Remembering What was Lost
This article is a part of Spooktober 2023 and is still a work in progress. Written for the Despair prompt.Contains mild reference to attempted suicide. Red hair. Blue-green eyes. Fear, the last emotion in them that he could recall. Darragh recoiled from the woman on the street as his skull abruptly felt like it was splitting open, like his blood and brains were spilling out onto the rotten Parisian street. He snarled, clutching at his suddenly aching skull, and the woman fled, calling out in panicked French for someone to help her. Having spent most of the last century of his extended life in one part of the country or the other, he knew the language almost as well as English and certainly better than the Irish that should have been his mother tongue if not for the British supressing it. Stumbling away down the street, he found an alleyway and staggered into it, head still splitting so much. Closing his eyes tightly, he slumped against the brick wall of the one of the buildings that made up the alley, eventually sinking down to a crouch on the ground. He didn't understand why his head felt like his brain was on fire. Since Ebio had made him her child, there hadn't been anything that could hurt him. Not fire, not blades, not even a round fired from a flintlock musket could slow him down or truly injure him. This pain in his skull, however, was debilitating. “Stop it,” he hissed aloud, still clutching at his skull. “STOP IT!” The agony crescendoed like a symphony, crashing behind his eyes, pain lancing into them. And then...he remembered. That redhead from the alley...she had looked like Ceallach Mac Uallacháin. Daughter of one of his father's oldest friends. The only one of his myriad conquests that he had actually cared for. He remembered the fear on her face after arriving to find him struggling with Ebio's teeth in his throat, blood already running across his skin. Remembered seeing a shadow come up behind her, a flicker of a dark skinned arm looping around her waist, and then she was gone with a scream. A scream that was quickly cut off. Dropping fully onto the ground, Darragh moved his hands up into his hair, tears running down his face as he remembered everything. His father's disappointed face that last morning he had been alive. The sound of his mother's voice as she sang while making breakfast. Prideful warmth in his chest as he taught his little brother how to take care of the animals on their farm. Ceallach's hands in his and her soft warmth curled against him, skin to skin. His own fear as Ebio dug her teeth into his throat and took everything away from him. Made him a killer. A murderer. Oh, God, he had killed so many people... Darragh buried his hand deep in his hair and did the only thing he felt he could in that moment to release the storm building in his chest. He opened his mouth and what came out of him could only be described as a wail of despair. Like the stories of the banshees his mother had told to him and Daman as bedtime stories when they were boys. Darragh Ó Conaill had never been a 'good' man since he had grown old enough to be called one but he had never been a killer. A rake and a brawler, sure, but never a killer. It had taken his life - no, his everything - being ripped away from him to turn him into that. When he finally stopped screaming, throat raw, he staggered to his feet. As he swayed upright, Darragh looked up at the semi-darkness of the Parisian sky. Knowing what he had done, he could not even appreciate the beauty of the city that he found himself in. He needed...absolution. To be freed from the despair that had taken up roost in his chest like a heavy weight. His first immediate thought was Ebio. He wanted to hurt her. Wanted to dig his fingers and teeth into her flesh and tear her apart as she had done to him body and soul. If he attacked her...the elders would have to judge him. Likely kill him for the crime of attacking his sire. Nodding, Darragh reached out to brace a hand on the wall and slowly made his way deeper into the alley. Yes, yes, he would go home, if he could call the place that he had been living home anymore. He would attack Ebio. And she would kill him. Free him from this nightmare.
Memory of Ceallach Mac Uallacháin, created using Playground AI
Timeframe: 1781
Location: Paris, France
Event: Darragh Ó Conaill goes to attack a woman but she reminds him of Ceallach Mac Uallacháin, his former lover. In the aftermath, he remembers his death...and what he assumes was hers.
Consquences: Darragh Ó Conaill makes a decision in his despair to break one of the main laws of their kind and attack his sire, Ebio, in the hope that his actions will lead to his death.
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