Chapter 23. The Biggest Fool in the Schoolyard
Towards evening, the group of five visitors decided to return to the guest flesch. They were somewhat numb, exhausted from the adrenaline overdose they had experienced in the first half of the day.
The rain had stopped completely, but it had left behind muddy puddles in which the fort's children, now left without much supervision, were fooling around, performing jumps that were as ridiculous as could be, under the reddish light of the pine torches.
Their laughter, echoing cheerfully throughout the fort, made both the hunger and the longing for their parents forgotten, if only for a short while.
"Look at them, Remi," Anemo said with a bitter smile at the corner of his mouth, "childhood is another dimension! They can find joy in mud and puddles."
Remi smiled in turn and let Sirocco, a little boy once again, break free from the grasp of her palm to run to the Celtic children, but Mistral, who was walking ahead of them, stopped in disgust, feeling duty-bound to chide his people.
"Quelle horreur! Ma belle, Anemo, how can you be so immature! Are you letting him get completely covered in filth?"
"He's a child, Mistral. Let him enjoy himself a little. Have you forgotten what it was like when you were just a ball of fur in my mother's house? Have you forgotten the mischief you used to get into, how you systematically destroyed her museum-like, perfect cleanliness?"
"Did he really do such things?" Aeolus interjected with mock surprise. "I thought this cat was born ready-styled... or stylish, as the little one would say, and with a particular passion for siestas."
"Hee-hee! What mischief did you do, Monsieur Chat Noir?"
Remi stopped, causing Anemo to stop as well to watch the little one's splashing. Mistral took two steps forward alone, but stopped too to look at Sirocco, who had a new idea for fun and immediately fashioned a sort of mud pie, which he threw at one of the children.
"C'est absolument répugnant! He will get fleas and lice! Do you realise? Say something, Aeolus, don't just hang in my fur like a moth! Who is going to clean him up after... after this horror of a game?"
Anemo, Remi, and Aeolus burst out laughing as if they had no other care in the world. Through tears of laughter and hiccups, Anemo remembered to tease their stylish companion a bit more.
"Do you remember when you practically took a bath in my mother's pot of homemade sour cream? How you filled the whole house with your creamy paw prints? You even climbed onto her beloved piano and the Chinese silk curtain! Oh, Remi, you should have seen the little emerald-eyed demon back then. Mother almost had a heart attack..."
"Come on, you're exaggerating now! It... it was an accident," Mistral replied, just as Arr appeared out of nowhere, right beside them.
She measured the tomcat with her silvery eyes, greeted the humans with a discreet bow, then, with a sweet voice meant especially for Mistral's ears, asked:
"Have you dined? How about a tour... Mau? Handsome!"
At the sight of the Celtic feline, Aeolus froze instantly. What if Arr considered him dinner? What if this was the end of the line for him?
"Don't be frightened, little mouse! Mau has already told me that you are a sort of druid from your world. I won't risk bringing down curses upon myself from you."
***
An hour later, Sirocco was bathed in the large oak wood tub into which Anemo had previously poured warm water and a few dried chamomile flowers.
Mistral, perched on one of the support beams of the screen, closely supervised the little one's cleaning, giving minor instructions.
"There, Remi... further to the left! Scrub him well so he doesn't get lice, heaven forbid!"
"Perhaps you would like a little... very little bath yourself, Mistral! I'm not even using lye... it's just water and chamomile," Remi tried to entice him.
"No, thank you very much! I am perfectly clean and quite alright as I am, ma belle! Thank you kindly for the offer! We had better discuss this mythological-historical context a little."
"Meaning?" asked Aeolus, who, sitting on the edge of the tub, was inhaling the chamomile steam with his eyes closed.
"Meaning, I still don't understand! Ever since we arrived, I've been feeling terribly... foolish. What am I saying, foolish? I feel like an uneducated idiot who has no idea what world he's living in! What did Eithne mean about our world having no famine, and 'Doaga's' cauldron?"
"Dagda, Mistral, not Doaga," Aeolus corrected him without opening his eyes. "Dagda was... or, perhaps, is a Celtic god whose cauldron of food never runs dry and is enough to satisfy everyone. It is the symbol of abundance."
"So, she wasn't referring to our world, the actual one of ours, but to another world?"
"Exactly!" Remi interjected, taking a break from washing the little one and looking at her bandaged palm. "Anemo, won't you take over for me? It's hard with just one hand and I don't want to get my bandage wet. It still hurts."
Anemo immediately took Remi's place.
"I'm sorry it hurts, and I can't even offer you a painkiller after everything you've done for us. You were the saviour of the day, my dear!" he said, before turning his attention to enlightening Mistral's mind. "You see, I have always been fascinated by Celtic concepts. They believe in the existence of parallel dimensions. For them, the ancient gods, the Tuatha Dé Danann, didn't disappear when they were defeated by mortals, but retreated to the underworld, the land of the eternally young, Tír na nÓg—a world... which is actually right here, right now, but in another dimension. Fascinating, isn't it? All these theories and beliefs never truly vanished; in fact, they were taken up by speculative fiction. Once we are clear of all this stress, I will explain the universality of fairies and forest spirits to you. But for the moment, it's enough to know that to Eithne, another world means Tír na nÓg, and since we emerged from the cave, it means we came from there. Do you catch on?"
"Yes... well, I still feel like the biggest fool in the schoolyard, but I can say like Sirocco: 'I learn more and more as each day passes.' Isn't that right, little one?"
"Me... sleep," Sirocco replied, too lazy to articulate any further.
Anemo scooped the youngster out of the water and began to wipe him down with a large piece of cloth.
"We'll put you straight to bed, brave warrior; a mud fight is more exhausting than a butterfly hunt, eh?"
But he had not even managed to settle their little red-haired boy into the bedding prepared especially for him when loud knocking and bursts of crying were heard at the massive oak door.
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