The Telling of Fionnuala of the Gilded Branches

A fictional character Telling. Meet Fionnuala.

"I have been patient for four hundred years. I can wait one more night."

The Poisoned Glen takes its name from Balor's eye — the poison split the rocks, fouled the ground, remains in the soil to this day. Some things witnessed cannot be unseen. Some stains do not wash out of the land.

He was Scarlet Bough. I am Gilded Branches. His word sat above mine in every chamber that heard the case. He named me as the transgressor — named me cleanly, with the confidence of one who knows the architecture of a court before he enters it. I had no recourse. That is not a rule that is written. It does not need to be written.

I walked out of it. North through the bog, past the dark mountain, down to the Bloody Foreland. The rocks were red that evening. They are always red at dusk. The legend says it is Balor's blood. Perhaps now it is also the blood of the truth that could not be spoken.

He is still there. I am still here. Every year that passes is another year of evidence that I was right about him. It is also another year of evidence that being right is not the same as being believed, and being believed is not the same as being permitted to act.

I have been patient for four hundred years.

I can wait one more night.

The Telling is complete.

Visual

Lean Irish healer with mist-pale skin, auburn hair braided with dried herbs, bitter green eyes rimmed red, earth-stained druidic robes cinched with a belt of woven iron, hands that remember mending flesh, standing coiled between mercy and menace.

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