Tristan Treharne - The Tale of Two Tides

[Blissey]

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Hear me, and gaze upon the tale of a hero from Ainn Creige! His swelling misadventures, his rousing stories and bright fables, the carousing of his fingers across a lute, and his spirited, oh-so-chivalrous companions. At least that is the story I would like to write. I have mastered the ability to write an opening line, yes, but what comes after? A story of nobility? Of dancing blades and hope-filled twilights? A beast wrought from the Nine Hells, felled by the just hand of a loyal company? Imagination is already such a fickle thing. I feel as though I am a cat lured by an infinite ball of yarn, chasing endlessly until… Well, I’d rather not entertain the thought. Much empty parchment sits already gathering dust in my room, and the things I write of, and the songs I play are hollow. They lack the spirit that carries great stories and fervent notes. How would I know what a great hero would say in the face of defeat? How would I know what a lover would say were they to lose that which they cherish? All I know are the gray, breaking tides that crash into the even grayer shores of Ainn Creige. And yes, while my words sing like the melodies of morning birds, filled with bright colors that drip across an ocean of thought, they are monotonous, hence they are hollow. Words that are written only for the sake of being written, to escape into and feel as though I am beginning to understand who I am. You see, my parents are children of two tides, somehow harmoniously meeting in the middle. My father, Owain Treharne, comes from Caer Ghlann, and originally, northern Alaron. My mother, Alwena Gwynne Treharne, is a local here in Ainn Creige. The two were star-crossed lovers, having met at Bronwen’s Crossing some thirty years ago, and have been lovers ever since. Many don’t know, but Caer Ghlann and Ainn Creige are of two different clans with a deep seated rivalry that many don’t even seem to understand. Now, my father is all but estranged from his brutish family back in Caer Ghlann. One would think that love triumphs over all, and they surely think so, but what of the children they bore? Here I sit, cast between their two tides like a fish on a line, flailing helplessly. I am eyed in town, and rumors stir like toxic poison of my father’s heritage. They are happy, regardless, but I will resent them for it, naively, simply because I have nothing better to do here than to grovel. Yes, reader, this is the story you should anticipate; the groveling of a young man lost between two tides and two peoples. There will be no danger, no excitement, no wonder or woe, just the ramblings and doldrums of my written flatulence put on display. Turn back before I bore you to death, but don’t say I did not warn you. So I say again; hear me, and woe in despair upon this tale of a hero from Ainn Creige.​

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[Blissey]

I

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“There will be no danger, no excitement, no wonder or woe, just the ramblings and doldrums of my written flatulence put on display,” Caomhainn looks at me out of the corner of his eyes, resting the parchment of my writing back onto the mossy rock he sits on, “Okay. Interesting.”
I wait, and I wait. But that was all he supplied. There is no greater wound than someone calling your work ‘interesting’, let alone a new project you, initially, had so much passion for. His cursive tones in Ffolk Illuskan didn’t mend my wound, in fact, it made it worse.
“Interesting, but…?” I wait, in hopes that his ‘interesting’ evolves into something more than just an insult to my person.
“You write too crudely, Tristan. There is beauty in your honesty, yes, but in my experience such crude honesty is quite often met with disdain. Not many people want to hear, let alone read a truth they cannot empathize with or understand. This is your truth, yes, but I do not think there is no excitement in your life, no wonder or woe. You sell yourself short, lad.”
“So, I shouldn’t write about myself?”
“Of course you should, Tristan. Every great writer imparts a piece of themselves into their work, whether or not they are aware of it. But the key is to make your truth carry not just your experience of it, but the experience of all that feel it too - that is when your work ascends and becomes, well, compelling.”
“Then I’m not really writing about myself, am I?”
“Our experiences, Tristan, aren’t always our own. We share them with the world and the people around us. That is why music and literature move us so. In dulcet notes we share our joy with others, with the musician and the room. In poignant words, sentences and poetry we share our sadness through the relationship of the writer and the reader.”
“Okay,” I ponder for a moment, “So, you don’t enjoy it because you do not understand it, correct?”
“Yet, I do not understand it yet,” Caomhainn grinned then, that sly foxlike smile, “This is just one paragraph. Expand it and let it breathe, bring it to me and perhaps I will tease you more, or perhaps I shall feel your words at the depth to which you feel your truth.”
I scoff at him, my face goes flush with red - anger and embarrassment. How easily he has roped me, time and time again, into these traps. Though, in a way, that has been what has made Caomhainn one of the best skalds and teachers on the island, perhaps even, and in my not-so-biased opinion, the entirety of the Moonshaes. But there’s an inkling in me that suspects Caomhainn simply doesn’t like my work because I talk about my heritage, my father’s Northlander blood. How can I make people feel my truth when, even if it is compelling, they still won’t listen to or read it? I put those thoughts aside for now as Caomhainn and I settle into the rest of the lesson with quiet lute-playing. I show him my new plucking techniques, and even a small song I wrote over the last ten-day. He enjoyed it, and said it had flair. Maybe he was making it up to me after brutally tearing me down, I never really knew with this man. After all, he always expressed the importance of being able to take criticism, especially since my journey to Murann starts at the end of this month when I’m old enough to be considered a ‘man’. He tells me Amnian's are quite brutal with their words. I venture home when the lesson came to a close, balancing along the mossy stone fences teetering off the sheer face of Cionaodh’s coast. That long, gray jagged end that was smoothed by endless tides of crashing waves never seemed to scare me.
“Oi! North-dog!”
My boot caught my lace, and I tumble forward. It's at that point my personal relationship with the jagged rocks below soured. I clung, almost hugging the cobbled fence with both my arms and legs. My chin ached, bloodied as it rocked against the stone. I glance up, seeing then the pudgy, pasty white faces of Rhobert Bethell, the local knucklehead and his cronies laughing at my display of prodigious dexterity.
“Took a bit of a fall, did we?” Rhobert gargles his words past his thick cheeks, “You walk like ‘em too. All Northlanders walk like wounded pups?”
I dust myself off and stand up, dabbing my fingers to the blood that trickles from my chin. Rhobert, his cronies and I go way back when our words only amounted to baby drool. But evidently that was not enough of a basis to found life-long friendships.
“Yes, Rhobert, I slipped. And no, slipping is not exclusive to Northlanders.”
“Heard you were leaving the island, hopefully for good, huh?”
I swore for a moment I could sense a tinge of sadness in Rhobert’s voice. For all his nastiness, Rhobert would never actually lay a hand on me, unlike his cronies. He egged them on, sure, and stood by and watched, but throughout all of it he always seemed to be the one whose heart was never quite in it – especially now with my leaving. His cronies laughed along, anyway, sneering all the same.
“I’ll be going to Amn, yes. I’ll miss you all dearly,” I sneered back.
“Go on Rhobert, get him! Smack that smart mouth off him!” One of his cronies yelp from the background.
I met his eyes then, and watched what he’d do. Rhobert was slow, I could just as easily just step out of the way when he came at me, or push him and watch him fall over like a sack of potatoes, yet once his cronies stepped in I could only take it. But he wasn’t the one leaving the island, he’d be stuck here working for his father for the rest of his life. Not hitting me here would be social suicide for him, and would threaten what fragile hierarchy they’d established amongst themselves. All the while, in the back of my head I felt a rage building; I could take it all out on the boy that made every day spent on this Godsforsaken island misery. I could get one or two good hits in before his cronies piled on and lay into me.
Rhobert looked to each of his cronies, they push him over to me, closing the gap. They cheer him on, like it's some sort of sport. He scrunches up that piggish snout of his, casting, what I felt, an apologetic frown in my direction. I relent then, and doing my best to make it seem like Rhobert really lays into me. He thrust into my gut, and I felt the wind kicked out of me, then he pushes me against the cobbled fence and spikes my nose with his fist. It was all searing white for a moment, pain that I welcome so freely. I clasp my hand around my leaking nose, it felt crooked as I stared up into that sad, lonely piglet face of his. The cronies cheered, of course, louder and more rambunctious than usual. But Rhobert didn’t celebrate.
“Thank you,” He mutters quietly under his breath as I rose from the cobbled fence. One by one they scatter with parting, slandering remarks, until Rhobert stands alone. He waves them off to continue walking, and he and I stand with the wind along the coast cutting into our silence.
“You got my nose pretty good,” I manage to laugh, but Rhobert didn’t find it funny.
“You deserve it, speaking all smart-like and that.”
“Maybe,” I concede, “Do you actually hate Northmen, Rhobert?” He stands silent for a long moment, our eyes locked.
“Yeah, ‘course,” He scoffs, meekly.
“Have you ever met any besides my Father?”
Silence, again. He ponders for a good long moment, but I didn’t want to push the topic. I knew who Rhobert’s father was, the local drunk. His mother is quite close with mine, too, and I overhear that sometimes he comes home drunk – not the pleasant kind, but the violent kind. It took me a long time to understand why Rhobert did what he did to me. He regurgitated what his father spewed, and took it out on me because that’s all he could see; a smaller, less scarier version of the man that came home piss-drunk every night. Maybe today he saw something different, just as I had. Maybe the next time I come back home, I may have a friend to come back home to.
“I’ll see you around, Rhobert.”
“Yeah, alright,” I wander off, and hear another half-hearted murmur, “See you around, dog.”​

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[Blissey]

II

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Mama dabs a patch of beige cloth along my ‘battle scars’, lapping up the blood that trickles from my chin and nostrils. She has a softer look about her today, softer than usual. It wasn’t the first time she’s had to clean me up and mend me. Her kind brown eyes catch me staring, ponderously, and an even kinder smile follows suit. She doesn’t prod at the questions behind my eyes, but I can't see she wears my worries all the same. She’s never one for words, but mama has always been known to say what needs to be said and let it be at that. Perhaps that comes from her teachings from the Earthmother, a reverence for nature has tamed her younger, more wild spirit into cultivating not just the fields but a happy home too. I’d say she’s been successful at both.
“There, all done, sweet-thing,” She combs my orange locks back, squeezing my cheek. I don’t protest, my days of being embarrassed about mama’s affection are long gone now.
“Handsome as ever, though the blood does make you look a little more roguish,” She chirps with a melodic laugh to follow, and I laugh too.
“Mama,” I call to her as she trails across our living room, dousing the rag in some water, “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything, as long as it’s not for another new lute. You’ve worn old Woodbird down to his last wits, don’t think he’d be fit to make you a new one.”
“Did you ever…?” I stop for a moment, finding my footing in my words tentatively, “Did you ever have any worries about marrying Pa? About his heritage, and where he came from?”
Ma stops what she’s doing, and I hear the blood-soaked cloth gently laid down onto the counter. She stares out the window for a long moment, till she turns, an aching smile on her face that wishes to frown.
“Of course I did, sweetheart. Your father was, and will always be, an outsider. Even in Caer Ghlann they didn’t look too fondly on him. He came from a long line of warriors, men that fought bravely and died violently. These’re things that people here just aren’t used to – we know peace here in Ainn Creige, we know fields and grain and fish and little else. But your Pa was born outside of all that, and he came here seeking a better life for not only himself but for you, so you wouldn’t have to live the life his family, and their ancestors before them, did.”
“Is it a better life though? I mean, the people here hate him, and they hate me too because of it.”
“Do you worry for your life everyday, Tristan?”
“What? No, not really,” I felt taken aback.
“You come home to a roof over your head, food in your belly and a warm bed to sleep in. Your Pa didn’t have that. The moment he was able to walk his father put a sword in his hands. Your Pa had to flee that old life, and would they catch him again they’d kill him where he stood. But you know what he does now, sweetheart? He spends his days fishing out on the coast, comes home to a loving family and lives a quiet life. A better life. It doesn’t matter if people hate him here, because there’re people out there that will go farther than just harsh words and bitter rumors.”
I slump back in my chair, my brow arching in bitter thought. She’s right, for the most part. My Pa had to fight for what he has here, and now that he’s got it, things aren’t so bad for him anymore. But I never lived that life, I’ve never even held a sword in my hands. My understanding of a life seems so far apart from his. I felt then the two tides that tossed me around heightened in their intensity. Their lives are so clear-cut, and it makes an effortless amount of sense to them. Why can’t it be the same for me? Why can’t I just know who I am? Where do I fit in all this and how can I feel content with it?
Ma steps across the room, kneeling in front of me, her hands grasping mine tenderly. I could see in her eyes she knew the questions that followed me around everyday, how they haunted me, made me fear for who I’ll become.
“Oh, my sweet little skald. When did you grow up so fast, asking questions like that?”
I give her a bittersweet smile and shrug. She stands, combing her hands through my ginger hair again, working the knots out.
“Come, sing me a little song while I get dinner ready, hm? A song of home will do.”​

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[Blissey]

III

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I sit upon the mossed edge of Lookout Point, north of Ainn Creige, and watch grey seas lap against grey rocks, backdropped by even greyer clouds. My writerly senses told me that the island was wanting me to brood longingly about the prospect of leaving home, of saying goodbye to all that I knew, to all the people that made me who I am, and those that seek to unmake me. Here maybe I would perchance tell you that I feel the opposite, that deep inside me I am so eager to go. Perhaps I lean into the feeling of melancholy, some sort of façade or front I present to you, dear reader, that tells you that my happiness is undercut by sadness. But to be perfectly candid, I feel neither. Like the grey rocks, sea and clouds, I am in between it all - vastly indifferent. I am a perfectly ripe apple with a half-rotted core, bright red sheen and all. I play the few loose chords that come to me in that peacefully thoughtless moment; they crest in the air for a moment, like parchment caught in the wind, and with an abrupt weight they fall to the jagged edge below where the waves swallowed them whole. Why am I here? On this cliff of all places? I do not usually sit here, this isn't my perch. A restlessness attacks me in rapid succession that makes my notes twang like broken strings. I rest the lute down gingerly and try vainly to swallow down the feeling. The gnawing of it, an anxiety that pervades the heart and the mind. Why am I here, and not there? Nor anywhere but here? Here I am, avoiding time because I fear to waste it. Filling a thoughtless moment in my young, tender life with a few pointless chords and ramblings that feed the flames of my restlessness. No, dear reader, I rebuke it all! I stand triumphant over it all! Ready to seize the day!
"The day is mine!" I yell out to the clouds.
I recede quickly, realizing then that despite not having an audience, that my pageantry and dramatic moment was embarrassing for even the trees to watch. I stand there and think of all the things I have yet to do; have a stiff drink, get into a brawl that I win, to play a song before an audience, and, well, to lay with someone. 'Twas only the hours before the sun vanished, and the tavern in Ainn Creige would be open till the moon peaked atop the clouds. So I set off, slinging my lute strap across my chest and sallying down the crooked sloped mess of paths that brought me back to Ainn Creige. Three days till I leave, and on this day I do declare, that Tristan Treharne will be no longer chained by the restlessness of the things I didn't do before I left!
As I step past the last curve where the aged stone-laid half-walls welcomed me to Ainn Creige, I spot the old widow, Barabal Dùghallach and her ripe blackcurrant vines set neatly in rows of ten. Despite the sweetness of her harvest, Barabal acts like a nasty rash on your arse. Maybe you can chalk it up to her husband having vanished mysteriously some thirty years ago, lending her staple pessimism that oozed out salty words. I knew that some of the young boys in town used to steal her blackcurrants, but those that were caught had to have Barabal quite literally pried from them by the local militia. She didn't seem to be around at this very moment, nor did anyone else. All I had to do was jump the fence, scoop up the ripe ones and run. Easy, right?
Halfway through the deed I grinned like the sly fox that I am. My hands were soaked in that dark crimson-y purple as I stuffed them hastily into my pockets, licking the remnants of a freshly eaten one off my lips. My heart was pumping, I'd never broken the rules like this before. I never stole as a boy and was always a well-to-do law-abiding citizen of Cionaodha! There wasn't any time for guilt, as I think my time spent at Lookout Point gave me a chance to grieve preemptively for whatever dastardly thing I intended to do today, starting with this.
THWUNK!
I felt the air pass by my head like some swooping bird. I glean left, seeing my pale reflection in the shiny edge of a lodged hatchet buried in the white wooden post of the blackcurrant vines.
"YOU DISGUSTING, THIEVING LITTLE SHITE!" The howling screech came after, it was the witch, the widow; Barabal the foul. She'd thrown a hrasting axe at me, barely missing my beautiful head by an inch!
I yelp like a stuck pig and bolt through the black and green vined rows. TWHUNK! Another axe stopped me in my tracks, causing me nearly to trip over the earth it had dug up from its impact! Where was she getting all these axes?! I looked right, seeing Barabal the foul there wielding not one, but FIVE hatchets all ready to be bloodied. I cross left, then right, hoping to disorient the old witch but she was far quicker than I gave her credit. Blackcurrants spilled from my pockets with each turn, all of it for naught, I think! I make it to the fence, TWHUNK-DUNK! Two more hrasting hatchets lodged in the old fence, nearly splintering its top bar in two! She threw TWO!?
I make for Ainn Creige's center with a speed that surprised even myself. I slip past carriages, a woman carrying basket full of potatoes, and quickly pause to join in the local game of hopscotch - all children booing in delighted unison. I zip towards the openings of the Cove, Ainn Creige's premiere drinking spot. I pause to take a breath, clutching my blackcurrant soiled knees and I felt myself grinning and wheezing a breathless laugh!
"WHERE'S THAT REDHEADDED SHITE?!" The witch howls through the streets, lugging her axes with her!
I blunder past the local fisherman crowding the Cove's cavernous entrance and stumble in with all my weight and speed pressing forward, my boots gave way and sent me spiraling onto the hard rock ground with a resolute thud. Fishermen finishing their day's work, and those that had already found seats roared with a great, cacophonous laughter at my expense as they walk around me like a stuck-out splinter.
I see a hand jut out, pale but not jaundiced with a crooked pinkie and dirtied fingernails. I take it, without even seeing who it is.
"Y'alright? Nasty fall that," The voice is soft, but the face is softer - like a freshly picked freckled peach. His dirty blonde hair sat lopsidedly and messy, fair brown eyes and a smile that drowned out everything for the briefest of moments.
"Looked like yer' runnin' from an accostin' wave cast by Umberlee 'erself," He laughs heartily.
"Barabal," I gulp the word out, and felt my cheeks burn and tingle.
He laughs again, the grin on his lips widening so much that I'd fear it'd began to hurt him. His eyes look to the blackcurrant stains on my hands and he takes them, wiping some of it off with his finger and tasting it.
"Woulda' waited a day 'er more to snatch 'em, ain't tha' ripe jus' yet," He claps me on the shoulder, and I stood there mortified, stunned, but strangely intrigued?
He watches me with a bemused smile as I stand there looking like a ripe tomato. He waves off the awkwardness, pushes a rag into my chest and gestures with his eyes to the bar.
"Still on the clock, lad, can't be standin' 'ere all day. Clean yer' hands up, les' Barabal comes'a knockin' n' sees ye' with yer' sodden hands all red n' ripened n' turns yer' insides out. I'll fix ye' up a drink, aye?"
He goes to walk to the bar, and finally words come to me.
"Straight whiskey."
"Wha'?" He pauses, arching a brow at me.
"I'll just have straight whiskey."
He bows his head with the coolness of a confident sailor and moves to the bar, chatting up the local patrons, grimacing humorously at their antics. He seems no older than I, but he's a face that I'd not seen in Ainn Creige before. If I had then the Cove would be my perch, not so much a place of silent pondering, but of anxious waiting to see when and if I would ever have the gusto to open my heart to him. I didn't even get his name.
I spot Caomhainn playing a rousing tune in the corner of the Cove. He'd not yet spotted me, most likely far too busy languishing in the reflection of himself in his tankard. I was thankful for this, for I know that man would ruin my every chance here and now. So I sit by my lonesome on a quiet corner table. What do people do when they sit by themselves in a tavern? I should try to look suave, mysterious, but not in the way that makes me unapproachable.
The bartender returns, setting the small potted cup of honey-colored whiskey in front of me. My eyes catch his, and whatever thin veneer of suaveness I even mustered up cracks like thin glass. I clear my throat and speak.
"I've not seen you in Ainn Creige before. Are you new here?"
"Don' really wander the town much yet. Got 'ere a winter ago from Moray. Name's Fionn Màrtainn."
"Tristan Treharne," I sip from the whiskey, and the fire seizes my throat and makes me sputter like a babe rejecting milk from the teet.
"Put a bit a' hair on yer' chest that," He muses.
"Sorry I've just never drank before."
"Good first one tha', yer' takin' it well," He yanks the smile out of me, an assured and earnest one.
I shouldn't let silence linger. Silence is the killer of all romance. I should compliment him, yes! Caomhainn says the key to open any heart is to let them know that your eyes and mind appreciate their figure and soul!
"What happened to your pinkie?" I ask eagerly, and lean forward - perhaps a bit too close, but he does not recoil.
"Got caught on a closin' cellar door when was clearin' some stock. Nothin' adventurous or excitin', mind."
"It looks good on you. Good look. Dangerous work, bartending," I say dryly, and my voice turns nauseating. I can't even bare to meet his eyes.
He grins lopsidedly, but I feel something nervous in it. It wasn't hearty or as warm as it was before, and the grin was a fleeting thing as I felt his eyes sizing me up, guessing, estimating, supposing things that in Ainn Creige, were better left unsaid. Or maybe I'm making that up in my mind? I let the silence stew willingly this time, and I finally meet his eyes.
"Could show you tha' cellar door in question?" He asks quietly, barely a note above the roar of the Cove's patrons.
I open my mouth to speak but I'm already moving, glass in hand, drinking fervently. We pass the bar, through an outcropping behind it where curtains shield us from prying eyes. There lies the cellar door, squarely in the center of the backroom.
My glass is empty.
"Looks incredibly dangerous," I say softly, but I'm not looking at the cellar door anymore, nor is he.
I kiss him in the dark backroom. For a moment, Fionn returns the openness of it all with something vulnerable as well. A piece of himself cordoned away and hidden like the very same curtains that hide us together. Even in the tiniest seconds that past me by, Ainn Creige felt like the place I was supposed be in, like every piece had fallen right where it was supposed to in perfect order. Till the indifference returns in such a cruel manner to kill it all so mercilessly.
Fionn recoils away from me, wiping his lips. There's shame in his eyes, and he doesn't want to show this to me - sharing it only with the cellar door that maimed him.
"I'm not..."
"You're not...?"
"I'm not."
I swallow hard, feeling the remnants of the honey-whiskey burning there but it paled in what white-hot flush pain stroked my heart and face then and there in the backrooms of the Cove. The dreams of how things should go, and when they don't, they strike so violently. How your first song should sound, how your first fight should go, how your first kiss will feel and all the things that follow after. I remember Caomhainn saying that in love there is defeat, crushing as it may be you must not lose solace in the fact that you have opened yourself to it but still lose. I fight against the anger that wants to destroy the glass in my hand. But this shame is not mine. It never will be. I love who I love and will love in future days. I hope Fionn knows this too.
I gently hand the glass back to him, and muster a smile.
"I won't say a word," I tell him. I give his hand a squeeze to make sure he knows my words ring truer than any he'd ever heard, and leave the backroom of the Cove.
In the darkening hours of the night, where beams of Selûne tore through grey shapeless clouds and breathed a paler light upon Cionaodha I sat upon my perch. I felt woozy, my face felt flush and my body was eased by, what I could only guess to be the whiskey. If there was one thing I would miss about Ainn Creige, it would be the silence. How nary even the wind would disturb you, nor the sound of waves crashing against stone. Maybe this was because I'd never known what silence actually was, and that these things, these sounds, they were a part of me now. True silence wouldn't be the same. I wonder if I had lived every day of my life here like I lived today, would I not want to leave? Am I right for making beloved memories of a place I had long since scorned mere days before going? Maybe I will miss Ainn Creige, and maybe I will miss Cionaodha once it all feels so far away from me.
But these are thoughts for another day. I sleep there, under the willow on the coast, lulled by Ainn Creige's rendition of silence. ​

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