Blood baby and a biscuit:
Things I never wanted on a waffle
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Badb licked bacon grease from her fingers. Watching Ellie at work with a studious intensity. Badb remembered finding Ellie as an infant. She had almost walked away leaving the new borne to die in the cold.
There had been harsh ice storms, one after the other for nearly a month. A tropical depression in the gulf of Mexico was sitting just off Mobile and hurling band upon band of thunder storms north. When that warm tropical storm hit the winter cold of the Tennessee mountains, the rain turned to ice. Everything was coated in a glistening shell of ice.
When the sun peaked through in between the bands of storms. All of that ice scattered sparkling rainbows everywhere. The ice acting as a million prisms scattered the sunlight. It was absolutely breath taking. Badb had gone for walk alone, just to look at the beauty. There were rare moments that her heart, mind, and spirit were at peace. This shower of rainbows that raced every where sparked one of those brief moments free of the eternal rage that reigned throughout her being.
Badb, the scald crow, battle monger, living rage and the madness of war. Those were not mere titles. That was the reality of her being, the root core of her truth.
The sound of a crying baby drew her attention. Badb followed the piercing cries until she found a car that had gone off the road, spun on the ice and smashed itself onto the large clusters of boulders and broken stones that lay along the slope below the road.
When they had built the road, literally blasting it out of the mountain side the shattered flesh of the mountain was left scattered along the slope below the road.
The car was destroyed. Crushed, crumpled, no glass unshattered. There was a body, frozen, enshrined in a monument of blood, preserved a bright red in the ice that encased the body. The face was unrecognizable. Smashed and scraped among the jagged stones.
There was a trail of frozen blood marking the path it had taken. The spot where the unfortunate had been thrown from the tumbling vehicle was a work of macabre art. A bright splash with glistening effluvia marked the place death had called. Preserved in the ice. Ice that shone scattering rainbows along the ground and mountain side. Badb was struck by the artistry of death. A visual symphony of destruction. The child had been quiet as Badb soaked in the beauty.
While she was working her way back down to the stream bed she had followed from the cabin, that piercing wail began again. It caused her to pause and listen. It was not a cry of pain or fear and despair. It was a declaration of fury. A rage than cried out at the fate that had found it. There was fury and challenge in that piercing cry. Badb turned back.
She had to peel parts of the car away, opening it up just so she could see inside. Crushed down into the seat, dash and floor was the remains of another body. This one completely unrecognizable as even human. There was no subtle artistry in this death, merely the random butchery of mass and force.
The car seat that held the child was intact. The baby strapped in, wearing a heavy insulated coverall with hood and tiny gloves. The child quieted when it saw Badb. The little hands reached out, tiny hands reaching for her. Laughter bubbled from the child. Without thinking Badb had unbuckled and lifted the child out of the wreckage.
Badb walked back along the long drive to the covered bridge that crossed the creek to the driveway up to the cabin. The child had been quiet, cooing and giggling as it clutched the bloody flames of Badbs hair, playing with it and rubbing her little face in it. Nemain opened the cabin door just as Badb stepped onto the porch. Macha followed Nemain out onto the porch. Badb was silent.
She walked into the cabin straight to the rocking chair beside the fire place. ” Could you bring me a bit of milk and a clean cloth?” Macha stepped into the kitchen to retrieve the necessaries. Nemain stoked up the fire adding another large piece of hickory .
Badb sat back holding the baby. When Macha returned with milk warmed , and clean cloth. Badb rolled up the rag tightly then dipped it into the warm milk. Holding the saturated cloth to the babies lips, the baby accepted it and began sucking the milk from the cloth. Badb rocked and fed the baby. After a time passed Badb broke her silence, ” Elspeth. Her name is Elspeth.” Then turned her full attention back to the child.
Macha and Nemain kept watch, replacing the milk each time the cup was emptied. At some point Macha went ino town once the storms stopped and the ice melted to get supplies and a crib.
Badb sat holding the child for three full days and nights. Setting her down only to change a soiled diaper. The baby did not cry the whole time. The little wonder cooed and giggled while she played with and tangled her tiny hands in Badbs hair.
On the morning of the fourth day, Badb placed the child in the crib, kissed her forehead and left the cabin to feed. The baby cried the moment Badb left the cabin. Nemain and Macha took turns holding and rocking Elspeth. By the time Badb returned that evening, both of them had become enamored as well. There was no discussion of what they would do. The child was theirs. They would care for Elspeth.
Seventy five years passed. Badb was perched on the counter licking bacon grease from her fingers as she watched Elspeth, Ellsie, making breakfast. When she was in Elpeths presence, was the only time the rage did not consume her within. Elspeth was her connection to existence. That baby had brought tremendous change among the Morrigna. There had become something in this world that they loved unconditionally.
Over the years they had offered to change her. Ellsie had the genetic alignment to become full Aos Sidhe. For reasons she never articulated, she had refused. Elspeth had stayed with them of her own desire, returning to the cabin once she had finished school. Over all that time, she never took a lover or mentioned such.
Elspeth remained an enigma. For her part, Elspeth loved them, the Morrigna, with all of her heart and being. Both acolyte and child, the chief priestess of the Morrigna.