The Fabler at Daybreak

Chapter 1~ Introducing Seanán

Chapter 1~ Introducing Seanán

Seanán awakes to find himself shivering.

He grits his teeth, eyes still closed, and yanks at the scratchy fleece blanket he’d thrown over himself the night before. The blanket is soaked.

Finally opening his eyes, Seanán emits a soft groan and pushes himself into a sitting position. He stretches his arms over his head, filling his lungs with a breath of cool, humid air--with a hint of salt, for this village is located near the shimmering Gulf of Finland. The landscape materializes around him, rolling hills to his left and right dotted with the occasional tree or bush, while behind him is a dense forest of deciduous trees and brambles. Before him stands a worn stone wall, roughly one syli high.

Two meters, Seanán corrects himself. He’d been working on conversions the night before, after he'd counted to fifty in Hebrew, Irish, Russian, and Welsh. Dedicated to studying the varying cultures in this world, he works hard and spends almost every waking hour "borrowing" and absorbing book after book from wherever he happens to stumble upon them.

Where does he keep these treasures? Seanán is a clever sixteen-year-old. He’d discovered a dry well about a mile north of Porvoo, the Finnish village he’d taken a liking to.

No, he wasn’t born in the area. The tale his russet hair, startlingly green eyes, and name whispers to Finnish natives claims that he is Irish through and through.

Seanán is a vagabond, alone in the world with his thoughts, dreams, and memories. But Seanán is a different sort of vagabond…

Suddenly, the russet-haired boy tenses his muscles and leaps up, whirling around to face the copse of trees behind him in the same movement—a maneuver he’d perfected. What had startled him sounds again, a deep, low snarl, possibly the product of the unconditional anger harboured by those pesky wolverines. He stares hard, trying to make out a silhouette of any sort in the thin dawn light.

But nothing moves in the shadows, save for the subtle shifting of the leaves in the trees. It takes a moment longer for Seanán to acknowledge his own needs and grasp that the irate monster is, not a wolverine, but his own ravenous stomach. As a small gale sweeps over the long grasses, Seanán also notes that he continues to quiver and that his arms resemble a plucked goose’s exposed skin.

It is no wonder; he is only wearing a threadbare pair of pants and his skin still holds the moisture from the night’s rainstorm. Seanán had slept quite abysmally though—as usual—and did not notice the passing clouds’ lament. He tugs a shirt over his head and steps into his rugged pair of boots.

He turns back towards his temporary camp, and uncovers a leather bag from the tangle of thorny undergrowth and grass. Grappling with the buckle, Seanán slips a hand inside and produces gray fabric, balled up and wrinkled. It’s his shield; his comfort. His confidant. His life.

It’s a long, hooded cloak, gray like the creeping twilight that always seems to sneak up on day and swimmingly surmount it. That’s exactly how Seanán aspires to be—dexterous and stealthy—in his, well, differing sorts of “habits”.

His stomach complains again, loudly, as he gives the balled up cloak a couple of shakes to unravel it. He then sweeps the cape around in a majestic arc before letting it settle around his shoulders and tying it securely. Slipping his arms through the bell sleeves, he lets his bag fall—but only after removing a gem-encrusted dagger and slipping it into his belt.

His features are all but evident and swathed in tenebrous shadow once he lifts the hood and lets it fall over his face. Now he is ready and prepared to face whatever this stark new day has in store for him.

He quickly and efficiently conceals his pack and drapes his blanket over the branch of a nearby tree, figuring it can dry while he’s out. Its dark green colour makes camouflaging a simple task.

With a last glance at his little clearing, he’s up and over the rock wall and plunging down the steep hill towards the village.

No one seems to be up yet. He gleans this from his station behind a thick-trunked linden tree with bark coated in lichen. His fingers work at the green symbiont, and he peels off tiny bits of it, collecting them in his hand before transferring them to his pocket. He bites his lip as his gaze scans what he can see of the small town.

Maybe ten minutes later, Seanán starts at the sound of a key clicking in a lock. He crouches down behind his tree and continues to wait.

More doors are unlocking, and soon, the mouthwatering aroma of fresh bread reaches out to Seanán with a dangerously tantalizing beckon. It is all he can do to keep his feet planted and hamper himself from wandering out onto the streets like a tempted pawn. He hadn’t eaten the day before. Oh, what he wouldn’t do for a measly slice of that rich bread…

Stop it, Seanán barks at himself silently. The question isn’t what he wouldn’t do; it is what he would.

Seanán’s cape brushes the cobblestone street as he snakes along, quieter than a shadow, taking advantage of alleyways and places where the electric candle street lights can’t quite reach with their fingers of radiance. In no time, he is hovering outside an open bakery door, ingesting the sweet fragrance of the crisp bread. He can just taste the cranberries and walnuts that had been baked inside the loaf…

A peek inside confirms that there are two loaves of cranberry-nut bread sitting just on the counter. He allows himself a pleased grin before ducking inside the bakery.

Seanán leaps the distance from the door to the counter, grabs both loaves, and clutches them in his left arm while his right hand digs around in his pocket. The baker is a clever man, for in the amount of time it took Seanán to gather both loaves in his arm and make sure they were secure in his grip, he has positioned himself between the crook and the door. Luckily, Seanán has a trick up his sleeve.

Or rather, in his pocket.

Seanán hardly pauses a millisecond before whipping his right hand from his pocket and tossing a handful of lichen bits into the man’s face.

But as he tosses the lichen, Seanán gets a shock himself. A flash of colours—turquoise, maroon, heather gray, amber, lemon yellow, ultramarine, and more—can suddenly be seen. Seanán retracts his hand and hides it inside his cloak with a hushed “Hittu.” His gloves! He’d forgotten his gloves!

His now-rapidfire heartbeat renders him reckless, and he barrels through the man, receiving a startled grunt in reply. He owes his chanced escape to the good three inches between the man’s hand and his hood.

Streaking up the foliage-speckled slope almost helterskelter, he lets the cries of the villagers in the town below spur his fleeting footsteps. The cloak billows out in his wake as he clears the border wall in an all-in-all magnificent hurdle. But upon reaching the other side, he slows but a second. The cape snags numerous times on briar and gooseberry thorns as Seanán is swallowed up in the maw of the shady forest.