If I felt that the arrival and departure a day afterwards in Huitzilopochtli’s palace had been an emotional rollercoaster, then the return to my childhood home was a hurricane. Father, Manannan mac Lir, was jovial and pleasant. Unlike the aloof pride I saw in Huitzilopochtli’s eyes for Tal, I felt that there was perhaps a more informal bond between him and I. Whereas Huitzilopochtli tried to bribe us to keep us in the realm of the dead, Father agreed to restore us to life, in exchange for a quest.
I expected that much, we were Danann after all.
The quest itself seemed simple on the outside. Rescue the horses stolen; especially the prized stallion Enbarr. I tried to cut out a step by questioning the dead Alpha, but apparently my control over the dead wasn't as strong as I’d liked because the answers were lies and tricks.
We tracked the wolves to their den. Ben and Rupper came up with a plan to distract the wolves while a team went in to rescue the horses. I was disappointed that I wasn’t chosen to go in… they were my father’s horses, shouldn’t I have done more than stand and wait? Still, Tal was being tetchy and I really didn’t want another fight bubbling up. So I agreed and sat back to wait for everyone else to complete the quest I was supposed to have a part in.
Tal had reason to stay in the woods. She was far too wounded. Rupper was the key to luring the wolves, so he had to stay. I… just twiddled my thumbs and thought of questions to ask of Mona and Father when I returned.
It was a while before one of the wolves broke away from the chaos at the den to try and escape with horseflesh. I sent him scurrying back into his companion’s waiting jaws and couldn’t help but smirk at the display when I heard growling behind me.
Thinking a wolf had circled around, I turned to see Cerberus. Cerberus. All six tons, three heads, drooling fire of him and he was not happy. Rupper tried to soothe him. First with words, then with song, and Cerberus knocked each attempt from him. Tal distracted him by running crazily through the woods.
I realized that running like a chicken with it’s head cut off would only aggravate the beast further and grabbed for Rupper’s guitar. He soothed Hypnos with the guitar, and he was going to try the same with Cerberus. Perhaps I could do the same. So I sang. I poured everything into my song as I slowly approached the rampaging hellhound and ... it worked! Cerberus collapsed, snoring, and we extracted Rupper and he took over the singing. Which was fine, because he had the pipes for it.
Cerberus contained properly, I turned to the fight spilling out of the cave, but the three there had it handled. The hag, an ugly blue witch of a woman who reminded me of the Formorians I vaguely remembered, cursed Ben to always wither before victory and then promptly died. Worked for me, plus that spiteful nature in me was sated when the curse would punish both Tal and Ben.
It’s unfair and it’s cruel and I’m trying to understand why being so callous is coming so easily to me… but I was glad to see her suffer a bit. She was treating me unfairly for the situation at Huitzilopochtli’s place and I was growing tired of her sniping about it. This would at least give her her own curse to worry about.
After that, we headed in to tend to the horses, tired, but victorious.
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