A Highlander's Promise

The Hunt

Today he awoke feeling different.

He shook off this feeling and got out of bed, even though it was before the sun decided to wake.

Looking out the window at the dark sky, he washed and dressed himself.

Then he picked up his bow and quiver filled with arrows and headed towards the dining hall where he met his father and his father's right hand men.

"Ian," his older cousin Fionn called, "we're waiting for you, come and eat so we can be on our way. I'm terribly excited today, for I'm determined that we shall catch a boar. I've made a bet with Maon that this time we will not only be catching fowls or rabbits."

"You seem pretty sure of yourself, Fionn. You're as stubborn and set on your ways as your father," Ian's father said.

Ian's father was the laird of the MacAlister Clan and aged as well, but one did not underestimate his strength for his age.

"As he should be and I am proud of him so," Aodh, MacAlister's younger brother, said.

"How chaotic it must be to live in a home where two stubborn men reside," Ian said, sitting down at the table looking at his plate. "Blessed Caitir for settling you two down every time you cause commotion."

"Blessed mother, may she outlive all of us, who knows what would happen to us had she not been here," Fionn said.

"Amen," the men said simultaneously.

"If we leave now, we'll be able to reach the south forest by sunrise, right in time for when the animals awake," Maon, MacAlister's right hand, said.

With those words said, Ian finished eating quickly and they all packed their horses and left.

Ian loved these hunts.

He remembered as soon as he turned sixteen his father had allowed him to come.

Always jealous of Fionn being able to attend, Ian begged every time.

They were close friends, with Fionn only being two years older than he.

Now doing these hunts for his fourth year, Ian and Fionn were always a team. They always made bets and said they would best their old men. They had failed to do so every year until a few months ago Fionn had shot down a doe. He was persistent as ever after that one hunt and they hadn't been so successful since then.

Nonetheless, even if the duo had lost the bet they would always do the wagers together which was better than doing it alone.

The two grew up like brothers. Ian's mother died during childbirth and his loving aunt, Caitir, cared for him as her own. Aodh treated Ian as much as a son as MacAlister did.

They were a tight knit family and their clan never had any feuds or commotions, they were very much reserved in nature and mostly kept to themselves. The biggest commotion of any sort they had ever had was when Fionn had dared Ian to jump into the lake from the low cliff, unknowing to Ian that a group of several ladies were bathing in the lake below.

Ian remembered the fuming faces of the women filled with rage and the sting on his bum when his father had let him and Fionn pay for the consequences. Ian was fifteen then, he and Fionn couldn't help but laugh at what they had done months later and even now.

He smiled.

The men began to talk about different hunting strategies now that they were going to venture in a part of the MacAlister territory that they had not been frequented often and the duo discussed their top secret strategy plan on how to outdo MacAlister's right hand man.