An Angel Called Eternity

Faetales and Forgotten Stories - A Promise Fulfilled: A Lonely Light

Gráigdeireadh, Eastern Aurinsay, the Brythonic Isles.
The Forth Day of the Eighth Moon, 606 AD.

She wasn't sure exactly when, but things had changed between the two of them these last few years. It was odd. It wasn't bad, or good, it was just... it was different. The two of them seemed to trip over their own feet and stumble over words when around each other, which seemed strange by itself since neither of them had particularly worried about that before. They still maintained their normal routines, laughing over their mistakes and blunders with an increasing regularity, they still met one another almost every night at the hour of the hound, and they still did their best to stay around one another as often as possible, like it had been when they were children, but there was undeniably something different about... well about the two of them, she supposed. There was a strange pull in her chest when he laughed, an almost melancholic look in his eyes when she smiled at him during their nighttime escapades, a sense that everything was the same but... Gods, she didn't really know how to frame it. It was definitely still the same, and yet somehow it was different. Old Kerwyn kept looking between the two of them and smiling whilst shaking his head and muttering to himself. That confused her as well.

She was dragged from her thoughts by the cause of her confusion, cresting the hill and walking towards her with a smile playing about his lips.
"Gráinne!"
She smiled back.
"Arwel. Is the harvest going well?"
He nodded at her, smile still fixed in place.
"Aye, not too bad by half! We're looking at one of the best harvests we've had in decades, at least according to some of the older farmers out there. We must have gathered eight tons per hectare on the spring barley, similar for the spring wheat if the other lads are to be believed."
She nodded back and took some mental notes. Eight tons a hectare? That was a damned good yield indeed!
"Well, let us hope the Jay keeps us in her embrace a while longer. The orchards?"
"Flourishing. Probably around one-thousand two-hundred bushels a hectare."
She stopped and blinked.
"But that's... that's almost twice last year's yield."
She motioned for him to walk alongside her as they made their way back to the village.
"I take it the younger trees started bearing fruit this year?"
"Aye, they did. We won't lack for apples nor pears anytime soon, that's for sure. No word on the livestock yet, I can run down and ask for you if you'd like?"
She huffed a little and shook her head. He'd become something of her informant when it came to harvest seasons, giving her on-the-ground measurements of their yields in between his harvest-work. It was damn useful for keeping track of how much of each foodstuff the village would have in the coming months and years. It also meant he was run ragged some days.
"You've just got back. Come on, wash yourself off and get changed into some cleaner clothes, there's bound to be a small celebration tonight when I tell the rest of the village council."
He chuckled under his breath whilst looking down at the road.
"Yeah, that sounds good to me. Any chance of-"
"I'm going to stop you there."
She stopped walking in her tracks and turned to face him, hands on her hips.
"Were you seriously going to bring up that one time I asked if there was to be alcohol at a festival?"
He smiled sheepishly at her and scratched the back of his neck.
"... maybe?"

She huffed and carried on walking, trying her best to keep the smile off of her face.
"Look, you have to admit it was a stupid question, and also really funny."
"I already agreed with that. Why do you still bring it up?"
Though he was a few steps behind her she knew he had an almost giddy smile on his face given his tone of voice.
"Because I always ask stupid questions and you don't, so I need to try and cling to the few you do ask."
"... touché."
"Touché? Never heard anyone say that before."
She shrugged.
"Heard it said by some fancy captain, a noble-type from the continent. Apparently they say it to mean 'fair enough' or 'I can't argue with that'."
"Well that's stupid. Why don't they just say 'fair enough'?"
She slowed slightly, letting him fall back alongside her, before shooting him an exasperated expression.
"Arwel, my dearest friend, please do not tell me you forgot that the continent speak different languages to us."
"..."
"Arwel?"
"You said not to tell you!"
She rubbed the bridge of her nose with her right hand in a gesture of mock frustration.
"Gods preserve me."
He looked down at her, smiling but with that almost melancholic glint in his eyes she had noted the last few nights.
"Hey, there's a reason you're gonna be the one running the village and I won't. You're the smart one."
She chuckled at that and carried on down the lane.
"Come on, let's get back before they all start making japes at us for 'disappearing' again."
He laughed back at her.
"Yeah, that's probably for the best. Let's get moving."