flurt


The westerly lane running through Grasp was clogged with clanniners, shees and scollagyn mingling in clumps and clutches as moppets clung to hands and thighs or zoomed through the flocks. Maedchen leaned coolly hip to hip against low walls by gwlis, their flapperish haircuts streaked with bright oranges, pinks and purples or banded blue black and searing white. Nigh a shop with its cast of a fat green apple glowing in the fog a few naked scollagyn did leaping somersaults, cartwheels and tumbles to cheers and loud clapping on a beat.

Raoghnailt, Rathyen, Blodwen and Gormglaith stopped to watch a dozen girls with braided, flower-drizzled locks as they clopped a Yggdrasil clog reel in colourful wooden klompen, weaving wide fluorescing ribbons into amazingly twined plaits about the green and white striped trunk of the thorpe's lone, looming rowan ash tree, its leaves already ablaze in their pinkish red of the northern fall, with nary a tangle.

Ribbon ends fluttered brightly upon gnarled roots to squeals and a few shrieks melded with scattered clapping as they strolled by a skewed and glassy cluster of flats nestled under the peat. At the thorpe's misty middle, in a thicket of blue tulips by a white granite block cut with fylgjic runes a freckled shee, her red hair bedecked in snowy daisies, played liltish airs on a moppet-high, three dozen stringed blond wood clarsach set betwixt black longstockinged thighs.

"Fethnaid's playing a call," said Rathyen as they neared her, now flocked by flurty girls. "Wave and they'll put thee on the thorpestone to say what thou like'st."

Gormglaith nodded, tossed the flurtsome cutty sark to Raoghnailt and raised an arm. Cheers and screams surged as she was lifted, grinning and eeking, by two dozen hands about her elbows, underarms, bottom, thighs and calves. To the sound of soaring clarsach strings Gormglaith glid onto the smooth top of the thorpestone from which she looked upon more than four hundred gathered faces, framed in sundry cuts of hair from whites to blonds to reds, flaxes to blue blacks. The sea breeze caught Gormglaith from behind, sweeping chin length straw thatch across her face.

Among this throng Bairrfhionn and snow white haired Ffion stood in a wanton yoke with two others from beech nest. Gillian hid within a knot of clannin girls and scollagyn, all wearing flued aspen greys and raw wooden klompen like her, as nearby a flock of wide eyed moppets whistly watched and a few brooding maedchen tried to make like they didn't know she was there. Tegan lurked in a shadowy gwli with two tall maegden in bane whilst Gwenhwyfer battishly haunted the flocks. Creiddyladl and Feegan stood with their backs to the thorpestone, talking to the three ash-tufted lass twins from Skipthorpe. The scold told of flicking finger and wildly pitched arms seemed starkly wary but somehow smirksome whilst the other two kicked cobblestone with their klompen out of sheer boredom. By a mossy green greywacke wall Rathyen bent twiggishly in fast pog with Blodwen who stood sapling straight, head thrown back, legs yawed together, sandy hair swaying across pixie bottom as Raoghnailt gabbed nearby with Morfyd and Morigan who leaned on one another in black cutty sarks and longstockings deeply creased at the knees, their orange klompen jumbled together in a row.

Casting a witchy grin from ear to ear Gormglaith threw arms overhead, eyes glittering from behind wind-raked thatch, chalken skin and longstockings floating against the tidal mist, lean strong legs in raw alder wood klompen set flat upon hard granite. Thunder trundled across the thorpe to shrieks, shouts and reeling yodels. Holding this throe until a hush fell over her flurt, she shyly said with tilted head,

"...Hey."

A crackling low boom of thunder pealed.

"I'm so flattered and I'm glad, hangin' out with y'all in such a wraithen gloom!"

These words brought clanninish calls and Gormglaith opened her arms, fog rushing behind her.

"Lookin' at your haunted faces, in this tidy and barrowish thorpe, by the cliffs of a sea so tolling and wonderous, I know it, I'm home."

Cheers, screams and scritches echoed against the peat-dripping, low bluestone and greywacke walls of Grasp.

Gormglaith stared upon the sly and seagh, the glinn and grinn, drew her breath and spoke, building to a shout over cackles of thunder.

Gathered here to greet
Sisters and kin
We meet in pleats
Wherever plights wend

Hearts brewed with apples and pine
Clannining, I come to mine
To bid you all a fettle thirst
Now sup and reel upon my flurt!

Arms at her sides, Gormglaith bent forward and deeply lapped the salt air once with her tongue, ending Rhonid Sparkenbane's Flurt call with a scythish grin, thunder claps bouncing in sharp cracks, straw thatch flying on the gale as shrieks, wails and squeals flooded the thorpe lane. She waved her right arm in a flurry then stepped towards the edge of the thorpestone and a squall of hands above eerily eager faces. Shrugging gangly shoulders with a smirk and an eek she walked off into their stirring clasps and drifted, then clattered on klompen to the cobblestones.

Gormglaith was now chatted up by dozens of scollagyn and shees. Many said they'd known Flann at Blairie, others recalled Geileis, Giorsal and Enid from clannin school or pailtfylgjic. Indeed, Gormglaith had already met some of these girls, mostly with Grainne at the sprawling hilltop house overlooking parks and faaies on the banks of the Running river in Kin Dails where her shenn clannined. Raoghnailt and Blodwen clopped up and in wry giggles, bidding Gormglaith merry flurt and fettle nest, pulled her off.

Gormglaith whispered singsong by red dauwed hair, "Uhm, Raoghnailt... I mean, this is bodeful as fuck... so why am I feelin' so fleet?"

"Aye," sighed Raoghnailt. "Last time I felt this skittish was goin' to meet Blodwen's folks in Newhaven last year."

"How'd it go?"

"'twas thrilling," said Blodwen, slicing in.

In swirling mist the two clannin girls took Raoghnailt hand in hand between them and walked towards a brightly lit dumpling kitchen called yn Teaystag where the golden yellow ghost of a wheat sheaf cast its glow on flurters at boards strewn with loose flowers. Inside, strips of blue and yellow light streaked across copper and blond wood as girls gabbed, latched, mingled and pulled.

After they gathered dishes at a shelf littered with flurty fare watched over by copper kitchen robots, Blodwen cast but a dimpled smirk as she tugged Gormglaith to a seat between Morigan and Rathyen. Cheeks were kissed and Gormglaith happened a glance at Morigan's nipples which were scammeled and wet with reddened brims. The henge twin grinned from a corner of her mouth, slouched waggishly and held out lanky arms to Gormglaith who shyly dipped her head to be cradled in them. All hushed as she drew, hands held lightly below at either side of the Snotrian wrap across Morigan's ribs, straw thatch quivering. Then came aws and ahs when they shared a limby and clanninish hug. As gabs and gollop anewed the twin nodded towards a stemmed silver gobel shaped like a half open tulip, worn, rather beat and upended in front of them.

"In a while I guess Rathyen'll flip it and we'll hear a frightful yodelin' feish!"

Gormglaith glommed onto it.

"Hey Morigan, that looks like the Newhaven tulip."

Morigan gazed too as she knitted eyebrows and scratched the back of her head through ranting honey blond locks.

"Yeah, dudnit."

Gillian rushed by in a breathless gaggle before flocks of girls who came and went with heaped dishes, flurting to the cloppish clatter of klompen. Meanwhile Raoghnailt and Blodwen were hemmed by a skein of scollagyn as gossip of their swoop into things wove through the droves.

Rathyen flipped the silver tulip and everyone stood up in clumps as four clanniners walked through the doors to loud gasps, shrieks and clapping, their rainbow brindled hair whisking taut, thewish bottoms sheathed within harshly washed out, much rumpled dark grey longstockings beneath black linen cutty sarks, trim, unbedecked and collarless.

"Docking flurts, Gormglaith," said Raoghnailt, "it's the Gumm Bats!"

Clopping in big and clunky, heavily scuffed black klompen they threw themselves together in a loose row, facing Gormglaith with sullen stares and darkly blued lips. Then one of them walked straight for her, stopping so close the bighty fronts of their klompen clacked loudly together. Each girl's eyes widened, kindled and locked when the Gumm sister reached into the banshee's cutty sark, both hands settling on clarsach ribs. Raising a canny red eyebrow, she shrugged, leaned in and latched. Gormglaith screeched as the flurt gathering answered with screaming applause. Clawing her hands into pink, blue, red, green, yellow and orange locks, she tugged the yodeler's head steadfastly tighter to her chest and looked on high, blinking wide watery blue lake eyes and biting her lower lip all the while. When at last the two let go of each other Gormglaith staggered backwards into Raoghnailt and Morigan's arms under another wave of gasps.

"Merry flurt, huh?" the yodeler put with a wink as she spun about to saunter cloppingly back to her sisters, bumping one on the shoulder as she took her spot in the row with thoroughly ruffled, thick rainbow hair and a smirk.

"Oh Gormglaith," sobbed Raoghnailt as cheers and clapping mingled again, "wouldst thou forsake me after all? They've taken thee for a lass!"

"Or would in a heartbeat," Morigan said with a wry smile, smacking hands together herself.

"Likely so but that was for Hanalin, my little henge maedchen," put Rathyen, stirring sundry looks from all along with a puzzled one from Gormglaith, still catching her breath.

The Gumm Bats began their feish with a rather bewitching take on the West meads yodel Elm leaves. Next was an edgily spellbinding weave of Shela Telyn's Fifth braid, wontedly heard at plight flurts but not like the Gumms spun it that afternoon. Morigan and Raoghnailt gripped Gormglaith's bony hands. Rathyen wiped an eye and shook her head as the four yodelers grinned (though some might say sneered) to weepy hand claps. Screams and pog blown by thrusted tongues followed the Gumm Bats as they made fast for the way out. The witch kissed sparkly tears streaming down Gormglaith's face and whispered,

"See Gillian."

Gormglaith, sniffling and wiping cheeks with her palms, smiled. The lekker kin had hand to mouth and her eyes were truly wet.

"Yep," said Blodwen, starry eyed and lapping Raoghnailt's damp cheeks, "that blew away the cobwebs."

Meanwhile the ash haired clanniner from Tongue, with wooden klompen clopping, came over to Gormglaith and held out a skeletal hand.

"Hi Gormglaith, I'm Fwenhwyfer Fellstone!" she said, words spilling forth. "My sisters are too shy to meet thee but they want to say we're all so thrilled... and know we can reckon on thee!" she put with a nod, wafting to Morfyd and leaving Gormglaith with a puffy eyed, wordless grin stuck on her face as five gawky shees walked up stiffly to gape moodily at her. Wearing black, flued longstockings and cutty sarks, each had a neat little tab of white cloth dangling between her thighs.

"Hey...!" said Gormglaith, still brushing away tears.

"Hey!" they answered in choppy togetherness.

"So... uhm, where're y'all from?"

"The Goile," said a shee with limp chin length blond hair. "Don't mind us, we're only a flock of hex hags," she sighed, putting forth a warm, moist hand. "I'm Gwerfyl."

"Oh. So... whatd'st thou think of Skeinbanden's wabbits?"

The shees swapped smirks. Gwerfyl crinkled her nose.

"Gritch."

They giggled.

"Gwerf's the whist one," said a lanky shee with big ears poking from short ginger hair.

"Look," said a pithy, flaxen shee with two thick braids tied off in floppy black bows, "they're geef. Skeinbanden grepped... and scrozzled. 'k?"

"Dost thou gweep?!" asked Gwerfyl.

A narrow door cracked slowly open as Raoghnailt stuck her head out to peer left and right. Under the echo of flurt noises she, Gormglaith and Blodwen crept, then dashed through an empty gwli and darted through high grass to a slate path behind yn Teaystag's gleaming, glassy kitchen. After walking by the low bluestone barrows of Wrath teach they broke from the fog on a windblown heather downs. The Minch loomed blue ahead.

This walkway met up with the thorpe lane and the three rambling maegden soon came to seaside Sandwood, a gale blown cluster of crofts, their many-hued flagstone walls half sunken in the peat and set with gormish, thick blue green paned windows. Three screeching moppets played with a fluorescing pink jump rope by a sled sized boulder of greywacke scrawled up with moppet runes and drawings in coloured chalk. A taller one with cropped red hair, arms held straight down at her sides and skipping nimbly, sang the words for Magpie reeling as her two friends twirled the braided rope in a fast blur, over and under.

One for sorrow
Two for mirth
Three for plighting
Four for a birth
Five for freayll
Six forlorn
Seven for a witch
I can tell thee no more

"There are lots of yarns about magpies," put Blodwen as they strolled by, "but none are too helpful, since they're not the ones magpies know."

As song and squeals looped and faded into roaring surf they walked some ways along a trampled grass path through a breezy cliffside stand of yellow blossomed, thorny broom.

"Y'ever play, Gormglaith?" sang Blodwen, sandy hair flapping in the salted gale.

"Play what?"

"Laik about is all, like, for the fun of it... thrills, without worry or heed."

Gormglaith threw a glance.

"I mean it's not even as if thou'st taken thine eyes off me since before we got up," said the faaish scollagyn, wooden klompen smunching upon dry grass. "Forever Findabair. Wretched Findabair. I think th'art wanton."

"No way!"

"Blodwen!"

"Stay out of this a tick, ok Rag? ...Yes way!" she shouted, tamping to a halt. "What dost thou want?"

"Blodwen?!"

"There! Thou didst it again! It drives me east when thou dost that! Why dostn't thou say something instead of standing there gawping like some maedchen thrall from the sticks?"

"Because I am a maed..."

"Codswallop! For a tongue witch thine is so too tied!"

Raoghnailt burst into laughter, quickly slapping a hand to her mouth.

"...Whatever," said Blodwen, hands on pillywiggin hips, eyes flaring. "Mistletoe doesn't grow on elms and lilies don't flower from broom. What's it all about, then?"

"To have a walk without gettin' ragged on, for starters..."

"Beetle bones! What dost thou want?"

"How 'bout lettin' me be on my flurt, ok Blodwen?" beseeched Gormglaith, splaying her hands with a hopeful nod.

"We ditched thy flurt, remember?"

"Why dostn't thou go jump off a cliff then, if it nettles thee so?"

"Maybe I will! Is that what thou wantst?"

"Don't be a goop."

"Oh, gob me," sneered Blodwen, looking out across the ocean. Thunder crackled and rumbled from afar. Gormglaith scythed a wicked grin, then her knees gave out and Blodwen wove hands into straw thatch as she cast Raoghnailt a thin lipped and dimpled smirk, sandy hair flying whilst yellow broom blossoms swayed in thorny waves about them, misty moors before fog drenched, purple heathered hills with a brooding blue Minch stirring fast below.

Soon enough, singing shouty rundles of Magpie reeling they skipped onward to the path's end and through a narrow cut in the cliff made by a brook, clattered down a flight of steps, each marked by two true blue, rumpled glass swatches set flush and brightly underlit in the slate, to land on a sweeping beach of pinkish white sand where waves pounded big boulders tossed here and there at the water's edge.

"Neach beach," said Raoghnailt, "...thrilling for luzz ball, moonrises too."

"Tide's aflowin'," said Blodwen.

Some thirty yards before high cliffs of dark purple sandstone they came to a rise of rubble whereupon sat a sleek white slushstone croft with a pitched blue tile roof. Its weathered and heavy sky blue door bore bane runes:

Inside it was like any cozy beach croft, with snug bolstered settles and half a dozen boards, each bearing a small, neach lamp spewing colours. The floor was flat wood planking laid loose over smooth slushstone and the whitewashed walls carried many banners and casts, shelves thick with sundry, weird old things, cloth bound books and sea shells. Leaned in a tidy row were two dozen bright air-weight surfboards.

They were greeted by a towheaded and freckled girl in blue grey longstockings and dark indigo Frisian klompen set with feldstone half moons. She had big wrinkly brims and a startled look on her face.

"Hey Braith!" Raoghnailt sang breezily.

"Hey Raoghnailt! Blodwen... what's the wyrd? Gormglaith!" put Braith, holding out a hand and sweeping back elbow length tow hair with the other. "I saw thee on the thorpestone! Merry flurt!" she said, her gaze falling pithily to the banshee's knees, wherewith all glances followed.

Gormglaith bent down and brushed stiff flecks of dry grass from the rimpled linen weave as Blodwen cast doe eyes rafter-ward, fingers clasped carelessly before her flue. Braith smiled chalkenly, to the scribble of Raoghnailt's smirk.

"So... would y'all like some coffee or what?"

"Brownies!" they shouted together.

By hazy light they sat in a bay window looking onto the beach and blue Keayn sheear blending seamlessly with misty, moody sky.

"Spells!" Raoghnailt said moppishly, chin in hands. "xⁿ + yⁿ = zⁿ!"

"aⁿ + bⁿ = cⁿ..." Gormglaith answered dodgily.

"yⁿ = x (x - aⁿ) (x + bⁿ)," sighed Raoghnailt, showing sets with deft forefingers to groans and giggles.

Blodwen nodded towards a wanly blinking, somehow gripping pinkish light high in the murky haze a league north.

"It's the lighthouse on Wrath ness," she said, munching a brownie.

"Cailin Skip..." Gormglaith put amid gollops, "and the northwestern evermost of Scotland. A thousand years ago Cailin took a stroll up there with some friends, wandered off alone into the haze and was never seen again. She likely walked straight off the cliff but they say a gale blowing across those grasses in a thick fog can sound like the wails of someone beseeching to be found. Have you ever heard it?"

"A few times..." said Raoghnailt, gazing out the bay window into the gloom, "but it's ok if you stay by the bye."

"I want to walk that lane in the fog," Gormglaith sighed dreamily, chin in hands.

"Thou wilt," said Blodwen, sweeping brownie crumbs into a small mound with her hands.

Bairrfhionn rushed in, red locks all but wild wohrls.

"I found you!" she said, chasing breaths, hair wafting down to her sides.

"How thrilling," mumbled Gormglaith, yawing her head back towards the window.

"What are you doing here?!" she asked.

"Eatin' spog 'n swappin' spells, I'd glark," Raoghnailt said with a shrug.

"You left without telling anybody."

Gormglaith cast a lasered stare.

"So?"

"Skip it," sighed Bairrfhionn. "Come on," she said, nodding towards the door with a loopy grin. "Let's go make some Eachdraidh."

"That's it? That's all thou came'st here for?"

Bairrfhionn gaped as Raoghnailt leaned back, flipping her hair.

"Rather," said Blodwen, licking crumbs from nimble fingers. "Wrath henge is so chilling on a Tiweseve."

"Braith..." sighed Gormglaith as she and Bairrfhionn plodded back across the pink sand.

"Sandwood girl," said Bairrfhionn, "clanniner... surfer!"

Gormglaith gazed across the misted pink beach thrown between soaring purple cliffs and steadily crashing surf.

"So Bairrfhionn here we are, plighted for two nights and thou'rt already stalking me. Is it meant to be thrilling or what."

Bairrfhionn grabbed Gormglaith by the waist, tugged her close and seized a clump of straw blond thatch, draping her head back.

"Gasping," said Gormglaith.

Bairrfhionn's hair flew crimson in the wailing wind.

"The very sight of thee," Gormglaith put with burning eyes, "makes me think of her and my wantoness. I could have grasped and carried a daughter with Findabair and Elowen but plighted a barren plait with thee and I may never get over it."

A storm of maple red hair streamed across shining popinjay eyes and a wraithen smile when a huge wave slammed into the boulders, shattering in froth and spray as the banshees hurtled into a yawning kiss. Gormglaith threw her arms about Bairrfhionn's neck, nuzzled into her hair, breathed deep and wept.

A silvery sled skirted left onto the coastal lane, then glid through a mead of rippling grass and breck browsed by black and white spotted oxen who watched it whisk by in a light fog. The Minch spread blue and blurred beyond the purple cliffs, plait to Gormglaith's whist as Bairrfhionn sat with willowish limbs akimbo, staring out the sled's sloping window. The pink light of Wrath ness, much closer now, flashed true and spellbinding through the white spray. In a hough by the crook of a burbling, stony brook they glimpsed a flax haired clanniner in thrallish grey longstockings and thrash wooden klompen, scaanishly entwined with a tall s-shaped beryllium scythe, its keen blade a gleaming grin as high fall grass tumbled sleepily before the steady swing of her slackening gait.

"So did Seosaimhthin eat a flower, too?"

"There's talk..." said Bairrfhionn, "of a lily. They say she went to the moon henge at Rand gardens in Kin Dails, put a finger down her throat and threw it up."

Gormglaith stared at Bairrfhionn, then flopped her head back against the seat with a sigh, straw thatch dropping upon her face.

"...I can grip..."

"...Where is she now?"

"That's the puzzle! Some say she ran off to Oregon and pledged a teach. All we truly know is she never did get henged and doesn't want to be found. Anyway since th'art asking, lately I've heard a whisper she's been seen in Follym downs but, as it happens, nearly every clannin anywhere has some shenn by the wombs who shared her and Raoghnailt's 3245bn7 braid and what's more, lots of bairn are still brought in with it, nigh unto all any fettle will allow, even for the most known and steadfast of tides. So Raoghnailt and Seosaimhthin have hundreds of twins and we don't know yet if it's her, as if anyone could believe otherwise."

They sped across the moor, climbing by a narrow lane between close stone walls holding back waves of deep green peat and after a furlong found two more silvery sleds snug by a small white croft and a narrow gate, then went on foot along a foggy slate path hemmed by girl-tall bladed grasses. The clops of their klompen mingled with the muffled echoes of ocean waves trundling against stone when a rush of wind gathered chill upon breck and faiyr like the keen of a weeping maegden.

Gormglaith cast a rattled glance at the freayll witch walking beside her in long legged strides.

Bairrfhionn flashed her lopsided smile.

"Cailin says 'Hi!'"

They soon came to a thigh high wall of inlaid greywacke and white Clash carnoch granite carved with fylgjic runes. Wrath ness henge slung low in the mist.

Waiting for them at the dark narrow slab of a doorway were Gwenhwyfer and Gillian standing wan like wraiths, coolly holding hands, hair fluttering across still cheeks, staring out from deeply sunken and bright eyes.

Gillian opened her arms and they took hands.

"Hey y'all," she said. "Is this a kick or what?"

"The four banshees of Wrath ness..." said Gormglaith.

"...in clannin at last!" put Gwenhwyfer.

They pulled together in edgy pog.

Inside, the henge was cool, dry and so whist one could hear the blood rush through her head. Gormglaith drew a breath. The whole far side was a sparkling sheet of sheer corundum beyond which windblown purple heath spread far and wide below into a silver haze over the kyle of Durness. Morigan, Rathyen, Morfyd and Tegan stood by steadfastly.

More than twelve dozen names were cut on pink granite slabs, in runes an inch high. Rathyen cast a straight arm.

Gormglaith got dimpled smiles from her plighted sisters. Her eyes seemed to linger on Devon Rand's name at the last under sixteen, then settled back on her own, so freshly lasered.

They filed down a steep stairwell, hand in hand with hearts thumpering hard enough to be heard, through a narrow chute into the deep barrow opened only for Samhains, plights and scaanings. Its low hall was lit as if by moonbeams, dry, cool, dustless and slightly breezy with shifting smells of cypress, juniper, old linens and natron. Here, on wide starry bluestone ledges at either side were more than twelve dozen mummies, each so smoothly wrapped in close strips of white or flaxen linen with swatched and hued bands about waists, lower thighs and shins, much like what had been left by Fidach Noichrothach. Many lay in bunches of fondness, some having done for thousands of years and whilst as wonted none bore any rune or hint of a name this stopped neither wanton guesses nor giggling.

Tegan eyed a bright, newish looking mummy with slanting, minch-blue and yellow stripes, then lankenly climbed up to straddle and cuddle it, sealing her lips over where a mouth might be. Pulling up with a grin, she rapped her knuckles thrice on its tummy between her thighs, which sounded like knocks on a thick bone board.

"With all these glassy rosins in twenty layers of strips," she said, "it's hard and tight as flyer skin, never mind what's inside's not much to worry about."

"Dost thou know who it was...?" asked Gormglaith, brow knitted.

"Mum's the word!" Tegan answered, winking.

"When I go," said Gwenhwyfer, "and they freeze dry 'n zap what's left of me into chalky sticks, they could put it... here!"

The banshee leapt onto a ledge between two other mummies with skeinishly woven bands, crossed reedy arms upon her figgen chest, trundled and swayed cozily, then threw her hands out towards Gormglaith, smirking.

"So 'glaithikins... ever jump marrow in the barrow?"

After which they all shared kisses fast among the echoes of afliae.

Later the Sparkenbanes came outside to a slate stoep where a copper robot, its sleek skull, lanky frame and gait so wontedly hinting at girls' bones, brought heavy quartz tumblers. They sat facing each other on worn stone benches in a U, legs askew. Hair blustered in the wind and surf thundered against cliffs far below as Gormglaith, beside Gwenhwyfer, listened keenly with chin in hands, elbows on her knees.

"I was in the gwli by the garden flats," said Tegan, "leaning against the wall minding my own wyrd in a spog bit of shadow when these two scollies came and started talking like it was a hookup or something. Anyway I went with it. One of them was such a flirt, so pulling! She kept talking about her splits and how she'd breeze her boards like, slick as tears. So I asked why she didn't go for more rainbows. I wanna have fun, she said. Meanwhile the other'd gone way hush. At last she gets to asking, so, where dos'tha nest? Haethwyck, I told her and she said, how bash... so like, which one? Aspen, I said and she goes, oh wow... dreamy! Th'art nesties with Gillian... and Tegan then, huh? So is she bleeding swotbait like they say? And I said, feeps! Is that what they say about me? Heh heh. Much later she said, by the way, uhm, hey, I was only ranting about the breezing. That's ok, I told her. It's eggy, knowing thou canst breeze a little if thou wantst," said Tegan, gazing at Gormglaith, who squirmed on the bench, deep purple heath billowing behind her in the dusk.

"I want to be a scollagyn for the whole throw."

"I think it's cool..." Gillian put shyly, "...way."

"If that's thy braid my bat," said Rathyen with the wave of a scaanish hand, "it's our plait."

In the west, a sky fraught with broken clouds streaking off the Minch had gone ruddy orange. Looking straight up they could see stars against dark blue whilst a waning moon climbed in the east and the stoep was swept with wide flashes of light which cast eyes and wan linen in a throbsome glow.

Nigh over their heads the beacon at Wrath ness rundled ruthless and pink upon the eight plighted sisters as they stood in a ring, held hands and reeled slowly for a time, staring at each others' faces and they wept once, shrieked twice and drew together thrice in gathered pog.