Boldly going where one should not (OTA)

[impossibilities]

Grainne had been hard put to think of who or what she should ask about it. She wasn't experienced with the formal sounding, personality-less artificial intelligence the ship boasted. It made her miss Jeffers, surly as he was at times in that particularly sardonic British way; he never gave her nonsense about parameters or needing to define them.

Engineering seemed like the place to go, and it didn't occur to her to ask the computer to send a request. Even Jeffers hadn't been relied on to that degree. Besides, who knew the ship better than those who tended the engines? But she had also been told it was restricted, so she hovered about just outside, fidgeting with her tablet and trying to make up her mind.

As a result, she seemed to waver back and forth in front of the entrance, gathering courage and making a bit of progress, then thinking better of it and going back.

They probably wouldn't let her, anyway, but what harm would it be to ask?

Finally, gathering courage again, she settled on a compromise. "Hello?" Perhaps she could catch someone when they weren't busy. Besides, she was insatiably curious to see the engine.

Comments

[impossibilities]

Grainne shrugged. She didn't really understand it, herself. "It was against their doctrine. Anything that was outside their beliefs were evil, and their god was the only one that was allowed to perform miracles, so therefore magic was evil. Knowledge itself, sometimes. I was not there for everything, so most of the history has been written from their viewpoint. When the gods left, people began to doubt they existed, yet it doesn't stop their belief in a single, invisible god. There has been a revival of the old ways, but with so much of the oral history lost, most people can only guess. People only believe in science now. If it is not like this in your Eire, at least that is something."

Do you want Kale to be able to help her with her tablet?

[engineermage]

"Considering trying to get rid of magic in my world would be trying to get rid of the need to breathe...?" he said drolly.

[impossibilities]

"I'm... rather glad to hear that." Grainne admitted, feeling a small spot of relief. An Eire that had never been conquered or erased. "I'm sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. Grainne O'Brian."

[engineermage]

"Kale McCallum, prince of Eire," Kale said with a bit of a bow. Since she seemed to be so worried about the lack of Eire things existing.

"And I can make up something to charge your tablet, if you'd like."

[impossibilities]

Grainne really shouldn't be so skeptical, but she couldn't help it. His claim could just as easily be a lie as it could true.

"Aye, that would be very kind of you. Seems a strange thing for a prince of Eire to mess about with, though." She was honestly curious, as well as skeptical, with Ireland's royal lines long gone she had no basis to judge what modern customs might be had they gone uninterrupted.

[engineermage]

"Oh? Why's that? I like tinkering with electronics," Kale said, though what he didn't wasn't exactly tinker per say.

And everyone knows that Kale and his siblings could hardly be called normal royalty.

[impossibilities]

"All the history that must be taught, would it not take a great long time? I mean, if all three thousand years were still passed down, and all the laws and politics. Technology just seems very time consuming." Grainne pointed out, waving a hand upward. "Especially if one plans to rule.

[engineermage]

"I'm third in line, so I have no intention of ruling," Kale said, with a bit of a grin. And with any luck, Nat will have kids so he'd be even further back in line. "And I've still got plenty of time to work on my tinkering and study."

[impossibilities]

She considered that, then nodded, curiosity satisfied for the moment. "I see. There is more leeway with a younger prince, that makes sense." Grainne seemed to accept the idea more, now that she had a few details. "It must be a quite lively place, what is it like there?"

[engineermage]

It's probably a good idea that Kale doesn't mention that the crown prince, Nat, is off in Paris working as a chef. He has about a year or two left before he goes home to work on official things, but...

You know that blank look a person gets when they contemplate something so overwhelming that they just can't focus on anything else...

Kale gets one of those right then.

"Well. When mum's family visit da' has to offer some of the staff hazard pay," Kale said slowly. "Apparently some of them threatened to quit after my parent's wedding. Something about terrorizing the staff..."

He blinked coming out of that mental fugue state. "But other than that, it's fairly calm. We occasionally have tourists running off into the off limit areas of the castle, but nothing too big."

[impossibilities]

Watching his reaction, Grainne couldn't help but feel there might be a very visible question mark over her head. The description eventually clarified, and then she was laughing softly.

It rather sounded like whenever the Deisi had shown up.

"Ah, family is much like that, especially the in-laws and cousins. You give tours?" Now she was interested. His world sounded wonderful, and a place she would have loved to visit to see the contrasts between her world.

[engineermage]

"There is a reason why mum's family is called the knife of Eire... or OH GODS NO THEY'RE COMING..." Kale said cheerfully.

"Yeah. Of certain parts of the castle. The older, historical parts that aren't used in everyday life. We've got some rooms mocked up to look like how they used to when the castle was built, and a museum of the history of Eire, the royal family."

Shoving his hand into a pocket he pulled out a his keys and showed her a key fob. It had a picture of the castle on one side and 'Castle Tara, Tara on the Hill' on the other. "We've even got a gift shop."

[impossibilities]

Oh. The key fob...

The smile on her face faded a moment as she recognized the skyline, the shapes... changed, but after centuries of use that was a given. But it was there, whole and-

Grainne had to hold back the tears, drawing on all her practice to keep herself calm.

"Ah... it looks amazing. Is that the Grianan? And Cormac's additions are still there? The ruins on my world are little more than the bases of rock walls.@

[engineermage]

"Are you okay?" Kale asked worriedly. She sounds like she's seen it personally. "But yeah... Treasa McCallum completely scorched the bell tower, melted the stones and managed to numb all the magic in the area... which is pretty standard for a McCallum... but the rest of it still stands. With additions, but you can't see it from this side."

Really, it's not a McCallum rescue unless something gets set on fire, or something similar.

"I can't imagine it being so... broken and dead..."

[impossibilities]

A mask slammed down on the tears and she smiled pleasantly. Grainne must be out of practice.

"Yes, I am fine. I just never thought I would see it intact. You are truly lucky." Grainne looked around then, and shifted on her feet uncomfortably. "Speaking just outside of engineering isn't the best of places. Would you like to go... s-somewhere?" She hesitated, unsure of where to suggest.

That was the bad thing about being on a ship, of any size. There were only so many places to go.

[engineermage]

Oookay then.

"Nah. That's my uncle Rory. He's a seventh son of a seventh son." Kale grinned, making a bit of a bad joke.

"Sure. Um..." Not to quarters... ahaha... um... "I guess ten forward's a good a place as any..."

[impossibilities]

A small feeling of dread shivered down Grainne's spine. The view from that place always disturbed her no matter how many times she went inside.

"I suppose so. There are not many places to go here. I try not to go there very often." She shook her head and smiled again. "I could probably tell you more about my tablet, as well."

With that, she started to head to the turbolift.

[engineermage]

"There aren't really, are there? I mean, I suppose we could go down to the shops and business but that always seemed strange to me... since they're not supposed to have money?" Kale said, following her.

"And yeah, that'd be good."

[impossibilities]

"I suppose that they have to do something to pass the time. It does not seem strange to me. I mean, what else would they do? If you enjoy cooking, it would make sense to share it." The turbolift opened, and she settled in. "Deck Ten."


Pausing a moment, her arms folded, she looked down, a serious expression on her face now. "Kale, could you tell me about the history of your Eire? It seems that somewhere, something happened that made the Christians invade-- or not, in your case. Can you tell me what happened between Conn of the Hundred Battles and..." Grainne trailed off, trying to think of a name that he might recognize. She decided just to go for a timespan. "Let's see... it was about two, three hundred years after that, that Patrick started his conversion movement."

[engineermage]

"Yeah. Maybe." He shrugged.

Kale has no idea who Patrick is, but he can give her a history of about that time period, because he does at least know who Conn of the Hundred Battles and can move up from there. A lot of it is fairly similar except that there's quite few mentions of the McCallums helping in fending off invaders much better than in her world or removing a bad king from the throne. The gods are much more prominent. And once or twice a man named Rhys who seems to act almost like a trickster figure. When it comes to Grainne's own story, the McCallums are absent because it had naught to do with the land.

Generally, if she's looking for reasons why someone wouldn't be invading Eire it's because the McCallums were there to help send them packing back home, occasionally with their leaders in pieces, and because invasions are always harder when you're on a land not belonging to your gods. And the locals have some easily pissed off gods sanctioned guardians.

"I'm probably missing a lot," He admits, "I've never been too interested in history."

[impossibilities]

Grainne had made sure to sit down with her back to the view ports in Ten Forward when they made it there, listening intently. Some of it aligned with what she remembered, but very definitely the McCallums had never been part of her stories...

"It's all right. Nobody could know everything that went on at any moment in time. It is really quite different from my history. I am surprised that whole... thing with the Fianna chasing after the lovers didn't destablize the country, or deplete the defenses. The Battle of Gabhra meant the end of the Fianna in my world, and Fionn never tried to restore it. There were no McCallums ever in my stories. I wonder if they had been killed off early, before they ever became important? Between that, and the Fianna, it seems that is why Patrick and his... people could move in and convert- and the druids that did not convert, they killed."

She paused, then added softly, "Fate has such a strange way about it, where one choice can make a difference."

[engineermage]

"They don't get involved in politics unless the land itself is being threatened. They have to be neutral. So, civil wars? Not their thing."

He frowned a little. "It's likely they might not have existed at all in your world. They're direct descendants of the Morrigan's eldest son who... seriously fucked up something major sometime after shorty after the Tuatha came to Eire and nearly destabilized everything. The others wanted to kill him. Instead, the Morrigan managed to convince the others just to curse him and his children."

Kale tugged on his brilliantly red hair. "This red here and the green eyes? It's known as McCallum red and green. Only McCallums who live at Thorn Hall for a great deal of time will have these colors. Some of my little cousins live in Dublin most of the year, but on Summer holidays they'll come down to the Hall and their hair always turns more red after spending the summer with us. It doesn't matter what color hair the non-McCallum spouse has, if they marry into the McCallums and live at Thorn Hall, their children's hair will be red, the eyes green.

"It's so everyone knows who we are. What we did. And that they should run away really fast or surrender if they see us coming for them. Because we're a one family army if need be. Even one of us can be dangerous."

He laughed a bit. "So, I guess you're right. One choice can have lasting consequences."

[impossibilities]

At that, Grainne gave him a very, very critical eye. "Claiming descent from... from her is a very dangerous thing. I have never heard such a story before. What exactly did he do?" It said a lot that even though the gods had disappeared, she still avoided speaking the Morrigan's name.

[engineermage]

"Caelum...," Kale stared up at the ceiling for a moment. This isn't really something they talk about with outsiders. "There were people he was supposed to be protecting... children... and he did something ... stupid... beyond stupid... and he got them killed... in a horrible way... just... horrible... I won't say it wasn't his fault... because he should have known better... but he was tricked, too... Caelum wasn't the brightest guy around, Rhys said... and he was punished for it... and his children were punished for it."

[impossibilities]

She waited, sensing discomfort, and didn't try to press him when he paused. She understood how something might be difficult to speak or think about. By the gods, how she knew.

"He sounds... rather like your average idiot warrior." It was spoken softly though, with compassion. "Often they mean well, but, still... perhaps it was meant to be in your world, lest Eire would have fallen as mine did. It is more unusual for tragedy to result into a positive in our stories than the other way around. Your Eire does not know what could have happened."