>>6191630>>6191638>>6191642>>6191871>>6192153A part of you wants to watch. You are not some child who quivers at shadows and sees monsters in the dark. You've helped herd cattle and sheep in for the slaughter, seen them processed from cute and fluffy creatures into meat for Port Caplan's supper tables. Blood and gore do not bother you much. In fact, you have a fascination for anatomy and dissection that makes you wonder if there isn't something wrong with you some days.
But those are animals.
These are people.
You clench your eyes shut like Siegfried told you, and clap your hands over your ears. <span class="mu-i">Leben</span> flows through your body in a cantrip of cantrips that comes as easily as evaporation, centering upon your hands and refracting away all sound and leaving you death to the screams that are certain to come...
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Commander Sinead mac Cumhaill snorted as the greying swordsman declared himself his executioner. Oh, he might be a hardy man in his middle ages, but the grey of his hair sung of how his best days lay behind him. Sinead and his boys were young, strong, and skilled. Each of them men in the prime of their life sworn to serve the Shamrock Throne, the loyal hands of Queen Medb. Each of them known for their discretion enough to be trusted with this secret mission, the opening act to her Majesty's reconquest.
In short they were the best of the best. This old man had no business interfering in their work.
Yet all the same, something about the man set him on edge.
The interloper looked back at the damnry witch, curled up like a child told that what she could not see could not hurt her. The thought of her earlier tomfoolery made Sinead seethe. He and his would not be put on the backfoot by another confident mummer pretending at power again tonight. So he shoved that uncertainty into the back of his head and readied his knife.
"Move along, old man," he growled. "It's three on one, and we have a quota to fill. Let us take that damned witch, and-"
"Commander Sinead mac Cumhaill, serial number 1048298," the man interrupted Sinead with information that he should not have known. "Born in the village of Carlon's Vale to Aife and Fionn mac Cumhaill. Raised in the miller's trade, but as a second son sought glory in the life of a soldier. Your first command came on the banks of the Blackwater, wherein you rallied the Raiders Ua Dionha after the Dread Pirate Daire ua Dionha took an arrow to the throat.
"Did you know that the young woman you took as a prize that night gave birth to a healthy baby girl nine months later?" he asked something absurd. Sinead didn't keep track of all the bastards he'd sewn across the years. "She couldn't bring herself to kill the babe. She and her childhood sweetheart are raising her as their own. You'll be happy to know that your daughter has a large family, with many siblings who love her."
"That's a nice story, old man," Sinead growled. "What's your point?"
