"I was there, when Abthane and Lady Brigid left Innis Buidhe. I remember how she looked at me, while he only looked blankly ahead."
- Habourmaster Cullen, "The Life of Lady Brigit" by Abthane Cailan Lutair.
Eirioch watched the chaos unfolding around him with a certain distance, a grace that separated him from the others. His red-eyes rolled down to look down his nose at the steaming, blackened partridge. He retrieved fork and knife, and began to cut the flesh away from the little bird's many small bones once again. Ash fell around his fork, black clumps of it that stained the hot, bubbling pink bird flesh ; so seared that bubbles had broken out on the skin. The Abthane calmly cut this bird, as his would-be-wife flicked the edge of a blade against the face of the more experienced huntress. He had not stopped her, of course, because this was what was meant to happen. If she had not lashed out with her magics, the Bogadh, the argument would long have been completed. Perhaps, for Eirioch's personal sake he wished that, but the time for wishing for more pleasant fates and histories was long past. He could not alter that which was to come. And so, he had not stopped Brigit as she infuriated the tempers of those around her. Eirioch continued to watch the others, paying no heed to how he was cutting his partridge, or to the way that its flesh crumbled on his plate into a heap of ash. The rash barbarian-woman winced. He had caught the gesture, despite the minute nature of it. He would not have, if it had not been for strange red eyes, for eyes that were wrong. There was a word for what the barbarian was doing; ultracrepidation. It was a word from Palomina's Southlands, devised by an artist whose works were sadly destined to go undiscovered for centuries. Eirioch had met him, once. But there was a threat in the barbarian's words - albeit an idle one. There would no murder here, not of any of them. Brigit did not die here, as he knew just as well as asarlaí Malik. So, to threaten his wife was pointless. Fate had decreed when her end came, and her end did not come here. The threat, however, itched at Eirioch's skin. Though distant, aloof, even, he could not help but feel insulted by the threat. They had broken bread with these Southerners, eaten their salt and drunk their sour wine, but all the while they were threatened - at least, his wife was. And though he had seen this play out hundreds of times in dreams, there was still the bitter sting of treachery in his mouth, a tightness around his gums. But there would be no murders here.
Eirioch looked down at his plate.At the same time as his betrothed's actions, the assassin was brandishing his bow, standing not two inches from his steaming bird. In preparation of the assassin's over exuberant gesture, Eirioch had pulled his plate some inches away; so to not have bits of searing hot bird scatter across the not only the group assembled before him, or himself. For an assassin, the boy had morals that, though they did not surprise Eirioch, were unusual for an assassin. Assassins were nothing more than a murderer that had a society to their name, a specialized training. In Innis Buidhe, he could imagine that his pale people would have prefered the concept of an assassin; magic without proper training was nothing more than witchery, after all. The Innisians valued schooling. But there were no assassins in Innis Buidhe, there were wars and armies, but this strange-eyed boy who stood before him, wielding a bow like he had been born to it, would never have survived in the harshness of Innis Buidhe. None of them would, really ; Innis Buidhe was meant for Innisians, and always had been, no matter what the Martainns might have said. He glanced up towards the assassin, red-eyes focusing on his face. His bird was nearly completed - legs had been pulled from their crispy exteriors, and now, all the bird skeleton, placed neatly to the side of Eirioch's plate, was missing was its skull. But instead of excavating for this treasure, the Abthane looked towards Viper, and spoke softly, "We are here to kill the shadow beasts. This man is not one." Eirioch's eyes flickered back to asarlaí Malik, with his eyes mícheart. No. The sorcerer was not a shadow beast, but that did not change the feeling in the pit of Eirioch's stomach, the knowledge of what this man was and the intentions that he had. To desire power above all things was the maddest of motivations. He could understand why the assassin was discomforted, but nonetheless, he offered Viper a small smile ; even though the man's eyes were wrong, and he would have been strung up for the crows in Innis Buidhe. Eirioch knew. He only barely managed to get the phrase in, before the assassin was tromping off the table like a sullen child, rushing to his room. He understood the man's hatred, his desire to purge the asarlaí for his sins ; but that would not happen yet. Not at this moment.
His eyes returned to asarlaí Malik, who defended himself with unnecessary amounts of explanation. There would be no need for such explanations, Eirioch had hoped ; a discourse that revealed the mage's entire motivation, one that would inevitably lead to a downfall of sorts. Eiricoch knew better than to hope that exposition was not the fundamental basis of conversation. But with his desires to divide power as he saw fit, Eirioch saw the entitlement behind the statement. He was not a god, he was a man, and men should not be the ones to determine who received power and who did not - Malik had some strange belief that he should be the one to divide these gifts, simply because he had seen into the world of the dead ; something that he bragged about, Eirioch noticed with a slight curl of his thin lips downward. Eirioch too, had seen the realm of the dead, but his people did not believe in the same three places that these mainlanders did - three different locations for souls to match their trinity. All men went to be judged by the Horned King, and then, joined him in his realm outside of the world and spaces, where they lived across the great sea in the land of Sídhe; where the Horned King's court - made up of lesser gods - helped protect the world of mortals. He had seen the realms of Sídhe, the place where no mortal should look, and what he found there, had chilled the Abthane's blood. It was not something that he wished to discuss, much less brag about. He was not a mainlander, however, and never would be, no matter how much his own people cried; "Morthir!" Eirioch knew that he would return to the barrows of the earth, to the realm of Sídhe, and that would become his fate, at the end of a galloglaigh. He knew why Malik bragged - a desperate powerplay, to show his influence over the others, but to Eirioch it reeked of foolish, youthful arrogance that did not befit the asarlaí Malik, with his eyes mícheart. Eirioch peeled back the skin around the bird's overcooked peak, and scraped away the flesh. Beneath, there was the sizzling, ashy bird skull. Between fork and knife, he steered it to rest on his bird skeleton's neck vertebrae. Satisfied with his completed bird skeleton, Eirioch discretely slid the plate to his neighbor - a drunken sot who was watching the row with watery brown eyes. At the sight of the bird, the drunk trembled, and rose from his chair. The drunk practically rushed away, clutching at his mouth as green fluids bubbled around his hands, rushing to the privies.
Eirioch looked towards Amudar, with those cold red-eyes of him, staring through the man. He saw his life, his experiences, the pride and command he had in his station and title, for better and worse. He tilted his head to the side, slightly, and dabbed at his thin white hands with a napkin, cleaning of the soot from his demolished bird - not a bite of which he had eaten. After a moment of thoughtful cleaning, the white-haired noble stood up. It was not with the same passion as either his would-be-wife or the assassin, but he stood nontheless with a certain grace and confidence - brought about only by his certainty of the times to come. Eirioch gently reached out a hand to rest on Brigit's shoulder, clasping the round, narrow epaulet bone. His touch was gentle, but demanding, commanding. There was not force behind it, but it would likely demand her attention all the same. And he spoke, with the same quiet self-assurance that all of his words had. "We are guests, cousin. Do not threaten our host." He put a bit of pressure on her shoulder, pushing ever so slightly down. He was not attempting to force her to sit again - it was merely a suggestion within the grasp of his palm. Eirioch's wrong-coloured eyes flickered towards Amudar, to Aine, to this barbarian woman from the Southlands. Lady Palamina. The hall was silent now. All attention was on this group of squabbling people, on these white-haired witches from the North who had demanded so much attention from those around them, and infuriated so many tempers. Eirioch knew that some hands were going to their swords, or carefully concealed dirks. They would not be wrong to draw them. But they would not - not here, not at this precise moment. This was not how they died, and this was not how it ended. This ended with them leaving the dining hall, with no fatalities, no wounds, no injuries. In the smoky haze of the great hall, Eirioch's eyes glittered like embers.
He gently pushed his chair in, a simple courtesy. The hall was still. The white-haired Abthane circled the table, feeling the drunken eyes studying the back of his head. They were watching to see what he would do, what fate he would inflict upon those who stood before him - if men from the north really did boil the flesh off of mainlanders and devour them, bit by bit, in concoctions that brightened the hair and sharpened the mind. It was not true, and had not been true. They did not need potions to give them their hair and minds. But in the dark times of Taigh an Croch, the cook and Thane were both fat on mainland meat. And that was the truth. Eirioch walked carefully forward, with a king's grace. His head was tilted up, shoulders back, his pace even with his heart-beat. His red-eyes studied those before him, making eye contact with each one of them in turn - the asarlaí Malik's eyes mícheart, the Senior Hunter with his wonderful and forgettable ones, Aine with her's so clear and bright, and the barbarian's - eyes that were contorted with anger and fear. He met them all with his red-eyes, watching them with the patience and diligence of a direwolf studying a silver hart. Eirioch was proud. That is something that was never forgotten, and that never would be. He was proud, and he was tall - common in his lineage. It had been said that the lords of the north, the kings of Innis Buidhe had never bowed to anyone. Invaders from the South were strung up and killed, traders from the mainland were devoured in a mist of rosemary and thyme. Shadow beasts had never forced them to lower their eyes, and not even the Horned King demanded that his followers grovel beneath him ; they were Innisians. That was what the mainlanders had called them - but they were, more correctly, Fuil Ríar, the Blood of Kings, noble and proud and fierce. And Eirioch was no different. He had never bowed before anybody in his life. But he would.
Eirioch walked before Senior Hunter Amudar, and knelt at his feet, with the posture reserved for some mainland knight taking their vowed. He bowed his head, white locks long enough for their tips to brush the stone-floor. His eyes were still like burning coals in his face, but his words were measured and polite, carrying with them a sort of trained elegance - even though, the art of speaking was never something Eirioch had been trained it. He would have, had he not gone across the sea to places where he should not have been. But his words carried that training, practiced and careful, "My lord Hunter," he began, lifting his head only a fraction, so to look Amudar in the eye, "We are your guests. And for this, I invoke the right of Arán Agus Salann." The right of Salt and Bread. The right that no guests will be harmed by their hosts, that there will be no threats made. It was the right of sanctuary, the protection of the guest by the host - the idea that beneath the castle's roof, guests would be looked after, even if their enemies sought them. Eirioch cleared his throat, continuing clearly, "It would not do well to threaten my cousin further, for those who plot against their charges are accursed in the eyes of Gods and Men." He bowed his head once more, a gesture of humility. "I apologize on the behalf of our contingent."
