots and twirly noodyls steeped in yoghurt. One girl carried a daughter in the tenth, last month before birth and those seated nearby gave her much heed.
"Thrush Kin Dails," Gwenhwyfer whispered, "m7733n tide. They're ninety clannin, all shees, along with a few dozen kindel and as many scollagyn. They look sly, don't they? I'd glark one or two of these is in her early three hundreds. They've had a thorpe and teach north of Kin Dails for three thousand years and they're so bloody stern about it!"
"It started with one neuchadjin clanniner," said Gormglaith as she watched a thrush put an ear to her sister's fat belly, then answer with a bright smile. "Threndil Thrush, whose clannin brought in four of her twins."
After that it was mostly gossip about Kin Dails and even some girls Gormglaith had met at flurts through her shenn Grainne, along with wry gab about the neighbourhood plaits. She grinned at first, then seemed puzzled, whereupon talk swayed back to Slinn's.
"Wigs are so swank," sighed Gwenhwyfer, taking a huge bite of cheese and squash butty, "from afar."
"When I was eleven," said Bairrfhionn, "I saw this way fetching wig and asked my kynn Kathryn why we didn't keep them as house robots or whatever. Her mood! '...How might we slaughter happiness, thou meanst!'"
"Even so they're fun to watch," said Gwenhwyfer, winking. "Hast th'ever seen the makers' runes on the smalls of their backs? Some shees, even clanniners, I've heard..." the banshee whispered, crinkling her nose magpie, "wear washable ones... to make believe!"
Gormglaith stared at Gwenhwyfer.
"Not at Haethwyck," Bairrfhionn said with the sweep of a hand. "Then there's Cragen's skeeal in the Eachdraidh..."
"...when unruned, talking wigs were in most shee teaches and clannin crofts, Cragen said to her thorpe's craft ring, 'who bloody cares if they're robots? We live with fifteen of them and do I look twisted!?' Soon after that, she all by herself chaveled six moons' freayll of leeks, then later wrote a rather reekish book about smells," the banshee put with her grin, holding a last shred of butty.
Brighde and the sulking robot showed up with coffee in pumpkin hued mugs, "...Wicked enough," put Bairrfhionn, "to jolt a thrall after the Samhain eve hayride," and sparkling earth water for Gormglaith, a new kind in a frosty blue corundum jug which Gwenhwyfer took up for a closer look. Later Brighde came back and cradled Bairrfhionn's head in her arms.
"It's clove, i'nit?" asked Bairrfhionn, smirking waggishly.
"Whatever?!" Brighde threw back, shaking her head.
Bairrfhionn latched, followed by the other two.
"Brighde that was so spog," said Gwenhwyfer.
"Thou art clovey," put Gormglaith, chin in hands.
"Ta! Now..." Brighde answered with raised eyebrow, hands on her hips, "you three are gonna be fricking stern... 'k?"
They nodded (quickly).
"Don't..." she sneered, eyes narrowed, green nose ring gleaming, "botch this one."
Three chided heads shook (quivering).
With the wave of a bony hand Brighde flashed her grin, spun and clopped off as the two thick seams diving over a taut bottom and down the backs of straight, sturdy legs cast a stirring lilt to her steady, hard bonk on thrallish wooden klompen.
"I don't know about anyone else," said Gwenhwyfer as they left the inn, "but as ever this cheery little moot with Brighde has dunked me in the loch, I can tell you."
Gormglaith giggled, bringing hand to mouth, looking at Gwenhwyfer with mirthful eyes and a bashful nod.
"So how 'bout it?" asked Gwenhwyfer, smirking tightly at Bairrfhionn.
With a wry smile the banshee held forefinger nigh to thumb.
This was a hazy late afternoon and they strolled along shady green lanes, saying little at first, casting glances at shop windows and each other. Bairrfhionn knew many girls in the street by name and waved a lot, stopping to swap snatches of gab.
"Breck!" called Bairrfhionn. "Greer told us everything... how couldst thou bear it?!"
"Aw, 'twas sweet naughts," said a freckle nosed, yellow haired shee in a high cropped pink cutty sark and ash linens with a fist widthed, gore shaped earring of wafer thin, wan feldstone swinging from her right ear. "Hey, speaking of which, I saw Hanalin Grimm last Wodnesdaeg!"
"Please tell me thou wast in Follym downs..." Bairrfhionn beseeched.
"No! She was here! Staying at Flaunys, in Flet!"
Going by an empty shopfront Gormglaith peered into its alcove where a knot of five girls in rumpled longstockings of sundry hues shoved against each other in standing, clasping snog, thews of thighs and bottoms deeply cast in sharp shadows.
"Ah, Kin Dails," Bairrfhionn sighed, then knit her brow. "Hey Gwenhwyfer, wasn't that Hester? With a flock of south enders?"
They walked in a hush.
"I don't dish, Gormglaith," Bairrfhionn blurted out, "but I have a big mouth, tha knowst?"
"Ha!" she answered, gazing at two watchful girls in bright red longstockings and short cutty sarks, their braided hair bedecked with flowers, herding a flock of moppets at Fand's flurty fraig, a fluorescingly dappled food stand.
"Rather like Findabair!"
Gormglaith didn't see the startled looks she got back.
They came to an open air food keep with dozens of stalls under colourful awnings fluttering in a brisk wind. Some were kept by weird, fetching robots, others by girls in longstockings across the rainbow amid sundry roots, leaves, droops, berries, stalks, fungus and more. In this flood of tugging, shifting smells Gormglaith watched a fleet of maegden in black linens and the matching cutty sarks of Kin Dails pailtfylgjic with its ringed, brightly runed token stitched on the left front. They stood in looming pink klompen, earnestly eyeing heads of lettuce splayed by a gabbish, flaxen thrall in very alikened streaky green. Meanwhile at a wildly pitched stand for chocolate, a flock of moppets with a few sullen maedchen in their early teens hovering coolly nigh had gathered about a tall shee in longstockings with wide black and white swatches running even across her stark chest, face and spiky hair. Some moppets screamed with outstretched arms and splayed hands as she nimbly waved, smirked, popped a white or black milljan of spog into her mouth, twirled her eyes and rubbed a barely scooped tummy to high pitched shrieks and laughter.
"I craved those when I was little," said Gormglaith.
Bairrfhionn led them to a stand with red and green striped awnings over heedful casts of apples and runes reading, Apple ancheisht - 67 strains. Here was a clanniner with gold and ginger brindled, plaited hair, clad in rust-red longstockings and lurking behind blond wooden crates of neatly, rather too steeply stacked apples. She threw Bairrfhionn a witty smile and put in a neat Silesian spin,
"I didn't know thou wast in town!"
"Hey Dagmar!"
"Hanalin Grimm took a crate of braeburns last Tiwesdaeg!"
Dagmar and the banshee gabbed in whispers which leaked "Hanalin... harvest..." and "...she said that?!..." as the other two sniffed apples.
They left the stand each carrying a big samhuinn ooyl, fresh from an orchard the night before, deep grained red with pumpkinish streaks and green leaves still on the stems. The apples popped as they bit into them to find snowy insides like sweet, tart pears.
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