Oaths and Promises
Contains references to the aftermath of torture, as well as discussion of essentially assisted suicide.
One. Two.
One. Two.
Over and over Marie Ó Conaill counted the two numbers in her head as she made her way slowly towards her destination, feet sliding across the ground from one step into another.
Left foot. One.
Right foot. Two.
Over and over and over again. An endless cacophony in her head to drown out the burning pulse of a hunger in her throat that was foreign to her. To not think of the child nestled underneath her heart, it's blood tainted as much as her clothing was stained with blood. Nor of the wounds that had once been torn into her skin by knives and fingernails that were now gone, leaving only pristine skin behind with only dried smears of blood as evidence that they ever existed.
She was damned. So was her child.
One of them was worse off than the other was, however. Marie had seen the evidence of the blood cursed, had been shown into rooms and cells that held children and adults alike that had had their blood tainted. The children, at least, had been normal and some of the adults had been the same. And then, there had been the young girl, barely sixteen years of age who had been kept by vampire from the age of nine as a pet.
The vampire had at least never taken her body with its own but that hadn't mattered. It had ruined her just the same by tormenting her, pretending that it was her father until she had believed it. Feeding her at first little sips of its blood to bind her to it before it had begun giving her more and more, practically draining itself dry to pour the contents of its veins into her. The girl's transformation had been slow and torturous and Marie had been horrified to learn that she had been sixteen for such a very long time...before the poor child had lunged across the table lightning fast to try and tear her throat out.
That was the day that she had learned hatred for the things that her family hunted. It had been a lesson in their cruelty...and in that of her clan, given that they had kept the girl after discovering her several decades before.
Marie was not going to allow that to happen to herself. She was...she was already changing, in the little dribs and drabs that crept through during the time that Cael Ward had held her. This was a fact that she knew.
Especially in that she had not consumed actual food in...weeks? Maybe? Each hour of every day that she had been held captive had slowly slipped into the other and now she wasn't sure when it was. How long had it been since he had taken her from her home? Was her husband still alive? Were her boys - her precious, sweet boys - still alive? Had Cael kept his word and left them alone in exchange for her and the opportunity to taint the life of the child in her belly?
Marie pressed a hand against the curve jutting out ahead of her and smiled as she felt the flutter of the babe against her palm. They were still alive. Tainted and damned, but still alive.
The babe had a chance.
Marie didn't. Something in her well-honed hunter instincts told her that she had some time as a buffer but, eventually, Cael's blood was going to kill her. It wasn't going to sustain her and fully change her. No, it was going to kill her.
But, maybe, just maybe, her child could have a chance to live.
So long as she kept moving forward.
One. Two.
One. Two.
Left foot. One.
Right foot. Two.
Onto a path that she knew, one that led her to the castle as Dún Másc. Bloodied and bedraggled in the night, Marie banged her fist on the door and called for help. She cried out the contents of the oath that Tirlagh Hancóc had sworn to her and his sect answered, two female witches bustling her inside with wide eyes while an older male looked on with disgust.
In the relative safety of the Hancócs, Marie's mind...slipped. She knew that she was being led around. That the two female witches had undressed her, peeling blood-soaked and hardened cloth gently away from her skin. They had pushed her gently down into a large wooden tub and scrubbed her skin nearly raw to get all of the blood off of her but Marie was grateful for it. To have it no longer tacky on her skin or the smell of it filling her nose, causing her throat to ache with the need to bite and drink. She had been dressed in a soft gown and tucked into a warm bed, and felt safe for the first time since Cael Ward had appeared on her doorstep, his eyes hungry on her Darragh's tall, young form out in the garden.
When she woke, Rohan Hancóc sat at her bedside, his arms folded over his chest and his chin tipped down as he seemingly dozed sitting upright. He was no longer the younger man who had met her alongside his cousin but now fifteen years older, shoulders wider, body stockier, and a thick reddish beard covering his face. Yet when he startled awake, his eyes were the same and so was the smile that he gave her.
"Hello, Marie Smith," he said kindly, leaning forward to rest a hand on the edge of the bed.
Smiling sadly, she slipped a hand out to cover his, murmuring, "Hello, Rohan Hancóc."
As he flipped his hand over to grasp hers, Rohan said, "Your blood is tainted."
"Yes."
"It doesn't take much to know it, you know," he continued. "I don't know what you know of witches from those in the sect that you may have worked with before but it...screams. To our magical senses, at least. Something...unnatural. Dead blood in a living body." Then his hand tightly clutched her and he breathed, "Gods, Marie, there's so much. Who did this to you?"
"Cael Ward," she replied and his sharp inhale of breath was all that needed to be said of what had happened to her. Marie's eyes swam as tears welled up, clouding her vision, as she continued, "He...he found me. Threatened my Uilliam. My sweet Darragh. My precious Daman. I couldn't...I had to give him something."
Rohan shook his head and moved his other hand to her shoulder, pushing her back down into the bed as she started to sit up.
"I have a boy now, just about a year-old," he said with a quick shake of his head. "Cahir, we called him. He's..." Rohan trailed off, staring into the distance as his throat worked before he looked back at her with understanding in his eyes. Marie slumped back into the bed at that understanding and sobbed quietly while he made soothing noises while gently rubbing her arms.
When she finally regathered her wits, Marie breathed, "I'm dying. The blood won't hold."
His nod confirmed it and she asked, "Is...will the babe make it?"
"We can do our best," Rohan replied. "You're...it will be cutting it damnably close, Marie. And after being tortured for who knows how long...there is a chance neither of you will make it."
She knew that. She knew. Yet if there was a chance...
Clutching at the hand still holding onto hers, Marie breathed, "Will you...will you take care of them, if they live?"
"Of course," Rohan promised. He then drew in a breath and said, "But...you coming here...Tirlagh has stated firmly that us aiding you fulfills our oath. With you dead, there won't be anything to protect your husband or your sons. Not from the whole of the sect."
There was something in his voice that made her look at his face, to catch his eye.
Lifting her chin slightly, Marie asked, "What about from you, Rohan Hancóc?"
He smiled weakly and squeezed her hand, replying, "I'll do what I can for them. But...if Ebio finds them, there will be nothing that can be done. Your eldest will be hers for the taking and no one in the sect will stop her."
"Then..." Her voice caught, dragging on the burning hunger in her throat and the tears, and then held. "Then this child will need someone to catch them. Raise them. Until they can find their brother again if he becomes lost. You'll do that for me?"
"Of course," he replied again. "Like they are my own flesh and blood."
Smiling, Marie murmured, "You're a good man, Rohan." Then she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, and steeled herself for the other part. After a moment she asked, "Did you keep my knife?"
Silence answered her for a long moment, punctuated only by the wood of the chair creaking, and then Rohan quietly answered, "I did. It's hidden, in case another hunter ever came through and recognized it." Then he began, "Marie..." but she shook her head.
"I want to die myself if I can," she hissed, staring past him towards the ceiling of the little stone room in the castle that she was in. "In control. Before the hunger or the madness takes me in the end. We both know that it will happen if the blood runs its course."
He sighed and then said, "I'll get it. I'll even wield it if need be. But the child comes first, yes?"
Marie slipped her other hand to her belly underneath the coveres and nodded tightly, staring at him as her lower lip trembled in response to the emotions raging in her heart. "Yes," she replied breathlessly. "But after...after, Rohan..."
His hand squeezed hers and he swore softly "After I will help you put the blade through your heart, Marie. I promise you. On my own life."
She watched him for a long moment, looking at the broken emotions playing over his face, and then nodded before closing her eyes. "Thank you," Marie breathed as her body relaxed for the first time since she had sense Cael Ward's presence nearby. "Thank you, Rohan."
"My oath demands it."
Marie opened an eye at that and quirked an eyebrow as she said, "You told me Tirlagh said that this fulfilled the oath."
Rohan nodded and replied, "The oath of the sect. I can choose when and where to upload whatever oaths that I like on my own. And here, I choose to upload this one. To you."
"...why?"
He just chuckled and replied, "Because you impressed me, lass. And because, I think, that you need someone to have your back. I'll do the same for your child, for as long as I can."
"Thank you," Marie whispered and didn't bother to hold back the grateful tears welling in her eyes.
Her Darragh and Daman might not be safe, but they would be watched. And the child nestled underneath her heart, they would be safe. Protected. It was all a mother could ask for. Knowing that...Marie could face her death with eyes wide open.
And wasn't that truly the death that any hunter wanted if they had to go before time tore life from their bodies?
Timeframe: 1653
Location: Unknown and County Laois, Ireland
Event: Marie Ó Conaill is released by Cael Ward after more than a month of torture and torment and slowly makes her way to the Hancócs. Despite her body being obviously tainted by the vampire's blood, they clean her up and take care of her. When she wakes to find Rohan Hancóc at her bedside, they talk briefly about what happened but more importantly about what is to come.
Consquences: Marie Ó Conaill gains a promise from Rohan Hancóc that he will take care of her child when it is born and also keep an eye on her husband and sons after revealing that letting her in fulfilled the oath according to Tirlagh Hancóc. She accepts this and can only hope that Ebio never finds her eldest son.
Marie Ó Conaill was the kind wife of farmer Uilliam Ó Conaill, known as little more than an English woman who separated the man from his family when he married her. Before coming to Ireland in 1638, however, she was Marie Smith of the Smith Clan and made a bargain with the vampire Ebio to escape from her life. She sacrificed herself to save her sons Darragh and Daman in 1653 when vampire Cael Ward found her...but also doomed her unborn daughter, Niamh, to a half-cursed life.
As the only other person present when Marie Smith came begging for Tirlagh Hancóc's aid, he was the first person she came to. Covered in blood and slowly dying, she begged him to save her daughter even if she was blood cursed. That her baby girl deserved to live. With a young son of his own, he swore that he could protect the girl with his life...and he also was the one who burned Marie Smith's body to ash at her request as she lay dying with her own knife in her heart.
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