efflorescence
The high heat of summer blankets the forest, and the leaves on the trees create a sea of deepest green. Golden sunlight spills down and illuminates the flowers and smaller plants that live along the ground.
"So, Brendan, why don't you come live here?"
She asks out of curiosity, without too much thought beyond 'how can you stand living behind such walls, cut off from the beauty of the Forest?' (Although maybe he could manage to live in the trees, even if he would need a lot of her help.)
Brendan answers it seriously enough, brushing his hands through the snowdrops he's just finished drawing. "I-I could never leave Kells, not forever. The brothers, Aidan, Uncle-I would miss them too much."
...She understands that.
"And I'd never get to see the Book finished."
Maybe not that, maybe not yet, but the unfinished darkness-into-light Book is what brought him to her in the first place.
Then he asks to see something new to draw, and the thought is left behind.
000
Concealed under a tangle of branches, Aisling watches the swirling smoke rise into the sky.
Flames lick up the shattered wall, reaching beyond the cracks as if trying to engulf the trees. The land around Kells has been clear for a long time, however, and the only thing that touches and will ever touch the Forest now is the dancing red light.
The Northmen with their axes and swords have done little beyond cut a path through the forest. The people of Kells took trees and quarried stone left undisturbed for longer than even she could remember for the walls. Those who fled to the abbey took nuts and berries and hunted her animals.
She could leave.
There is a sound, a mix of splintering and screaming that stops as suddenly as it starts. The Northmen are swarming over the gates; not even little Pangur could flee through there.
She stands up and shakes the snow from her broad shoulders. Her breath stains the air white, and she calls to her wolves.
000
After Brendan kills Crom-after Brendan watches the serpent eat itself through the madness of blindness and pain-he notices things in the trees.
He hears words. Not Aisling's voice, but many, some like hers and some like nothing he's ever known before. He can't hear precisely what they say, but he knows the words they speak are of safety and protection.
He feels the trees themselves, living so slowly, and he feels the quick buzz of insects that won't live for more than a week.
He feels the Forest as a collective, its life from the past, and now, and how it will go on as it always has but somehow better.
He feels Life itself.
(Brendan took the poison of Crom Cruach from the forest, and in consequence, he became a part of it.)
Holding a snowdrop in his hand, he finds his way home without Aisling leading him for the first time.
000
The wolves charge through the living barricade with ease, taking the Northmen entirely off guard. She doesn't stop to count the kills, racing into the abbey with the rest of the pack spreading out.
The wall is broken down in many places, enough for her and her wolves to escape. Easily.
She doesn't call up mist often; the forest can usually manage the amount it needs on its own. She's never done it in wolf form before, either. Perhaps that's why so much comes pouring over the walls, blinding the villagers and Vikings in an instant. (Her creeping nerves have nothing to do with it, she assures herself.)
The white wolf wanders on the edge of the huts, paws barely making prints in the snow. There are people there, trying to dig through burning sections with cries of pain and fear. The air is filled with the smell of burnt meat. Some finally break and run at the sight of her, but others keep even as she passes (nearly) close enough to touch.
At the tower, she sees charred remains of wood and embers where the steps once were. Muffled words and whimpers and sobbing flicker on the edge of her hearing, and then fade into-her ears flick-quiet prayers.
Brendan's voice is not among them.
She pulls the mist closer and goes on, past the broken cross and the toppled red obelisk of the Abbot. She's surprised when her fur doesn't even prickle at the first, and feels an odd satisfaction when she discovers the latter is still breathing.
There are screams of the people, crashes of the Vikings destroying things still searching for gold despite being partially blinded, crackling of flames, bellows and snarls of her wolves locked in battle. She barely hears the voice she's searching for.
"Uncle!"
She's at the ruin of the Scriptorium in an instant to see the old man-Aidan, she guesses from Brendan's chalk sketches and descriptions-try to tug him back into a haze of green smoke, only to freeze at the sight of her mist-wreathed form.
Three Vikings emerge from the scorched ruin.
Her wolves come at her call to kill them.
Aisling is distantly aware of Brendan slipping and hitting the snow, and of Aidan covering him with his body and cloak.
One of the bigger Northmen tries to swing a sword at her, so she leaps, clamping her teeth over its face. Strands of filthy beard work their way into her mouth and her claws scrabble against leather and metal armor as the giant body writhes to shake her off.
She lets go, and as it tries to regain footing, she launches herself again and tears out its jugular.
The other Northmen come to the aid of the ones that fell, and everything is a chaotic mess of black and silver and red, and the feeling of leather armor and flesh giving way between her jaws.
The people of Kells are still screaming and running and tripping over wounded (dead), but slowly, they realize that the Vikings aren't hunting them anymore.
Eventually she's greeted with the sense (not sight, as the mist still obscures nearly everything) of the remaining invaders retreating, stubbornly clinging to what bits of gold and silver they found.
The fire takes all that it can and extinguishes itself. Her wolves keep to the side, gorging themselves on the fallen Vikings.
Everything becomes quiet but for the crows, villagers lost in a haze of horror at what they had seen.
Aidan slowly stands, and Brendan peers out from under the cloak to look at her.
She howls long and loud to send her wolves away. They take final bites and drag scraps of the Viking meat away through the empty gate space and through spaces where the stones have cracked apart completely.
"Aisling?" Brendan breathes, so quiet that only her keen ears could catch it.
She stares back at him, twitching her head up and down just once, then leaps to the edge of the wall to balance herself on steadier stones.
The old-young pair watch her with wide eyes until Brendan flinches and twists around.
"Uncle!"
He staggers away from the support of Aidan's arms and falls. "Uncle!" he cries again, then struggles to stand. When his ankle fails to support his weight, he falls forward-
-and she's there, holding him up.
His breath ruffles her fur as they stand still for several heartbeats.
She takes a step forward, and he instinctively clings to her side. She takes another, and he begins to work with her.
It's slow going, enough that Aidan can catch up. Acknowledging her warning look, he carefully keeps himself on Brendan's other side.
Step. Step. Stumble. Stand up, Brendan. Step.
The fog hides most things, but the color the Abbot wears still stands out.
"Brendan," she hears, a quiet rasp filled with pain and fear.
Step. Step. Stumble, and he lands on the snow next to the fallen Abbot. "Uncle," he chokes out and reaches for him.
She turns to leave, and does this time.
She looks back just once, and sees Brendan holding his Uncle's hand, Aidan crouching to help, and more than crimson robes pooling over the snow.
The mist hides her, but Brendan's damp and grateful blue eyes still somehow meet her green.
000
All in all, the attack was less than an hour.
Less than an hour to destroy the wall, most of the huts, and the scraps of security the people of Kells once had.
Some villagers stay in huts; some survived through the dampening effect of the mist, but most hole up within the walls of the Tower. Brendan finds himself going through Kells again, but instead of delivering plans, he helps his brothers divide what food and blankets that can be spared. And it's more hobbling than running, this time. He needs to use a wooden crutch Brother Square made with some scaffolding.
It's strange, looking from the top of the tower and seeing nothing but ashes where there had been so much. His eyes prickle at the sight, but he doesn't cry. He nearly did when he helped Uncle to his feet, taking in the arrow jutting out and the wound from the backstab, but even then he didn't quite.
Everything feels numb.
Uncle keeps Brendan close to him most of the time. Tang and Leonardo are keeping an eye on the Abbot, giving him herbs and bandages to help him heal. He's confined to the top of the tower.
Aidan is in the Tower too, but Brendan doesn't see him much. He seems to be quietly avoiding Cellach.
As Brendan wakes with a gasp from a nightmare of sharp red flames from a thatch roof falling in, black smoke tunneling into his lungs, he thinks he understands why.
000
Aisling runs through the trees, feels life where it hides, but there's something wrong. Missing.
(For the first time in more years than Brendan has been alive, she feels lonely.)
She stays in the Forest. Somehow, though, her paws and hooves and feet always lead her in sight of the shattered Wall.
000
It takes a week before Brendan stumbles out of Kells.
And he doesn't mean to, really. He's digging through the ashes of the Scriptorium, finding ink pots and undamaged tools, and then his leg buckles and he's sobbing so hard he thinks he might be sick right there.
He wants everything to be back to normal. He wants to go home, but he is home.
The smell of ashes comes back in full force after he's had so long to get used to it, and he stumbles to his feet. He ignores the startled cries of the Brothers and then everything blurs and he's in the forest, chest heaving and crutch trembling in his grip without any memory of leaving.
He doesn't know how long he stays there, watching snow gently fall and coat the bare branches of the trees. When he finally turns, Aisling is standing there, still as he's ever seen her.
"Aisling! Y-you're-alright-you're not a wolf!" He babbles on about how he thought Crom Cruch did something to her and how very sorry he was and how he's missed her and thank you, thank you for saving us, and then his voice fails him.
He stands beside her and together they just breathe.
He tries again. "You saved Aidan. And me. And Uncle, and my brothers, and so many villagers-and-" He's crying again. He isn't sure why. "Thank you. Thank you."
"Brendan, it's alright," she says, looking alarmed. Her hand settles lightly on his shaking shoulder. "I know I saved them." Pause. "You're welcome."
His mind is blank and his face is freezing, and thoughts he's suppressed for days spill out. "Brother Jacques died. So did Brother Friedrich."
She blinks at him, but it's like a dam broke inside his head. "Brother Assoua is blind in one eye from the fire. Brother Leonardo's hand was crushed by a Northman's foot. Even if it heals, he'll never write again. Brother Sergei-is sick. I think he's going to die too."
"That isn't my fault." She looks very nearly angry.
"No-I know it isn't, I didn't mean-I can't help them." He takes a shuddering breath. "I'm sorry. Uncle is so tired, Aisling, I've never seen him like this. Aidan is, too, and everyone, and I feel like Kells is dying anyway. I'm so glad it didn't burn, Aisling, I'm so glad you saved it, but-I'm scared." His voice falls. "I'm scared."
000
She remembers being scared. She remembers what it's like to see loved ones slowly dwindling, slowly fading until she was the only one left.
She remembers Mother falling. Sacrificing herself to save her daughter, the last of her people.
Looking at her best friend's tearstained face, she decides that she will not let Kells die.
"Winter is here, Brendan."
He swipes at his eyes and looks into her own.
"Winter is here, and Kells isn't dying. It's sleeping, like the forest is. That's all."
He almost smiles. "Really?"
"Really."
000
They meet at the edge of the Wall.
He gives her a basket late at night, and she returns it early in the morning filled with nuts and roots and a few wizened winter apples.
She is always herself, whether that means wolf or girl. He is sometimes himself, bright-eyed and happy to see her, but more often he's like an old man with tired eyes and a walking stick and the clinging stench of fear.
The air is always still and quiet and misty.
The forest sleeps.
Kells, unknowingly, waits.
000
I-I'm glad you're here.
...I'm glad you're here, too.
000
More than one person woke with coughs and sneezes, but they were only bad in the youngest of children and elderly. At first.
Brendan gets sick.
He lays in his Uncle's bed at his insistence, and before long he's sweating and shivering and coughing so hard he thinks his lungs will fly out.
Aidan finally comes back from below, rubs his back while the Abbot watches helplessly. Leonardo instructs Tang on how to make healing soups, but they barely help. Pangur presses herself against him to keep him warm.
Late afternoon the third day, he wakes and starts to scream.
"The roof is falling in! We're locked in! We need to run, we need to run or it'll get us-!"
The fever is bad enough to addle his mind, and all Cellach and Aidan can do is take turns holding him close and try to reassure him that he is safe. It doesn't always work.
That night, he manages to stagger to the window and open the shutters. He calls for Aisling as loudly as he can-which isn't very, how badly his voice has been damaged from his screams all day.
It takes Cellach all his strength to drag him back to the bed to rest. Aidan closes the shutters to try and keep out the cold.
They do not shut out the mist.
000
The white wolf stands at the base of the tower and howls.
There are stairs again, sturdier ones. She lays her front paws upon it.
She hears frightened whispers from inside, as well as behind her in some of the huts. The ones in the huts can't see her, though. She has brought the mist with her again.
After some time, someone opens the door.
It isn't Brendan or Aidan, as she expected, but the Abbot. He smells like pain and fear, and the look in his eyes is older than they are.
Like Brendan's.
She begins to climb the stairs.
He almost shuts the door in her face, but hesitates as she stops at the final step and looks up again.
"...Brendan," he starts slowly, staring intently at her as she perks up her ears, "called for Aisling."
She waits.
"You are Aisling?" Though his voice seems steady, she can hear a hint of shock twisting it into a question.
The wolf inclines her head.
There is another pause as he stares at her with old frightened-deer eyes.
The wind shifts the mist around her paws and into the tower. She does not move. Boundaries matter to her kind, but Brendan is in there. She will not leave until she is let in. If she must wait for days, then she will.
But she doesn't. The Abbot draws himself up-though he's not as tall as he seemed when she saw him working on the Wall, somehow-and steps back. "Come along."
With a soft click-click-click of her claws over wood, she does.
The people in the tower shift as far away from her as they can. Some pray she does not eat them. Some shoot the Abbot looks of deepest loathing.
None try to stop them.
Once, a little girl reaches out to run her hand through her fur. She lets the hand stay until her mother snatches her up and backs away. She feels oddly warm where it touched.
The Abbot breathes a small sigh of relief once they get to the top.
Brendan is wrapped in a purple blanket on the bed. Aidan sits next to him, head bowed and hands clasped together. He isn't praying, though.
Aisling stalks forward and stands on his other side.
000
Brendan dreams of Vikings with swords made of flames, and slicing through bright green trees like paper. He wants to scream, but the smoke in his lungs won't let him.
Uncle?
Aidan?
Aisling?
Aisling!
He runs through the burning trees after a smudge of white, far ahead.
Come on, Brendan. He hears her voice and his own voice are snowdrops beneath his feet. There are still flames eating through the trees, chasing him chasing her.
Come on, Brendan.
His skin feels burnt raw.
Come on, Brendan.
He finds her. That doesn't stop the burning.
Run!
His feet pump and her paws thunder, and somehow he's keeping up with her.
He hears her voice, even though her mouth is shut and wolves can't make words anyway, wake up Brendan wake up.
It's too hot, he's going to fall, he can't run anymore.
Then the flames quell, and the ground falls, and he's somehow alright.
000
The moonlight and cold is shut out, but she calls the mist again and it slips through the spaces between and under the shutters.
Aidan and the Abbot let out surprised cries, but she ignores them and leaps onto the bed, standing above Brendan and just barely avoiding knocking the old man to the floor. She drags the mist over herself and over Brendan, and she breathes them into his mouth, sharp teeth nearly touching his skin.
The fever breaks.
His eyes fly open.
This is, what? The fifth time I've saved your life?
He stares at her with an open mouth and then, weakly, begins to laugh.
000
He feels lightheaded, and he doesn't know how to process Uncle and Aidan and Aisling all together in one room. Not just in one room; they're all around him, Aisling stretched out on his left, Aidan and Uncle sitting to his right.
Aidan and Uncle are fussing. Aisling seems to be asleep. He promises he's okay a hundred times, but they keep pressing their hands to his forehead anyway.
He doesn't mind that much.
They're all still there around him when he falls back to sleep.
000
Aisling paces around the room as Aidan tucks Brendan in. The Abbot's eyes follow her.
She's torn between wanting to stay and wanting to run as fast to the forest as she can now that the crisis is over.
"After the fever breaks," the Abbot says slowly, "the ones who are sick recuperate quickly. Brendan will be fine." His voice breaks a little on the last word, but he smells honest.
She runs.
000
I'll see you soon, Brendan hears.
As he sleeps, Aidan and Cellach wonder why his mouth quirks up into a smile.
000
If I can't trust you to stay out of harm's way, you will have to stay here until you see sense!
"I don't know what sense is anymore," Cellach whispers to his nephew's sleeping form.
Aidan pretends not to hear.
They both look out the Tower window and watch the mists recede. There's nothing unsual to see after that, but they keep looking for a long time.
000
Aisling puts the nuts and edible roots in front of the gate, now. She lets herself be seen, too, but only by Brendan's brothers and the little girl and her mother, only a flicker of a shape on the edge of their vision. It's more than most have ever gotten.
It's not long before Brendan is much better. She leads him to the oak tree before turning into a girl again, for the Abbot was watching from the tower. Brendan looks surprised when she tells him.
"He let me leave," he says, marveling.
She shrugs. "He always should have." And now it isn't a problem.
000
Brendan listened to his uncle's lectures on the Wall and on the Northmen and how important safety was, of course, and Brendan told his uncle little things, like his nightmares of attack. Now, though, after the true attack, it feels like they've ran out of everything to talk about.
They don't bring up Aisling. In the daylight hours where they could hear the sound of the people and the surviving animals outside, it felt wrong. Only during the misty hours they could, perhaps, speak of her-but those are the times when Brendan is out the most.
His uncle apologizes once, haltlingly. "You were right," he says, head bowed over the piece of vellum from Brendan's drawing. Brendan doesn't know how to respond, so he doesn't. Cellach doesn't say anything after.
000
"Are you still scared?" Aisling asks.
Brendan looks at her for a long time before shaking his head.
"Good. Now, let's go see the stream-it's frozen over, and the ice looks beautiful. Hurry up!"
000
Late one winter night, the entirety of the abbey hears a little girl sing. Of beauty, of wakening, of spring and of life.
The sun dawns on a green Kells.