Withstanding Trials: Day 17

Word Count: 102,711

Summary of Events:

Aodhán got up in the middle of the night to discreetly make some arrows, as he didn't want anyone to know and suspect that he wasn't an Aloneist like he said he was, quitting only when he got tired. Saraid came up to Conchobhar's house to get some more fish and ended up chatting somewhat shyly and awkwardly with Aodhán, becoming convinced that an unconscious part of her had become excessively infatuated with him. Aodhán and Conchobhar went out to see what they could find for game, stopping by a little cemetery in which Conchobhar revealed that Tighearnán's father was buried, before going on to recount that it was Tighearnán's father who'd started proclaiming Aloneism on the isle, as well as how his death came to pass…

Excerpt of the Day:

“It was around this time of year, about five years ago,” Conchobhar said. “Tighearnán, having been called to follow in his father’s footsteps, had just arrived to start aiding his father in the ministry, and we came over the hill to give trouble. I was part of a group that found and directly went after Tighearnán’s father. I was at the back of the group, so I wasn’t able to strike any blows, but the men ahead of me were in a frenzy and quickly knocked him down. I ended up noticing young Tighearnán and I felt smug within myself to see him seeing his father suffer. I wanted to see what kind of a man he was, and I expected him to try to defend his father, but he didn’t, he just watched as the frenzied men before me beat the life out of his father, who called in a loud voice to his late wife that he was coming before expiring.”
Aodhán grasped the neck of his shirt and dabbed at his eyes, which had become moist as his imagination composed a possible rendition of how it had transpired.

“Eventually the men determined that beating a lifeless body was no fun, so we headed back over the hill,” Conchobhar continued. “But I was disturbed by Tighearnán having watched silently and not even cried out in agony at his father’s expiration, so I went into the woods and monitored the settlement from afar, watching funeral preparations, as well as the funeral itself. Sad though everyone was, they weren’t hopeless. There was no anxiety in any of it like there was for us. We always feared that the boat would come back, or that it might never make it, but even though they buried the bodies of their dead in the ground, they had no lack of confidence regarding the destination of the dead.”

“But the traditionalists believe in an eternal life,” Aodhán said.

“Only if the boat makes it, but we never know if it does,” Conchobhar replied. “We have no way of knowing if it ever does, even with the ones that aren’t driven back when the wind turns and have to be sent off again, sometimes multiple times over.”

“And they’re always sent back out?” Aodhán asked.

“Always,” Conchobhar replied. “Even when the bodies have broken down horribly, they’re still sent back out to sea, but we have no way of knowing if they make it, yet these people were burying the bodies of their dead in the dirt and yet sang openly of seeing them again, and not in the ground, but in a glorious place. I couldn’t believe my ears to hear their songs, and I wanted to be enraged, but I couldn’t be. I actually broke down and cried when I finally headed for home because I wanted what they had. I wanted to know that I would see people I loved again, and not to be fraught with the anxiety that death always brought.”