Withstanding Trials: Day 11

Word Count: 66,085

Summary of Events:

Aodhán took Ceallach out in the Athchóirigh because Ceallach wanted to go out in it, but he refused to linger as long on the water as Ceallach wanted, heading in with the fishermen in the face of approaching storm clouds before a fiercer storm than Aodhán had seen since he'd arrived broke over the isle. Sara and some of the women of the community harvested autumn nuts in the forest, the last food there was to harvest before winter officially set in. Having borrowed one of Uncle Séaghdha's sea charts, Aodhán created a meticulous copy of it in order to be able to navigate the open water when he set out on his trip, which he surveyed with satisfaction upon completion…

Excerpt of the Day:

There was the compass rose neatly in the bottom-right corner, the lines indicating the depth of the water in hundred-metre intervals for one kilometre’s distance around each isle, as well as the isles themselves, lines indicating elevations, major roadways, and significant settlements.

If it weren’t for the clean newness of the paper, compared to the chart he’d copied it from, which was discoloured with age, and also the victim of many a stab from the pointed ends of different charting tools, even Aodhán could’ve believed it’d been a mapmaker’s work.

Aodhán flexed his hand, which was still a bit sore from the tension he’d felt while copying the work so meticulously, as he’d not wanted to get a line wrong, lest that error in his line drawing possibly cause him to damage the Athchóirigh on something he’d not expected to encounter.

He had his own copy of the entire Taoiseach of Finscéalta, which included not merely Inis Neamhaí, but one of the largest number of surrounding isles to form any Taoiseach, as many of the isles in the area were quite small, some being little more than bare rocks where seabirds flocked, while others had a summer hut and enough space to pasture twenty head of sheep that were usually hauled across by boat from a larger isle where they spent the winter, as sheep weren’t known for their swimming abilities, especially with a full coat of wool, such as they would have in the autumn when they were returned to winter pastures.

A portion of Oileán Oirthear’s coast, including almost three quarters of Scaradh Cuan, were in the southwestern part of the chart as well, even though that land was in the Taoiseach of Scaradh Cuan, which was the only Taoiseach whose Chief was a devout traditional believer, just like Grandfather was the only Chief who was Aloneist, while the remaining thirteen Chiefs were split between Truism and Universalism, which had seven and six, respectively.

Aodhán surveyed his copied chart with a bit of a twinge, as he knew tens of thousands of people, maybe even hundreds of thousands, he wasn’t sure, lived on the isles he’d copied, but to his knowledge, not one of them was Aloneist; indeed, few of the people who lived on the isles he’d copied were even Truist, although there was at least one Truist church on each isle, according to what he’d been told, anyways, as he’d not yet found Inis Neamhaí’s and he was currently staying effectively at the largest settlement on the isle, and the only church he’d seen so far was the Universalist cathedral that Uncle Séaghdha, Aunt Caoilfhionn, and their family paraded to every Sunday without fail.

Carefully checking that the last of the ink — most of which was filling in the details of Oileán Oirthear — was dry, Aodhán carefully rolled up his copied chart, tying it carefully with a string he’d cut from the spool in his trunk and stowed the copied chart in the trunk for the time being.