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Feb. 2nd, 2005 07:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theravenboyBran is standing on the very top of Bird Rock, Craig yr Aderyn. He has no memory of having climbed it; he is simply there. Cormorants wheel about him, in a great cloud. For a moment it is exhilarating, and then they are too thick about him, like a tornado, buffeting him with wind and wingbeats. He cries out, and strikes out at them with his hands. Some fall bloodied to the rock at his feet but still they press closer, closer, turning the world to spinning iridescent black feathered shapes and bright malicious eyes.
He steps back, and the rock crumbles under his feet and he is tilting, flailing, falling. He falls through the cloud of birds, through small solid bodies and sharp beaks that peck at him, and the ground is rushing towards him. He seems to fall for hours, the sheep still tiny white dots below him, and every moment he expects to hit the earth but he doesn't, and he cringes with the anticipation of pain.
And then with no shock of landing he is in a familiar star-shaped room, with a white smooth floor and columns of yellow-striped black. Around him are strewn corpses of milgwn and fox-haired Eelfinn, their throats torn out. The floor and walls and columns are smeared with scarlet blood. A flash of motion catches his eye and he turns to look, wide-eyed with horror and swallowing bile.
Cafall is there, prancing, tongue lolling and silver eyes alight. His jaws and chest are soaked with blood -- the Eelfinn's and the milgwn's, the heart's blood of foxes.
A rifle's click and his da is there, antlers sprouting from his forehead, aiming a shotgun at Cafall. "A sheep-killer after all, bachgen," he says gently. "There is nothing else for it when a dog goes mad." Bran cries out in protest, screams, and he is eleven again he dimly knows but bang and Cafall falls limply across the body of a great grey fox-king, and Owen smiles at him gently, and now he is blue-eyed and brindle-bearded. "It's all right," he says. "You'll forget soon enough."
He steps back, and the rock crumbles under his feet and he is tilting, flailing, falling. He falls through the cloud of birds, through small solid bodies and sharp beaks that peck at him, and the ground is rushing towards him. He seems to fall for hours, the sheep still tiny white dots below him, and every moment he expects to hit the earth but he doesn't, and he cringes with the anticipation of pain.
And then with no shock of landing he is in a familiar star-shaped room, with a white smooth floor and columns of yellow-striped black. Around him are strewn corpses of milgwn and fox-haired Eelfinn, their throats torn out. The floor and walls and columns are smeared with scarlet blood. A flash of motion catches his eye and he turns to look, wide-eyed with horror and swallowing bile.
Cafall is there, prancing, tongue lolling and silver eyes alight. His jaws and chest are soaked with blood -- the Eelfinn's and the milgwn's, the heart's blood of foxes.
A rifle's click and his da is there, antlers sprouting from his forehead, aiming a shotgun at Cafall. "A sheep-killer after all, bachgen," he says gently. "There is nothing else for it when a dog goes mad." Bran cries out in protest, screams, and he is eleven again he dimly knows but bang and Cafall falls limply across the body of a great grey fox-king, and Owen smiles at him gently, and now he is blue-eyed and brindle-bearded. "It's all right," he says. "You'll forget soon enough."
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Date: 2005-02-03 04:05 am (UTC)Five AM, and no point sleeping any more. Bran pulls on yesterday's sweater and jeans, makes a pot of tea to cut the flavor in his mouth and carries it outside in a thermos. Bran sits before the cottage, staring out over the shadows of hills, clutching his knees to his chest. It is still winter; the air is clear, dry and icy, and the sun will not rise for hours yet.
A darker shadow among the shadows, rustling and panting, trots over and sets its head on Bran's side.
"Good dog. Good Lluchddu," Bran says, wrapping his arm around the black sheepdog, but there is a strange note in his voice that causes Lluchddu to growl, soft and low and frightened. Wrong dog, wrong time; Lluchddu is no Cafall. --My father had a dog named Cafall-- Abruptly the memories pushing through Bran's head become too much. Bran curls up around Lluchddu and sobs like a terrified, grieving eleven-year-old boy.
From his second-floor window, in the predawn darkness, Owen Davies watches the shadows of his son and his son's dog, longing fervently and hopelessly to be the kind of father who could have aided his son in his grief.