Love in Chains

The woman with luxuriant black hair sat opposite a lady with swathes of fuzzy silver grey hair and unusual round grey and black birth marks across her skin. A fire burnt between the pair of them and they needed it, for neither of them wore much in the way of clothes. The grey haired lady had a cloak but little else.

The grey haired lady obviously lay claim to the place they sat and the things in it and she took a handful of sweet smelling herbs and scattered them in the fire. She glanced up at the segull sat, head under wing next to the lady.

'and you love him?' she said.

Sally glanced at the bird nervously 'of course I do, why else would I be here. I don't think he has any idea of what I shall have to do though.'

'why should you do anything? Live out your lives together as you are!'

'I saw something in the waves, a child, a human child. Rich in magics she was and she has to be born and she has to be mine. A promise I made many years ago to Danu has come back to haunt me, Serena.'

Stirring the fire she signed deeply and pondered before replying slowly and hesitantly, 'how would Lir react to this? Stepping into the afairs of others can be, complicated to say the least.'

Sally stretched out her left arm to show Serena where her bone was not entirely straight. 'I was searching for my love to be, flying hither and tither calling him to me but Lir heard me and called up a storm. He only meant to stop me flying, not to kill me so after plucking me from the sky he had me seen to shore but he could have had no idea that he aided my mission. It was my true love who found me there and took me to his home and wed me.'

Sally paused with a distant look in her eyes before continuing 'I never walked near the sea with him but somehow Lir learned that we had found each other and wed. Tom was a fisherman and once Lir knew, I guess it was only a matter of time. The storm was his and his alone because I caught no hint of it before it announced it's arrival to all. Lir claimed tom's soul as his own, as was his right and so here he is bound for all time. From this life to the next he shall be a bird of the sea.'

Serena reached over to lay her hand on Sally's in comfort. 'Why would Lir be against this child Danu seeks to bring into existence? Is he jealous that one of those of his court would seek to help her and bind themselves to her rather than him? Yes, that must be it. Unless there is something about this child you will bring forth?'

'I know not of my child's fate, simply that he must be. I must find out how to unbind Tom from the wheel he is now on, how I can take him from Lir.'

'Yes you must and I know just how to do it.'

Sally leaned forward eagerly to catch Serena's whispered words.

'He must die to the wheel he is on and be reborn to his own blood.'

The two women talked long into the night as the sea gull slept.