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the Children of Lir
Apr. 2nd, 2011 09:40 amIt was because of the stepmother, but isn't it always? After a few centuries it did not matter. There was a lake and there was a moon and there was the soft sound of feathers spread on swanwing as one by one they landed.
There was always the pain of untransformation, each brother unlocked from the curse of swandom for one day and one night. And then the sister, always the last to regain her humanity by choice, so that she would also be the last to transform and could watch her brothers safely off into the wind.
She would stand,dressed only in the dawn and the wind, thrilling as she did each year at the feel of her hair moving, shifting, then changing to feather and wing and she too would wing off to join them. Her family was a private wedge. No pens were welcomed, and cobs were chased away. Although the truth is that there was seldom need. Only the most lonely, the most vulnerable swans would try, for there was something wrong with them.
So for all but one day and one night of the year there was the feel of the sun and the moon, of rain and rainbow around them as they continued their flight over the island that had been their home. Buildings were constructed and then abandoned and collapsed over time and still they flew, their wings beating a gentle tempo. The freedom of flight was always tempered with the melancholy of the two memories the curse had left them. That they were chained together. And that their freedom was an illusion to hide more chains, for they could never truly be swans.
Year upon year, decade upon decade,century on century. And slowly, ever so slowly they grew as humans. Only on the one day and night a year, for as swans they were magic and could not change. But even in the minute measures of change they reached the point, one by one, where they had reached puberty. They noticed the changes in themselves each year when they changed and in each other. Their hugs became a little longer each year, a little tighter. Brother to brother, brother to sister.
And because some things transcend curses, their libidos twined,blended as did their bodies. Not having been told what was right or what was wrong the bodies blended were generally whichever intransformed first. Until the last step of the curse. Christianity came, and one year the bells rang, the notes by magic revealing to them the final cruelty that they,the victims, would be blamed for what had actually kept them human over the centuries. And it was with that thought that they turned to dust. Except for the sister, standing in the wind one last moment and refusing to believe the bells, gradually shifting to dust with the first sound the lake had heard from any of them in all that time, the sound of laughter and freedom.
There was always the pain of untransformation, each brother unlocked from the curse of swandom for one day and one night. And then the sister, always the last to regain her humanity by choice, so that she would also be the last to transform and could watch her brothers safely off into the wind.
She would stand,dressed only in the dawn and the wind, thrilling as she did each year at the feel of her hair moving, shifting, then changing to feather and wing and she too would wing off to join them. Her family was a private wedge. No pens were welcomed, and cobs were chased away. Although the truth is that there was seldom need. Only the most lonely, the most vulnerable swans would try, for there was something wrong with them.
So for all but one day and one night of the year there was the feel of the sun and the moon, of rain and rainbow around them as they continued their flight over the island that had been their home. Buildings were constructed and then abandoned and collapsed over time and still they flew, their wings beating a gentle tempo. The freedom of flight was always tempered with the melancholy of the two memories the curse had left them. That they were chained together. And that their freedom was an illusion to hide more chains, for they could never truly be swans.
Year upon year, decade upon decade,century on century. And slowly, ever so slowly they grew as humans. Only on the one day and night a year, for as swans they were magic and could not change. But even in the minute measures of change they reached the point, one by one, where they had reached puberty. They noticed the changes in themselves each year when they changed and in each other. Their hugs became a little longer each year, a little tighter. Brother to brother, brother to sister.
And because some things transcend curses, their libidos twined,blended as did their bodies. Not having been told what was right or what was wrong the bodies blended were generally whichever intransformed first. Until the last step of the curse. Christianity came, and one year the bells rang, the notes by magic revealing to them the final cruelty that they,the victims, would be blamed for what had actually kept them human over the centuries. And it was with that thought that they turned to dust. Except for the sister, standing in the wind one last moment and refusing to believe the bells, gradually shifting to dust with the first sound the lake had heard from any of them in all that time, the sound of laughter and freedom.
