Chương 48: Róisín Dubh

By noon two days after she tore apart her fórsa mesh, Róise was already starting to feel better. It turned out that rebuilding your fórsa weaving wasn't nearly as hard if you had already done it once before. Flexing her arm, she could feel the pressurized well of fórsa in her joints - knees, rotators, neck. Even her nascent wing joints, which she was still decades from having to worry about. Cian had been right about the weaving method.

Even newly minted, she could feel so much more power as her fórsa was built for explosive movement. She was eager to get some time out in the jungle and see how she fared with this tantalizing upgrade. Today Cian had asked her to meet him at the house of the town's minstrel, Kelly. He felt confident in her newly rewoven fórsa mesh and told her it was time to start looking more carefully at her Folksong techniques.

Kelly was a thin, older Selkie with tightly bound white hair, though her face didn't show many wrinkles or other signs of age. She wore plain clothes; a simple white shirt and a navy skirt that stopped just below her knees.

"You'll be Róise, then? Best come inside." Her home was no different than the small cottages Cian had put the visitors up in, though it was decorated much more warmly. Musical instruments littered most surfaces - lutes, hurdy-gurdies, uilleann pipes. Almost half of them seemed to be in some state of repair, which made sense to Róise. It couldn't be easy finding good replacement parts for them on the Walk. Cian was already waiting for her there.

He checked in with her, asking if she felt good about her fórsa weaving, squinting at her closely, before nodding.

"I think we're good to go! Róise, you've met Kelly."

"Great to meet you," Róise said impatiently.

"Shouldn't we head out? I thought we could get some practice in on some real targets in the jungle." Cian shook his head.

"We need to correct your technique first." She furrowed her brow.

"Then why in here? There's barely any room to move around. No offense," she said to Kelly. Kelly shrugged. The boy shook his head.

"We don't need to work on combat right now. Just the technique."

"I thought those were one and the same thing."

"And that's why we're here," Cian finished. Róise rolled her eyes.

"Fine. What do you want me to do?"

"Hold on. We have one more guest joining… but he's dragging his feet getting here on time. Oh, there we are." Cian shook his head ruefully as the door opened and Cormac stepped in.

"Oh! Hi! Am I late?" Cormac waved.

"Oh, you must be Kelly. Wonderful to meet you. I saw you playing the night we arrived! Truly a treat for the ears, it must be told. Never have I ever felt so welcomed, and I think it was your music that really set the stage for that to happen." Kelly looked at Cian.

"I see why he was late."

"So what is Cormac supposed to do?" Róise was beginning to get frustrated.

"I can't use his luck when I'm out there on the Walk."

"Patience, please! Ok. Róise, please describe to me what happens when you use Banks of Red Roses." Cian floated down to sit on a stool by one window. Róise exhaled slowly.

"I can feel the music, even if no one's playing. I can… hear the clunk of tankards clacking together for a toast. I can hear the shouting. All these men at the bar, just looking for an excuse to blow off. Then… the sound is pushing my fórsa forward. It like… ripples through me. Makes me faster, stronger. Able to break through what would normally be solid barriers."

"Excellent. But you realize, that is not a combat technique." She looked at the boy skeptically.

"How is it not a combat technique? I'm describing what happens to me when I use it in combat." Cian nodded.

"There is a distinction. With your Folksong, you're changing the state of the world. You're creating a small pocket of reality in which you're slightly faster. Slightly stronger. Able to break down barriers." Róise shrugged.

"Ok. What's the difference?"

"Because once you master it, you can stack techniques. As far as I have seen you, you activate Banks of Red Roses and then go full-on martial artist from there. Nothing wrong with developing those skills - and they're effective. However, there is a world of other things you could do with those enhancements active." She thought about it a moment, then nodded.

"Ok, fair enough. I don't typically do that because… well, Red Roses feels pretty incredible. I just want to ride the wave of it - it's hard to concentrate on fórsa techniques while that's happening." Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"The emotion is important," Cian leaned forward and clasped his hands together.

"It's a part of the natural flow of the technique. It helps to create the Red Roses state. You'll just need to work on keeping the feeling going - the happiness you feel when a bunch of friends get together for a late night beer." Róise smiled, remembering her days in the rafters of that seedy tavern.

"Ok, that's part one. Now, part two. Banks of Red Roses isn't your only technique, is it?" She scowled, glaring at Cormac.

"Spilled all the beans, did you?" Cormac shrugged.

"Just trying to help!"

"Saint Cormac, off to the rescue." He pantomimed being sick.

"Please never say that again." She turned back to Cian.

"Yes, I have another one. But it doesn't do anything."

"What is it?" Róise looked down. Since discovering this technique she had never used it. To do so had felt… sacrilegious. It meant too much to her to be turned into power. Looking up she saw Cormac staring at her, his eyes full of worry. You don't have to, he seemed to be saying. She sighed. Yes I do.

"It's a song… that my mother used to sing when we worked in the garden together. Until that period where she picked up gardening she was this… distant idea. I had a concept of Mother, but it wasn't much a person to me. Those days we spent out in the sun together, digging in the dirt, planting seeds, weeding the rows…" Cian put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

"It was strong enough to shape the Life Nature into your fórsa. And I'm willing to bet, the beginning of what would be your Adept class. What was the song?" Róise sighed sadly.

"It was… a very old song. Passed down, mother to child for generations. It's in the old language - almost no one knew what any of it meant. It was called Róisín Dubh." Cian looked at Kelly.

"Aye, I know it," Kelly said with a nod. She began to pick a slow melody on the lute. Róise flinched. It almost hurt to hear those notes again. The minstrel began to sing - a thin, but unbelievably pure sound, with a melody that danced in a mournful rhythm.

"I know this song too," Cian said.

"And I do speak the old tongue. The name of the song means 'Little Dark Rose.'" A Róisín ná bíodh brón ort fé'r éirigh dhuit: Tá na bráithre 'teacht thar sáile 's iad ag triall ar muir, Tiocfaidh do phardún ón bPápa is ón Róimh anoir'S ní spárálfar fíon Spáinneach ar mo Róisín Dubh.

"It's an old, old song. As old as the Tir itself, maybe? It's a love song about a girl - simple as that, or so it would seem." Cian closed his eyes, listening to the tune. Is fada an réim a léig mé léi ó inné 'dtí inniu, Trasna sléibhte go ndeachas léi, fé sheolta ar muir; An éirne is chaith mé 'léim í, cé gur mór é an sruth;'S bhí ceol téad ar gach taobh díom is mo Róisín Dubh.

"But that's not what the song really means. In a time of oppression - similar to the times with which I believe both of you might be familiar - no songs singing praise to the native country of their people were allowed." Cian went quiet between each verse, seeming to float in the melody. Mhairbh tú mé, a bhrídeach, is nárbh fhearrde dhuit, Is go bhfuil m'anam istigh i ngean ort 's ní inné ná inniu; D'fhág tú lag anbhfann mé i ngné is i gcruth- Ná feall orm is mé i ngean ort, a Róisín Dubh.

"The plight of our Rose - a highborn and beautiful lady terribly mistreated and cast aside by her husband, spoke to the feeling the native children of that country had for their own land. Their country and Rose became one and the same in the verses." The boy swayed solemnly. Shiubhalfainn féin an drúcht leat is fásaigh ghuirt, Mar shúil go bhfaighinn rún uait nó páirt dem thoil. A chraoibhín chumhra, gheallais domhsa go raibh grá agat dom -'S gurab í fíor-scoth na Mumhan í, mo Róisín Dubh.

"And so in the mead halls, in the taverns, in the town squares and as lullabies to their little children, the people of this country sang this song. Singing a lament for Rose - singing a lament for their homeland, which none of the oppressors could hear." Cian opened his eyes at last. Dá mbeadh seisreach agam threabhfainn in aghaidh na gcnoc, is dhéanfainn soiscéal i lár an aifrinn do mo Róisín Dubh, bhéarfainn póg don chailín óg a bhéarfadh a hóighe dhom, is dhéanfainn cleas ar chúl an leasa le mo Róisín Dubh.

"A song that pours out the sorrow of what the people have lost, the beauty cast aside by those unable to feel its power - a beautiful keening for what once was, but now is no more." Beidh an Éirne 'na tuiltibh tréana is réabfar cnoic, Beidh an fharraige 'na tonntaibh dearga is doirtfear fuil, Beidh gach gleann sléibhe ar fud éireann is móinte ar crith, Lá éigin sul a n-éagfaidh mo Róisín Dubh. The song faded, but Cian continued to speak.

"What goes unsaid in the verses, but was felt in the heart of every man and woman who sang it was this. What was taken from us will rise again. The beauty of our land will never die. The age of the oppressors will end, and we will once again be free." Róise's face overflowed with tears. Had her mother known what the song meant? Even as a noble merchant family, they had labored painfully under Shorinu rule. The cottage still swayed mournfully, and Róise realized she had activated the technique without even thinking.

Cian looked at Cormac, who sighed and nodded.

"The wound of the oppressors," he said, summoning a dagger in one hand and slashing Cormac's arm where it had been exposed by a rolled-up sleeve. Róise shot to her feet as blood dripped to the floor, her hand reaching out to defend Cormac. Cian seized her elbow, arresting her movement as effectively as if she'd been caught under a tree. Cian looked pointedly at Cormac's arm.

"And what was lost will be returned to us." The wound in his skin was closing, faster even than Miriam's hand had when she had taken that wound against the serpent.

"That is what the technique of Róisín Dubh does," Cian said.

"It returns to you that which was yours. The power of rebel songs - of Folksongs - is to create in them a world which doesn't exist. It creates the world that should be. If even for only a small part." Róise ran to Cormac and hugged him tight, like she had not done since the early days of learning to live on the streets. She felt like a child again and his arms were home, just as when they had fled one of their hideouts, chased by thieves' guild, forced to huddle behind the trash in an alley all night.

His arms kept her safe, away from the thunder, the rain and the evil the world would see done to them.

"Would that all the world were so easy to make right," Cian said sadly.