That thick brogue is familiar in a way Anne hasn't felt in a long, long time; old, mostly faded memories of distant childhood, of being so young she hadn't learned what hurt was. She thinks her mother might've sounded like that. That memory's so far away it don't feel like hers anymore. It ain't just that, either; it's not like meeting an Irishman sends her back down this path on an ordinary day. It's something more precisely fitted to him, almost like his presence alone is enough to stir up that old shit. The names he gives, Lugh, Suibhne, these are also familiar, touching somewhere so deep it's past recovering. Maybe she heard the stories before that world was gone, that person she was and might have been was gone, and she became something else.
And if Mad Sweeney is the Mad Sweeney from the half-remembered dust of those stories, the Lugh, the Suibhne, the names that may have been whispered to her before she slept her quietest nights away, then this man is something more than a man, and that shouldn't be possible.
All that's one thing. The rest is smaller, and yet it arrests her just as much. Seeing Greta approach this great dangerous figure was unexpected all on its own, but the way he slings an arm around her like—she don't know what. Greta's smiling and nudging him back, easy, casual. Ain't never seen a husband treat his wife like this, or a wife answer like that; closest thing she can even imagine is from drinking in the brothel, watching the men idle with whatever whore'd been chosen to entertain him that night. And this don't even come close.
It's like the way men lean on each other, like friends, like there's shared trust and shared respect. And she's gone through life believing she and Jack were the only ones in the world who knew what that was.
She just stares at them both for a long while, and then she says, "Right." She keeps her eyes on Sweeney, on his face, narrowing as she considers this wealth of new information. A lot of people have known her and Jack from stories; Eliot's got his impossible magic, Greta's little one has her strange draw to the sea. There's plenty here she don't understand, but this?
"Maybe I know those names," she says after a moment. She stands her ground, but her fingers twitch a little from the uncertainty of what that means. She's not sure how to be. Greta is so easy with him, and she don't know if that means she ought to stand down, or stand twice as guarded. She proceeds with caution, stepping more delicately than she's accustomed: "Stories from a long time ago." She juts her chin up at him in a slight nod. "So what does that make you?"
no subject
And if Mad Sweeney is the Mad Sweeney from the half-remembered dust of those stories, the Lugh, the Suibhne, the names that may have been whispered to her before she slept her quietest nights away, then this man is something more than a man, and that shouldn't be possible.
All that's one thing. The rest is smaller, and yet it arrests her just as much. Seeing Greta approach this great dangerous figure was unexpected all on its own, but the way he slings an arm around her like—she don't know what. Greta's smiling and nudging him back, easy, casual. Ain't never seen a husband treat his wife like this, or a wife answer like that; closest thing she can even imagine is from drinking in the brothel, watching the men idle with whatever whore'd been chosen to entertain him that night. And this don't even come close.
It's like the way men lean on each other, like friends, like there's shared trust and shared respect. And she's gone through life believing she and Jack were the only ones in the world who knew what that was.
She just stares at them both for a long while, and then she says, "Right." She keeps her eyes on Sweeney, on his face, narrowing as she considers this wealth of new information. A lot of people have known her and Jack from stories; Eliot's got his impossible magic, Greta's little one has her strange draw to the sea. There's plenty here she don't understand, but this?
"Maybe I know those names," she says after a moment. She stands her ground, but her fingers twitch a little from the uncertainty of what that means. She's not sure how to be. Greta is so easy with him, and she don't know if that means she ought to stand down, or stand twice as guarded. She proceeds with caution, stepping more delicately than she's accustomed: "Stories from a long time ago." She juts her chin up at him in a slight nod. "So what does that make you?"