II - The Owl

His life is defined by how much pain he brings his mother.

Twenty-two years ago, she left her princely father’s house to live with a coastal druid named Fintan, who, for all his holistic prowess, never suspected her already caught. Her pains began on the autumnal, and her unborn babe insisted on coming out ass first. The old druidess tending the delivery cut her belly to liberate him, and Ciniod reminds her grown son of this trauma every time she must force a fart.

Aedan the Ancalite is a bony sort with alabaster skin and the jawline of a corpse. His messy black curls, rounded nose, and perpetual frown speak volumes of his mother, and nothing of his father. Spindly legs and rangy feet provide weapons against anyone foolish enough to pick a fight, but all know that his deadliest instrument is his mind.

Aedan joins his mother on the journey north to her girlhood home on the Tamesa, a slovenly river with sandless banks. Dragonflies hop foamy islands atop puce waters, their frenetic wings hissing among the reedbeds, where hungry toads noisily belch their lures behind gull song. Nothing on this water survives without feeding on something else.

Ciniod tends to her dead father’s stony grave while Aedan spends his day handling cunts. A novice druid whose midwifery skills match his knowledge of anatomy, Aedan’s unique talent lies in foraging out the unwanted.

Word spreads of his arrival, and the line outside his tent grows. High-born women and marsh girls alike seek out the son of Fintan the Owl, for he cuts out mistakes, purposeful accidents, and criminal spawn. Some pregnancies prove too far along, requiring an agile hand. A deft ear poke silences a late-term mistake before its first cry. He deposits the undercooked in a tidal marsh, where top feeders quickly devour their fill.

The long day behind him, Aedan scrubs the meconium from his nails using scented lard and vinegar. Then he takes the smoke to rid the lard and vinegar stink from his nostrils.

All gather for the communal. Mute in the company of others, Aedan’s obtuse silence drives away girls, but always lures men eager to reach under his robe.

Weary of new faces, he abandons the bonfire drums and joins the horses. He strips off his smock and climbs atop the thickest mare, who reeks of last night’s rain. The lingering humidity dampens her ears, and her coat scratches his skin. She lets out an approving grunt as Aedan braids her mane.

Hippos, that’s what the Greeks call them. His father taught him to speak Greek, but he’s never met a Greek man. He misses his father, and he longs for their shoreline home, and the fisherman’s beefy son who chokes him until his cock spits.

Aedan’s taste for men is renowned, but his violent desires frighten even the most sadistic warriors.

“You’re taller than I remember, boy.”

The craggy voice of Ostin the Ageless invades his solitary respite. The archdruid, too old to have a tribe, moves over the pasture with the help of a twisted staff. Aedan, content with his cock trapped between the mare’s back and his belly, doesn’t rise to greet him.

Long pale beard full of fireflies, Ostin retrieves Aedan’s discarded smock, mouth rolling his toothless gums. Once browner than the wettest sand, his teeth fell out long before Aedan’s birth. He’ll never lose his biter’s, he scrapes them daily with a cat bone and whitens them with piss.

“We must divine the future.” Ostin pitches the frock at him. His long, oily hair unmoving in the wind. His craggy, dry lips spread. “Chaos shrouds the present.”

Chaos indeed, thinks Aedan.

Fintan the Owl’s absence disrupts the tribal peace, for only he can keep the northern warlord, Cassibelanus, from acting the fool. Fintan tames the bastard’s spirit when murder seems a logical solution to minor problems.

Naturally, the warlord lost control shortly after Fintan’s departure. At the last tribal gathering, the chieftain’s desire for the Trinovantian prince Mandubracius escalated into a violent confrontation. The prince’s refusal and subsequent victory in a sporting fight had triggered a storm of rage. Cassibelanus demanded compensation for what he felt was an insult, but Mandubracius’s father, King Imanuentius, refused him.

The old monarch paid for this decision with his life, sending his heir, the prince, to the continent in search of Fintan.

“I need another Owl,” Ostin tells him.

Aedan presents his best disinterest. “All sparks will burn out when Mandubracius returns,”

“You’ve found your voice.” Ostin’s thick brows rise. “I recall when many believed you dumb,”

“Fintan the Owl will return with my uncle,” Aedan says, begrudgingly sitting up. “And the Gods will show our future through the guts of whatever tipsy fool he chokes out for you in your lime-powder circle,”

Odin hardens. “Your father is dead, boy.”

Aedan’s heart slows to a crawl.

“Mandubracius didn’t find Fintan.” The old man sits on the grass, a task not easy for him at his age. “Mandubracius found the Roman wolf,”

Aedan’s stomach hardens.

“The legions fled last summer,”

“They left, boy,” Ostin snaps. “They didn’t flee.”

Aedan thrusts out his jaw.

“Who says my father’s dead?”

“Your fa-,” Ostin pauses, “Your uncle Taran returns with his head.”

Air abandons Aedan’s lungs while his dark eyes find the stars.

Father now roams the world unseen, searching for a new body to begin again. He will be reborn as someone’s son, then grow into another boy’s father. Aedan loathes such truths. A tear falls for the man who loved him unconditionally. The man who hoisted him high on bare feet so he could fly like a bird. The man who taught him the name of everything beneath the sun and under the skin. Rome took Fintan’s virile body and left his son nothing but a severed head.

“Swallow your pain,” Ostin advises softly. “You’ll take his place in ritual and verse.”

Aedan wants to refuse, but he cannot.

“You’re my Ancalite,” the old man adds, hobbling away. “You strangle the offering, and the Gods will reveal our fates.”

Aedan wanders back to his mother’s tent and finds her whoring for attention. Father’s head sits on an overturned jug like a vulgar decoration. His skin isn’t quite green yet, the gash under his chin sutured with meadowsweet. Duck eggs sit behind his eyelids, and flowering buds keep his cheeks full.

Ciniod kneels before it, wailing while her brother, Taran, sheds genuine tears. Both grieve the man who fucked them—oh yes, Fintan’s taste in womanly men and masculine women was never a secret. Aedan stands closer than willing, with no more tears to cry as his father’s last day among them replays in his mind.

Father didn’t wish to leave their coastal home, but Ciniod’s incessant goading wore him down. Unable to endure another moment of his mother’s existence, Aedan seeks solace in the druid camp.

The sun rises when he finds an empty blanket large enough for his long body, but sadly, no man is willing to fight him for it.

*

A full moon means the Gods are watching.

Aedan stands naked beneath his father’s owl-feathered robe, its horned cowl tickling his nose. Old sand smells acrid within its feathers and raises memories of his father’s cobalt eyes, straw-colored hair, and muscular physique. He possesses none of Fintan’s attributes, favoring his uncle and grandfather. Such truths are scabs he cannot help but pick.

Smooth river stone encircles the oak deck. Eadaoin of the Bibroci, a handsome druidess, ascends its slate stairs with her green-painted spear in hand. The redcap tea she shares with Ostin’s new Ancalite loses its bitterness after the first swallow.

Owl mask over his eyes, Aedan twists decorated nudity to the harmonic strings and the beating drum. White paint covers him from his hairline to toes, and his black curls lie flat with a paste of red, perfumed mud. The tribal songstress’s keen hardens his nipples as he swings right and his sizable cock bounces left. Performing since boyhood, Aedan cartwheels around the fire, a silvery apparition whose acrobatics mesmerize those still sober.

A tickle crawls up Aedan’s spine as his bones go soft. His body fades in the firelight, skin tightening and feathers taking form. He spreads his wings, spreading smoke as his talons rise from the earth.

Those outside the circle make merry, some holding their children above their heads so they, too, can fly like the druid owl. The bonfire’s light marks the revelers, creating shadows that everyone regards as long-dead kin.

A muddy stretch glistens as large animal prints hatch out. A beastly feline stalks from the shadows. Leo, the one Heracles fought in that Greek story. The songstress’s howl morphs into a chilling scream as the majestic cat shakes its mane with each blithe trot. It fears nothing, for no one here can kill it.

The lion falls upon a little girl, sending all those around her to fall back. The monstrous cat shakes her little body in its powerful jaws, staining her white robes crimson. A torn leg comes free and rolls to her parents, who have become stone as the owl lands between them.

Its red maw drips as the monstrous feline drops its prey. A mighty growl makes the stone parents crumble, and the owl hops onto the mother’s pile for a better look at the beast.

The lion drops its victim and begins circling the feathery bird, growing closer with each orbit. Then, the golden cat pounces, and the owl takes flight.

A bright moon beckons, its round, pocked face a beacon for the rising owl…a wave collides with his path, drenching his feathers. Saltwater surrounds a very human Aedan.

The surface light quells his confusion, and he studies its glow, wondering why the salt doesn’t burn his eyes. A splashdown destroys the serenity, and from the bubbly froth comes a paw.

Bubbles fade and reveal a strapping man. Dark green eyes challenge Aedan through the murk. Swollen lips part in perfect symmetry, baring a mouthful of pristine teeth. The man strokes toward him through the water, bringing his bone-deep virility within striking distance.

This hairless brute is everything Aedan wants and nothing he needs. Body to body, hip to hip, the watery barrier between them weakens with each slippery pass. They sink deeper, falling from the light, and drowning matters little to Aedan when it’s this pleasurable.

Fingertips graze his manhood, tickling the foreskin…

Crisp night air wakes him.

Ostin stands within the ring, sickle blade in one knotty hand and his staff in the other. Above him, a lamb awaits on the ledge, a bearded innocent with his ass on his heels and a belly full of porridge laced with root magic.

Behind his owl mask, Aedan trudges up the stacked stones.

The lamb weaves to the music, coherent enough to remain upright yet blind to the sinew cord sinking past his face.

Aedan jerks both ends, testing its strength.

Below, the seer raises his curvy blade to the stars and speaks a litany of words only the Gods understand. Aedan tires of the pomp. He is the Owl now, and the Owl waits for no seer. He pulls the cord around the offering’s neck, crossing his arms and yanking the ends. The lamb topples, his backside slipping off the deck. Portly flesh bounces, and thick arms thrash as the lamb fights for his life, legs wrangling without a platform.

The drums cease, the strings stop, and the crowd quiets.

Aedan’s mask falls as the offering struggles. His smile, rarely seen, forces some to turn away. Even the seer, no stranger to violence, stands slack-jawed as Aedan’s delight turns his seasoned stomach.

Pleasure soaks Aedan’s brain as his cockhead stabs the choking man’s slick hair. He will not drop this kill, not tonight. Not ever. Not when—

Suddenly, a pointed spear drives past his chest, its sharp end poking a clean hole in the lamb’s crown. When the man goes still, a sullen Aedan drops him. The corpse sinks like a stone to Ostin’s feet, landing in a perfect fetal pose.

The archdruid’s blade comes for its throat…

Seawater invades his mouth. An arm surrounds his neck, and hardened flesh prods his cleft. Aedan drives his head back, striking his captor and bringing pain to his skull.

He swims free to find the lion-turned-man drifting away, blood snaking from his nose. He cannot look away. He cannot fight his desire. He swims to the floating man and eagerly swallows his prominent flesh—the outer skin tasting like apples.

Aedan’s hungry mouth coaxes honey from its slit. It fires into the back of his throat, and he swallows greedily, his hands full of the man’s buttocks. Sweetness gives way to brine, flooding his mouth enough to make him push the man away.

The lifeless beauty floats to the surface as Aedan sinks into darkness, a trail of milky white curling up from his lips…

Sunlight blinds him in the warm morning wind. No revelers remain, taking their tents with them in the night.

Ostin leans on his rod below.

“You’re not your father’s son.”

Alone on the platform, Aedan fixates on the bloody sand below. Eadaoin appears alongside the old seer, careful to keep her bare feet clear of the red earth.

“What did you see, Ancalite?” she calls to Aedan.

“He saw nothing,” Ostin interjects. “The Gods tasted his murderous glee and showed him only his destiny, not ours.”

“What did you see?” Aedan asks her.

“I saw my tribe in chains among the wolves.” Tears coat her ruddy cheeks. “What of your people, Ancalite?”

Aedan folds into a handstand before tipping off the platform.

He lands on his feet before her and says, “My tribe will lure the wolves into the water and, while pleasuring them, drown them.”

“There is no water. There is no drowning,” Ostin barks. “You see, but you cannot divine,”

“I am the Owl,” he says. “I will lead the Ancalites,”

“You’ll be the last Ancalite to die, but you’ll die all the same,” Ostin says, limping away. “Along with your bloodline,”

“I’ll be free,” Aedan yells.

“Free as an owl in a lion’s cage can be,” says Ostin.

**

Her boy enters the mourning tent, and her dead husband’s owl shimmies along her perch to greet him. This proves that last night’s rumors are true: Fintan’s successor stands before her.

Aedan takes Fintan’s head by the ears and presses his lips to it. Though flowers pack the mouth, it stinks of decay, and his kiss lingers long enough to pluck his mother’s nerves.

“Our gods gave your father to the Romans,” she tells him.

“You dare mourn him,” he seethes, his ugly face made tolerable with anger, “when you were the one who nagged and cajoled him across the water to his death.”

“I loved him!” she cries.

“You loved him so much, you sent him to die.”

“They attacked our kin across the water!”

“Your kin,” he accuses with a finger pointed. “Your fight.”

Taran enters the tent with his hands balled into fists. A look from Ciniod halts his advance.

“Matrimony is a shared life,” she tells her son. “Best times and bad, two remain one.”

“And with you, the best times are always bad.” Aedan steps into her, suddenly no longer the gangly boy from her yesteryears. “My father died because of you. Not the Gods. Not the Romans. You.”

Taran comes between them, but Aedan slinks around him.

“You defeated every alternative,” he adds, “and gave him no peace until he did what you wanted, when you wanted, and how you wanted it!”

Ciniod stands on virgin territory. Her son spares few words by nature, but at this moment, he’s bountiful.

“What did you see last night?” she wonders.

Aedan turns his back on her.

“Your father died with honor,” says Taran. “Tell him, Chinny,”

Before she can, Aedan glares at her and says, “You took my father from me, and I will never forgive you for it.”

Spite becomes her. “Fintan’s not your father, boy.”

Dark eyes condemn her.

“You’re a product of stupidity,” she adds.

Taran’s head pivots from Aedan to her and then back to Aedan.

“Ravens have nothing on you when it comes to misdirection.” Aedan folds his arms. “Stand up accountable for what you did to him, and stop hiding behind the things you’ve done to me.”

“Done to you? I gave you life, boy,” Ciniod tells his scowl. “I think that warrants some respect,”

“You think wrong,” he says.

“Well then. You may carry your anger to your deathbed.” Ciniod turns her back on him, knowing she won’t be able to much longer. “My life continues either way.”

“I hate you, Mother,” Aedan whispers in her ear. “I always have and forever will.”

“Yes,” she says as he leaves her tent. “But I’m all you’ve got, my little hoot-hoot!”

Ciniod turns away from her brother, unwilling to answer his questions. It’s going to be a long winter south of the Tamesa.