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Cymru sits in the grass, overlooking the sprawling valley below. Where he sits it is almost an overhang- just underneath the ground carves away to a dizzying drop that makes him feel as though he is soaring above it; light and weightless. There is nothing underneath him but air so he dangles his legs over the edge, kicking into the wind and feeling it tug and push at his bare ankles.
It’s a strange morning- stormy and roiling. The clouds race through the sky above him, a churning grey blanket that chases flashes of blue before tumbling over into dark. The storm itself hasn’t broken yet but the air is thick and heavy and Cymru has been watching it ever since he first set out this morning, looking to see where it will spill and hoping it moves further away from where he is sitting.
He has taken himself to the highest point he could see nearby, the crest of a large hill that grows rockier the higher you climb and where the air is cooler. He has always found it comforting to be up high somewhere and his land provides this opportunity aplenty. The more you creep north, the more the earth lists and tilts with sweeping valleys that chip into combes- craggy, pockmarked tops that tip and puddle into deep gorges of soft green grass.
Maybe the sky is matching his mood. Mama would know.
Mama isn’t here.
She faded away recently, going somewhere no one knew to find her. She had been doing so for years, for as long as Cymru can remember, if he is being honest with himself. Some of his first memories are of Alba whispering to Ériu that she sleeps for longer than he used to, or Ériu tugging on her tunic and asking why she won’t play with them as much anymore. But she had always seemed fine to Cymru, as unchanged as ever.
She would run and jump, throw them up in the air and tumble with them down banks to splash in streams. Even when Albion appeared, the newest of them all, she still felt strong and sure, as steady as the land on which they walked. They had all watched her charge into battle, switching sides halfway through a clan war to show her allegiance to all of them. She sat and wove both metal and wool: strands of hot, solid gold forming intricate torcs to cover their necks and dyed woollen fibres emerging into blankets to enfold them when the air grew cool. She danced with the young, whispered with the old and lamented the fallen with as much life as she had ever done.
Mama, for all her long life, had always wandered, moving from tribe to clan, from settlement to kingdom- scattering herself amongst her people so that all knew who she was and what she stood for- us. We.
Most of the time her children would follow her, collecting themselves around her ankles or on her back, soaking her up like a sponge.
Maybe that was the problem, maybe they took too much.
Alba seems to think so. Seems to think that the more of them there were, the less of her there could be and maybe he’s right. As they all grew, she seemed to diminish, wandering less and less frequently, resting more each place she settled. Quick visits turned into monthly, then yearly stays, merging into her people like a faceless, nameless creature who wore a torc of status and cloth of the gods but only shone with the dulling, pale vivacity of a mortal woman.
She was still there, though. Still healthy. Still was present and alert and ready to talk or comfort or hold. Albion was too young, but Cymru picked up on Alba and Ériu’s worry, felt it bleed through into him so that he became watchful for change and anxious to find it. And it was there, if he looked, small things that made him turn away in denial and fold himself into her arms, press close to her body to take in as much of her as he could.
Lavender and honeysuckle, roses and earth. The salty sea wind and grass after rain. Home.
In the last few years, she took to walking alone.
She never asked them to come with her when she roamed across the land, never asked them to stay when she left for somewhere new, but they had always followed her anyway, for the most part. Sometimes they travelled to places on their own, Alba and Ériu more so -older, stronger, surer of themselves and who they stood to be in the march of mankind- but mostly they remained together, following her like tiny, spinning comets around a star.
But these last few years they had known that she wanted them to stay. She had never said so explicitly but there was a feeling, a deep calling that they understood was not for them. Young though he was, even Albion knew this and would curl up next to Alba or Cymru when she went away, burrowing into them as if desperate for something that wasn’t his to hold.
Mama would walk and roam, would return in a few days and then collect them up again to move on together. Maybe that was the new way things were to be, Cymru had caught himself thinking, (deceitful moments of hope and innocence- cruel terrible things he should have known better than to permit), maybe now that they were older, this is what she expected of them- to let her be whilst they themselves learnt to stand alone.
This was true, in a way. He knew that beneath that hopeful wish there was a grain of something hard and cold, something that needed swallowing but was difficult, no matter how sweet it was coated.
Mama wandered and walked, returned and slept- longer and longer each one. Longer disappearances, longer rests afterwards, longer stares off into unknown, forgotten horizons.
And then, one day, she did not come back.
It hadn’t felt different, hadn’t felt anything special, but as the days crept into months which blurred into years they had all known, eventually. That had been her last walk, her last goodbye, and she would not be returning.
Ériu had gone off first. Not in search of her but in search of himself, who he was to be to the people that were now solely his- across the choppy, tempestuous seas that divided their lands to cloak himself in his mountains of emerald green. He returned occasionally, but less than he used to and Cymru felt the absence of him with a keening emptiness he hadn’t expected to feel.
Alba kept the rest of them mostly together, corralling them from place to place, clan to tribe, in a similar fashion to the way Mama had, maybe in stubborn denial of change or to entice her back. Cymru didn’t know. Alba is oftentimes as rough and coarse as his highlands, sparse and blunt and dangerous, if you didn’t know where to tread and his moods change from dark to light so quickly it is hard to catch them and pin them down.
Cymru was at least old enough to understand, could appreciate enough that Alba was hurting, is hurting, and that was his way; he was scared and angry, lonely and confused, and he was coping the best he could to keep them all together. Albion, however, did not understand, could not comprehend why he was so snappy, so distant, would not play with him and would shout when he did wrong or cuff him for accidents he didn’t mean. Albion knew Mama wasn’t coming back but didn’t know why and resented the perceived abandonment and the abrupt thrust into a new way of things.
So, Albion comes to Cymru, to wail into his side or beg for attention Cymru doesn’t want to, can’t give. Albion wants comfort, wants something soft and safe- he wants Mama and no one can give him that, so he needles and acts up which causes a cycle of repetitive arguments between oldest and youngest as Cymru fades into the shadows and tries his best to soothe them both.
This pressure builds in his chest like a storm, hotter and tighter until the shape of things unsaid and feelings forbidden clog in his throat and begin to choke him. When this happens, (ideally, before it happens) Cymru tries to get away, to take himself off to a place where he can cry and feel his own feelings, rather than those of everybody else. There is no one to untangle his ball of confused emotions but that’s okay, all he needs is time and space and he can smooth them out on his own.
Up here in his own lands Cymru can feel and breathe as himself, rather than as a part of a fractured family. He feels himself in the stones under his feet, can listen for his songs in the whispers of wind, can see his clans dot the hillsides and collect into pockets of himself- Cymry. Now that Mama has gone, the distinction between himself and his brothers feels more clear- this part is his, now, rather than theirs or Mama’s. This feels more like him, that over there feels more like Alba. Albion certainly feels more south- chalky cliffs and rolling meadows. Just as each loaf of bread tastes somewhat like its baker -personality baked into it as it rises- they are becoming more hewn into their land and it feels somewhat stark now, more foreign than it ever did before.
Cymru does not like to think of what that means for them in the future, so he tucks that away in his mind to ruminate on later, for another walk alone when he yearns for space. Alone in his lands he can be alone with his present, can reminisce on the past and dream about the future to come in a detached peace that he craves more and more these days.
A crack of thunder booms a welcome in the clouds and he sighs. He cannot stay up here. Long living he may be, but he does not want to chance a broken neck in sodden isolation.
Picking himself up and dusting himself off, he begins his walk down the hill, moving up and away from the edge first and then carefully picking up the trail between loose rocks and hidden dips in the earth, feeling the ground innately as he goes. He is surefooted and confident, so he descends quickly and with unnatural ease. It begins to rain when he is nearly halfway down, fat spots that darken the ground with round, large circles and the air grows muggier. The sky rumbles again- a warning. He won’t have too much longer before the heavens open fully to catch him where he stands.
He and his brothers are camped not too far away. Alba has been taking them all over, following Mama’s old routes and greeting all as they approach. The welcome is slightly different now, warmer for one of them and more distant for the others. Their people are changing how they feel, too: ‘We’ and ‘Us’ growing smaller and separated, ‘Them’ growing larger and more frightening.
Cymru adds this to the collection of thoughts he does not wish to think on at the moment and carries on, faster now as lightning bursts free from the billowing sky and washes the land white, forcing him to be more cautious of where he treads.
Near the bottom he stops, seeing a shape.
There is something perched under a tree, huddled in on itself and building a meticulous tower of stones from a large pile of them that has been collected in a heap. The thing- the person- is familiar and Cymru frowns to see him there.
‘Albion?’
At the sound of his name and Cymru’s approach Albion snaps up his head to look at him before looking away, back to his rocks. He is concentrating deeply, furrows drawn into his brow as he scrunches his face up to gently place a large one precariously on top. It sits there solid and his face splits into a wide, happy grin, finally turning to give Cymru his full attention.
‘What are you doing here?’ Cymru crouches next to Albion and brushes his hair away from his face, some mud from his cheek. Albion leans into the touch automatically and Cymru sits close to him, making himself comfortable. Now he is down from the hill and on flatter ground the danger has passed- they might as well wait here until the rain lessens or moves on. It is coming down in earnest now, a proper shower from an unsure beginning, but it is warm and sticky with summer, so not unpleasant.
Albion stares at his stone mountain, assessing it, ‘Alba sent me after you- he said it was going to storm so I should bring you back.’
Cymru frowns. Although not far, the clan they’re staying near is still a good hour’s walk away for Cymru with his longer legs. With that information, and the number of stones scattered about the tree base, he knows Albion had been here a while, ‘Why did you stop here? I was only further up the hill.’
Albion shrugs, ‘You go away to sit up high by yourself.’
He reaches out to pick up another stone, turning it over with small, fat fingers to search for imperfections, and Cymru swallows, a lump suddenly in his throat. He hadn’t thought anyone noticed, ‘You can always join me, if you like. I won’t ever mind if you want company.’
Albion shakes his head and gingerly places the new stone on top of his mountain, ‘That’s something you do. I’ll do this,’ it wobbles there for a moment, oddly weighted and bumpy, but stays and Albion turns to him in glee, hungry for his approval.
Cymru smiles back, ‘You’re good at it.’
Albion looks proud, self-satisfied in a way only small children can manage- unashamed and bright, ‘I’ll build bigger ones, everywhere I go.’
Warm breeze catches the leaves overheard and curls over their hair, ruffling it and tugging. It smells like earth, like grass after rain, like home.
‘I can’t wait to see.’