“But what if I want him?” The Morrigan had an expression on her face that was almost playful; it humanized her, and for a moment I forgot she was a bloodthirsty harbinger of death and realized how stunningly attractive she was. She reminded me of one of those old Patrick Nagel prints, except very much in three dimensions and far more sexy. I found it difficult to come up with a clever reply, perhaps because most of the blood that used to keep my brain functioning well had relocated elsewhere.
“Well, um. Uh. Pretend I’m saying something witty right now. Also: nnnn—” I couldn’t say no. I wanted to, but I was physically unable to say it. I kept trying. “Nnnn …”
The Morrigan laughed and drew closer, taking me into her hand. I tensed up, expecting pain. She chuckled a bit more about that and leaned forward to whisper in my ear.
“Relax, Siodhachan. You have nothing to fear. You saw the bindings for harmony in this room. They work on me too. There can’t be harmony if you’re terrified, now, can there? So we will do it your way. This once.”
Harmony, I discovered, could be horrifying. That was what kept me from saying no. There couldn’t be open disagreement in the presence of these bindings. Combined with fertility and abundance, what the Morrigan currently wanted was precisely what the bindings wanted. I was the one out of harmony, so I felt the force of it. I thought of simply exiting the room, and managed a single step before my legs refused to move any farther in that direction. “Do we have to do it at all?” I said, desperately.
“You need it. So do I. And I can play nice when I want to.” Her words fell on my ear in soft warm puffs of breath, and she stroked me gently to prove she spoke the truth. My eyes closed and then snapped back open as I realized what was happening.
“But …”
“Shh.”
“Weren’t we supposed to be in a hurry?”
“I allowed for some wiggle room.”
She kissed me, preventing any other protest, and played nice. But the physical pleasure didn’t come with a side of emotional fulfillment. A zoo full of guilt ferrets bit me the whole time.
A Druid’s tattoos aren’t the sort one gets in a parlor from an excessively pierced person. The needle has to be living—in other words, a thorn from a live plant—and Gaia must be present. She guides where the ink goes and creates the binding that allows us to tap into her magic. Alone it took me about a week to get in touch with Gaia, but together with the Morrigan we were able to enter the trancelike fugue state and meld our minds in only five days. Touching up the tattoo on the back of my hand took an additional two, and during that time we were able to speak of the Morrigan’s progress on her cold iron amulet, amongst other things. One needs a distraction or five when getting stabbed repeatedly with pointy bits. Gaia doesn’t let you turn off the pain; gifts and talents earned without pain are so often taken for granted.
“So it’s been six years,” I said. “Are you about ready to bind your amulet to your aura?”
A hint of red crept into the Morrigan’s eyes and she didn’t respond at first, so I was going to let it slide and pretend I’d never asked the question. She surprised me by answering a few minutes later, just as I was about to introduce the topic of crocheted superhero plushies and their excessive cuteness.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready, Siodhachan,” she said. “The trick is winning the favor of an iron elemental. As I have said to you before, I am unskilled in the arts of currying favor. If I curry anything, it is fear. But I cannot scare an elemental into binding cold iron to my aura. All I can do is scare them away.”
“But I thought you were making progress with one. The last time we spoke of this, you were feeding it lots of faeries and it was pleased with you.”
“Yes. Well, shortly thereafter I lost my patience and it fled. The same thing happened with two others. What is that American game you like so much, where a player gets three chances to succeed?”
“Oh—I think perhaps you mean baseball.”
“Yes. Baseball. I have struck out, Siodhachan—is that the correct phrase?”
“It is.”
“I have witnessed a couple of those games in crow form, because you find it so fascinating.”
“Really? Who did you see?”
“I misremember. My attention wandered, but I believe one team was inordinately proud of the color of their socks.”
“Oh, yes! Boston or Chicago?”
“Boston. That was it. Many fine Irish people there. I perched on top of a large green wall, and I can understand your attraction to the game. The players suffer greatly yet mask it with stoicism.”
“You liked the suffering? Well, that’s not why I enjoy it, personally.”
“How can you not appreciate their inner struggles? Whether they strike out or allow the opposing team to score or commit any number of other tiny failures, they are filled with doubt and self-recrimination and outright fear that their careers have ended, that they have lost the talent or skill that earned them the opportunity to play professionally, and with dread at the possibility that they have publicly shamed themselves. It is magnificent drama. It is little wonder that people pay to watch it and swill cups of poorly made beer while gobbling up those tubes of low-grade meat paste covered in ketchup and mustard. What are those called?”
“Hot dogs.”
“Why? Do they contain dog meat?”
“I certainly hope not. It’s just an idiomatic term.”