"Fianna, Wolves in Ireland, Part Eleven" by Anne M. Leath

Fiona clutched her hand to her side and groaned into the flat pillow.  Her wounds ached terribly tonight, despite the medication that Dierdre had dosed her with prior to leaving the ward for the evening.  The feoil on duty came by and placed a wet cloth against her forehead, “You ok Fee?”  That’s what they call me now, Fiona.  She nodded and moved her hand to the compress against her face, “Thank you, I’ll be fine.”  She smiled as warmly as she could manage and swallowed, forcing the pain away.  She couldn’t remember what time it was, what time Dierdre would be back with more medication, what the feoil’s name was…she couldn’t remember much of anything.  Dierdre had told her she was “clinically amnesic.”  She did not remember her name when they asked, she could not tell them where she had come from, what had injured her, and indeed, it remained a mystery to her despite how hard she tried to remember. 

She had been in this ward for close to a month now, and of that, two weeks had been spent nearly comatose, according to Dierdre.  She had met several new people, some magical, who curiously she had conversed with at length about spellcasting, meta-theory, and magical beings.  The words fell from her mouth in conversation, she was unsure their source, but she could understand everything at length that Ciar and Angus had discussed with her.  This place was certainly comforting, and there was no end to the compassionate stream of people coming by and wishing her well.  If anything, she was something of a curiosity.    

She had tried to sear their faces and names into her head,  I have to remember this, I have to hold on to something.  She felt a sense of desperation inside for connection, for something to cling to in this void of memory.  She looked at her hands and was as unsure about the lines on her own palm as she was about the new faces she saw every day.  The dull pain of her wounds was, at least, constant.  Though she wished the pangs to go away, she was assured that when she rose in the morning, the now pink and thick scar tissue would still tug its way into her being, a very real reminder. 

Aside from that, all she remembered were the wolves.

Every night her dreams were replete with them.  Most were solitary, though occasionally a few would appear in a loose pack.  Wispy shadows, not in their corporeal form.  They circled and pricked their ears at her curiously, some would lay for a short while and then rise and trot off in her dreams like the coming and going of each sleep-filled hour.  Some seemed familiar, as if she had seen them before; their names just beyond her reach. 

She spoke with Angus mostly.  A black-haired mage with a wise, even tone, and a sharp wit, he had stopped by at least once daily to check on her.  She felt comfortable with him and enjoyed hearing him postulate about magical theory.  He seemed surprised at the vigor in her response one day when, mentioning the queen in conversation, Fiona sat bolt upright in bed and took his hand feverishly. “She must be stopped. There is no question. There is nothing that can come from her reign but suffering.”  It must have surprised them all, as the exchange of looks that followed between Ciar, Angus, and Dierdre quickly told her that they were in agreement. She did not know, in fact, why she felt this way, however it was as real to her as breathing.  The queen is a false one.

She came to learn about the Fianna, for that was where she was now, among them.  Angus described it as the “army of the true way”.  Ciar spoke in more mystical terms, which Fiona came to find was typical for the seer.  Fiona repeated Ciar’s words in her head and mulled them over.  The old druids, animal guardians and even the gods, we are not sure which, now walk with us on this plane.  The light and the dark, the true and their false reflections are with us.  The queen is not within the gods’ embrace and Eire is wilting beneath her thumb. The elements are recoiling.  The gods wish a true righ to return and are working to ensure that this will happen.  But she is not without her own protections and she has called down those which would fool us, work against us, work against the natural world.

Angus had told her about the Fianna’s structure—the pairings of a feine, those that could wield magic and see on the meta plane, and a feoil—those that could not.  The pairs were bonded in a ceremony and each bond was for life, come what might.  Pairs were placed in various cadres according to purpose, and would, for weeks at a time, be sent out to various parts of the country.  Some cadres were better adept at dealing with urban situations, some not. 

Their work involved many things, from establishing a resistance to the queen’s military objectives and actions in the cities, ferreting out corrupt garda and causing them frustration, political maneuvering and propaganda, eliminating toxic magical creatures or dangerous spirits from the wilds of Eire and even in the tenements sometimes.  “We are working for the Eire that we would all want to live in.  Free from censorship and ‘registries’ for those that use magic.  Free from an unspoken caste system which keeps down the poor, the metahumans, or the uneducated.  We want an Eire in which the spirits of the land, water, and sky are pure again, in balance with nature.  We want a place in which our own tactics, our own methods and our warfare will thus become extinct.”

Fiona had listened to him carefully and thought on this for some time before asking quietly, “Do you think we will achieve it one day?”

“One day, I hope.” Angus replied, “Though none of us may ever live to see it.”

She had nodded solemnly, “We have to lay the groundwork for better times, even with our own bones and blood I suppose.”

Angus had merely covered her hands with his own and sat quietly smoking his pipe a few moments before replying again, “Our own blood and bones for better times.”

By the time that she was able to start taking slow walks down the hallways and out into the rolling fields behind the main building, near the gun range, and through the tall stands of oaks, she was nearing her fourth week with them. 

Ciar was walking alongside her, pointing to various people and naming them quietly in her ear.  Fiona couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed and anxious this day, and she was unsure why.  Her skin tingled and felt warm, her stomach tight, heart skipping beats periodically as they walked slowly up the hill through some trees.  “Ciar, I think I may need to sit down for a sec.”

“You ok?” The slender elf leaned over her as Fee knelt near a small ash tree. 

“I think so, just tired, feels…strange walking around again.”  Fiona smiled weakly and leaned against the smooth bark of the tree. 

Ciar slid the sleeves of her robe up around her elbows and knelt down with her new friend, “Perhaps it is the pull of the coming moon.”

Fiona  had raised her eyebrow in question at the seer and rubbed the tops of her legs briskly, willing her body to get up and keep walking.  What does the moon have to do with this? She pushed herself up using the tree as a brace and inhaled deeply in preparation for moving again, “Let’s see if I can do the hill back to the ward then, double time.” She smiled bravely at Ciar and nodded towards the building in the distance.

“Alright then.”  Ciar grinned and stood up as well, taking Fiona’s hand again in support and practically trotting up the hill with her, the two of them laughing at the awkward four-legged gait they displayed on their way.

But Ciar had been right.

Fiona continued to feel oddly that evening and into the night.  It was nearly midnight when she threw off the covers to her hospital bed and quietly limped out of the room.  The feoil on duty were concerned with the new patients in ICU and she was in a semi-private corner now, behind a plastidraw curtain.  She made her way down the darkened hallway and rubbed her arms as went.  I have to get outside.  She had barely made it out the door and down the hill towards the grove when she felt her skin growing tight against her bones, her scars feeling as if they would split open any second. 

Fiona cried out softly and collapsed against the cool, dry earth as her form shifted.  The cotton fabric of her pajamas tore as she changed, strips of white laying beneath her on the ground like a false shadow distorted in the light of the full moon.  She was unsure at first what was happening, but something inside told her to be still.  Be still and rest.  She felt her neck stretch forward and rested her head between her front paws.  She tried to move herself with her rear legs but found them to be too weak for it. 

She closed her eyes and groaned quietly, This is what I have been feeling all day.  This change coming.  She stretched her shoulder forward slightly and pushed her nose through the grass.  I feel at peace finally.  Her eyes opened only slightly, glancing around and seeing nothing moving but the trees overhead.  The air was clear, new grass and green acorns lay around her in perfect disarray.  Fiona obeyed the voice inside and was still.  Cool air rippled across her soft white fur as she lay in the grove alone with the trees.  And she felt something akin to joy in her heart as the silver light of the moon caressed the glimmering leaves of the oaks and slipped down to cover her in this secret moment.