WHOOOOP! The Young Ones - Here come the next batch of Younglings !!!!

Can't stay away from the horses, can I?  LOL Here's a photo I might want to use as inspiration since I have a feeling in my gut that the mounts of the Young Ones aren't likely to be any more hesitant to assert themselves than their riders. Oh boy. 

Here's a bit of a preview for you, so you'll kind of know what to expect from these 'new' Characters. I've snagged this out of the rough draft working copy of COME HELL AND HIGH WATER.

While our Younglings are heading into their young adult years, these Young Ones are picking up where their older cousins left off, and going them one better.

XXX

"It’s time to check in on the Young Ones of Dunnottar. 

They’re keeping themselves busy with their schooling, with Dedan and Saba coaching them along. Marra and Mamm the Younger are a pair of holy terrors, exponentially worse than even Rua ever was. These Young Ones are unrepentant rapscallions who charm their way out of trouble time and again.

Mounted [on the most rambunctious four horses that the Silver Herds of Dunnottar have ever produced, true throw-backs to Ordha and Rogue, with more than a dash of Oillt's attitude to top it off, I kid you not], they spread the joy of their escapades through the general vicinity.

In Stonehaven they go thundering along the main street scaring little old ladies and providing entertainment for littles and younglings who admire them greatly. Then they come back through from the other direction, sedate little saints come to share serenity and good works. They look around, find people who could use a hand, and pitch in with whatever tasks they can find. Then they do the thundering bit again on their way out of town.

In Northwest they helpfully clear the streams for a mile around and dig a well in the middle of town, pat themselves on the back, and then stock the well with fish when nobody’s looking.

In Forest they yell and scream their way along the paths, horns bellowing, thoroughly disrupting the peace that generally reigns in the quiet of the woods. The first few times they set the forest animals into panics, which in turn sets the Forest Folk into panics. Then everyone gets used to it. They order massive quantities of lumber and the other products produced by Forest, and pay for it in gold and silver and jewels. All of the stuff they ordered and paid for shows up on the doorsteps of the folk who most need it.

Out in the territory of Beyond, on the other side of the forest, they take to making loud appearances in the communities in the middle of the night, clanging and banging, hooting and hollering, then disappearing when lights begin to show in windows. When morning comes the folk of Beyond are surprised to find barns cleaned, haystacks in place that hadn’t been there the day before, cattle gathered, and new supplies for the making of their instruments piled neatly in the town square.

The basket-makers of Southwest get scared out of their wits when they hear moanings and groanings in the night, punctuated by sudden shrieks and wails. It’s darned spooky and the Young Ones take great delight in seeing who can create the most eerie sounds with their voices and their horns. Here too they order an amazing array of basketry, pay for it with the coin of Dunnottar, and show up with a huge wain pulled by all four of their silvers to collect their purchases. Even the wain has been a special order. It is a great big basket shaped like a boat. They drive their boat all over the place dropping off baskets to all and sundry. The wain-boat itself they give to South.

One calm night they sneak down to South and set all of their fishing boats adrift so they aren’t there come morning when the South Folk want to use them. In their own little currachs, out far enough to not be visible from South, they’ve got the boats corralled by dolphins Called for the purpose by the girls. When a hue and cry is raised by South at daylight, the naughty Young Ones ride some of the dolphins back to shore while the others push the boats back AND herd an astonishing catch of fish along with them.

Yes, these Young Ones are busy. They are wild and reckless but so well-loved that they get away with whatever they can think of to do.

Dunnottar herself is not spared.

They go into the smithy when Thann is called away to help somebody with something or other, probably something they rigged up their own selves to get him out of their way. They want to forge a sword that even Thann can’t wield. The fire they get started is so big and so hot that it goes right up the chimney where the wind catches it and sets fire to the thatched roof of the roundhouse. Quickly extinguished, it causes no real harm but the Young Ones have to work their tails off mending the burnt place on the roof.

And they’ve just taken themselves over the line,  yep. They’ve gone too far this time.

They have to face the wrath of Dunnottar, not a pleasant prospect for anyone involved.

Dedan and Saba are in tears over the whole thing. They’re supposed to be the Guardians of Dunnottar and the roundhouse could have gone up in flames. To make it worse, it is their own charges, the Young Ones, who have caused this trouble.

Said Young Ones don’t feel all that bad about the roof of the roundhouse,  truth be told. That's something that is fixable even though with great effort. 

But when they realize how badly they have hurt Dedan and Saba they are for the first time in their lives truly repentant. This has in no way been their intent – yet they have harmed the ones who perhaps love them at least as much as their own parents do, maybe more at times.

The tears of Dedan and Saba do what nothing else has been able to accomplish.

Those tears bring the Young Ones to their knees.

Finally, just as Merri is about to drag them off to the disciplined life of the Fienne, Ullin himself shows up and carts them off to Iona, lock stock and barrel."

XXX

If you've read the short story books, you'll have met this batch briefly.

They are Colum and Saorsa, born kin-twins to Caileen and Aine of Dunnottar (born at the same time, and in close proximity, to full sisters), and Marra and Mamm the Younger, the fire-headed twin daughters of Sass. The two pairs are born within a year on Dunnottar. 

When we meet them in the short story, and again now, they are 12/13 years old.

This is the only group within our story line that doesn't have a shorty among them, although with Dedan and Saba as their teachers, mentors, guides, guardians, and friends they do have a couple of short folk closely associated with them. The four cousins are all long-legged and tall. 

They are the collective 'baby of the family' and maybe a little over-indulged.

Colum is the son of Caileen and Talorc - teachers, diplomats, and leaders of Dunnottar. 

Caileen has long thick hair of brown generously streaked with copper and gold, with the copper eyes of her father Danann of Dunnottar that go back in our lineages to David of Chattan.

Talorc is a powerfully built man of 'normal' height with short dark hair and very dark eyes.

Saorsa (whose name means 'freedom' in Scots Gaelic) is the daughter of Aine and Kalann, half sister to Aine's son Brann.

Aine and Kalann are scholars, warriors, and general cut-ups but very serious about what's important in life.

Aine has light brown curls and blue eyes; Kalann is, like Talorc, a powerfully built man with dark hair and eyes, although their facial features are pretty different.

Marra and Mamm the Younger are the twin daughters of Sass and Thann (who adopted the brother-pair of the Old Ones, Dedan and Saba)

Sass is tall and slender with blonde hair and sea-eyes that change to and from all of the colors of the waters of Earth. She is our Healer.

Thann is what we call 'Danann sized' - which is to say he is six and a half feet tall and well-muscled. Thann is our smith.

Marra and Mamm the Younger would be the spittin' images of the 'original' Warrior Twins Sass and Saille except that their eyes are the deep blue of their great-great-grandfather Alaric instead of bright grass-green.

We don't have physical descriptions (yet) of either Colum or Saorsa, except for their height and long legs. I'm thinking that Colum will carry the dark eyes and dark hair of his father Talorc while Soarsa might be blonde and green-eyed.

At any rate, the Young Ones welcome you to our midst, and we welcome them (most of the time) to our Story Line.

HEY! You want a sneak preview?

CLICK

(or get it on Kindle!)

Here's Rua's Brownies vs Pixies story:

Get Those Pesky Pixies OUT of Here!

A little girl with sky blue eyes and fiery red hair that blew in the wind and flew in her face kicked her way along the shore of the North Sea that was close to her home.

Rua of Dunnottar lived 160 feet up, at the top of really steep cliffs that completely surrounded her high-up home and the bridge of land that connected it to the mainland.

Dunnottar had no shores of its own to speak of, so when Rua wanted to go kicking along the shore she had to leave Dunnottar’s heights and head either north or south along the mainland. Because the shore route north to Stonehaven was longer than going overland, Rua generally chose to head south.

In the fishing village of South lived a good friend of Rua’s called Calm Creena. Sometimes Rua just wanted to see Creena, especially when she was getting a feeling that things weren’t quite all the way as right as they were supposed to be.

That feeling had been hanging in the air for a week and was getting worse.

It was definitely time to go see Creena and figure this out, this whatever-it-was.

And so Rua was kicking along the shore, sometimes looking out to sea, sometimes looking at the pebbles her feet were kicking, sometimes gazing up at the nearby cliffs.

In the course of her gazing, Rua noticed something moving where nothing should be moving.

A great big strand of kelp was weaving its way along the beach toward the cliffs in a way that no normal kelp possibly could, not across the sand and pebbles of the beach like that.

Fascinated, Rua started following it.

The kelp started going faster as Rua approached, and kept going faster and faster until Rua had to run to keep up with it.

‘What the heck!’

As the kelp started climbing the cliffs, Rua abandoned her chase and ran for South as fast as her very fast little legs could carry her.

‘Creena! Creena! Where are you? I need your help!’

A man’s voice answered.

‘Creena’s just coming in with her boat, Rua. See? Go help her beach it, there’s a good girl.’

While the two girls got Creena’s little boat secured, Rua panted out what she had seen on the beach.

‘It was climbing the cliffs, Creena, I tell you true. All by itself, up it went! Kelp does not climb cliffs. I knew there was something going on, I knew it.’

Creena’s face grew quieter than usual as she thought about what Rua had said.

‘I wonder if that’s connected to some other things that have been happening lately.’

‘Other things? What other things?’

‘Things like our drying frames getting tangled with seaweeds that don’t mix well with what we’ve gathered. We’ve had three days of gathering ruined in the past week, Rua.’

‘That’s not good.’

‘You can say that again. We’ve also had our shell bell strings, the ones we hang on our houses, get so tied into knots that we have to cut them apart. Worse yet, our boats have been coming up out of the water with way too many barnacles on them, and sharp shells driven right into the wood. Some of them go all the way through the hulls of the smaller boats, and our currachs are in even worse shape.’

‘If I didn’t know better I would think somebody had seriously insulted your Brownies, Creena. But this doesn’t sound like Brownie mischief.’

‘No it doesn’t. We don’t know what to think.’

‘Well, one thing we don’t have to wonder about. We know that kelp doesn’t climb cliffs, not on its own, it doesn’t. Do you want me to show you where I saw it?’

‘Let’s go!’

Creena’s folks were pleased to give her permission to go with Rua; they wanted to find out what was going on, too.

‘Good luck!’

The big kelp had disappeared completely by the time the two friends reached the place where Rua had seen it. All that remained was a wet streak across the beach where it had passed, with Rua’s footprints alongside of it - and a narrow break in the foliage of the cliffs where it had gone up. Straight up.

Hands on hips, the girls sighed.

‘There’s no way we can climb that, Rua. Not even you could do it.’

‘I can try.’

‘Don’t bother. You wouldn’t get very far. Look how it kind of overhangs right there. We aren’t going to follow this trail any further, Rua. We can’t.’

A skreeky little Voice came from behind them.

‘I can.’

Creena gave a little start.

‘Brownie Blue, is that you?’

Turning around the girls saw that it was indeed the Brownie of Creena’s household.

‘What are you doing here, Brownie Blue? I certainly didn’t expect to see you!’

‘Our families are beginning to wonder if we’re playing pranks. We’re not, but somebody is – and we want to put a stop to it before things get out of hand and our people begin blaming us – and getting angry. You know we can’t abide where there is discord, and we do not want to have to leave our families because someone else is being mean.’

‘Do you know who’s doing this, Brownie Blue? Because it would help us if you do.’

‘No. We don’t know, not yet. But we’re going to find out!’

Rua’s face went thoughtful.

‘I bet our Brownie will want to help too. Let’s go ask him, Brownie Blue.’

And so they do.

Word passed rapidly among the Brownies and all of them went on high alert, watching for the culprits.

But the culprits were sneaky little devils, they were. Nobody saw them but the results of their tricks were in evidence all over the place.

Almost every household in the area was hit, even Dunnottar.

The baskets of Southwest were dismantled in the night and ribbons of seaweed twined among the pieces, broken bits of shells pushed into the cordage and barks.

Forest found cords of seaweed strangling vulnerable young saplings; baby birds and small animals were wrapped so tightly in the stuff that they almost suffocated.

Beyond’s wind instruments were stuffed full of soggy stinky strips of seaweed; their stringed instruments suffered a worse fate, their strings replaced with rotten slimy seaweed.

The crops of Northwest were infected with nasty bugs that didn’t generally show up in their area; their herds and flocks came home filled with sticky icky goo that smelled like a very sick sea.

Stonehaven’s craftspeople were at their wits ends trying to clean up the seaweed and broken shells that seemed to just appear out of nowhere. It got to the point where parents didn’t let their younglings go barefoot because the sharp shell shards cut their feet to ribbons.

Dunnottar found kelp creeping up its steep cliffs, through the pens and shelters of their livestock; the Raven’s Head cropping fields were hard hit, especially the ones along the ravine.

Rua and Creena met with the Brownies in the Grove of Dunnottar when Rua’s sharp eyes caught a glimpse of a couple of Sea Pixies tugging away at a piece of kelp far too big for just the two of them to move.

Brownie Blue’s skreeky voice was triumphant.

‘Ha! We should have known! We know how to deal with Sea Pixies, oh yes we do!’

The band of Brownies danced a jig with Rua and Creena dancing right along with them, singing at the tops of their voices.

Hearing the disturbance in the Grove, Sass came running.

All she could see was Creena and Rua singing and dancing. That’s because Sass is one of the Big Folk, you know. Only infants, littles, and younglings can see the Brownies.

Rua and Creena quickly explained the situation to Sass, who nodded in complete understanding.

‘The Brownies know what to do, so you help them do you hear me? I’ll get the rest of the Big Folk to help me with what you and the Brownies can’t do.’

Sass of course couldn’t hear the cheers that rose around her, but Rua and Creena danced another jig with them before sitting down to a planning session while Sass went to do whatever she was going to do.

Brownie Blue explained the strategy; Rua and Creena nodded and headed out to get their part of it ready.

‘We have to hurry, Creena. You know what the Brownies can do when they’re roused to wrath. And they’re FAST.’

The two girls hurried themselves back to South by snagging a couple of the silver blooded horses of Dunnottar to carry them posthaste. Sass grinned. Being as she had sent the horses, she wasn’t going to get upset at Rua and Creena even though neither of them were anywhere near old enough to be horsed on any such mount.

The pounding hooves got the people of South outside to see what was going on.

Creena explained, and told them what was needed.

And so it was that the fishing fleet of South was ready in the nick of time.

From all directions came the Brownies of all the households of the area.

From Southwest they came.

From Beyond they came.

From Forest they came.

From Dunnottar they came.

From Stonehaven they came.

And from out of the homes of South they poured.

Rua was ready for them.

‘Follow me!’ she screamed at the top of her lungs, brandishing her sword in one hand while raising her battle shield above her head with the other.

‘Follow me!’

And so they did.

Straight to the waiting fleet the Brownies followed Rua, bellowing their own skreeking battle cries all the way!

Onto the boats they poured until all were filled to the gills.

Creena shouted at Rua.

‘Here, Rua! Get into my boat!’

And so she did.

With one agile leap Rua was aboard Creena's little fishing boat, helping her to raise the sail. That was harder than you’d think because there were Brownies clinging to every available place, including the masts and lines of all the sails.

By sail and by oar the fleet left the shore.

Far out into the North Sea went the fleet, and the noise was enough to leave one deaf for eternity.

Well, it would have been except that the Brownies had strictly warned one and all to stuff their ears with bits of waxed fabric.

Why was it so noisy, you want to know?

Besides the battle cries of the Brownies’ skreeky voices and the battle cries of the people?

Oh.

Well, here’s the deal.

The Brownies had this secret recipe, you see.

Unused for who knows how many millennia, it was yet known to the Brownies, oh yes it was. It had been tucked safely away for all that time, just in case. It hadn’t been used because Sea Pixies take a long long time to forget a lesson well and painfully learned – but they always do forget in the end. Then they come up with their brilliant idea (again) that it would be great fun to wreak havoc on land.

Mm-hm.

We don’t know what the recipe is (it’s a secret) but we know how it works.

Whatever it is made of is powerfully and potently attractive to Sea Pixies, draws them like moths to a flame, it does.

The Brownies coated themselves with that stuff and all the Sea Pixies in the vicinity came running straight to them.

And then what?

Well, another thing about that stuff is that it was extremely sticky.

The Sea Pixies couldn’t resist it and they all got stuck onto the Brownies, couldn’t get unstuck not no how not no way.

Naturally they hollered and yelled and screamed and shrieked and shrilled with outrage at having been caught and not being able to get loose.

If you think Brownies have skreeky voices, you ought to hear some Sea Pixies once.

Uffda.

At any rate, the fleet of boats went far far out into the North Sea before they stopped.

And the Brownies all jumped overboard.

Meanwhile, back on shore, Sass had gathered the Dunnottar Folk together and clued them in.

The fast silver horses carried riders to all of the affected areas while more raced all along the shoreline.

What they were doing was invoking the Holy Trinity’s protection from Sea Pixies, to keep them from coming back just in case they didn’t learn their lesson.

I have to say that the faces of Father, Mother, and Son had some almighty strange expressions on them as They heard the prayers of these Their people. I expect that was because They were trying almighty hard not to laugh.

Be that as it may be, the shores and inland areas were soon under a special protection. If there was a little roll or two of thunder from Above that sounded distinctly like laughter, nobody was griping about it – so long as the protection was granted. Which of course it was.

Back at sea, once the Brownies were in the water the sticky gooey stuff came right off of them, leaving the Sea Pixies out to sea where they belonged as the Brownies were soon back aboard.

The fleet turned to sail back home, jeering at the Sea Pixies and Singing all the way.

It was much more tuneful going home than it had been going out, not that anyone knew the difference because they all forgot to take the bits of waxed fabric out of their ears.

In case anyone's wondering what the Pixies looked like ... they're about the size of hummingbirds (the Brownies are about the size of, well, whatever they want I reckon - but generally speaking I think they like to be maybe two feet tall or so ... depending on circumstances, you know). The Sea Pixies in this story would have had webbed fingers and toes, and worn clothes that are quite like wet-suits (like divers use). I write fiction. I can make them look however I want. Cope as best you can. You can make your Pixies wear whatever you want. ;)