The Realm of the Sun

The Mission

            Weeks passed and nearly half of the soldiers in the infirmary passed with them. The rest had mostly returned to training, except for the few exceptions that remained under care in the battery. The brutal cold had not stopped Eilé from her inspired work there, just as it had not at all slowed Maeve's relentless ambition.

Eirainna sat in the common room embroidering beside Cillian as Eilé played a card game with Furbaide on the floor by the hearth.

"What are you doing?" Eiainna asked her older brother, wondering why he was hovering anxiously over a parchment map. He leapt in his seat, immensely startled by even her placid inquisition.

"Oh..." he gathered himself, embarrassed by the paranoiac eruption, "Maeve is depending on me to form a plan of attack...or defense, rather..." his words and addled thoughts caused small beads of sweat to form on his wrinkled brow. 'Defense' had come to mean 'attack' and 'attack' had come to mean 'defense' where the Taran army was concerned. Noticing his sleepless red eyes, Eirainna waited for him to finish his thought, "It's a strategic map."

"You'd think she'd have lost some momentum with Finn—with all that's happened," Eirainna looked down at her lap, wishing she hadn't said his name just yet, as Cillian writhed uncomfortably in his seat just to hear it spoken aloud.

"Nothing can or will slow Maeve down," he mumbled, a prisoner of his own words. Eirainna swallowed, still feeling the fresh wound left by her brother's tragic death and knowing it was worse still for Cillian. He was swiftly falling victim to the pressures of fighting a war that he did not believe in, and Eirainna had been watching it knowingly, like watching the rain slowly flood the moor, drop by drop.

"Cillian, I'm worried about you..." she said in a whisper so the others would not hear.

"Don't be ridiculous, Raina," he dismissed her comment as nothing with a nervous laugh, but she could see on his face that he was worried for himself as well. And his response to her remark was far too quick for him not to have expected it. She dropped the embroidery in her lap and extended a hand to him across the table. Tenderly, she touched his arm and demanded his glance.

"You don't have to do this," she said in a clear, firm whisper. Cillian's eyes searched his sister's for a moment like a child's would, believing her for a short moment, allowing himself to be comforted by what he wanted so desperately to hear. But he soon deflected this gesture and swept the map to the side in a fit of anger. Eirainna recoiled at his sudden, but brief flare of rage. Furbaide and Eilé jerked their heads over to the card table. Cillian slowly released his breath to calm down, clenching his fist repeatedly and then spreading his fingers to their limit, his knuckles turning from white to red alternatively.

"What—" he started, and then realized his voice was too loud to discuss such a matter, "what choice do I have?"

"You don't have to do anything you don't believe in, Cillian. This has all taken its toll on you. Maeve and Diarmiad don't need the time to grieve; they're different than you and I. You cannot compare yourself to them...they wanted this war, you...you cannot live by her impossible standards just because she is queen," Eirainna murmured, intently.

"And what about you, Raina?" he challenged her.

"What about me?"

"Have you been able to break free of your royal obligation and do just as you please? Do you want to be fighting this war?" he asked, meaningfully. Beginning to see her hypocrisy and that he was absolutely right on all accounts—he truly did have no choice and she too had succumbed to the standards at hand in her own way.