It Runs in the Family

Featuring King Drustan & Princess Nuala

Mentioning Captain Lonán
Early Spring, Year 759 of the New Age
Glenmore, The Glenwood

Well. That explained a lot.

Yet he had never been more confused in his entire life.

Drustan came to a panting halt in the middle of the forest, shaking his head in disbelief. What had he just seen?! His mind played over the scene again, but it was nothing he could even fathom. It had to be a dream, the most bizarre dream he’d ever had, because everything about it was the complete opposite to the world at large.

It had started with him following Lonán’s trail; his brother had tried slipping away thinking Drustan wasn’t watching, but Lonán’s behaviour had been bothering him for moons. His suspicious absences and strange moods, and Drustan’d finally managed to catch him as he departed in the early morning light. The trail took him deep into the Glenwood, to an area he didn’t often roam. The trees were tall and old, primarily evergreens with the occasional shrubbery scattered around. The deeper he went, the more prevalent the greenery became. He started to see plants he didn’t recognise, and others he hadn’t seen since he was a mere foal. The forest started to take on a bizarre almost fantastical quality, lightening into a clearing ahead, and Lonán’s scent led right into the thick of it.

The cautious sable stag stepped up to the edge, glad to have lost his antlers so he could duck under the trailing vines hanging heavy with scented flowers. The sight that befell him was something he could not even comprehend. Flowers smothered the glade, glowing gently, casting bizarre upward shadows into the low-hanging morning mist. His nose was full of the scent of a hundred different blooms, and his disbelieving eyes almost missed the doe standing frozen at the centre of it.

Wide blue eyes stared at him, large pink ears perked in his direction, and a delicate pink nose flared. Her pale spotted cream coat glowed like the strange blooms around her, and he had to be dreaming because all down her crest and withers were feathers. “Áillte...” He breathed, feeling his heart slam hard in his chest. What was he seeing?

“Nuala?” His brother’s unmistakable voice, “What is it?” Lonán stepped out from a den woven of tree-roots, and his deep brown eyes snapped to his.

Drustan turned tail and ran, not stopping to answer his brother’s calls.

He ran until his legs burned and refused to carry him any further. What had he seen? Because if he’d just seen his brother breaking the most sacred Glenmore law by hiding deep in the forest with a Princess who was thought to be dead but was apparently alive and now covered in feathers and glowing then his eyes were definitely not deceiving him. However the likelihood of that was next to impossible. Lonán would never keep a secret like this from him, they shared everything, let alone the fact that does did not spontaneously grow feathers and come back from the dead. The idea that his brother was with a doe was mildly believable, he’d had to have given in eventually, but a Princess doe? Lonán knew very well the dangers of that. Captain Broccán had died to defend his son’s honour when Donnaghán had accused Lonán of consorting with Princess Nuala more than two years ago. Not to mention the fact that he hadn’t mentioned this whole situation when Drustan came to him for advice with BóAnn’s similar treason. He had to have been seeing things. He would wake up in his den with the dawn chorus any moment now.

“Prince... King Drustan?” Nuala’s voice, soft and slightly breathy from what must have been a hard run to keep up with him.

Drustan closed his eyes and willed himself to wake up. Any moment now...

“Drustan? It’s me... it’s Nuala...” He felt an odd warmth, a sense of presence as she approached and he cracked open an eye. She was there, glowing and feathery and worried. He opened both eyes and straightened and she shrunk back. Immediately he felt guilt rise for frightening the hind, before he remembered he was the one being confronted with a doe that was the spitting image of a deity. Surely he should be the one cowering?

Drustan sighed, far too tired and confused to stand on ceremony, “Nuala...” What did you say to a goddess incarnate? “I... We thought you had died.”

She flashed him something like a rueful smile, seemingly regaining her confidence when he didn’t start berating her for finding her with Lonán. For acting like a King. For acting like Donnaghán. “I almost did,” she replied, and Drustan got the distinct feeling that it would take longer than they had before Lonán caught up to explain what had happened since her disappearance.

“You’ve been gone for so long,” he stated, floundering for poignant words.

“I have,” she agreed with more of a smile.

“And you... grew feathers,” some might forget he was the leader of all of Glenmore for all the talent he had with words.

“I did,” she giggled, her nerves seeping away. She was a different doe to the one he had known, the one who had been betrothed to the Crown Prince. He could not remember her ever meeting his eye, or speaking quite so confidently. She had grown both in spirit and body, gone were the gawky legs of youth, her muscles and flank well-rounded and—

“And you’re pregnant,” he said, the words leaving his lips with astonishment.

“I am,” She confirmed, but rather than shrink away at the accusation, she met his eyes with determination. He had seen a similar look on her sister’s face when she’d profressed her love for Jackdaw, and when Lonán finally came sliding to a halt beside her, Drustan fixed him with a stony glare of betrayal. Drustan couldn’t decide which hurt more, the fact that Lonán hadn’t told him, or the fact that if the herd were to find out, he would have to be the one to execute his own brother by Glenmorian law.

“You have some explaining to do, brother.”