Rebirth and Second Chances

Chapter 278: Price to Pay

Caraid was in pain. The agonizing searing pain that had occurred when Teigh had used him and his connection to the Hunt to open the passage to the Summerlands seemed to tear at the fabric of who and what he was. The passage worked and Teigh's actions thinned the veil between this world and the Summerlands, but it came at a price. A price that Caraid also was required to pay, the pain beyond anything he had ever known.

The body Gwyn ap Nudd had crafted for him that enabled him to incarnate and follow Teigh to this world wasn't the body he used for the Hunt. It wasn't as powerful, nor nearly as indestructible. This body was comparable to the shell that protected the souls of many of the Sidhe, but for all their vaulted claims of immortality, they were still such frail creatures, able to be killed. Even their long lives barely a blink in the true fabric of time.

The magic that Teigh had channeled through him to part the veil had reverberated across the world. Even that amount of magic would have been bearable if the Wild Magic and Fairy hadn't used the opportunity Teigh had given by invoking such magics to act. To have those primal forces of the Summerlands, the Wild Magic, and his connection to the Hunt to be used to restore [Fairy]. With him as the fulcrum, his body began to tear itself apart. The energies being channeled had been too much for the body Gwyn ap Nudd had crafted to survive.

The magical channels and conduits Gwyn had forged to restore Caraid to life were abused, burnt, and charred beyond reason. He should have died. If he were Sidhe he would have, but the body he had been gifted with, also came with the power of [Divine Healing]. A power stronger than any Sidhe could envision. That power had been turned against him. Used him without his consent to heal, what the primal forces destroyed.

His mind became trapped within a body that was being torn apart by the cosmic energies over and over. He was forced to live, die, and be reborn in a cascading torrent of life and death that lasted for only seconds subjectively, but seemed an eternity in the recess of his soul.

The Wild Magic would use this one brief moment that Teigh had created to restore this planet and the Sidhe that lived on it to [Fairy] and the Summerlands. With no recourse but to endure, Cariad accepted the pain, the seemingly unending cycle of death and rebirth as a sacrifice that was needed. As he was destroyed and rebuilt over and over again, he took comfort knowing that Teigh had not acted maliciously. And that if he could, he would have accepted the sacrifice in his place.

They had been together for decades. Their thoughts so intertwined that it had become more than shared discussions, they had blended their minds so shamelessly that their thoughts were almost one by this point. Teigh considered Caraid a part of himself, and he would no more intentionally hurt that part than he would chop off his own arm.

Gwyn ap Nudd's decision to embody Caraid had left him floundering for the first few moments after arrival. This separation was unlike those times when he was called to join and ride with the Hunt. The gestalt of minds that made up the Hunt was missing, and Caraid was alone with his own thoughts for the first time since his death.

Teigh hadn't had the same problem. His was the dominant mind, and he had accepted the changes instinctively. He had been able to act and react to the Fomorian attack easily, because he was always in control of any actions or decisions for their combined minds. This difference in acclimation was precipitated and based on Teigh's sense of self.

He was young for a Sidhe, even how highly [Ranked] he had become it was hard to forget that he had still not reached fifty years of age. His sense of identity was rock solid, a testament to his will and fortitude. He hadn't reached the age where most Sidhe claimed their majority, and he had lived a full life already. Those life experiences had cemented the foundation of who he was. Teigh was a [Ranked: King]. He had learned to deal with the pressures and responsibilities that [Rank] required.

The years of ruling the Tuatha de Danaan faction, of being King, had not come without a cost. The changes were subtle, but as the years had passed, and Teigh's successes had mounted, he had proven his competence. He was no longer indecisive or uncertain. Certainly, he still had his moments of self-reflection and self-recrimination, but he had learned to accept responsibility for his actions. He had long passed the stage where second-guessing and questions of 'what if' played any real role in how he governed.

He made decisions and gave orders based on his expanding life experience, and when those choices were mistakes or failures, he learned from them. Most importantly, he was able to apologize and right the wrongs he may have made, something that endeared him to his subjects and earned him respect from other [Ranked: Monarchs].

Teigh's fear that he may become jaded over the years was one of the reasons he had accepted Athena's entreaty. He needed adventure and new experiences not to stagnate. He thought it possible that Mag, the former Queen of the Seelie, had devolved into madness because she had reached the point where she never stepped out from her place of [Power] and entitlement. She never experienced anything new or different. Her position meant that they did not force her to confront her mistakes.

Caraid wasn't Teigh's conscious, not completely, but he was a touchstone, the voice in Teigh's head that reminded him of that fear, that he might become the same grasping, scheming type of ruler that Queen Mab had become at the end. It was one of the reasons the gestalt of their combined minds hadn't evolved into one intellect. Teigh trusted and depended on Caraid to be that voice of reason.

The decision to open the Summerlands had been impulsive, made in a nave desire to give the Sidhe the same afterlife that all Sidhe were promised. Teigh hadn't known that there would be a price to pay, nor that Caraid would have to pay the price. But Gwyn ap Nudd was not so charitable that he would allow the connection Caraid maintained with the Hunt to be used without a cost. And that cost had been pain. Pain that had forced Caraid to turn inward and focus on the bond between him and Teigh, to the exclusion of everything else.

The price had been worth it, though.

Caraid had come back to himself in time to watch Sidhe long dead and trapped in [Limbo] step through the veil between the worlds and enter the Summerlands. Gwyn ap Nudd, perhaps as a reward for what Caraid had been forced to endure, or a balm to some vestige of guilt that might still exist, had allowed him to see. See every person, no matter where they had died on this planet, rise up and step across the threshold between dimensions.

He had been allowed to see a glimpse of the Summerland's afterlife. That place of perpetual summer and unending peace where the dead and the faded Sidhe gathered. He had seen, as the Sidhe of this world for the first time, entered the fields and forests of the Summerlands and joined the people from every world and every multi-verse that had already crossed over. People who were waiting to accept these new arrivals. Each person was filled with joy that these new brothers and sisters had come home.

That brief glimpse had been enough for him to see the legions of Sidhe glowing with contentment and peace. So many Sidhe dead that they rivaled the stars for numbers. The Summerlands so vast that even with the swelling number of dead added, there was still infinite room to grow, to expand, and enough room to allow those who had yet to cross over to enjoy the peace and rest the Tuatha de Danann had promised.

Caraid was content with the magics that Teigh had unleashed. He had been well rewarded. His vision allowing him to see what no other mortal had ever seen. And his body, which had been destroyed and rebuilt an infinite number of times as the Summerlands were made open, had been tempered and forged, even stronger and more capable.

His healing power, already powerful, was now centered around magic channels and meridians that were comparable to the ley-lines and nexuses that could power and grow a Sithern. This body that Gwyn ap Nudd had created for him had become more. He was a living conduit for Fairy and the Wild Magic. A splinter of each of those magics was used to create these new channels and meridians. The magic of [Fairy] the well-spring that flooded the ley-lines his body now contained.

It had reforged him as one of the Demi-fey. A creature tied to [Fairy]. And as long as he lived. As long as the Demi-fey lived. [Fairy] lived.