rathyen


Skipping into the Heathering Gormglaith was met by the deeply bladed back of a scollagyn gazing at billowing blue green heath through sparkling corundum, her white, orange-freaked hair pulled back tightly in a single long braid woven with thin black ribbons swishing behind her bottom. At the sound of klompen she spun about from the skeinishly paned windows and here was someone who looked rather much like a maegdenish Blaanid Raine-Blairie.

"Too swank, Gormglaith!"

"Ta! I'm lithping. Thorry... Who art thou?"

"I think it flutters! Hi, I'm Flocklaith Sparkenbane and I'm meant to say Rathyen's asked thee to tea in the bog den!"

"'k."

"'k."

"Living in ash with Rathyen," said Flocklaith, walking breezily on hale and hardy, linen sheathed toes as they made their way into the tapestried greywacke hall, "thou canst be swotty as pye and lay it all on thy nesties, way and the witch comes off so too henge or whatever but it's egg inside. I mean, like runny yolk, tha knowst?"

Three doors down at the end they came to a den walled in sundry geayney stones with copper lath and shrubs of holly lit by a wide window looking upon a gloomy, tidy little green peat bog before the windswept moors. Standing by was a twig thin, fig chested girl with flat blue black hair split harsh at the middle and falling beyond her waist. Wearing black longstockings and scollag's arm gloves, her sheer skin was runed with deep blue green veins and glowing wan as if by moonlight even from the teardrop flue.

"Hello Gormglaith!"

Rathyen walked high on linen swathed toes taking short, quick steps to greet Gormglaith with wracksome dark blue eyes and a weird smile. Meanwhile Flocklaith, barely squashing a grin, kneeled on black granite and sat back on her heels, flax.

"...How art thou?"

"Fettle!"

Rathyen

They sat at an ashwood board by the window as Rathyen took up a green teapot with a hand even bonier than Tegan's.

"Wouldst thou like tea? It's shinbane black, brewed forty-two years. More than a million New Zealanders drink it! That's what the yellow box says and so thick it tastes like chocolate, which I hear thou... crave'st?"

Gormglaith flashed a grin from behind straw thatch.

"Wonderful!" said Rathyen, pouring two mugs in flutter and fussle. This done, she looked up thoughtfully, finger to chin.

"The whole tag's Rathyen Caer Raine-Blairie Sparkenbane. Yes I'm a Blairie bairn, bred, born and beaming! Oh, th'art wondering about the Caer. Names are funny, aren't they? So braided with the bygone but saying little after all. When I was four it needled me, this odd bit of a name squeezed between Rathyen and Raine like swag in a bag of cane moons. I couldn't reckon it and wanted to weep, so I did the only thing I could think of. I asked!" she said with widening eyes, then jerked with a start.

"Flocklaith, my bat," called Rathyen, "come sit with us! ...Flocklaith!?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

"It's shinbane!"

"No thanks, I'm swotting... eigenwerts!"

"Eigenwerts?! Oh yes... and Blaanid, a backbone tingler of a yah by the bye, told me I'm a shee's twin daughter. 'So what about the Caer?' I asked. 'All my sisters are twin daughters of shees!' 'Indeed Rathyen,' Blaanid chided, 'thou'st trampled again. Give a girl a break! She might even say something thrilling if thou dostn't make her too shy.' Anyway I stared back at her, mostly to see if she was bluffing."

The witch yawed her head to cast a puzzled stare at Gormglaith.

"I'm not boring thee, am I, my bat?"

Gormglaith shook her head, straw thatch swishing as she took a sip of shinbane black.

"Now where was I? ...Blaanid told me about Clememyl Caer, a neuchadjin clannin girl who pledged at twenty to a teensy teach at Caernarfon near the bay in Gwynedd, Wales. It seems Clememyl got the wanderlust, ran off to Blairie, then Snotra and wound up as a spider witch, lurking about Woolf house teach in Fen Glioon. Meanwhile Clememyl somehow grew the notion she wanted her twin brought in at Blairie so forty-five years ago the little brat was grasped then carried by Rhawn Raine and she... was me! Anyway Gormglaith I've met Clem and truth be told, she isn't like me at all."

"I like thy nose ring! I recall what a kick I had when I got mine! Wouldst tha like to see mine other stabs?" the witch asked, pulling back blue black hair and tilting her head to show a right ear bearing eight sparkling stones of ash ice, top to bottom in a bend following its folded edge.

"One for each of us! Here, dost thou see? They nag me, so I might always listen to my plighted sisters! Now first the smallest, on the lobe, that's for me. I got it when I was a moppet. I did the others myself, one each for Morigan, Morfyd and Tegan, then starting at the top, Bairrfhionn, Gillian, Gwenhwyfer and here, smack in the middle, one for thee! I was so eager I stuck it myself last night, which drove the air witch east. Oh Gormglaith it hurt me so! Thou canst see, it's in the gristle and I hadn't even a shred of ice like the afliae. How I screamed! Flocklaith and Fleak came tearing into the bath and found me on the floor with blood running down my neck whereupon Flocklaith shrieked like a harrowed raven, didstn't thou my bat?"

"I did!" said Flocklaith.

"It was wonderful! Wouldst thou do it again? So Gormglaith can hear?"

Flocklaith gazed up, closed her eyes tight, took a deep breath and let out the most heart stopping, blood curdling, scritchsomely loud weep of a wail one could think of. When she was done the scollagyn glanced at them with a quickening grin.

"My plighted thithter," said Gormglaith, "thankth."

Then she put in a heedful lisp,

I catht to witcheth hope'th and dare'th
To kith and thternly dream with
Then grathp the hackle keen to wear
The apple blush of shrewdneth

"They told me th'art hard," said Rathyen, leaning forward, elbows on the board. "I like that, but between the two of us, either way it's peas to me if a pledge doesn't go for the apple blush, after all. Sometimes it's a bit much, Gormglaith, what with all kinds of clever girls finding sundry ways to crawl upon my lap."

The witch stared at the crushed look on Gormglaith's face.

"Ok," she sighed with a wave of her hand, "peel away..."

Rathyen spun about, all sinewed limbs with knees together. Gormglaith soon stood stark before her. She knelt across the lanky lap, hands on the deck, thatch falling before her eyes. Rathyen wrapped her left arm about Gormglaith's middle to hold a chalken, bony hand over a maedchen backside. Gormglaith blinked to a flat handed slap on the right, followed by four keen swats to a staggered beat. The brims on her chest knolled. She closed her eyes and stiffened as the witch reached under to slyly squeeze and pull the left into stir, like tacky balsa wood, sealing this with another sternal slap. Gormglaith wept. Rathyen drew back a reedy arm, flexed and snapped forward as Gormglaith jerked into a taut brace but nothing landed. When at last her lean thews gave way a wicked swipe alighted, spot on where the first had done. She shrieked and went limp.

The witch swathed her left arm anew at Gormglaith's waist then slid a finger upon her hood to nudge with cunningly woven, gliding wreaths whilst airily, rather so cheerily kneading her bottom. This drew much breath, whereafter ever more too canny bluffs, a steadfast spanking carried forth. Gormglaith's eyes watered. Her nose ran in a gathering flood. She squirmed and threw her head, shoving a teary left cheek against the black linen on Rathyen's thigh, dampening it. When Gormglaith's hips began to buck the witch craftily pulled her finger away, leaving a whine behind smackish echoes.

"How'rt thou feeling?" asked Rathyen, hands at her sides and gazing down at a fettle apple blush.

"Pledged, I think... I don't doe, a bit shrewder, maybe," she said, sniffling and nodding straw thatch.

They stayed like this until the witch at last cast up her eyes and with a heavy sigh peeled Gormglaith off her lap, onto the bench. It may have been the cold stone that stirred Gormglaith to lift herself on flat hands whilst Rathyen kynnishly helped her back into the longstockings. Gormglaith settled and watched, sniffling, trying to wipe her nose lately stabbed with a ring now glittering in glassy snot as Rathyen slipped the klompen back on the banshee's big feet and lit beside her.

"I feel like a bloody maegden..." said the witch, blue black hair streaming onto shivering thighs.

"...and I'm glad, Gormglaith."

With wet cheeks, damp eyes and dripping nose ring, Gormglaith smiled and threw long skinny arms about Rathyen's neck. They kissed in the tastes of tears and salt, vinegar and natron soap, bright bitty green bog and purple moor behind them.

"So I hear Raoghnailt and thou are in the throes of a wicked crush, little sister," she said, flashing a winsome smile. "Gossip blows like the gales about Haethwyck, thou knowst!"

"Is this too hush or can any who have a gulp?" asked Flocklaith as she plopped down on the bench and poured herself one.

"Ah, shinbane. Chuffy stuff."

"There are nine scolly nests in the teach barrows," Flocklaith gabbed, holding a mug in one hand and flipping the other, "blueberry bogberry boxberry blackberry dewberry gooseberry hurtleberry rowanberry and yewberry. Anyway we have boards over there Tiwesdaeg through Frigedaeg, noon to an hour after sunset and Saeturdaegs are nest swot then a weir board with Tegan which can be cool..."

Flocklaith was in the midst of saying something lost to Eachdraidh when they heard the clopping sound of someone else in the den. Gormglaith at last whirled her head and found herself staring up into the sly eyes of Gillian Goblyn in blue grey longstockings, gazing back down with a wicked brat smile, lank blond hair and stiffly pink figgied chest.

"Chills, Gormglaith! Everyone said thou wast a docking duck!" Gillian put with a scythish grin under crinkled nose and narrowing eyes. "Thou lurkst... and under such a tangled thatch! Feeps! I'm gobsmacked, little sister... and gasping for a pog?"

"Hi Gillian! I'm thwilled to..."

The banshee squealed, reached into the side of Gormglaith's thatch, grasped her right earlobe with thumb and forefinger, pinched hard and pulled her up from the bench eeking, twisting, squirming then going kerfuffle as Gillian let go to hug and cuddle. In the smell of daisy dust Gormglaith pulled clumsy pog.

Gillian lay her head on a bony, squirming shoulder.

"I've heard th'art witty and thy lisp is cracking! Aw Gormglaith," Gillian sighed, feeling her up, "why do these poffy nubbens of thine make me feel so frickin' happy?"

Flocklaith and Rathyen watched in clanniny hush, behaving rather like when a seldom seen shenn shows up to make a fuss over how much her hapless, plightish target has grown.

Gillian smirked and snaked an arm down her front, grabbing Gormglaith's waist with the other.

"Come on," she said, warding her head at Flocklaith and Rathyen. "Whilst these gabbering magpies sit here wondering what it's all about, us bats'll tork off like maedchen crushin' out behind the mossy oak after clannin school reel!"

Gormglaith gaped. Her eyes dished, then she dashingly shoved middle finger betwixt cleft as Gillian kissed her open mouthed, tongue aflicken.

"Ok little sister," she whispered in dreamy throe, "let's get thee to nest!"