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[neverarightstep]

[Grainne has a... phone, but she lacks the understanding to use most of the features. Most messages send to her will go unanswered What on earth is that incessant chiming??? but she has a physical spot for letters outside her room in Perdita's wing.]

Comments

[samantha_grey]

Exactly. I need to remember to choose the right illustrations, sorry. [Ahem] And it's Alexandria, I think. They said it was a grand thing, definitely, and that a lot were lost. We only really have rumors to go off of, the fire that took the city claiming so much we couldn't be sure.

If I were to guess, though, no it didn't. It probably held most of the knowledge of the part of the world our people were part of. The isles and the mainland are what they call Europe. They and north Africa across the sea to the south were most of what the Egyptians had contact with. I doubt there was much from Asia and nothing from South Africa or the Americas.

They seemed to know that they existed, but theirs were worlds apart. The Earth is much larger than you know, Grainne.

[neverarightstep]

I've seen a map. I could not even find Eire on it... I had heard rumors of course, bards have a way of picking up the most interesting things. People going on journeys so long it took years to get anywhere. What was that Greek man who took twenty years to return home... things like that.

[samantha_grey]

Odysseus. Used the gates of Gibraltar to enter Hades. [She nodded. That was a story she knew for personal reasons.] Eire is a very small part. Very quiet. Very alone.

[neverarightstep]

[Very quiet? Grainne starts giggling, feeling in good spirits.]

You would not say that if you had ever been to a Samhain thrown by Aengus Og himself.

[samantha_grey]

Heh, yeah... it got quiet after the Catholics arrived and the brits took over. Saint Patty's day's pretty loud though, I hear. Not that I celebrate that. [She snickered] But I believe you. It would have been something to see.

[neverarightstep]

It was amazing, in truth. There is always a little part of the night where the world goes still and you can practically feel the ancestors in the air. What is Saint Patty's Day?

[samantha_grey]

It's a festival for one of the people who brought a foreign religion to the Irish soil and who supposedly kicked the snakes off of the island. [She grunted] Usually an excuse to get drunk on green beer and act stupid really.

Aengus sounds like a much better host than that sort, trust me.

[neverarightstep]

Oh, the... Catholics. Snakes?

[It takes Grainne a moment.]

What are snakes? And what does green beer have to do with it?

[It might be a bit strange to think Grainne hadn't seen a snake before, but sometimes life had a habit of not filling in all the details during one's course through it.]

[samantha_grey]

Snakes? [She shuddered before she managed to laugh at the faint irony. Most people said that Patrick probably didn't scare shit off the island, that there had never been any real snake presence there.] They're long, scaled animals, some thin some very thick, that slither along the ground.

[Another shudder and she conjured up an illusionary image of one. It didn't stay long before winking out. There was an obvious look of discomfort there.] I ... really don't like snakes. but they said there used to be snakes on the isle, and he scared them off. It was supposed to have been a miracle he performed. Of course, there's a lot of stories in the world that aren't true.

And yes, Catholic.

[neverarightstep]

Oh, those things. Some of the men from the Brigantes, and not a few of the Lochlannach, that come to trade have tattoos of them, but I have never heard of anything like that in Eire, sparing worms and dragons.

[She's seen worse, really.]

I've never heard a name for them, I just thought they were long squiggly decorations with heads or maybe spirits. Ah, men, loving to take the credit for everything. Why are the lack of snacks such an important thing?

[samantha_grey]

They associate the serpent with ... well, the closest equivalent might be Bres, Balor or Crom Dub, Crom Cruach... the thing is that I don't really remember our myths having a 'devil,' some great evil who sought to corrupt mankind and turn them towards darkness. The Fomori were bad, but they weren't that nasty in the tales.

Catholics obsess over temptation, and the serpent, the devil, was the one that started all of that. It's... well, I only know it so well. Sorry. I never looked into my father's mythology that deeply.

[neverarightstep]

We don't, except if there might be something called evil, it would be the Dark One. I'm sure you've heard of Oisin's mother. But he was still a man.

[She pauses.]

I have heard of the devil before. Isn't that the one the Maeve did something with?

[samantha_grey]

They have a version of it, but it's not quite the same I'm sure. That said, I think it's related to temptation.

[There was a pause and she nodded.]

I know of Donn. I met one of his servants once, one of the last vestiges of their power among men. I don't know that people think of him as quite as evil as he was in life. He just rules the dead now.

[neverarightstep]

Donn is a strange case, I do not know much about him myself because those were not stories I felt... inclined to listen to, especially recently. The ruler of the dead is an honorable position, the ancestors are revered and worshiped, and the ruler is the one who cares for them. Many men who were troublesome can be calmed when given a responsibility.

[She looks down at her hands for a moment.]

Could you... tell me about temptation?

[samantha_grey]

Duty can temper any soul. It's hard to say. His servant and I didn't speak much when it happened, so I never had the chance to ask what I wanted. That, and he'd apparently been very ... indisposed for a long time. I think there were things he didn't know.

Temptation, though? [She paused.] It's the urge to do something that society, or your beliefs would tell you that you shouldn't do. It can be mild or great. What do you want to know about it?

[It was, after all, meat and bread for succubi.]

[neverarightstep]

[Grainne looks somewhat surprised.]

That could be practically anything, then. Does that mean following one's heart even if it defies what people expect of you is considered a 'temptation?'

[samantha_grey]

Well yes and no. [She sighed.] Temptation, for them, tied into commandments and rules of conduct that they followed. Ten commandments, sounded simple on the surface but tended to be a lot bigger in general, and different Christians would think one meant one thing, others would think it meant something else.

It kind of boiled down, a lot, to what they called seven deadly sins. temptations that described emotional states that led people down paths they thought were dangerous. Wrath, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Pride and Envy.

[neverarightstep]

It sounds silly. An indulgence here and there in a hard life is hardly a bad thing...

There is some connection to this place, then, is there not? The Maeve say we have sinned. I don't understand because there are people who don't even believe in these.

[samantha_grey]

...that's what they say, though it's also a load of horse shit. [She didn't know know, but one conversation with Gloria had confirmed just enough to suspect this wasn't about debts, not that way anyway. Or at least, that was her assumption.]

And you're right. An indulgence here and there is fine, as long as you're not in someone else's path, so to speak. The Christians are too obsessed with those things, but yes. There's a connection with those seven vices and the Maeve.

Debt or not, a lot ties into temptation, giving in, and resisting here. It's intrinsic to how they work, even if we aren't here for a real debt.

[neverarightstep]

[She presses a hand against her forehead, feeling her heart sink.]

Then, by their accounts, what we have done in the past is what brought us here? The one time I said yes, I brought sorrow on myself already. It is not fair nor right.

[samantha_grey]

No, I think that they chose us because of who we are, but I don't think that it brought us here. [She shook her head.] They seem to target what they think is a weakness, but I don't even know why they choose the ones that they do, not really.

[neverarightstep]

[Looking up again, a curious light is present now.]

I wonder if there is in some way we are all connected. What are those things called? Where information is collected?

[samantha_grey]

Libraries? I'm not sure that applies [Other than that one library, but ... she didn't want to talk about that place. It still creeped her out to this day to have seen it.] But there may be a sense in which all worlds are connected and all people tied.

Some more than others.

[neverarightstep]

The people with the hand boards who ask people on the street questions about their sex life for 'market research?'

[Only in Eros.]

And there definitely is, I know it. The connection with Tir na nOg, the under world, and several others exist because of that which connects everything. There is a root to existence.

[samantha_grey]

Surveys? Yeah, I know about those. What about them? [She nodded about the rest. The likelihood was too strong to ignore, but there also wasn't much to say on it. She was curious what Grainne was talking about with the first part.]