Invocation of the Rite of Passage:

“I sing out praises to your glittering and open sky,

be my guide all my days from birth until I die.

Holy Queen, Daughter of Time

Queen of Music, Mother who shines,

I beseech your right, and I kneel to your powers,

I give you my heart, my mind, and my hours.

I raise you, I praise you, Absolve me!

Purify my darkness in your flowing sea!

Defender, Punisher, Absolver, Mercy you always are!

I carry my Mother’s love within me, you are never far!

Danu, Goddess, Mistress of oceans,

Give me power over reality and all its motions!

Bestow me now, the mighty power you hold,

Let my body be a vessel, your cup, your mold!

Grant us Danu in your strength, a way, a path, a golden gate!

Carry us now to groves of gold, to the lands of the free, to never grow old.

We lift you now, be our fate, 

Take us to Alfheim, where love knows no hate….”

(Disclaimer: If you recited the poem and a golden gate has not yet appeared then…)

“You’re still doing it wrong!”, spoke Queen Danu to her daughter Eriu who pouted in the grass over her spear. Danu returned to ignoring her daughter and continued resting herself on her pillowed couch, which sat beneath her favored shading oak in her garden. Her plum colored tulle gowns flowed elegantly over the cushions and clung seductively to Danu’s slender thigh whilst she sipped from a golden chalice a sip of sweet apple cider from the grove growing beside her palace she had until recently shared with her husband Dagda.

Her pretty nymph maids performed tasks and chores all wrapped in plain white linen with the mark of her house embroidered at their throats. Stitched in golden threads on their linen gowns was an image of Dagda's harp encasing a silver moon with three stars hovering proudly above the harp of Dagda. The three stars are what Danu looked at, and they represented her shining crown Sruth happily shining over Dagda in a marriage of two great houses. Danu looked and sneered at the sigil. “Utter nonsense!”, she said under her breath thinking of her marriage to her husband Dagda, and how she was bound by him upon the Isle they had once happily shared together in marriage. ”I want off this ugly rock. How dare he tether me here like some dog! I will rip that old fuckers throat from him with Sruth when I see his wrinkled prune face again!”, she screamed out making everyone of her Nymphs jump in sudden surprise and fear away from their shouting and raging sovereign.

The young and beautiful nymphs fluttered their fans made of red gold phoenix feathers, trying to cool Danu's hard, sculpted body. But when she suddenly screamed at them, many nearly dropped their fans in shock. Danu luxuriated in her comfortable position once again, ignoring the commotion she had caused among her nymphs. She reclined in the shade and observed their nervous hands fanning vigorously and their eyes avoiding direct contact with her. A sense of pride and joy overcame Danu as she watched their fear of her. She also admired the hypnotic sway of the ornate feather fans. Their rhythmic movement helped calm her furious mind as she basked in the shade of her towering oak tree, desperate for a moment of peace amidst all her responsibilities. “It’s all his fault I’m like this!”, she complained to her Nymphs fanning her, but still they said nothing and averted their eyes from Danu and her scowling face.

Danu's mind was soon again consumed with vengeful thoughts towards her husband Dagda despite her trying to rest, the images of him stealing her children away kept creeping into her thoughts causing her many sleepless nights now. She longed for peace and respite from her anger. Her outbursts at discovering that Dagda had taken their children in the middle of the night, after forcing himself on her with Uaithne’s sleeping powers, caused great turmoil within the palace walls and with Danu’s recent beauty rest!

“I am righteous in my anger!”, she thought to herself. “My children were stolen! Any mother would rage at that! Dagda will answer for this betrayal, and so will anyone who took part in it!”, Danu thought to herself, fuming, and grinding her sharp fangs that her teeth had become in her rage behind her beautiful but sinister smile.

The nymphs on Brasil who once adored Danu all avoided crossing her path anymore. Her ladies all worked silently around her, avoiding meeting Danu’s gaze. They could see the light coming off her diadem, Sruth, was harsh. It stung their eyes to look at Danu, so they simply didn't. They worked in utter silence around her.

And so no more did they look at their beautiful Queen directly, nor did they dance in the pastures and forests, nor did anyone play a single song! No one seemed to recall how, and the perpetual silence from everyone tore at Danu’s nerves. Danu couldn't help but feel upset and uncomfortable as she watched her ladies moving about, making small noises and performing their tasks without saying a word to her! The droning sounds had finally worn down her patience enough to speak up to one of the silent figures strolling by her.

She looked to her serving maid Elen and yelled, “Say something! Be amusing! Your queen demands entertainment! Enough of all of your unhappy faces! Smile!”, Danu shouted at the unsuspecting and surprised young nymph, Elen.

The sudden outburst from Danu sent Elen into a shock as Danu said her name. Elen froze as she nearly dropped a bowl of fruit she’d carried from all the way from the palace for Danu. She managed to catch the few apples that fell one atop the other in quick succession and nimbly balanced the apples on a single toe.

Elen did a graceful little kick and the apples flew one after the other in order from her foot and back into the fruit bowl. She gave an elegant little twirl with the bowl and a sweet curtsy as Danu clapped with a small hint of a smile as she said, “Well done, my dear. Very amusing!”

“It's all in the hips!”, said Elen with a wink and a smile. She bowed graciously as the other nymphs joined in Danu’s clapping, now with smiles of their own on their faces. Elen sat her bowl upon a low table and bashfully returned to her duties blushing from all the sudden attention.

Danu looked at all her nymphs who laughed at Elen’s sudden bashful blushing and demanded, “Play me a song! A jig, waltz, serenade, anything! I crave music!” Danu looked back to Elen, “Do you know any songs, Elen?”

The young maid had stopped breathing upon hearing Danu's request. She froze in fearful shock. “What should I do?”, she panicked in her mind. “I know no songs. Will she beat me for not knowing?” Elen somehow managed to speak despite her worry though her words came out stuttering as she spoke, “I-I.. um..I cannot. I-I know no songs.”, She said fearfully as the tears began to sting the corners of her eyes anticipating Danu’s ire for telling her no.

Elen took a deep sigh of anticipation, but Danu turned away from her on her cushions to face back out to the garden. “That will be all, Elen.”, said Danu flatly, sounding disappointed, but she did not rage. Elen dismissed herself and quickly returned to her duties with a smile of relief on her lovely shaped face.

“Even at my demanding it the nymphs refused to make music!”, Danu sulked to herself. “Have they forgotten how?”, she pondered as she picked a rose from a nearby vase. She studied its white petals nearly glowing in the soft light beaming through the limbs of the oak. “Dagda must have stolen their songs along with our daughters when he fled Brasil for Tir Na nÓg.”, she decided, “I know that's where he’d run. Back to our mothers house to hide behind them from me like a coward! Typical of him! Ugggahhhh!”, she shouted out into the garden before she flopped back on her cushions feeling defeated in the deafening silence of Brasil who had once always been filled with happy songs.

When old King Dagda took his harp Uaithne from Brasil, the joy of music vanished. The nymphs, trees, and even the stones no longer sang their sweet melodies in the sun. The once lively atmosphere was now filled with mundane silence for Danu. To make matters worse, all the nymphs seemed to have forgotten how to dance and play music without Uaithne's enchanting tunes. The nymph's happiness faded away along with Uaithne, just as Danu's own happiness was taken when her two daughters, Titania and Morrigan, were stolen from her. Now, there were no more smiles on Brasil and no more happy days for anyone else either.

“I’ll murder that old codger for his trick!”, thought Danu to herself crossly as she thought of her enemies at court and Dagda who had stolen from her, “He won't get away, nor will any other who helped him steal my children from under me! They’ll all suffer!”, Danu thought to herself as she shred the petals off the rose she’d been idly holding. “The mothers are behind this treachery! Dagda does nothing without their say! I know they caused this!”, she thought as she finally decapitated the rose bulb until there was only a twig in her hand which lit alight in her hand and burned to ash with Sruths’s power gleaming. The rose’s soft white petals blew away with a sudden wind that approached with Danu’s returning bad disposition.

Danu distracted herself a moment and watched her ladies perform their duties. She calmed herself on her cushions and let herself become hypnotized by the movement of the ladies who fanned her body with fans twice their size. In the nymph maid’s nimble but small hands the scarlet and gold feathers looked like the wings of some great odd bird to Danu as they wagged around her, their feathers simmering with red sparks as they sailed through the air from the hypnotic billowing of the scarlet plumes.

Danu tried her best to let her mind try to drift back to a more restful state. “Rest now, sweet lilly!”, thought Danu, reassuring herself with the name she called herself in her private thoughts. “I’ll get my revenge when my eyes aren’t so puffy.”, she thought as she examined her face with her fingertips grazing the skin lightly, searching for anything malformed, but truly fining nothing but smooth and fair skin under her fingertips.

She reminded herself as she felt her face, “A lilly must close itself to the shade. I must rest and restore for the return of my daughters' light to me. My battles have just begun, and I need my strength now!”, she thought as she felt her face for any new change when there was none.

“He must regret what he's lost forever!”, she thought again, thinking of Dagda. “Never again will those wrinkled hands touch my smooth skin!”, she smiled as she let her hands smooth across her beautiful body scantily covered by her tulle gowns. The thought of her husband's absence sent Danu into a little fit of joy.

Danu bit her lip softly as her hands came near to grazing between her legs which she crossed against her own touch, but the need to be felt and touched persisted. “If he abandoned our marriage then I should perhaps take a lover?”, she considered, biting her lip thinking of the scandal.

“I could shock the court and take Delbáed back from Ethlain!”, she mused as she sipped from her chalice. “I could buy him back from Ethlain for a seat beside me at Lia Fáil! She’d do anything to be so near the Wyrd and to see the magnificence of the court firsthand again! She never loved her husband as I once did!”, Danu laughed angrily to herself thinking of her once rival. “She thought she won by stealing him from me, but I'll be the one to laugh as I take Delbáed from her arms, the grasping shrew! I hope she and Dagda choke on the love Delbáed and I will share again now!”, Danu said thinking of her past lovers touch upon her again as she stroked her body with her hands the ways Delbáed had once done long ago to her, and a small tear wrested itself from the corner of her eye thinking of him. Danu quickly wiped it away though and hid her sad face from the Nymphs doing their duties around her.

Danu's thoughts drifted to her daughters with Dagda on the enchanted island of Tir Na nÓg, and she clenched her jaw in frustration. The alluring Wyrd would surely lure her young daughters with false promises of power and knowledge, just as they had tempted Danu in her ambitious youth. But it was all lies. Only the Wyrd seemed to gain more power, while their descendants dwindled in strength. "I see through your plans! I have known all along, Mothers! That is why you have taken from me what is rightfully mine! But mark my words, I will take back what you have stolen from me, you dreadful trio!" Danu shouted at the sky above, convinced that her mothers were watching her even in her exile from court and the sacred island of Tir Na nÖg where the Wyrd resided in their opulent citadel and their esteemed assembly of children and grandchildren who were chosen to partake in the Rites of Akash, granting them secret knowledge and great powers. "I will liberate my children from your grasp! You three and Dagda will bear witness to my triumph!" she proclaimed before sinking back onto her cushions in defeat and anger. “How will I beat them when they see everything I do?!”, she shouted into a cushion against her face.

She took her face from her cushion then and looked to her other daughter Eriu, her shame. She screamed at her as she saw Eriu’s small aura drooping around her, “You’re not letting yourself grab the light! It must burn you! It burns your weakness from you, allow it, coward! I can feel your reluctance to touch Akash from here! Focus!”, she shouted from her cushions as she held her head in grief over her eldest child’s weakness.

All princesses of the Tuatha Dea were expected to perform the Ascension and prove to their parents and Wyrd Mothers their power. It was a tradition spanning back to the beginning of the Tuatha when the first of the Wyrd's children had danced together in the shining branches of the sacred apple grove of Achad Alba within the Wyrd’s keep.

“Eriu would be no exception to our traditions!”, Danu had once sworn to herself and still held her vow, “I was promised powerful children if I gave myself to your father Dagda!”, she shouted at Eriu who sulked in the grass beyond. “I was promised a crown and a land of my own, but all I have to show for it is a court of nymphs that never smile or dance and you! What a joke! All while your horrible father had stolen your sisters from us!”, said Danu as she threw out her cider from her chalice, splashing Eriu with it. “I’m not seeing any improvements! Have you been meditating? Your center doesn’t feel calm or still to me! Fix it!”, Danu complained meanly from her sofa. The other nymphs took heed of her temper and began to distance themselves. Some had already stolen away and fled back to the forest or to the palace to hide from Danu’s approaching wrath. Only Danu’s most loyal nymphs remained, Elen among them.

Danu took no notice of her fleeing maids. She watched Eriu with a renewed interest, and Danu in that moment desperately wished Dagda had taken Eriu with him and left her other daughters, but not even Dagda wanted Eriu! Danu suddenly felt forced to break from her relaxation to place all her attention focused on her daughter's failing lessons. Danu tossed restlessly on her cushions as she watched her daughter Eriu struggle to find her light and to touch Akash.

Danu was filled with a familiar disappointment as she yelled out, “Idiot girl! You're not concentrating hard enough! Keep your mind still! Count your breaths and keep your thoughts open!”, said Danu holding her head. “Even children younger than you can perform the dance of Ascendancy! It is the first act of the Grand Rite! You must perform it so you and I will be allowed back into the Wyrd’s court! Try harder!!”, Danu screamed.

Danu rolled over and screamed into a pillow as she thought angrily to herself, “She's a waste! Dagda stole my good children, my Morrigan and Titania! He took my beautiful and perfect children away from me, the bastard! He will pay!”, she screamed and vented herself by shouting into a pillow after she watched Eriu’s swirling aura dip too low. “Arrrggghhh!”, she moaned between her grating sharp teeth.

Danu raised her head up from her pillow and again complained as she sensed Eriu’s small power fading, “Eriu! You're going to sever your link! I told you to focus on your breathing!” Danu tossed her body around on her cushions uncomfortably. She nervously began to play with a strand of her long golden hair with a look of frustration tainting her otherwise beautiful face.

“You cannot touch Akash if you don't do the correct breathing!”, she continued shouting, “How many times must you be told!? Do it again!”, demanded Danu lounging from her soft cushions giving Eriu the worst of looks.

"I'm doing my best, mother!" Eriu shouted over her shoulder to Danu. She clenched her hands tightly around Drömnål, her long spear that connected her to the power of Akash and reality. The weapon was expertly crafted from silver shimmering energetic metals found in a fallen star by Eriu’s grandmothers, the Wyrd mothers, although Eriu had never met them in person. They always remained like a mysterious and faceless cloud over Eriu. The Wyrd shaped her every moment, even if they had never met one another, but Eriu really knew nothing much about them other than they were all-seeing and powerful.

Eriu also knew her ancient grandmothers forged all conduits used among their children upon the isle of Tir Na nÓg. Danu had told her it was a great honor to receive one as a gift, but Eriu often viewed her conduit Drömnål as less an honor and more of a burden she’d won. Now was one of those times as Danu shouted out at her. “Your best has never been good enough before. Strive to be more than you’ve been, eh?”, Danu shouted, annoyed at Eriu from her cushions.

Eriu held her spear close to her chest, hating it. Eriu could not control Drömnål’s vast power; even so, she felt somehow protected by its weight against her as Danu shouted, burden or no. Eriu sensed the raw power pulsing within Drömnål as she held it tight, but she could not grasp the fast stream of light moving through the spear in her mind. The current melted and fled away from her every touch.

“I can do it this time. I just have to let myself touch it! Just for a moment I can be happy enough to invite the spirit in! Joy is the root to awakening! I will command you, useless rock! I will melt you in a fire if you don’t let me touch Akash’s light!”, Eriu threatened Drömnål in her thoughts as she tried to summon her happy memory.

Eriu instinctively did as Danu had instructed her so many times. She commanded her breathing by taking shallow but slow breaths. While she breathed she forced her body to still from its nervous shaking. Her mind was a whirlwind of scattered thoughts as she tried to still her mind. Many of those thoughts were of Danu’s fury at her if she kept her mother in the garden all day yet again.

Eriu would have preferred to practice alone as she used to, but Danu insisted that she observe Eriu’s every lesson herself. Danu had sworn she would see Eriu pass the next Ascension and prove herself worthy to be called a Tuatha Dea, a title only given to Tuatha with strength. Eriu’s previous failure at the Ascension, nearly a year past, had left Danu shamed before the whole of the Sidhe and her fellow Tuatha Dea.

The Wyrd had scolded her mother Danu on Eriu’s behalf for failing. They had told Danu that she herself was unfit for the completion of the Grand Rite. Because She had given birth to a weak child, Danu would no longer be considered to touch the roots of Akash directly, nor would she sip from their famed Chalice of Knowledge and know their great Arcana. She would not be allowed to have her wish granted from the All-Mother, Akash. Her power was found wanting, and so, too, was her faith in the All-Mother.

The whole Sidhe court had mocked her mother’s shame with pointing fingers and cruel jeers. “Candle-bright”, they called her mother’s famed light and her crown Sruth. All while Danu burned with a white hot rage. Eriu recalled her handsome uncle Bres, King of Atlantis, telling her mother from his dais above them, “Danu, you’re only near as shiny as the crack of my arse!”, he had said half in his cups to Danu. He had felt safe in mocking her mother while they were in the Wyrd’s presence. They had loomed high above, but Eriu could never ascend Akash’s steps up to greet them.

Her aunt Brigid, his wife, was beside him and had already taken to a fit of giggling under her heavy veils she wore before he had even finished speaking. He turned and addressed the rest of the Sidhe, “I say to you all! Danu might not glow as lovely as my globes I carry behind me, but she might smell a waft sweeter!” He had said holding his nose with one hand while fanning the air near his rear with the other.

Eriu remembered the fear she felt watching her mother be shamed before the court at Achad Alba. The beating Eriu received from Danu after they had all returned from the isle of Tir Na nÖg had been the worst pain she’d ever known. Danu had spared Eriu no shred of mercy. Even when she pleaded to her as a daughter Danu remained unmoved by her tears and pleas.

Danu had hung Eriu high in the sky for days from a cloud that remained pinned above the palace far below her hanging there. When Danu was in a mood to, which was often, she hurled lightning and other objects at Eriu hovering in the sky. She sent hurricane winds to batter Eriu and flocks of cruel seabirds to peck at her eyes and tongue.

Then when the day was done, and her torture at an end, a rain would come. Eriu had at first thought the rain a blessing, a gift. The waters would heal Eriu’s every fatigue and pain, her cuts and bruises washed away. The first time the rain had come Eriu had believed Danu had forgiven her, but she soon realized the healing rain was its own torment. When the sun had risen and the day began, so too did Eriu’s suffering begin renewed at Danu’s hands.

Eriu knew no peace for weeks after her failed Ascendency time and time again. The memories of it made her begin to cry. More memories of her past unwanted fear, rage, and fatigue crept into her mind and continued spoiling her chances at happy thoughts. She had tried to touch the power of Akash far too many times without resting, but her mother Danu demanded repetition and perfection from Eriu.

It was only a week till the time of Eriu's next attempt at an Ascension before the Wyrd mothers Danu had claimed, and still she could not perform even the beginning steps! “How will I perform the dance of Ascendancy before the Sidhe Court? She’ll destroy me entirely this time. I know it!”, she thought to herself sullenly as tears slipped down her cheeks.

She cleared her thoughts, or tried to. A lingering nagging doubt clouded her mind, but she soldiered through her fear of her mother's reprisal. Fighting against the fears of failure she forced herself past every painful nagging feeling inside her. They welled up and bit at her hands as like angry vipers striking her hands with shadowy fangs as she clung to her spear Drömnål. Each bite of the vipers she conjured in her fear stung deep and left its venom in her as her stomach heaved under Drömnål’s might, but Eriu refused to vomit in front of Danu so she swallowed all the bile back down her throat and it festered quietly inside her.

Eriu sat still and straight backed and feigned a proud posture as she held tightly to Drömnål in the grass waiting for the steps of Acendency to reveal themselves to her. Eriu disregarded her feelings and searched in her mind for the one happy memory she knew it was safe to recall within Danu’s powerful presence. Danu could read Eriu’s every thought if she had a mind to do so. Eriu had no grace to deny Danu’s probing of her mind to call upon to defend herself from her mother, so Eriu only ever allowed herself to think thoughts Danu would find pleasing. This meant Eriu never dreamed nor was she ever happy on her mother’s isle, or anywhere for that matter.

Eriu had few good memories, and even fewer including Danu in them. She replayed a memory from her childhood she knew would please Danu should she view her mind. Eriu dared not think of any memories that did not include her mother. Eriu had not since she had caused indirect harm to the nymphs she had once befriended in the palace.

Eriu had once tried to touch Akash with the happy memories of dancing with the nymphs, but the next morning Danu had jealousy turned every nymph she had thought of into apple trees. A grove of them now grew beside the palace, and each tree wore a face of a Nymph contorted in fear. Danu spared them no shred of mercy as she hadn’t with Eriu.

The nymph’s long and graceful branches were perpetually full and heavy from the burden of ripe fruit. “Their arms must ache so.”, Eriu thought once as she cried for her lost friends under the shade of the apple trees. She had begged the Nymphs who were turned to trees to forgive her, but they remained silent as young wood does. Eriu never knew if they had forgiven her, but she thought had they not. “How could they forgive me?”, she’d thought as she listened to their silence. “I wouldn’t forgive me either.”, she concluded as she had returned sullenly back to the palace.

To make the cruelty of Danu worse. Danu ordered the nymph’s fresh apples to be made into cider, cakes, and pies, daily. A reminder to all who served her on Brasil that Eriu should not be befriended but feared. She was a princess of Tuatha Dea, not a nymph to dance barefoot in the bright forests and flowered glens. In the end even the other palace Nymphs had come to reject Eriu.

But for Eriu Danu’s punishment was different. Daily Eriu was served a warm apple pie with each of her meals. Often Danu appeared before her at her meals to ensure Eriu ate her pie, with a glad smile plastered to Danu’s false but sweet face. “You must smile when you eat the sweets I bring you, my darling!”, she’d say as she would often force feed Eriu her first few bites of the steaming and sickeningly sweet pie. After Danu would leave laughing at Eriu's choking on the crust and at her burning tears.

Eriu forced her mind to find a moment outside her sadness. She summoned up an old memory of her childhood. She thought of a time her mother held her close. It was only really once that she remembered that Danu had. When the Wyrd mothers had called the meteor from the heavens that made her spear, Drömnål.

Eriu tried to remember the memory of her mother's smiling face as the star blazed overhead like a lantern in the night sky. Her sisters, Titania and Morrigan had pointed and they both jumped at the excitement of chasing a wishing star. They each couldn't wait to touch a true wishing star and receive a true conduit. Just like the diadem Sruth was for their mother, or the harp Uaithne was for their father Dagda.

Danu had smiled and hugged each of them before they were to race to catch the falling star. The first to catch it would receive the best and first conduit, a great honor bestowed on the children of Danu by the Wyrd mothers.

Danu had been so proud of Eriu and her sisters then in that short moment. Eriu remembered how beautiful Danu had been in her silver gowns. She’d worn her golden hair up in braids and cascading curls. Danu was a vision as breathtaking as the flowing sea sparkling in the dawn’s light as Sruth gleamed in every color of the rainbow at her brow. She glowed radiantly, Eriu remembered. “She was like a rainbow across a moonlit sky, a rare and impossible beauty. I, too, can be beautiful! I can be as powerful as her!”, she told herself trying to find the courage to believe it, but her loneliness obscured her beliefs in herself.

Eriu was invisible to everyone, especially her mother. “Danu’s light is never beautiful anymore. It's only ever harsh in my eyes.”, she thought to herself in passing. “She’s not beautiful!”, she decided with a scowl.

A fear suddenly gripped her. “Did she hear that?!”, she thought to herself in a panic. She waited shivering as she clutched Drömnål protectively. A moment passed, but nothing came of her thoughts against Danu. Eriu was still invisible. To Danu Eriu was no more to her than the hundreds of Nymphs populating their isle Brasil. Just someone to use when it suited her needs to.

Even Eriu's many brothers ignored her for their mock battles and their games of hunting beautiful Nymphs in the woods for sport. Eriu could barely remember their names or faces; she'd not seen them in so long. Eriu tried to force her memory away from her loneliness. “Mother will see. She will punish me if I fail again!”, she chided herself. “Focus! Be happy!”, she demanded of herself.

Eriu forced her distracted mind to recall when the meteor struck the earth. Eriu had raced from Danu’s sweet embrace. Her two sisters were right behind her as they chased the star’s sparkling tail across the night sky. She remembered how her sisters Titania and Morrigan had both raced against her once she had left Danu's embrace. Their youthful smiles had been so infectious. Eriu almost smiled thinking of her sisters as they had been before they had both gained gifts and arts from Akash. Before they’d both also forgotten their elder sister existed.

Eriu remembered how she had been tempted to stay with them, hand in hand, racing for the star. Once her sisters had been her only friends, the closest friends she’d ever known. They had all wanted to catch the star together, but Eriu remembered she wanted Danu’s smile and love for her own, so she’d sprinted fast ahead of her smaller sisters through the tall purple grass of Tir Na nÖg to follow the fleeing starlight. Leaving them behind her as she dashed ahead. Her legs were longer than her sisters and she easily outpaced them. “But time has made the opposite true.” she suddenly thought. “They tower over me now like giants!”, she thought with jealousy to herself, “If only I could be tall and beautiful as they are!”, she thought sadly, but winced as a viper bit her full of its venom.

She saw her sisters in her mind as they had been just before Dagda had taken them away to the Wyrd. Morrigan, who was older than Titania, was dark and beautiful as a night’s sky with her hair as black as a raven’s wing. Titania, herself shimmered with bright sunlight as their mother. Her golden beauty was unmatched, even compared to Danu’s own. Danu coveted both her sister’s beauty and served their every whim herself as their maid. That was the depth of Danu’s love for her sisters, but Eriu had never known that comforting love as they had.

Eriu thought about how her sisters had soon towered over Eriu and the Nymphs in the palace. “They've grown so fast since childhood.”, she thought to herself bitterly. “Why can I not?”, she asked Drömnål as another viper struck her wrist, but no reply was given by her spear. Eriu grew angry and shouted at her spear in her mind. “Make me glow as they do! I won you so you should obey, you daft rock! That’s how its supposed to work!”, she shouted in her mind.

Eriu was then struck by the viper that made her think again to herself of how her sisters now beamed with the power of Akash, and how they both brought pride to the Tuatha Dea and their mother Danu. Eriu knew that now both her sisters would have husbands and children, and they both could summon up power from Akash with ease, but not Eriu! She sat cross-legged in the grass, still small as a child, and still she could only manage to summon up her mother’s ire.

Eriu's body cringed as if afflicted by a dark hex at the sound of Danu yelling, “You're losing motivation! I can feel your grasp of Akash slipping! Concentrate harder!” Danu threw an apple at Eriu hitting her in the shoulder. It stung, but Eriu didn't dare to flinch. Eriu never dared to appear weak in front of Danu.

“I wish I could run fast. Fast away as I did then!”, she said, imagining herself far from her mother. Not caring for a moment if Danu saw her mind. “Let her see it! Let her know I yearn to be away from her!”, she thought loudly, but Danu paid her no mind. Much to Eriu’s secret relief as she quickly glanced over her shoulder to see Danu yawning on her sofa as her Nymph maids attended their duties around their lying deity.

Eriu turned back around and imagined herself back upon that beautiful stretch of lavender grass upon Tir Na nÓg many years ago. In her memory Eriu could still smell the fresh grass’s herbal bliss. Drömnål glinted in her hand faintly at the thought of it. Eriu could never forget the flowing bright purple hue of the grass shimmering under a summer’s full moon. Under the moonlight the grass moved as if a violet moving sea, and she moved through its churning waves as a wanting vessel. She yearned to be filled by the burning star’s power. Fast and faster she ran through the grass after the burning orb above her. The star burned blue and white as it scorched through the clouds and set the heavens ablaze with its glory.

Eriu remembered the light of a thousand upon a thousand fireflies springing up from the grass around her. Each quick step she took through the grass had the fireflies erupting around her in bands of swirling yellow lights. Before long the field was a waving sea of swirling stars above and below as she sprinted fast as the wind after the biggest and brightest star of them all.

“Fast as starlight! Faster even!”, she imagined. She remembered every breathless step as she proceeded after the blazing meteor to be first to it before her sister and her many cousins who ran after her through the grass, but Eriu did not see any of them. She was too far ahead to notice them following behind her through the waving grass. “First to the star, and first to win Danu’s love!”, She remembered telling herself, but Eriu had never run so fast! Her lungs nearly burst from her small chest, but she was the first to reach the fallen meteor before anyone!

The star came crashing into the dark forest in an explosion of light shaking stardust off from the mighty glowing elms that grew tall and up into the night sky. The dust rained glittering and poured rainbow colored rain across the branches and floor of the ancient grove of trees. The force of the bright meteor when it landed blew the grass and Eriu back, lighting the trees in a warm glow. Eriu had fallen to her knees at the explosive power as she was engulfed in its expanding brilliant shine.

Eriu picked herself up from the violently tossing grass. She sprinted through the forceful and hot wind blowing off from the glittering meteor star. She ignored the embers flying at her face and skin as she quickly navigated over fallen branches and old timber. She'd never even felt their stinging branches snapping at her face as sprinted through them. All that had mattered to Eriu then was moving forward towards the burning starlight, towards love.

When Eriu had at last crossed the threshold of fallen bramble and approached the clearing where the meteor yet burned she’d felt a reluctance at touching the star. Being so close to it she could feel its raw power. It felt like her mother’s wrath, but untamed. The raw energetic light shimmering all around the fallen star had suddenly scared Eriu, and for a moment she became weary of the star’s power. She became reluctant to even touch it.

She approached the meteor carefully. She may not have even touched the star at all had she not heard her younger sisters and her many cousins coming after her and clamoring over the fallen trees. Eriu, in a snap decision, reached out her hand and grabbed the flaming star rock.

“It was I, not my divine sisters, who was the first to touch a burning star!”, she reminded herself and her spear. “That right belongs to me! You belong to me, and I you, Drömnål. You and I always”, she vowed to her spear as she wept tears. Though Eriu did not know if she wept from happiness or from remorse, still the tears came.

She tried to recall how it felt to touch a star. How power felt in her hands. As she imagined the burning touch of the meteor beneath her hand she could feel her spear blazing in her grip. Its scalding hilt seared her skin against it, but still she clung to Drömnål and the memory of their first meeting. The serpent that had been striking her still did so, but their scales were no longer shadow. They glowed a brilliant gold around her as they struck her arms and refused to remove their bites. They became like chains holding themselves to her and to her spear as Drömnål shined out like a beacon in her hands.

The object was hot to the touch, radiating a powerful heat that she could control. "I can reach out to Akash now!" she exclaimed, a smile spreading across her face despite the pain of her burning skin. She scanned her surroundings, searching for a clear path to take, but in the glowing light of Drömnål nothing was visible to her. “There’s no path!”, she shouted out, “I don’t see one!”, she said feeling the concern building in her.

Eriu focused harder on her memory. “There’s more, there’s more!”, she reminded herself trying to reclaim the moment and touch Akash’s fleeing power. She thought of the moments after her mother Danu had taken her up into her arms when she was instantly brought back to the starting line once she touched the star, proving her the winner of the Rite of Proving. The success she’d felt was overwhelming when Danu had joined her at the Meteor.

Her mother had pulled Eriu up into her arms and kissed her excitedly with love, but Danu had scorned Morrigan and Titania, leaving them behind in the woods for failing to keep up with Eriu. Danu had never smiled so endearingly at Eriu before or since. The love in the memory of Danu’s smile made Eriu weep as her mother’s words replayed in her mind, “You made me proud today. I promise you the world for what you’ve done for me, Eriu! You’ll always be my brightest starlight!” Eriu sobbed remembering her mother’s kind words and her glowing smile like the sea under fair moonlight.

After some time had passed after Eriu’s success at catching a star. Eriu remembered the day Danu had brought Drömnål from Tir Na nÓg. Danu claimed the spear was a gift from her for being so brave and quick, but the moment Eriu had touched the hilt she knew it was the Meteor. She knew the Wyrd had given her a conduit of her very own. Eriu had never felt so happy, or so proud of herself as the day she’d won Drömnål.

Morrigan and Titania both had seethed with a foul envy about them for weeks as Danu had ignored them both for Eriu, but that did not last forever. Over time it became apparent that Eriu could never make Drömnål listen. It never did what Eriu asked it to, nor did it barely work at all. Most of the time Drömnål was just a spear and nothing more. Danu became furious with the Wyrd. She thought they had tricked Eriu out of a prize at first. Just to shame Danu, but as Eriu grew Danu’s thoughts over that had changed some. Eriu never gained any gifts, and never once Ascended. “You’re a runt. A mistake I made!”, Danu had told her after she couldn’t make Drömnål listen or follow after her through the air.

The silver metal of Drömnål hummed with the same searing power as when it burned as a star in the heavens. “You're my gift, my prize, Drömnål! Please let me touch Akash, even once! Let me have her love again! Please!”, Eriu begged Drömnål with all her heart.

Though Drömnål did not answer her pleas, Eriu was overcome with a thought. She remembered when she held her mother’s love after the race with her sisters. Danu had kissed her cheeks. She tried to remember the feeling of being kissed, “Her kisses were hot. Hot like fire on my cheeks. Hot like a star burning!,” Eriu intoned in her mind. “I burned with her love! I burn with love!”, she said to herself in a whisper as she tried to make herself believe Danu still loved her at all. Even for just a small moment. Long enough to free Eriu from this torment of repetition Danu had kept her in since Dagda fled Brasil with her sisters.

She let the memories of the star take her, and she forced a feeling that felt something like happiness. The powerful thought of the star burning through the night sky gave her strength. The memories unlocked her mind and she felt the powers of Akash welling up through the spear into her. Eriu felt the spear’s heavy heft vibrate softly under her fingertips. “I feel it humming in my hands, Mother! I'm close to it!”, she exclaimed excitedly, “I can touch the starlight!”

Danu rose from her spot a little to watch Eriu closely, she rose when she saw Drömnål’s magnificent glow. Danu's exacting blue eyes looked for any flaws in Eriu’s connection to the energies of reality, Akash. She studied her every movement with near excitement as she said out loud, “Keep breathing, and don't talk! Focus and concentrate!”, said Danu a little excitedly, studying Eriu’s every mental movement.

Danu could see the aura of power burning golden all around Eriu. The golden aura rose and arched beautifully around the spear and Eriu, but something was wrong. Danu immediately felt the shift in Eriu. Her spirit began to wrinkle and falter against the fast rush of universal power. “Don't lose it!”, Danu shrieked, “Hold tight to the flow!”, she instructed desperately, rising from her cushions to observe more. “This is the closest you’ve been! Hold on to it!”, Danu shouted excitedly as the remaining Nymphs came in close to Danu to observe.

The remaining Nymphs all watched excitedly as well, hoping for Eriu’s success. The Nymphs began to gather around Danu with cheers and whistles as Eriu’s light began to shine while she held her spear in the grass. The Nymphs hoped for an improved mood from their mistress on Eriu’s success, but everyone’s enthusiastic excitement died abruptly as Eriu began to shout.

“I can’t stop it!”, she screamed out in terror. Hot tears streamed down Eriu's face as she desperately tried to hold on to her own consciousness, but a foreign presence was overwhelming her mind. Emotions unlike any she had ever experienced flooded into her, drowning out her own thoughts and feelings. She felt like she was being tossed around by a tidal wave of disembodied voices, each one trying to communicate its emotions to her.

Her vision blurred as images and memories from these otherworldly beings played in her head, taking over her senses. She could see stars shining and the vast expanse of darkness enveloping her, and she couldn't escape it. Conflicting feelings of confusion and euphoria consumed her as the influx of thoughts and memories bombarded her mind.

It was like an explosion going off inside her head, with each voice wailing incomprehensibly. As she laughed and cried, Eriu saw a cosmic dance between light and darkness, similar to the Ascendency that she had heard about. The opposing forces merged together in a beautiful yet chaotic display, stripping away Eriu's control over her emotions and completely overwhelming her willpower.

Eriu felt like she was falling endless though a void. “It's like holding a mountain on the tip of a finger! It's crushing me! It's so heavy inside me!”, Eriu screamed out in a moment of coherence, but her voice became drowned out in her own ears by a shrill humming that resonated with her screaming. The humming grew louder and louder until it was all encompassing. The humming drowned out her senses until she saw only the dancing of black and white playing out in her mind.

Eriu panicked as she began to shake and cry more, “I can't feel my body! I can't stop it!”, she shouted in fright. “I can't see! I am blinded!”, she wept as she fell over on her side. She kicked and tossed her head from side to side furiously as she threw Drömnål away from her and to the grass.

Danu's eyes widened to saucers as Eriu’s wild and untamed power unlocked a torrential outpouring of energy which ignited the garden into a field of smoldering ash and flames. The inferno flames had lashed out from Eriu the moment she released Drömnål. The spear burned and quivered in the mud as did Eriu who cried out, “Help me mother! I'm burning! Help please anyone!”

The fire lashed out and consumed every tree and flower in the garden. The whole of the once beautiful space was in an instant made a charred ruin. All except where Danu and her ladies rested in the shade of her tall oak. Danu had, at the last moment, protected herself, her ladies, and her oak with a barrier art against the rushing flames immolating from Eriu's flesh.

“Stupid girl!”, screamed Danu in a shrill and angry voice. “Why would you cast your conduit away so carelessly! There’s no knowing what may happen when you do not have firm control over yourself and your conduit! I should stab your eyes from your head if you’re so concerned with being blinded from your responsibilities!”

The flames of Eriu lashed and rampaged still outside the barrier. Eriu could not even respond to her mother’s threats. Eriu’s control over Akash was too limited. Danu rose completely from her couch and watched with a deep disappointment as Eriu screamed in terror against her own gifts. The flames consumed her body in a golden shimmer as she rolled in vain on the blackened dirt trying to extinguish her arts.

“The flames come from within you! You cannot roll them out, fool!”, said Danu, holding her brow in frustration at her eldest daughter. Danu had enough. She flicked her wrist lightly and willed from reality a torrent of heavy rain to begin to fall over her whole garden and Eriu.

The rain quickly reduced the rampant flames to a steaming smoldering before they dashed out entirely to the sopping wet of Danu’s downpour. The garden and its flowers and trees sprung back to life and their bright green leaves refreshed themselves until they flourished, fresh and lively. Danu’s garden again was beautiful when the sun’s light returned and the rains receded. Even the burns on Eriu’s flesh faded away to Danu’s healing rains.

Eriu’s body smoldered with hot steam from the healing waters. She laid in the freshly grown grass and sobbed, freed from Drömnål’s burning torment in her mind. Eriu saw her spear glowing hot red still. It sizzled up a cloud of steam around itself as it baked the mud beneath it. When Eriu saw its red glow against the black mud she lunged forward in an instant of desperate fear to reclaim it.

As she seized her spear she screamed, “It’s mine!” Eriu shouted out furiously. Her eyes burned with a righteous greed. “Don’t touch it!”, she commanded Danu out of some possessive instinct. Eriu saw her mothers eyes looking to Drömnål with their usual lust. She knew Danu coveted her spear for her own. “I will make Drömnål mind me! It belongs to me!”

“For now it does.”, said Danu with a smug smile. “You’re still a failure, so we’ll see how long before Drömnål is mine!” Danu threw her head back and laughed at Eriu’s tears and the hate burning in her eyes.

“I don’t understand your failure! Your younger sisters have both performed the Ascending before the Wyrd mothers! Why won’t you grow and prove me wrong about your being useless?! You should be master of Drömnål already!”, said Danu fuming and shouting.

“You should have brought honor back to my name! You are Dagda’s child despite the lies against me! They will stop wagging their tongues if you would just hurry and Ascend!”, said Danu as she rose from her seat and exited her barrier. “Why are you not capable of something anyone at court can do instinctively!”, she screamed, “Do you know what they will do with you, with me!? They will eat your light and send it back to Akash to be reborn! You’ll not shame me more by being forced to climb the Sepulcher to bathe in Akash’s light for a thousand years! There’s yet to be a single child returned from those steps yet! Do you want to disappear forever?!”, Danu warned her as she wore her usual scowl on her face.

Danu raced over to Eriu and grabbed her face whispering low, spitting at Eriu in a rage, “You’ll not embarrass me another season, Eriu! You’ll perform beautifully before your grandmothers and prove the right to bear children, and my right to attend court without shame! You will or I will eat your heart from your chest!”, she screamed bearing her shark-like fangs before Danu spit in Eriu’s sobbing face. “Don’t cry for me with your stupid weak tears!”, she said tossing Eriu to the grass in disgust.

Danu let go of her daughter’s face and marched back to her sofa in the shade. She returned to lounging on her couch as she said, “No one wants to till and plant in poor soil! Now focus on what you’re doing for once! Do it again from the beginning!”, she shouted as she came to lay back on her cushions.

Eriu was on her knees sobbing from exhaustion in the wet mud. Her spear gripped tightly in her hands, it pulsed with heat as she touched its hilt. ”Please! I’ve been doing this since before morning, mother! The sun is high now, so please may I rest a moment?”, she begged on her knees. The burnt mud still clung to her skin as she shivered in the cool spring air. “Please, may I go at least dry?”, she pleaded through her chattering teeth.

“All this begging and you still haven’t done your Ascendancy right, even once!”, scoffed Danu as she laughed to her ladies surrounding her in the shade. “Is she even really trying to do it?!”, Danu asked her maids whose eyes all immediately darted to the ground as their only reply.

Danu looked back to Eriu with a disdainful glare, “Your sisters, both of them have gotten through the Ascendancy their first tries! This is what, your third attempt?! I’ll not be shamed a fourth time, Eriu! Do it again from the start!!”, Danu shouted out, losing her composure for a moment as she threw another apple at Eriu in frustration, hitting her in the cheek this time.

Danu quickly regained composure as she chuckled politely and rearranged her gown over her legs so the fabric laid lightly against the cushions. Danu looked again to her sobbing and shivering daughter, “You’ll do it again, or else!”, she said in a more calm and flat tone, her eyes burning with a silent threat as they met Eriu’s.

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The harsh glance from her mother was not lost on Eriu. She knew her mother’s temper was nearing a plateau, and she knew what her mother’s anger would cost her should it get out of hand. Danu had beaten Eriu near to death for failing her expectations more than once. Even if Danu always healed her after, the dreadful memories of the pain persisted.

Eriu grasped her spear and again began the process of clearing her mind and attempting to put her energy into the spear in her desperate attempt to touch the powers of Akash. She tried, but like the attempts before she still felt blocked. “I must do it. I must control my arts. Control it or be consumed.”, she reminded herself quietly in a whisper, “Control it or be consumed!”, she said again to herself in her thoughts thinking of her mother's threats to eat her heart if she failed. The phrase continued playing in her mind as she tried to find the peace to focus.

Eriu closed her eyes and tried her best to recall once again the memory of the meteor and her mother's long lost love. Tears once again filled her eyes as she felt the barriers rising against her in her tired mind. She fought with them, but was immediately distracted from her warring with herself by the sound of beating wings filling the garden.

Eriu smiled and instantly opened her eyes when she heard the cawing crow of her favorite uncle, Lugus. At first she was excited to see him soaring above, but Eriu quickly remembered how cross Danu was with her father Dagda for taking her sisters away. She instantly worried for Lugus who was bound to get brought into the middle of their argument.

“He should flee!”, she thought, “I should tell him to run!” Despite her thoughts otherwise she remained silent. Fear kept her words of warning frozen in her throat.

Eriu watched worriedly as Lugus descended from above as a great white raven, his soft feathers simmering like moonlight. He came to rest on a table nearby her mother, Danu. The raven chattered at Danu with a loud and cheerful cackle. He bowed gracefully on the table before her as was custom before a Queen.

Danu’s eyes narrowed at the polite Raven as she spoke,“My ladies, look, a chicken has presented itself for our noonday meal!” Sruth shimmered with a silvery light at her brow. Its sudden flash of brilliant light stunned the poor raven. Who squawked and shouted with its wings fluttering iridescent white feathers across the floor as it darted away from Danu's smug smile.

Danu turned her head and addressed her favored serving Nymph with her lips curled cruelly, “Elen, be a dear, catch the little pest and shear its feathers! I want its feathers for you to use in the dress you're making me! They’ll make a fine addition!”, Danu marveled, with a look of excitement on her beaming face.

Danu picked a stray white feather from the ground nearby her sofa. She stroked her cheek with the soft downy feather as she spoke happily, “No other will look so festive and striking for Eriu’s Ascension as I will with a full collar of Lugus’s white feathers!” She suddenly declared meanly with a vicious smile, “Best you take them all, Elen!”

Danu’s powerful star metal crown, Sruth, gleamed brightly with her power. The intricate silver threads of star metal comprising the crown moved and grew like living vines as Danu filled them with a flash of her might. Lugus, still a bird, began to panic and squawk out as Danu’s light surrounded him. Binding Lugus to remain as a raven.

The lady Elen curtsied politely to Danu’s request. She reluctantly began to approach the squawking Lugus who darted about afraid on the ground. She reached out her hands to grab the raven from another low table where the bird had knocked over a platter of apples, but it easily fled her grasp and abandoned the table to fly and stand in the sunlight nearby Eriu in the grass.

Danu's light around the raven started to fade as its form began to shift and expand. The wings transformed into arms, and the entire body bulked up, taking on a human shape

Lugus rose from the ground and looked at Danu with a man's long angry face. He slicked back his tousled red curls with both hands as he spoke in a deep and frustrated tone, “How dare you keep me bound from changing my form!? That was unkind of you, sister! I was trying to tell you something important!”, he spat out furiously as he rose up from the ground and dusted himself off, “You obviously don't want my council or the message I bear so I will be leaving!”, he said wrinkling his nose in disgust at Danu smiling at him from her sofa of cushions.

Danu laughed innocently, but covered her devious smiling face with Lugus's own feather. “Don't jest with me, Lugus!”, she said mischievously. “You know I was only having a bit of fun with you as when we were children! When did you become so sour with your old age? Come, tell me why you’ve come?!”, she said to Lugus in a courteous tone.

Lugus shook his head slowly. He glowered at Danu with his lips pursed into a thin line on his pointed face. He narrowed his eyes at Danu as he spoke, “We aren't children, Danu! And I am not so old, even if you are younger than me!”, he exclaimed proudly. “You cannot treat a messenger of the Wyrd and your elder brother so callously!”, he exclaimed, annoyed at Danu's brazen behavior. “What has gotten into you!?”, he questioned his sister with a furious stare.

Eriu watched anxiously beside her uncle. He shook as he stood before Danu. He grabbed Eriu’s hand where she knelt beside him suddenly. Lugus turned his head and shot Eriu a wink and a smile. Despite his brave face, a feeling overcame Eriu, and she knew her uncle was afraid.

Eriu saw Lugus's quivering legs as he spoke out brazenly, “We haven't been so young and carefree in a long while for you to think holding my person prisoner is acceptable behavior for a Queen!”

Eriu listened to her uncle speak and adored him. She admired his strength to stand up to Danu. Everyone simply fled from her, or avoided Danu all together as her father always had when he hid with the Nymphs in the woods to play them sweet songs on Uaithne. No one ever challenged her mother except Lugus on the rare instances he came to Brasil. Eriu felt inspired watching Lugus bravely stand against his fears and her mother.

Danu rolled her eyes, disdaining Lugus’s every word. “You're being obnoxious now. Let it go! It was just a small jest. I only held your form from changing for a moment. Deliver your message!”, she demanded coldly.

Lugus said nothing. He angrily shook his head and on a single heel he quickly turned and began his march away from Danu and the palace. He stormed across the dewy grass and began to change back into a white raven. He was nearing calling his art, but Danu’s voice called out to him, disrupting his concentration.

“Stop!”, she shouted with her voice magnified a thousand times over. Eriu covered her ears to her mother's echoing scream and turned to face her mother. She saw her mother's power blossom into Sruth. The beautiful diadem bloomed silver flowers from its three sparkling precious gems. The silver flowers bloomed with petals of blazing rainbow light. Eriu quivered at the force of her mother's strength as its focus took aim at her uncle Lugus who was held fast by her mother's will.

“You will turn and face me.”, Danu demanded coldly as Lugus was compelled to face Danu by her art. His face was scarlet in the sun as he failed and struggled in vain against her mighty will. Eriu saw her uncle's muscles and their sinew were all pulled taut against the might of Danu’s power. His brave face was now in anguish as Danu squeezed his body tight with the force of her will.

Eriu sobbed feeling powerless watching her Uncle struggle vainly. She suddenly hated her fear. “Uncle wasn't afraid of her! I won't be either!”, she decided with a laugh. Eriu wiped away her tears, and with a spark of courage burning in her heart she spoke out against her mother.

“Please release him!”, Eriu begged, breaking her silence. She cried out with tears rolling down her face. “Please mother, don't hurt him! Please let him go!”

Danu's cold blue eyes shimmered like water broken by the wind then turned fast and gazed Eriu down, drowning Eriu's newfound confidence by the moment as Eriu became lost to the gaze’s hateful depths. Danu shook with restrained anger as she spoke, “Watch me my useless daughter! See how a Queen should realize her power! Dry your ignorant tears and learn something besides how to beg!”

Danu smiled evilly as she waved off her sobbing daughter, Danu’s teeth became like the fangs of a hungry shark against her beautiful face as she ignored Eriu for Lugus.

Danu snapped her fingers and bid with her power, “Come kneel before your Queen, Pheasant!”

With her words Lugus was snatched from where he stood and ripped through the air where he clattered unceremoniously down before Danu in the shadow of the oak. Danu's ladies all retreated from the garden. They fled and took the shapes of animals as they dashed through the treeline. All the nymphs abandoned the garden, all but the forest nymph Elen who hid behind the trunk of the oak clutching her knees in fear.

“What is the reason for this treachery, sister!”, yelled Lugus, picking himself up from the wet grass. Loose packed dirt fell like clumps from his dirty hands and shins. “I am a messenger of the Wyrd! You’ll respect my office or face their wrath!”, he threatened.

“Hiding behind our mother's golden shrouds still, brother?”, she accused Lugus. Danu then laughed and waved off the threat Lugus had made as trivial, “I think they’ll find a way to forgive me for getting a little mud on your pretty tunic they gave you! You're always so dramatic! Ever since childhood!”, she said boldly as a fact.

Danu’s starry crown lit again magnificently upon her brow, the weaving knots of crystallized metal flowed in intricate knots binding them to the stars. She gleamed with her shining power as she spoke her command, “Deliver your charged words! Tell me what message you bring from the Wyrd!”

Lugus’s face contorted in concentration and sweat formed on his brow while his whole body reddened fighting against Danu’s crushing will. “Stop fighting me and just say the words!”, she demanded more forcefully. The power seeping from Danu and her crown caused Eriu to flinch as Lugus fell to his knees in submission at the force of her will.

“The mothers..”, he fought against the words. Lugus broke from Danu’s power for only a short moment. He used his last shred of free will to say, “You don't deserve their gifts! You never deserved that crown!”

Danu laughed gleefully watching Lugus struggle under her strength, “You're a fool! My power makes me deserving of a crown, and I’ll have your words, too! Speak!”, she demanded forcefully as she crushed Lugus’s mind tighter with her and Sruth’s shared power.

Danu's light flooded Lugus's mind, washing his will to fight against her away until only her boundless depths of will were left to guide along her strong current of power. His eyes rolled to the back of his head and only the whites of his eyes shone through as he spoke as if rasping for air, “The Mothers, are grateful for the gift of your daughters, and they await your presence! They wish to offer you a gift for your loss of children! I am to return your reply to them!”, Lugus struggled to say as he fought within to cease his words, but they poured from his lips, “You are summoned to attend their visitation at the stone tree Lia Fáil! All the Queens of the Archipelago must attend three days from now! The All Mothers demand it!”, he shouted out through his gasping.

With his words spoken Danu’s spell on Lugus broke. He fell to the ground choking on his own tongue. Saliva spewed from his lips as he said through his choking breaths, “You’re the worst, Danu! Of my sisters you have always been the worst of them!”

Danu laughed heartily at her brother as if he told a good joke, “How amusing you say I’m the worst when you have always been our mother’s pet pigeon all these years! You flit and skulk across the isles spreading mischief and collecting secrets! Then you keep our secrets to whisper them into our mother's ears for your own gain! Not from me will you spread your lies!”, said Danu suddenly furious. “I gave them no gift! I will see my children returned to me here upon Brasil! What game is Dagda playing at giving my daughters to the Wyrd!?”, she shrieked at Lugus who flinched away from the sparks of flaming light shooting at him from Danu’s crown.

With a scream she hurled her accusation, “I know it was you who stole my chance to sip our mother’s chalice of knowledge! I would be a goddess residing in the temple upon Tir Na nÓg if not for your wagging tongue, Lugus! Now I must endure the shame of bearing children to the likes of old Dagda the child thief, the wife abandon-er! I am a true born daughter of the Wyrd! I know the worth of my womb even if others do not see it! I will have my daughters returned to me, now!”, demanded Danu as she sent a hurricane gale to blast Lugus from his feet.

Lugus smiled up defiantly from the ground where he landed, glad of his sister's suffering. He beamed from ear to ear despite the spit yet on his chin, “You were married well, sister! Dagda is a high King of the Tuatha Dea! You should revel in the honor of being wife to such a man!”

Lugus's triumphant smile widened as he spoke, “He is kind to keep you, as sullied as you are to be touched by a Fomorian! Your daughters do well outside of your corruption! You’ve always been so selfish, Danu! What of my plight had I not told the mothers of your bedding Delbáed? They may have punished my silence!”, he exclaimed furiously as he rose to his feet and balled his fists in rage.

“You know the mothers see all!” Lugus began with a chortle and a smug look in his eye, “They already knew before I told them anything of your betrayal to our kin! You sullied your chances to wed better when you dishonored yourself by allowing Delbáed to your bed! Be glad they only placed you upon Brasil as Queen for your brazen character!”

Lugus laughed aloud loudly, holding his flat and hardened belly, “Your daughters are better off on Tir Na nÓg without you, Danu!”, he began saying with his defiant smile, “They learn the secrets of the universe from the Wyrd’s own mouth! What more could a Queen ask for than her children to grow well and her people to flourish?” Lugus looked and gestured around himself, “Brasil is green and lush with life, your Fal Bolg Nymphs look well fed and hearty! You shine bright as sunlight, and all is well! What right do you have to complain?”, he said dismissively. “The Wyrd brings us fortune, daft woman! Our mothers plan will bring the best future for us all, even Titania and Morrigan! Have faith in them and Akash, Danu! Have faith!”, he shouted out at her meanly through a smile.

Lugus shook his head side to side and cast his eyes down in shame towards Danu as he continued speaking, “Thank your good husband daily, sister. Thank him that he would still have you after you abandoned him for a dirty Fomorian! There certainly are worse fates than being a Queen of Tuatha Dea!”, he chided her piously as he also laughed within himself at the fury building in Danu’s reddening face at his every word.

Danu had been about to speak, but her rage at Lugus's words had frozen her in place. "He must have forgotten my recent hold over him. He knows I can break him into the smallest of pieces with my thoughts, doesn’t he?," she thought furiously to herself. Lugus’s angry voice was like a hammer pounding inside Danu's skull, intensifying her already terrible mood into an unstoppable fury. The power of her crown shimmered in a haze, surrounding her in an aura of searing energy. She was preparing to unleash its full force on Lugus when Eriu stepped between them. Eriu turned to face her mother and then smiled sweetly at Uncle Lugus, who stood tall and serene in the tall grass beyond Danu's reach.

Eriu closed the distance between them and knelt before her uncle and in a voice loud enough for Danu to hear she said with worried eyes, “Uncle, please don’t antagonize our Queen further! She is vexed already because I have kept her here all morning trying to perfect my arts for my upcoming Ascendancy. Please don’t push her anger further! Just apologize to her on your knees!”, she pleaded through tears.

Eriu rose from the grass and turned to address her mother who still stood shining with her power. “Mother, please forgive my Uncle Lugus for upsetting you! He was unaware your little joke on him was so pleasing to you on a day when I have pushed your patience. He and I apologize, my gracious lady mother! Please forgive us!”, Eriu said bowing low before her mother like a servant.

Eriu kicked her uncle’s leg lightly as she bowed low before her mother. She glanced back and mouthed the words, “Apologize!”, to her uncle who watched her with his mouth held open in confusion. He hesitated so Eriu grabbed his arms and pulled her uncle to his feet. She glared sternly into her Uncle's eyes as he came to face her as she forced him down into the grass.

She said as a plea quiet, loud enough that only Lugus himself could hear, “Please just swallow your pride, uncle! Say what she wants to hear!”, she whispered harshly at him with desperate eyes.

Lugus glowered a sour look at his niece, but he nodded hesitantly. His eyes instantly diverted to Danu whose body shimmered violently as a water’s surface may after being broken by a stone under the bright sunlight. The ripples of light emanating from Danu’s diadem scalded both Eriu's and Lugus’s eye with their sharp luminance. They shielded their eyes with their hands, but still Danu’s glow seeped through their fingers and eyelashes.

Lugus broke his silence as he covered his eyes. “I tell you no lies, sister! I did not tell our mothers of your meetings with Delbaéd! You know they see everything before it happens! Their prescient nature foresaw your affair! Lay your wrath at their door, but spare me and my niece from it!”, Lugus begged on his knees.

Danu stood and considered Lugus’s words. She sensed no lies on his spirit as she touched his mind with her own. The ground around Danu split and splintered as she realized she was wrong in her suspicion of Lugus. The words poured from her lips like lead, “Perhaps I was quick to judge the worst in you, Lugus.” Danu paused as her bright shimmering aura began to collapse back into her. Her intensely bright shining also faded allowing Lugus and Eriu respite from her blinding luminance.

Danu continued to speak as they recovered from her blinding them with her power, her tone was more somber and she herself was suddenly bordering on tears, “You know, the Wyrd took my beautiful daughters from me! Dagda, the traitor, stole them off from their beds to Tir Na nÓg as I slept!” Danu began to openly sob as she clutched her ribs as if she carried a great pain within her. “Our mothers bar my entry to the holy isle to see them! Dagda chained me here to this rock like some fucking animal!”, she said showing Lugus the glowing band at her ankle, “They deny a mother’s right to her children!” Her words became indiscernible as she held her hands to her face and wept long sobbing screams into her palms, venting her frustration.

Lugus rolled his bright golden eyes as Danu cried out in her fit of sad fury, “They stole them, Lugus! My Titania and my Morrigan are upon Tir Na nÓg without me, and I without them! You cannot know what it is to be forced to give away a daughter! I am so alone here among all my foolish sons and these fearful nymphs! Our mothers punish me by taking my strong and gifted children from me!”

“You have a fine and honorable daughter standing beside me, but you dishonor her by saying such things!”, said Lugus sternly, defending his niece.”Eriu is a magnificent girl! She is perhaps even the best of us with her kind heart! You as her mother should see that better than most!”

Eriu looked down instinctively as her mother's gaze crossed her own. Even looking at the grass Eriu could feel the enmity radiating from her Mother's glare as Danu stated coldly, “Dishonor is all she’s been good for! She cannot even excel past her Ascension, and worse her body never grows! She is forever a child! How will she bear strong daughters with her tiny body?!”, stated Danu angrily through her tears.

Danu wiped her eyes of tears as she continued ranting, “To think of my first born child being so weak as to not even be capable of touching Akash! She's my shame! The mothers punished me with her weakness and by abandoning her uselessness with me! ! I know it!” Danu retreated and sat back upon her couch. She wrapped her legs tightly in the sheer fabric of her gown as if she were somehow cold. She then flung her body across the cushions languidly, as if she’d concocted some malady as she called out, “Elen! Elen, attend me!”

Elen emerged from behind the towering oak tree that shaded Danu’s garden. Her deep brown doe’s eyes gleamed with worry as she crept quietly from the Oak’s shadow. “I am here, Supreme one”, said Elen dourly with a frown, “What can I provide you?”, she said with a curtsy as she stood before the distraught Queen Danu.

“Pour for me a sip of your cider. This excitement has my nerves simply frayed! Pour some for Lugus as well. He will be staying with us for supper!”, said Danu as she began making her plans. “We will have the lamb this evening. I fear the hens are too close a relative of my brother for him to feast on without a heavy mind!”, she jested and laughed to herself at her own joke, though no one else laughed but her.

“Yes, of course, my Queen. The lamb, I’ll see it done.”, said Elen as she bowed her head graciously. She was going to speak further, but Lugus interjected. Elen took the opportunity and broke from the conversation to pour the Queen’s cider from a decanter nearby into the Queen’s golden goblet.

Lugus nearly shouted as he spoke, restraining his frustration at being planned for without his consent, “I cannot remain, sister! I was to deliver my words and be off to Atlantis to our sister Brigid’s domain. You may feast on the flesh of hens to your heart’s content in my absence with a light heart!”, said Lugus graciously as he bowed with a coyly terse smile. “Pick your teeth clean with the smallest of their bones even. I care not, but you will do so without me. I must go!”, he said turning to leave once again.

Danu rose from her cushions with a renewed vigor as she shouted back, “You’ll go nowhere! You belong to me until I decide you may leave, but try and I’ll feast on your bird parts for my dinner!”, she threatened through gritted teeth, “You haven’t even told me of my beloved daughters! How are my bright Titania and my fierce Morrigan? Tell me of my children and only then should I think to allow your leave!”

Lugus glowered and fumed at being told what to do by his younger sister. His words were full of malice as he spoke, “You should know some humility, Danu! There are limits to how far you can press me! I am the voice of the Wyrd! I proctor their will, and you show them great disrespect by keeping me from performing my duties! I promise you they will know of your insubordinate behavior!”

Danu rested on her cushions with her face now calm and unyielding. Her voice was a challenge as she spoke, “I reside here unafraid! Let them come after me with all their wrath, their dark curses! What matters any of it when they have already stripped me of any happiness I could possibly know!?”, she said before languidly sipping from her cup. She swallowed her tartly sweet cider leaving its gloss on her lips as she spoke. “I was forced into the indignity of marriage to a hateful codger, and then the same wretch took my children from me, Lugus! My only solace in our deranged marriage!”, Danu said pulling the golden strands of hair from her face, “You would understand if you were a woman of my grief! It’s a stone inside me every moment! How cruel you are to deny a grieving mother news of her daughters!” Danu’s aura exploded from her as she screamed her threat, “I should rip the memories of them from your skull!”, she spat out her through her gritted teeth, “I will if you do not tell me news of them!” Danu glared at Lugus expectant of an answer, with violence ringing in her voice and burning in her eyes.

Eriu, understanding very well her mother’s wrathful temper, she rushed between her uncle Lugus and her mother Danu. “This is enough! Stop it! Stop your bickering, please! I cannot concentrate on my arts until you both resolve this feud between you both!”, Eriu pleaded desperately between her mother and her uncle Lugus who backed away slowly.

Eriu sighed deeply. Turning to her uncle backing from her, his breathing heavy with suppressed rage. She asked her uncle in a kindly tone as she came up to him and took Lugus’s hand into her own, “Uncle, how are my sisters? Will you not put my mind to ease? I miss them both terribly. How are they faring on Tir Na nÓg? Are they well, and do they speak of us?”, Eriu asked with the tears of fear spilling down her face.

Lugus began to stammer, feeling disarmed of his frustration by his niece’s innocent smile and her tears. Her small child’s body left her head at his waist looking up at him with hope burning bright in her scared eyes. Eriu looked upward to her uncle with her violet eyes shining like amethysts in the light of the sun. She looked to him expectantly for an answer. Lugus felt pressured, but he began with a cough to clear his throat before he spoke, “They are well.” He glanced up at Danu who listened to every word said from her couch as she now casually sipped her cider from her golden cup, listening.

Lugus returned his gaze to his niece as he continued speaking, “They will both given tasks within the Sepulchre of Akash, a great honor few can boast. The Wyrd themselves will oversee their daily workings along with your father, Lord Dagda. I admit though I have yet to greet them upon Tir Na nÖg, but they are powerful children, or so I’ve heard tale of.”, he concluded flatly as he stared harshly at Danu’s indifferent face.

“But of course!”, retorted Danu proudly, holding up her chalice high, “They are the best of me! They are the prime of my loins that our mothers have stolen from me! They leave me only the chaff to keep this fading isle afloat!” Danu took a little swig from her chalice. She smiled in frustration with wet lips as she spoke further, “The enchantments on it break every so often! Did you know!?”, she said now glaring at Lugus as if he’d broken them. “This isle is too close to the middle lands! It’s shameful!”, she concluded shaking her head in disgust over her cup of cider.

Danu glared at the empty cup in her hand, then flung it onto the grass with a furious force, watching as it rolled away. She let out a frustrated yell, "Now I have to deal with mortals invading these peaceful shores too? It's happened before, you know! They stumble upon us or wash up on land with the waves every now and then! Like pests, they come to steal and take from us! And they'll infect us with their mortality! I crush any that I find on my land!" Danu's eyes burned with anger as she turned to Lugus, who only sighed and looked down at the grass. "They will never make their home where I lay my head!" Danu finished, spitting onto the ground in disgust at the thought of more mortals discovering her hidden domain.

“Certainly you’re confused.” Lugus began as he held his head in his hands to stave off a headache brought on from prolonged frustration. “You squash nothing but summer berries in your hands and say it is mortal blood. There are no mortals! I’ll not hear of this complaint again!” He rubbed his temples to stave away a headache forming at his brow where his angry vein continually engorged along with his fury at his sister’s insanity. “Mortals cannot cross past their plane of Akash. Not while living!”, Lugus explained through an exasperated sigh, “A living mortal could not find themselves on any isle of the Archipelagos without invitation, of which is forbidden! A mortal coming here is impossible!”

Danu gasped and rose to her feet as she screeched out, “More indignity! More accusing me of lies! You say I am confused, but I see it all clearly! You and the rest of our family mean to doom me here to obscurity! They’ll steal all the worth from me then cast me off as they did our sisters before when they bore no children! Why am I robbed of the daughters I faithfully bear, and yet I am denied entry to Tir Na nÓg? You say our mothers claim to be grateful for my sacrifice, but where is any reward? Explain to me that, Lugus?! Where is my happiness to be found when I am robbed of everything?!”

Lugus shook his head in disbelief. “There are no mortals! There’s only your bored and lonely thoughts! Why not take a lover to ease your troubled mind? Delbáed might yet have your dark temper if no other will! You’ve soiled yourself already with a Fomorian’s touch, so why not again!?”, Lugus smirked, pleased at himself at his clever retort.

Danu shrieked out in fury, her light exploding around her as the winds in the garden began to blow in a gale around the shading oak. “You are insidious with your incessant game of prodding me to bed a man! Fomorian or no Delbáed was a better man to me than Dagda or even you have ever been! You, my husband, and the Wyrd only ever wish my belly full of children and my mouth silenced from the Sidhe court! Is this my husband’s wish, the Wyrd’s, or your own that I should lay with Delbáed!? Speak in honesty if you value your safety within my garden! Brother or not, know I’ll split you down the middle if you lie to me!”

Lugus raised both his hands in his defense as he spoke in a panic, “Sister, please! I did not mean disrespect. I plot nothing. I only thought you may be lonely with your children grown and Dagda gone. I see the toll of their absence on you!”

Lugus tried to stride nearer to Danu, but her light forced him to his knees. He looked up from where he squatted and said, “I swear I’ll speak of your weary heart to our mothers, on your behalf. I wish for your happiness, sister!”, he swore with his hand over his heart. “I do, but I have told you of your daughters as you wanted! Be a Queen of your word and let me go!”, he demanded, letting his own power flare against Danu's power as a threat. Even if it was a weak threat. Lugus’s light was dim and dull against Danu's brilliant radiance.

Danu narrowed her beautiful blue eyes, radiating fury at Lugus who returned her gaze with a smug but concerned expression. She stood up from the couch and leaned against the sturdy oak tree behind her. "I am a Queen, Lugus, and I do not stoop to telling lies. I spoke the truth about mortals being on Brasil. I will uphold my word as Queen, and you may leave."

Lugus rose to his feet, feeling pleased at Danu’s words and looked to Eriu with a smile of triumph. She returned his excitement with her own smile, but her smile broke when her mother began to speak more. Eriu glanced back over her shoulder to Danu who stood by her oak. She witnessed the light pour out from Danu’s flowering crown and Danu’s power spilling its influence over everything. The world around Danu became as bright as sunlight in your eyes as Danu spoke, “You may go, but you will tell our mothers of my enduring suffering, and more! You will bring me Dagda’s harp, Uaithne from Tir Na nÓg! It's song used to be a comfort to me, and I will see this comfort restored! Swear to me you will do this and I will release you from my garden!”

Lugus, too, lost his smile of triumph. His eyes widened in shock at Danu's request despite the brilliant beaming light of Danu shimmering all about him, burning his vision to a blur. His voice was pure fury as he shouted out, “You scheming shrew! You know I cannot touch Uaithne! No one can touch Dagda’s harp except for whom he allows it to! Its song destroys anyone who dares to even pluck a string without his saying they may! I will not destroy myself for your comfort! How dare you!?” Lugus fumed and turning and marched away. He attempted to grow his wings, but his power was suppressed by Danu’s light. Despite this he soldiered on marching away from Danu.

Eriu raced to the foot of her mother. She wept for her uncle. She could feel her mother’s murderous intent against her uncle Lugus pouring out from her light. Eriu begged on her knees before Danu, “Please mother! He told us of Morrigan and Titania! They are well, and that is good. Please! You’ll bring the Wyrd to our door! Stop this! Let him leave freely!”

Danu looked downward to her begging child. Danu kicked Eriu away hard with her barefoot. Eriu fell over into the grass, skidding her palms in the damp mud as her mother shouted at her, “Your every word is a shame to me, weakling!” Danu raised her hand and Eriu rose high into the air along with the gesture. Eriu choked on the pressure of Danu’s power gripping her throat. “Your sisters would understand! They are powerful! They are beautiful, but what are you as my eldest child? A failure! A weakling! A ugly child! Do not presume to tell me of your fears! Your fears are not my own!”, shouted Danu at Eriu who choked on the air in her lungs. “The only thing you should fear in all this dark world is me! Fool!”, Danu said crushing Eriu harder in her grasp.

Lugus turned and shouted out at Danu holding Eriu in the air, “Let her go!” Lugus, using as much power as he could, formed in his hands a ball of energetic swirling flame. He unleashed it like a burning tongue at Danu’s face. The flame exploded around Danu and embraced her body in a smoldering ring. Danu shrieked in fury as the flames engulfed her.

Eriu fell to the ground choking and gasping. Danu’s hold over her was broken. Elen dove from where she had taken to hiding behind the towering oak to snatch Eriu away from the burning Danu. She half drug Eriu away by her arm as Eriu continued her fit of coughing. Elen pushed Eriu into a nearby laurel bush and covered her mouth with her hand to silence her coughing.

Danu raged in the swirling inferno surrounding her as Lugus attempted to grow wings at her distraction. He spread his arms and the feathers began to spout. He ran at a steady gait and felt the wind pushing through his downy sprouting wings. “I can do this! I can get away!”, he thought for a moment gleefully, but it wasn’t to be.

Danu threw off Lugus’s flames like a bad coat. The fire extinguished as steam at her feet. Clouds of hot air swirled thick in the wind around Danu as she bellowed low in all her power over reality, “Sink before me!”, she commanded Lugus as he fell fast.

Lugus’s feet fell out from under him as they slid down into the grass and mud like quicksand. His birdlike form reverted instantly, and Lugus was a man drowning in the dry dirt. He pleaded out, “Sister! If you do this to me the Wyrd will come for you! They’ll destroy you!”, he threatened desperately as the earth swallowed him down.

Danu laughed out defiantly as her flowing gowns caught the racing gale blowing all around her, making her long golden hair and her flowing tulle gowns billow up. She said gleefully as she let the powerful winds blow over her skin through the sheer fabric, “You have used that weak shield before me once too many times. It’s losing its structure! Much like your feet have!” Danu laughed even harder as she clapped her knee with her hand watching her brother struggle to cling to a root of a nearby birch.

“Sister! Please help me! Don’t do whatever you’re thinking of doing! Let me go!”, begged Lugus as the ground beneath him took hold of his legs. The hollow earth below him swallowed his feet downward with a hard pull.

Danu again laughed endlessly at Lugus and his struggle to keep his head above the churning earth. She pointed to him accusingly, letting her wrath display in her voice, “You know my price for your freedom! Swear to me you’ll bring me Uaithne! Swear it and be free!”

Lugus held tightly to the tree root, but the wood dug hard into his palms. The pain made his grip falter as he nearly slipped from the root. He gripped the root again and forced himself to grunt through the pain and the pulling of the sinking hole beneath him. Lugus was full of rage, and by the moment feeling more and more helpless to free himself. In his fury he spat out, “I cannot do as you ask, you foolish loon! No one but one of your daughters could hope to even attempt to bring the damn harp here! No one can touch it, as I have told you!”, he shouted out his angry logic.

Danu thought more of it as she watched Lugus and the earth swirling around his kicking legs. The sight of him at her mercy amused her, making her beam with a smile. She thought of letting it continue longer, but she quickly decided, “You will have a daughter of Dagda then.” Danu turned her head over her shoulder to where Eriu and Elen yet hid in the laurel bush. “Elen, attend me! Bring Eriu!”, she commanded.

Off in the distance, Elen held Eriu tight against herself with one arm. With the other she used her hand to keep Eriu’s mouth shut. She laid low and still, hidden in the laurel bush, Elen's heart was beating wildly with terror as she tried to decide what to do. “Do I try to flee?”, she at first thought, but she shook her head against the idea as she remembered, “Leaving the isle is impossible without Danu’s permission. She’d catch us.”, Elen thought to herself desperately. Elen looked longingly at the flowered pathway to the grassy meadows beyond the far treeline through the partings in the laurel brambles. The forest and its call of freedom from Danu’s wrath pulled her, but she would not leave her friend Eriu alone.

Eriu observed Elen’s longing stare. She forced her face free from Elen’s grip long enough to whisper loudly, “Run! Leave me to her and flee! Escape to the trees and the wilds! She will curse you for aiding me!”, Eriu warned Elen pushing away from her.

Elen grabbed Eriu's arm and pressed her hand over her mouth, making sure she couldn't speak. She looked at Eriu with a serious expression and whispered, "I would never do that! How could you even think that of me?" Elen held onto Eriu tightly, hugging her close as she continued to whisper. "You always stay by my side when she goes after me. I won't abandon you now. Plus, I can't even if I wanted to. You know this. I am bound by duty to serve her, and she always knows where I am." The thought sent shivers down Elen's spine and made her more scared than before.

Elen looked out from her hiding spot to where Danu shimmered with power just beyond the fragrant laurel branches. Danu stood looking directly at the laurel bush with an angry scowl on her pretty face. The glow around Danu felt oppressive as it showered the laurel bush with Danu’s might.

Elen and Eriu flew out from their hiding place together and dropped before Danu into an ungracious pile, one atop the other. “I said to attend to me, Elen! Have you recently been made deaf? You’re being slow as a cripple in your answering me!”

Danu smiled evilly as she threatened with a laugh, “You’re always so forgetful of songs, slow to dance for me, and now you’ve grown deaf! Should I be gracious? I could always give the gift of blindness to your ever growing collection of malady!”, she spoke forcefully. “I will if you don’t improve your speed at answering when I call you to attend, stupid sprite!”, Danu shouted at Elen who laid before her frozen and wide eyed with terror. Danu picked Elen up off of Eriu with her telekinetic power. She flung her aside as one might a useless object obstructing the way. Elen bounced off the hard ground and laid unconscious in the waving grass.

Eriu had sat up when Elen had been lifted off of her. She screamed out in terror and frustration, “Don’t hurt her!”. An instinctive spark lit inside Eriu as she saw Elen be thrown so unkindly away. A rage took her breathing and suddenly her spear Drömnål was in her hands when it had not been before. Her focus was razor sharp as she felt the power of Akash erupt through her fury and pierce her mind. The force of the All Mother’s touch sent Eriu reeling as images of the colossal expanse of time unfolded before her like a dream. She sat upon the ground numb under the intense pressure of the universe pressing down upon her will, like pushing a melon through the eye of a needle.

Eriu felt she was screaming out in fury and pain, but she laid on the grass silently convulsing, her mind crushed by Akash’s weight and raw power. She clung to Drömnål tightly and shook violently, spewing a glowing light from within through her eyes and mouth. Lugus cried out to Danu, “Help her! She’s your child! Look at her! She’s going to burn up! Help her Danu!”

Danu turned and looked smugly at Lugus who clung to the birch yet, “You want me to save her?”, said Danu smirking.

Lugus, still clinging to his tree root, struggled to keep his head above the dirt. He looked to his young niece convulsing in pain. Lugus watched his niece knowing no divine creature can restore what Akash herself has taken. “If she burns away she’s gone forever! Save her, Danu! Be a mother to the girl!”, Lugus pleaded, with tears even at his eyes.

“Swear it then! Swear to me you’ll retrieve Uaithne and bring it to me, no matter the cost! Swear it and I’ll help Eriu.”, said Danu with a triumphant smile as she watched her daughter vomit out searing light and boiling spit into the dying grass beneath where Eriu contorted in pain.

“You’re a monster, Danu! You’re undeserving of your crown and your children!”, announced Lugus full of hate for his sister. “You’re evil!”, he declared, spitting at her.

Danu waved off his insults with an uncaring gesture, “I do not care for the opinions of foolish ganders. The ideas of waterfowl are beneath me. Swear Uaithne to me, or be complicit in the death of your beloved Eriu!”, Danu said, giving Lugus a choice.

Lugus saw his niece's light coming from inside her was dimming, threatening to extinguish forever. He knew he had no choice. He grimaced with angry defeat as he screamed, “Fine! I swear it, horrid bitch! Save Eriu and I will find a way to bring you Uaithne!”

Danu giggled with happy satisfaction. “Glorious.”, she said through a regal smile. “I knew you'd agree in the end.” She turned and looked down at Eriu in her suffering on the ground. “Idiot!”, she screamed. “You sipped too much light into your feeble child’s mind!”, Danu said, kicking Eriu in her leg.

Danu snapped her fingers twice. She held out her hands expectantly as Drömnål immediately appeared to her hands from Eriu's embrace. She held the spear tight as it was pulled back towards Eriu. She studied the glistening silver blade shimmering in her own glow. The spear, having its own will, attempted to retreat back to Eriu. Drömnål’s deadly sharp tip shone bright like a twinkling star in Danu’s eyes as she spoke out loud to the quivering silver spear in her grasp, “You are beautiful, Drömnål! The Mothers have never crafted a spear as fast and as pure of spirit as you!” Danu turned the weapon and studied the scrolling vine work imposed on the shaft of the spear with golden orichalcum. The spear shook and pulled harder away from her grip. “Your absolute loyalty to Eriu is admirable, but misplaced! My daughter is undeserving of a treasure of your power, your magnificence! Be my destiny, Drömnål! Be my power!”, said Danu lustily to Eriu’s spear.

Drömnål foisted itself from Danu’s grasp and flew back to the hand of Eriu whose light was all but extinguished. Lugus screamed out, “What are you doing? Save Eriu as we agreed, or I’ll have nothing to do with you nor Uaithne! Honor your word!”, he cried out furiously.

Danu grimaced and growled low like an angry cat at having been rejected by Drömnål. When Lugus began to scream at Danu her eyes lit from within with a blinding light. She screamed back to Lugus furiously, “I honor all my pacts as a true Queen! Remember that when you seek Uaithne, brother! Remember I honored my words!”, she warned him.

Danu knelt to the earth beside Eriu. She held out her hands over her and looked to the sky. Dark clouds began to extend out from above Danu and her dying child. The winds whipped up Danu’s gowns and her shining golden hair all around her. Eriu laid in her mother’s arms as a darkened phantom, her skin turned to a shadowy black as her light continued to leave her body. Danu called up to the heavens, “Mother Akash, Queen above us! Spare my child! Grant her light! Grant her your life eternal, Mother! It is my wish and the wish of our people that this child should shine! Hear my plea! Hear me!!”, Danu shouted to the churning heavens. She cried up to the sky with her whole chest, “Return to Eriu her light! Banish the darkness! Ignite her spirit, Mother, let it burn with your radiant power!”

Danu stood beneath the parting clouds, using her telekinetic power to lift Eriu's body towards the beams of light. The light cascaded down upon Eriu, through her, filling her transparent form with color and returning her mass and shape. Her dark braids swirled and danced in the wind, encircling her like a wild halo. As Danu continued to pray to the All-Mother Akash, Danu sang praises and gratitude for Her eternal gifts and unwavering love. "We exalt your name above all others, dear Mother Akash! Queen of all Universes, we exalt you!!" Danu's voice echoed through the heavens with pure devotion as she lowered Eriu, now glowing, before her.

Danu lowered Eriu’s body gently to the grass at her feet. The life-giving rains of Danu began to hail down in sheets from the dark clouds looming above. A low roll of thunder was heard all around as Danu rose and banished the clouds and the rains in an instant. Eriu at her feet coughed out a gasping breath of life, though she remained asleep and unresponsive still.

Danu looked to Lugus who still clung faithfully to the birch root. “Shouldn't you be roosting higher on the tree, little bird?” Danu giggled and waved her hand. With her gesture made, Lugus was torn from the churning earth. He flew high up into the air as he was tugged like a ball on a string to topple at Danu’s feet.

Lugus landed abruptly in front of Danu, collapsing onto the damp grass. He gasped for air, his landing having knocked all the breath out of him. Struggling to breathe, he let out a painful grunt as Danu spoke coolly, "I've fulfilled my end of the deal. She will survive. You owe me Uaithne!", she said deviously rubbing her hand together over Lugus who tried to rise, but faltered.

Lugus pushed his tired body up from the ground with his weary yet strongly built arms. “I still cannot touch it.”, Lugus said through a coughing fit, and once finished he continued speaking, “You said I would have one of your daughters, but they cannot leave Tir Na nÓg! What are you plotting?!”

Danu gave a disapproving look at Lugus's sluggish understanding. "Eriu, you're such a fool," she said with obvious disdain. "You need to take Eriu and go retrieve Uaithne, then bring both her and the harp back to me!" Her words were deliberate and condescending, as if she were speaking to a small child.

Lugus burst into loud laughter as he watched Danu scowl down at him. He almost rolled off the grass from laughing so hard, but also from the coughing fit caused by his fall. “You must be a fool if you think that would work! You saw Eriu - she can hardly handle her own powers without succumbing to Akash's influence. How on earth would she be able to control Uaithne? And even if somehow we were able to get it out of Tír Na nÓg, how could we do it without anyone noticing? You're completely crazy!” Lugus exclaimed, still wheezing with laughter at his sister's suggestion.

Danu gave her brother a hard kick, causing him to fall amid his laughter. Despite her attack, he continued to mock her. As light gathered around Sruth at Danu's brow, she confidently declared her plan, "You may laugh now, but it will work! She may not have control over Akash, but as Dagda's child, she will have the power to wield Uaithne! I am certain of it. And if she cannot, then Uaithne will finally rid me of her uselessness. It's a win-win situation!", she stated coldly and rolling her eyes at Lugus coughing.

Lugus's joy evaporated as Danu spoke. "You are a terrible mother, Danu!" Lugus exclaimed, his anger now directed towards Eriu's treatment. "That child deserves your affection and care! All children deserve to feel the love of a mother," he shouted with intensity, his eyes flickering with fury. “Dagda was right to take his children from you!”, he exclaimed angrily pointing his finger at Danu in disgust of her indifference towards Eriu.

At first, Danu was unsure of what to make of the situation, but soon her confusion turned into amusement as she began to giggle. She clapped her hands with glee, a spark of delight in her eyes. "You're such an innocent little dove! Is it a lesson that our mighty mothers teach their sons? Do they whisper in your ear when you go crying to them, telling you that every child is worthy of love? Do they shield you from the harsh reality when you are young? How fortunate for you men to have such nurturing mothers," she retorted back to Lugus with a playful accusation.

Lugus fixed his glare on Danu and growled, "What truth do you think you know that I don't?!" His rage made him feel embarrassed, but he couldn't hold back his shout.

Danu leaned in closer to Lugus, her hand gently caressing his arm as she spoke. "The Wyrd only favor those with power," she said teasingly. "They take notice of children who possess unique abilities, but they are merciless towards those they consider weak or unworthy." She chuckled at the disapproving look on Lugus's face. "Our mothers desire only the strongest among us to thrive and excel," she continued with a sly grin. "But sometimes I wonder if their methods of preserving our bloodline are too harsh, don't you? Or perhaps they aren't strict enough? After all, they let you live, despite your weakness," she whispered in his ear with a smirk.

Lugus stepped back from her touch, his voice gruff as he spoke. "We'll see who's weak, Danu! Just wait and see!" His neck muscles bulged with rage as he gritted his teeth at her. He even spat at her before continuing, "And that's another reason why Eriu shouldn't go! The Wyrd will destroy her or send her up that tower, which could be even worse! Who knows what's waiting up there? I won't have her or that on my conscience!" He shoved Danu's hand away from his arm in frustration.

“Perhaps they will. If you stupid enough to be caught, but that's not the point I’m making.”, said Danu dismissively. She continued in a more condescending tone, “The Wyrd are most critical of their Queens! Don't you know what should happen should my children be found weak? Do you know what comes of Queens who bear weak children?”

With a hard glare, Danu scolded Lugus, shouting, "Our nurturing and protective mothers have strict standards for our Queens. They will devour any Queen who does not produce strong offspring in front of all the others. It is the natural law, Lugus! Only the strong are fit to inherit the Sidhe. Love can blind us and distract from our duties as Queens. I will not be consumed by fate because of Eriu's shortcomings. Her weakness will not be tolerated; she must be destroyed. But before that, we can still make use of her tiny, frail body. Take her with you to retrieve the harp, with my approval," Danu said coldly, rebuking Lugus.

Lugus's expression turned to one of disappointment as he exclaimed, "You are unimaginable!" His eyes narrowed in disbelief as he continued, "I have never heard such accusations against our mothers. The Wyrd are known for their kindness and grace. To say they eat their queens is nothing but treachery incarnate! No one would ever believe such slanderous claims." Lugus covered his ears at Danu's words and refused to listen any further. Raising his voice, he accused her of lying.

Lugus continued to shout, his words directed at a fiery Danu who was already displaying her power. But Lugus no longer cared; he needed to make his voice heard. "This is just another one of your wild fantasies! Like the mortals who stumble upon your shores! Maybe you have reason to fear your weakness if you can't even keep sheep out of your fields like you claim! You're not the all-powerful Queen you think you are, with how you treat Eriu. It's no surprise that Dagda took Morrigan and Titania away from your madness. You would only taint their pure spirits!"

Sruth flashed in a sudden radiant beam with Danu’s rage. She shouted out as she flung Lugus from his feet to hover before her, an inch from her nose. “You are brave to challenge my words and my power when you're my prisoner, Lugus! You’re especially brave to think you can tell me how I should raise my children! You have no children, and do you realize I can crush you to dust before me?!”, she said again condescendingly.

Lugus chuckled with a confident smile as Danu threatened him. "Go ahead and crush me to dust, but who will fetch Uaithne? You cannot enter Tir Na nÓg without our mother's permission!" He glanced down at the bangle of light around Danu's ankle and added, "Looks like you'll be stuck here for a while. And you still need me whole and well." He couldn't contain his laughter as he watched Danu fume in front of him, unable to deny his logic. He clutched his ribs and continued to laugh as Danu's angry expression only made him laugh harder.

Danu’s light erupted out from Sruth making Lugus fall hard to the grass. The weight of gravity increased its force against Lugus whose body sank and made an impression in the flattened mud. Light formed as a ring around Lugus's throat, binding his speech. The light choked the air from him as it grasped his throat tight. A length of glittering gold string expanded from the collar of light and found its end in Danu's grasp.

She spat at Lugus who sprawled motionless and silent as a corpse at her feet. She spoke coldly to him, “I cannot trust you to act as honorably as I, Lugus! You're blind. You’ve always been blind to our Mothers ways!” Danu shook her head as she tugged hard on the golden leash dragging the motionless Lugus forward through the grass. “You're my pet canary on a string until you return to me as promised! I will keep this tether and your voice until you return to me Uaithne’s song! I’ll not have you speak another word against me!”, she screamed at Lugus who was powerless against Danu.

Elen watched the whole scene play out between Lugus and Queen Danu. Danu’s healing rain had long revived her from unconsciousness, but fear of Danu’s rage had kept Elen still and hiding where she had been thrown by Danu. She laid her head low in the tall waving grass, listening to Lugus and Danu shout at one another. She had been waiting for a moment to run to try to fetch Eriu. Her small body laid motionless near Danu. “I’ll escape with her. Somehow! I have to try! I can’t let Danu send her away!”, she told herself, but her fear crippled her legs from moving, so she waited still for her opportunity.

Danu used her powers to lift Lugus off the ground and bring him face-to-face with her. She couldn't help but laugh when she saw the dirt on his face. A tiny earthworm was dangling from one of his nostrils, and Danu found this absolutely hilarious. "Lugus, you were supposed to eat the worm! What kind of bird has been teaching you such strange customs?”, her eyes lit suddenly with excitement as she exclaimed, “Or perhaps you enjoy dangling your meals from you nose like links of sausage in a pantry," she quipped sarcastically, her words laced with venom.

Lugus glowered at Danu through the mud in his eyes. He tried to yell profanity and the blackest curses he knew at her, but his voice was trapped in his throat. Lugus swallowed his words which felt solid in this throat. The words stuck in his chest, each a sharp stone. The collar of light repelled the stinging and itching words backwards causing Lugus to cough violently against his own voice. He’d have recoiled to the ground in his coughing and rattling, but Danu’s power held him firm before her as he choked.

Danu savored every second of Lugus's suffering. Her radiance only intensified as the flowers in her garden bloomed with her delight. She chuckled as she began to speak, "You have the nerve to call me a liar and say that I am weak." Danu grabbed Lugus by the face, interrupting his coughing fit, and forced him to meet her gleaming eyes. "Until you retrieve that harp for me, you will not utter another word. Every moment, you will remember your promise to me and feel the weight of it." With a commanding tone she said, “Take Eriu and begone before I decide to change my mind about it all!”, she ordered Lugus, pointing the way out.

Lugus fell from Danu’s power and sank to his knees. He panted in exhaustion from fighting for each breath. Silenced by the ring burning at his throat, he punched the ground hard. The earth spit and the grass was pulverized underneath his strong fist. His anger made the shining red hairs of his neck stand on end like the hackles of a ravenous vicious hound.

Danu gathered up her gowns and straightened them out around her feet as she comfortably lounged back on her cushions and her sofa. Not fearing for an instant Lugus’s displays of rage she spoke to Lugus in a calm and even tone, “Your best bet to get Uaithne is to be on Tir Na nÓg in three days when you said the Wyrd have summoned the entire Sidhe court to meet at the Lia Fáil on Inis Fáil. Dagda will not have Uaithne with him at court. Conduits and their arts are not permitted to the holy isle by Dub Sainglend’s barrier. As you know, Inis Fáil’s law decrees there will be no blood spilled on its innocent shores.”

Danu's smile widened as she took in Lugus's dirty, seething face. She couldn't help but let out a mocking laugh as she watched mud drips from his nose. "Uaithne will be unattended on Tir Na nÓg," she said through her laughter. "You'll have the best luck then!" Danu playfully covered her nose and pretended to faint. "You really don't need to hide your strong scent with mud just to avoid mingling with all the poultry you do," she teased. "Although I can understand your concern. Perhaps you should find some time to bathe soon, Lugus. You look worn out and smell like duck manure!" Danu chuckled to herself at her own joke.

Lugus narrowed his eyes in anger and doubt as Danu spoke, but he knew better than to risk another bout of coughing by trying to respond. He stayed silent, clenching his fists and grinding his teeth in frustration. In his mind, he vowed revenge, thinking, “I'll make her pay for this. She won't manipulate me without consequences.”

As Danu watched Eriu lying in the grass, she grasped Drömnål tightly and felt a pang of sadness. She turned to Lugus and warned him, "Make sure she doesn’t use her spear too often. It was crafted by our mothers with great power, in anticipation of Eriu's greatness. It's not her fault that nature made her physically feeble. She must save her strength to bring Uaithne back home!" Danu's voice grew more intense as she spoke, tears welling up in her eyes. The flowers in her garden began to droop and wither as Danu frowned and hid her face to conceal a sob. “Take her and go already!”, she shouted and pointed again at him.

She then looked Lugus in the face as she spoke, “Is it not strange, Lugus? The mothers made Eriu such a powerful spear believing in her strength? Is it not strange how she never grew enough to hold it properly, but you’ve seen for yourself how lacking she is? How far do our all seeing mothers see if Eriu is not a match to Drömnål? How great is their power?” Danu raised an eyebrow and cocked a smug smile despite her tears at her cheeks. She enjoyed the confusion in Lugus's eyes behind his mud caked face.

Lugus felt aghast. His thoughts reeled with confusion. He’d never thought of it before. “Why were Eriu and Drömnål not well matched?”, he thought then, but he challenged Danu back in his thoughts. “Perhaps they did know! The Wyrd, they know all of creation!”, he had decided in his mind. “She may yet grow! She caught a star! She was the fastest!”, he remembered his niece from her youth. “It's true she never grew since then, but she should be mighty, this was true, but the Wyrd are never wrong!”, he concluded. “We’ve not seen her end!”, he decided, but a terrible unfamiliar feeling gutted him. He burned with a thousand questions, but his voice was bound as the doubt crept into his mind.

Danu sensed Lugus’s doubts and smiled. “We will see how great their powers are by the end. Time reveals all truth! Theirs will be laid bare!” Danu pointed ahead down a path of white stones that revealed itself from the long green grass beyond her garden at Danu’s pointing. “Take this path and Eriu. Take her and leave to honor your words to me. Bring me Uaithne and I will remove your collar!”, she declared sadly, looking away from Lugus’s still confused face. “Don’t return without my husband’s harp!”, she insisted as a strong gale wind picked Lugus and Eriu up and flung them down the path.

The grass closed up behind them, swallowing up the white stone path as they were thrown through the air along the track. They flew the whole stone path and came tumbling down a little sloping hill onto a ridge overlooking a vast ocean.

The waves crashed and surged against the rocky shore, their roars echoing through the air. The towering rock formations held strong against the force of the water. Colors from every end of the spectrum were represented in the large stones scattered along the shoreline, creating a vibrant contrast against the deep blue ocean.

Lugus picked himself up from the wet grass. He looked to where the white stone path continued down towards the sea. “How does she expect us to get to Tir Na nÖg! Does she expect me to fly Eriu on my back?!”, he exclaimed to himself in his thoughts.

As if Danu had somehow heard his thoughts he saw the white stone path extend down into the waters of the sea. The waters churned and bubbled up wildly from the sea bed. The stones began to fly up from below the churning water. They flew about and assorted themselves into the shape of a small barge.

The stones clapped together and trapped water between them as they rubbed together and solidified into a barge made of white stone marble. The pure white stone barge took the shape of a swan with its wings outspread. The smooth and polished stone of the boat glinted radiantly in the sunlight as it stayed unnaturally still against the water. It seemed to be waiting patiently in place for Lugus and Eriu’s arrival as it hovered over the splashing waves.

From behind Lugus came a rustling in the grass. He turned and defensively put himself between Eriu who was still unconscious and whoever approached. Lugus was ready to attack when through the tall grass came out a small doe with kind eyes. The deer looked at Lugus afraid.

Lugus relaxed his stance as soon as he caught sight of the small deer. "You're not a danger," he realized, feeling foolish for being on edge. He chuckled and gestured for the deer to leave after she continued to watch him with fearful eyes. She didn't seem to take notice of his dismissive actions as she stayed nearby despite her eyes looking like she might bolt at any given moment.

He chuckled to himself as he picked Eriu up from the grass and began to carry her down, ignoring the deer, towards the white stone path to the swan waiting near the beach. “This is lunacy! Why am I going along with this?”, he thought. “I should just leave this girl and go to the Wyrd with this collar. They’ll punish Danu for her binding me!”, he thought with a smile, but he soon frowned as he remembered “Right, I cannot. I swore myself to her.” The thought boiled over into a rage as he thought loudly, “Damn her!” As he thought of his sister bitterly he kicked a portion of white gravel into the tall grass.

“I swear her death for this! I will not be shamed like this! I am a proctor of the Wyrd’s will!” He reminded himself of his importance as he carried the sleeping Eriu down the colorful rocky slope and to the sea.

As Lugus approached the shore the Swan began to move. It crossed the water until it was just at the edge of the water’s breaking on the stone shore. The power holding the stone barge afloat scraped and crushed the smaller rainbow stones as it passed over them. The sounds of pulverized stone hurt Lugus’s sensitive hearing as he nearly dropped Eriu to the sharp sound of shattering stones.

He grasped Eriu against his body and ignored his pain. He soldiered across the stones quickly and placed Eriu into the hull of the craft. Within there were cushions and even blankets made of linen. A large wicker basket of provisions was also left, seated in the rear of the Swan. Lugus opened the basket and was delighted by the sweet smell of apple pies. There were also casks of ciders and even a cask of apple mead.

Lugus delighted at the spread. “Perhaps this all won’t be so bad after all. At least we will eat well before Dagda turns us to stone on Tir Na nÖg!”, he said to himself with a silent smile at his inward jest.

Lugus heard the rocks tumbling on the beach behind him. He turned to again find the doe with her eyes looking just as fearful as they were when she’d emerged before from the grass. He shooed the doe with a wave, but she didn’t seem to understand.

Lugus picked up one of the colored stones from the beach. He meant to throw the stone, but stopped himself. He watched in amusement as the young doe continued to awkwardly pursue him across the rocks, but the stones slipped and multiplied under her feet. They shifted her balance until the poor deer had fallen on its side into the grass.

Lugus chuckled to himself, thinking "She won't be able to catch up to me. She's stuck here." He left the deer behind and hopped onto the Swan barge, right next to the sleeping Eriu. The boat began to rise from the shore and hover above the water effortlessly. The massive vessel floated just above the sparkling waves.

The boat began to glide along with the breeze as its current and force of motion. Lugus immediately understood as he felt the barge heave forward in the direction of the blowing wind, so he seized a strand of wind from the sky and caused a rush of fast air to push the boat further out to sea.

“Well, I suppose I have no choice now. I must go.”, Lugus thought to himself in disappointment as sat upon a cushion and fished himself out a slice of pie from the wicker basket. “How did she know apples are my favorite?”, he thought suddenly. “Did I ever tell her that?”, he thought with a long pause before shrugging it off. “I must have.”, he thought cheerfully as he bit out a savory and sweet piece of apple from his pie.

Lugus sat back as he passed under the shadow of a cliff facing off into the deep of the sea. He’d noticed movement from on top of the cliff face as he took a bite from his pie. From above he saw the Doe he’d left on the beach. He watched with his mouth agape as the doe began to sprint at an astonishing speed along the cliff after the barge. The deer bounded with all its speed from the edge of the high cliff. The Doe toppled gracefully down into a dive as she broke the waves into an explosion all around her.

Lugus was so amazed by the deer he never even realized he had dropped his pie into the sea. He tried to take a bite from it, but bit his finger instead. Lugus instinctively tried to yelp in pain, but the sound grew and hardened in his throat causing him to choke out fine white dust into his sticky hand.

Frustrated by his coughing, Lugus angrily wiped the apple syrup and dust from his face with sea water as he watched for the deer to appear again from under the waves. She didn't, which caused him to worry.

“Where is she? She’s got to breathe! She’s not a fish!”, he thought to himself watching the water for any sign of the Doe. After a moment longer of her not appearing Lugus couldn’t help himself but to go after the poor daft creature. He dove headlong into the sea after the deer. “The boat will wait for me. It waited for me and Eriu before!”, he thought as he dove from the barge to help.

When Lugus dove off from the swan he changed his shape. He grew large white wings from his arms and became a gannet bird as he dove fast into the sea to find the lost doe.

With his sharp eyes he could see the young Doe being swept away by the ocean current. Lugus in a snap decision fled upwards with his wings through the cold sea. He emerged from the water with a hard gasp. The cool fresh air filled his lungs with vigor as he pounded his wings hard creating a wind around him that shot him high up into the sky.

Lugus once he hit the crescendo of his height craned his long neck gracefully back. He allowed gravity to pull his weight instinctively into a free dive. Lugus fell fast and hard as his control over the wind pushed him even faster down breaking the icy water across his face.

Lugus's great speed allowed him to easily break through the water with nary a ripple made. He sliced through the sea like a loose arrow as he traveled down further into the murky depths.

He scanned the water again with his sharp gannet eyes for the Doe as he glided along the water. Lugus spotted the young doe again during his descent. The young deer had changed her shape, and as Lugus had suspected the maid Elen floated along lifelessly in the current where the deer had been before.

Lugus angled his body in an arch letting his speed carry him as close as he was able to reach. Lugus unfurled his powerful wings and shot the remaining distance to Elen.

Lugus dropped his glamour and again took the shape of a man. He seized Elen by the arm, and he kicked his legs against the current. He heaved Elen as he violently kicked and clawed the water with his one free arm towards the surface above him.

Lugus felt himself begin to panic as the water’s surface seemed to grow further and further away no matter how hard he swam. The sea seemed to want to swallow him and Elen down into its depths. “She’s trying to stop me from taking her! She won’t!”, he insisted as he pushed through the water with his arm and legs beating against a current that threatened to swallow them down into the sea’s darkness below.

Lugus was rapidly losing air now in his manly Tuatha form, but he could not pull Elen up if he was a bird. He tugged at her arm and kicked hard trying to reach the water’s surface. He began to panic. “We won't make it! We’ll drown!”, he began to believe as he carried Elen and himself up through the weight of the sea pushing down on them.

Lugus did not know how, but a force inside him began to awaken. Some unknown divinity pushed its way from him to the surface as he struggled. Lugus was torn from the water and thrown high up into the sky above the water with Elen still in his grasp.

The two went sailing up over the water in an arch. As they hit the air Lugus performed his art of change and became a white-tailed eagle. He in a fluid motion seized the small woman Elen with his talons before she could all back into the water.

Lugus commanded the winds to fill his wings and he soared with Elen high up into the sky. Lugus scanned the blue waves below for the Swan with his sharp eagle’s eyes. “Where is it? Where is the barge?”, he began to worry as he only saw the even blue waves rolling in every direction.

His eyes widened as he flew with Elen, “The island is gone! Where is Eriu? Where is the damn swan?!”, he thought as he began to form a new panic. “It was supposed to wait for me! The boat did not leave the shore until I..”

Lugus's heart sank as he realized. “It didn't move until I called the wind to move it. I called the wind to dive and save Elen.” Lugus felt like hitting himself; he felt so angry and foolish. “I sent the boat on without us when I called the wind! Damn me!”, he thought feeling frustrated as he scanned the waves.

“Danu has shut me out! I cannot return nor can Elen now! Not without Uaithne! Damn you, Danu!”, he complained to himself as he flew on his path across the sea searching for any sign of the Swan barge.

As Lugus was flying he scanned ahead a piece of floating coral. His wings were growing weary from flying with Elen’s extra weight, but landing in the water was impossible. The current would draw them under again, and Lugus knew they'd not escape a second time.

Lugus focused his thoughts around the strand of fire coral floating in the sea. He had no claim as being a great enchanter as many of his other siblings could boast, but Lugus knew some tricks. He used one when he placed his mind around the segment of bleached coral and pulled its fibers and elongated their form.

Lugus imagined the coral growing and lengthening. It took some struggle, especially as he tried to fly and carry Elen. The coral’s fibers were brittle, and his mind could easily crush the coral, so he needed to be careful.

Lugus gently expanded his will and the coral along with it in an even pull, and the coral began to grow in size and shape with Lugus's pulling with his thoughts. Before long the coral had quadrupled in size. The small piece of coral had become as large as a small boat as it bobbed along with the water’s motion.

Lugus's mind began to whirl. He had used his arts far too often to shape reality to suit him. He felt his eagle's wings begin to pull back their feathers into skin. He hastily dove along with Elen into the water just beside the floating coral.

Using his powerful muscles and no art he threw Elen from the water to the coral. Her body landed somewhat awkwardly with her legs dangling off the coral. Lugus himself swam the short distance, fighting the current attempting to draw him down.

Using his last mental strength available, Lugus summoned the wind and lassoed himself to the coral so the strong current could not rip him down. Lugus climbed the rope hand over fist until he was safely astride the wobbling coral.

Lugus used his rope of wind and bound himself and Elen tight to the coral so they wouldn't fall into danger. Lugus, once secured, rested his head against the chalky coral. He used his arms as pillows and sighed. “This is a disaster. Everything has gone wrong now. I was supposed to go to Atlantis!”, he complained to no one but himself. “Who will tell Brigid and Bres of the Wyrd's meet in three days? I cannot go to them this way!”

Lugus punched the water with his fist and fumed. He raged about the loss of his voice, and he hated his sister Danu for dishonoring him with a collar of binding. A great shame.

“I’ll not let Bres and the other Tuatha on Atlantis see me this way! Danu won't get to laugh more by making me look like a fool before the whole of the Sidhe!”, Lugus decided as he rested his head on his arms against the coral.

He yawned. The fatigue of his terrible encounter with Danu and his acts of heroism weighed on him. He felt the need for sleep come over him. He realized as laid against his arms and the coral. “The warm sunlight feels good on my back”, he surmised dreamily while the gentle lull of the waves rocked the coral in a soothing motion.

Lugus moved his body into a more restful position as he let the feeling of sleep overtake him. As he lay on the verge of slumber he promised to himself, “I swear to one day kill you, Danu. One day I will.”, he thought to himself cozily with a smile as he dreamed of the awful things he’d do to Danu in revenge given the chance. The ideas of violence soothed him into a happy dream as he began to snore and float away farther adrift to sea with the tethered Elen also asleep beside him.