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The bruises are worth it, Brendan tells himself. They're worth helping Aidan finish the Book. So are the cuts, and the fear every time he needs to venture into the forest.
Purple and red decorate his arms and chest. He's always aching, but that's easy to blame on constantly working on the Wall, at least to the Brothers. If his uncle had noticed it would've been harder, but he doesn't. He's too busy. Most of the time, Brendan is grateful.
He doesn't know the faerie-girl's name. He'd called her 'the little girl' in his head at first, but that was soon discarded. When he'd asked her for the berries, she'd kicked him in the chest--it was clear she wasn't trying hard, but the impact was awful. He felt it hit, felt everything blur, felt himself hit the stone in the center of the faerie ring with his back and felt his throat burn with his scream. Then she shouted at him to shut up, grabbing the front of his robes and lifting him easily. He was too loud, he was disturbing the forest. He couldn't stop the tears that sprung to his eyes, but he knew how to keep his sobs muffled. She dropped him and he landed wrong, so he had to limp instead of run. Calling her a little girl would be a lie.
She brought him to the berries after, ignoring his whimpers of pain as he climbed after her. She did save him when he fell, though; he supposes that counts for something.
Then he tried to walk up a strange path. She screamed at him then, a howl of rage and fear, and said that the Dark One was inside--he didn't think so, but he knew enough at that point to listen to her or be harmed.
He was anyway. The last thing he remembers is her white form flying towards him, an explosion of pain radiating everywhere from his teeth to his feet, and then black.
He woke up near the Wall, robes covered in twigs and leaves. There was no sign of the faerie-girl.
When asked what happened, he had to lie and say that he'd fallen from a tree. Aidan gently held him and asked him to be careful next time. He had to lie again when his breathing hitched to say it was just the pain.
Though Brendan had promised not to go in again, he found berries on the Wall sometimes. Just a few. Not enough for much ink, and after a few days of this he dared to return.
He was terrified, but it had to be worth it. The Book was, Aidan was.
She found him and dragged him to the oak tree again. Her grip was like iron around his arm, and he knew he'd be feeling it for quite some time.
He thinks...he thinks she likes him, somehow. She could beat him to death in a heartbeat, she could make a deal for him to stay away or stay with her forever, and she doesn't. She leaves marks, but she also laughs with him and shows him things--owls and beetles and flowers. There's never any sign of anyone else, and he can't hate her, even as she leaves a fist-shaped bruise against his back when he tries to reach for the berries instead of waiting for her.
When he needs the Eye, when he's locked up, he isn't that surprised when she comes to rescue him--but she refuses to let him near the cave. Complete and total denial, and she hits him hard enough to see stars, but not black out again. She threatens to break his legs if he tries to go himself, so he doesn't.
He lays in a hollow log that's big enough to fit himself the faerie-girl, and a few wolves. She holds onto him even as she sleeps, tightly, so it's not always easy to breathe. He feels more bruises blooming on his ribs, and everything aches.
He asks to go home the next day, and she says no.
Something bad is in the far reaches of her forest, and Brendan is hers.
It's nearly a week before he breaks away to find a way back to Kells, and there he finds nothing but ruins.
At first his wild thoughts suspect her--but she's been with him the whole time. The Northmen, then.
He cries, and he doesn't resist when the faerie-girl finds him--or rather, reveals herself. She followed him back.
You're mine, she says, her voice quiet and dangerous.
The Book is gone. Aidan is gone. His uncle, his brothers, Kells is gone. The reasons he ever went into the forest are gone.
There is nothing for you to go back to.
There isn't, and he's dragged back into the darkness of the forest.
He doesn't struggle when she lays him down and wraps her hands around his throat. Not much. He twitches, can't help but reach his hands up to put them over hers to try to find his breath.
She lets go, and he feels rather than sees the necklace of purple and red she's left there.
You're mine.
He cries for days, but he stays, even as his body becomes nothing more than a patchwork of pain.
Late one night, after the snow falls and muffles everything, she tells him her name.
Aisling.
It means dream, Brendan knows. He feels like he's in one. A nightmare. Everything is blurred together, and not just through his ever-damp eyes.
Brendan is Aisling's.
He doesn't want to be Aisling's, but he can't run. He can't hide. He's trapped at her side, and there would be nowhere to go even if he wasn't.
Brendan is Aisling's. Every crushing grip, every slap, every kick--every gentle touch, every hug, every whisper in the night--everything she ever does to him proves it.