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Disclaimer: I do not own Hellsing. And, just in case, i'm not ripping off Hellboy II: The Golden army either.
I am very sorry that this has taken so long, and that there’s so little to show for it. Thus, this is an interlude, and hopefully I will be able to write more soon.
I am, however, really looking forward to Hellboy II: the Golden Army. It’s times like these I wish I lived in America. You lot over there always get the best films first. But I’m not bitter. Not much.
And at times their females would throw themselves in their path, pleading in the whines of their brother seals that they not do this, they should not do this, there was peace between those of the land and those of the sea. But they snarled and drove past the females and left them to bark in despair. The time had come for the hunt to begin, and would they stay behind and say that they had not taken part? And would the final vengeance not come, for they and their brother seals who had endured so much pain and loss? The humans would pay with their blood for every hide that had been torn from its rightful owner, selkie or seal, and for every death and rape that the brother races had endured.
There were flashes of scales beneath them now as other people of the sea were caught in the tides that they were making, terrified fish and jelly fish and the merrows, the beautiful females clinging together and shrilling in fear, the hideous males furious but powerless to stop the changes that were coming. One or two of them had tried to grasp with their arms or hinder with blows of their tails, but the mer-people would never halt them in their desire to let wrath fall upon the iron race.
Let the merrows chatter and hide, hide all away! Soon the humans would learn to fear the sea once more, and fear what would come from it, seeking revenge for the banishment that all their kind had suffered on the green land and in the ocean. Then the merrows and their own females would be glad enough to rise and feed and play and walk upon the land again, when it was theirs once more.
The selkies, the roane, went on with their work. The storm was coming, and soon it would break upon the land.
Scared.
So scared.
Not-mother says she’ll put me on the fire.
Not-mother wants me dead.
Not-mother wants the other back.
That one said she shouldn’t.
The old one.
Nano.
We know her.
Nano helped us once.
Would she hurt us now?
Would she?
Would she send me back?
Not time yet.
Not ready.
Not ready.
Does she know?
Can she know?
Nano’s special.
Nano’s old.
Nano’s tricky.
Nano knows us.
What will she do?
What can I do?
Not-mother hates me.
I have done nothing!
Only did what I was bid!
Not my fault!
One more day.
Samhain Eve.
One more day.
Don’t want to go.
Don’t want to stay.
Voices.
Heat.
Hate.
The priest, the one who thought he could kill me with silver.
He thought that he could kill me.
Smell of blood.
The blood of my kind.
The vampire in red reeks of it.
I am sorry, whoever you were.
I hope it was quick.
Not-mother wants to throw me on the fire!
Don’t want to!
I can’t go back!
Not yet!
Not yet!
Please, Mother, Father, not yet!
Nano says no.
Nano says to wait.
Nano knows about Samhain.
Nano says that they’ll try then.
They’ll go to the lake.
They’ll try to get the other back.
She must come before then.
She must, or it will be for nothing.
The female vampire says that she is coming.
She will be here tomorrow.
Blood of my kind may tell.
They will not know.
I know that she will come to see me off.
My part is nearly done.
Not-mother will be happy that I am gone.
I will be praised.
I will be thanked.
I will be loved.
It will be done, as everyone has hoped and prayed.
We will be saved.
We will be one again, all of us.
We will return.
Parents and children, together again.
Tomorrow, Samhain Eve, it will be done.
She stood at the till now, watching the rain coming down so thick she could barely see the bridge on the other side of the road. Would anyone stop in this shower to get out of their car and make purchases in the shop? Probably not. But she was proved wrong when the door opened and not one but three people stepped inside, obviously a young family with the husband and wife and the little girl holding on to the woman’s long skirt so tight. The woman had a baby wrapped up in a lace shawl as well, rocking it gently up and down and making vaguely soothing noises; probably it was fretting and they had taken the chance to give it some air as much as anything. They all stayed by the door while the man walked around the shop and picked up some bags of apples, a large bottle of 7-Up and a family bag of Tayto crisps, all probably being bought with keeping the daughter quiet on a long car journey in mind.
It was as the man was studying the sweets on display that the woman appeared to pluck up her courage and make her way over to the till, the girl trailing after her and still holding on tight to her skirt. Mary smiled at her, wondering only vaguely about how mother and daughter really didn’t look that much alike, the woman golden haired and her face and neck dusted with freckles and the little girl with the reddest hair, the palest skin and the greenest eyes that she could ever remember seeing.
“What can I help you with, dear?”
“Would you have any infant formula?” Her voice was low and sweet with a local hint to it. “I’m worn out, you see.” She nodded at the baby in her arms, lifting it slightly as if to show off the one who had drained her dry. The baby peered out from a veritable nest of lace and something that looked like velvet, and yawned solemnly as if bestowing a great favor upon her.
“I’ll see what I can do. How old is…?” She paused, waiting for some hint, since she didn’t really want to call the child ‘it’. The woman opened her mouth but didn’t reply; she looked at a loss. For some reason this didn’t worry Mary. Why should she be worried?
“She’s near to four months old.” This came from the girl, who didn’t look more than eight years at the most but who, Mary thought before she forgot instantly, looked as if she had been eight for a very long time indeed.
“Thank you, Brigid. Yes, she’s four months. Listen-”
“She’s a pretty little one, isn’t she?” she enthused as she went to find the formula, cutting the woman off. “What’s her name?”
“Ciara, but-” The woman spoke quickly before she stopped, and as Mary turned back with the formula in hand she looked over at the man who was now making his way to the till, having added a bag of Worthers Originals, a big bottle of water and several other savory items to his hoard and looking very pleased with himself. He smiled at her as he placed the items on the counter. What a charming man he was, she thought, as she scanned everything and brought up the total, including the formula which he had thought was “A good idea, Sinead.” She couldn’t understand why the woman had looked away from her husband as if she were fighting the urge to say something dreadful in reply.
The daughter, Brigid, looked between the two with eyes that Mary might at another time have recognized as old, and very knowing.
“That’ll be twenty one pounds and fifty five pee, please,” she said at last, piling the things into a plastic bag, and he placed the money on the counter and pushed it towards her, taking the bag in exchange with a smile and a wink. He put his arm around his wife and steered her back towards the door, but little Brigid stayed in front of the till for a moment, letting go of her mother’s skirt for the first time since she had come in.
She said quietly, “Thank ye for ye help,” with rather an odd, quaint accent, and then ran out after her parents.
Mary thought no more of them after that, not wondering why they had been bone dry when she hadn’t heard a car pull up and they must have had to walk there, nor thinking that she had heard the beating of a horse’s hooves running off as soon as Brigid had gone out the door. She certainly didn’t think on the fact that the money the black haired man with the tawny yellow eyes had given her soon changed into two leaves and a handful of pebbles.
I shall assume that everyone knows what merrows are, or at least can guess from the rather sparse description. Think ‘The Little Mermaid’, only more creepy.
Selkies are seals that, when they take off their skins, become humans. Or at least human shaped. Female selkies apparently can’t grasp the concept of preventing lonely young men getting hold of their detached skins and thus becoming said lonely young man’s wife. Male selkies, generally ticked off by the whole scale seal slaughter that’s taken place over the past few centuries, not to mention the fact that humans keep stealing their women, cause storms to wreck boats.
Also, if you throw a changeling on the fire to make it reveal itself, it apparently flies up the chimney laughing and shrieking, and the true baby will be found at the front door. Another method is to pretend to brew water in empty eggshells, the sheer absurdity of which will make the changeling point it out, thus revealing its great age. Then you throw it on the fire.
I wish I could only have made something like that up, especially considering the unfortunate accidents (and sometimes deliberate murders) that have happened because of it.
This entire story is, of course, set before Ireland changed to the Euro, before anyone points out that I got the currency wrong. I really liked the old currency, and I thought it was rather a pity that they changed it. Now I can no longer look at a fifty pence piece and see a kingfisher where the Queen’s head is in England. Sigh.
Reviews for the half-Irish seamstress!