Diarmuid hadn’t let Eachtach go hunting all day and she was sure she was going to die of boredom. He was still upset with her for picking a fight with an animal he could not protect her from. She had spent all afternoon stuck with her brothers and Grainne instead of out hunting.

Along with the restlessness, the silence was also bothering Eacthach. When she returned from the successful boar hunt the night before it was quiet. That happened sometimes, they would travel far during the day and not be able to hear the hunting dogs behind them by evening. But even when morning came it was still quiet. The entire day Eachtach hadn’t heard a single barking dog or yelling man behind them.

Aengues Ógh was Diarmuid’s foster father, making him kind of like Eachtach’s grandfather. He was a druid from the otherworld, Mag Mell, with strange knowledge of the land, making it easy enough for him to find them from time to time and let them know what was happening elsewhere.

His arrival that day perfectly coincided with the return of Eachtach’s raven. It wasn’t flying this time, it wasn't beating its wings in Eachtach’s chest, it was just sitting still. Like it was listening to the news Aengues Ógh was delivering.

Grainne reacted first, leaping up and hugging Eachtach talking about “We get to sleep inside for once, we don’t need to run away anymore, finally!”

Diarmuid stayed sat where he was talking quieter than her saying “I knew it, I always knew he was too kind to not forgive us eventually, I told you he was going to let us come back eventually.”

The rest of the night was very strange. Diarmuid tried to explain to Eachtach and her brothers that “Things will be a little different from now on, but it’ll be okay.” before he wound up bickering with Grainne about whether they could afford to host a feast for the Fianna.

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They cooked food and ate it right there, without covering the fire pit or running away after.

When they started moving again the next morning they were walking slowly, like nothing was following them.

Eachtach absolutely loved the feasting hall. The distant noises that had followed her for her entire life were suddenly brought close, with people shouting and drinking and telling stories, and hunting hounds chasing around underneath them hoping for scraps of food. A hearth was roaring in the center of the room casting warm light onto everything around it.

The smell and the noise and the walls close around Eachtach were dizzying after a life spent under open sky. It was overwhelming in the best way possible, like legends made real.

The hero's portion of the feast went to Fionn mac Cumhail, who didn’t look anything like Eachtach had imagined. The way Diarmuid had spoken about him in his stories Eachtach had pictured a giant, towering over those around him. She expected white hair, and a scar on his hand from the wisdom of the otherworld.

Instead she was met with an old and weathered man, gray hair and so many scars that the three little dots on his hand hardly seemed significant.

He was polite though. He told Eachtach how much she looked like her father. When she got overwhelmed from too many people speaking to her he let her pet his dogs.

Diarmuid of course sat next to him, as the host of the event. He spoke loudly about how Eachtach hunted a boar, all on her own, as though he hadn’t been upset about that only a week prior. All the while Fionn nodded and smiled and commented on how impressive it was at the appropriate times.

Grainne was next to them, more reserved than Eachtach expected but still just as polite. When she began speaking at the end of the story it was about how Eachtach was almost of the age to be fostered away from home.

Fionn replied just in the way Eachtach had hoped, saying he “would be honored to train her and her brothers as proper members of the Fianna” should they come to live with him.

He went on to say that there was “some creature or another” causing trouble in a village nearby. He said he wanted to see Eachtach’s hunting in person, he said he wanted to hunt alongside Diarmuid once again.

Diarmuid of course agreed to go with him.

And many days later, when the Fianna went to go hunt the creature, Eachtach and Diarmuid went with them. All the while Eachtach’s raven sat still ahead of them, waiting.