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Chapter Text

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Cassidy felt his heart in his throat. The bursting of bombs and banging of fired bullets were distant and soft compared to the hammering of his chest, accompanied by the sorrowful screams of his dying friend mere yards from where he sat. 

He drew his knees up under his chin, eyes wide and dripping with tears as he sucked in sulfur-laced air, the taste bitter and choking.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. This wasn’t how they were meant to die. They were meant to be heroes: to go out swinging in a blaze of glory and win freedom for their families. Leave behind a legacy that their descendants would sing about in ballads for centuries to come. 

Not ditching their mates as soon as fear settled into their bones and sitting behind a pile of rubble while the war raged on. The thought sent Cassidy’s stomach roiling, and he pressed a shaking palm to his mouth in an attempt to hold back the bile. 

The only thought that didn’t make him wish he could lie down and never wake, was that of his family, his brothers and sisters. Their smiles, their loving arms and lilting laughter. All of it made the racing of his heart slow just enough to provide some faint clarity in his bloodstained mind. 

It was those same thoughts, memories of his life back home, that finally urged him on to stand, when the guns fell silent, and begin his return. The moon lit the way, and his grumbling stomach set the rhythm for his achingly slow pace down the trail of misery he’d walked so recently, with such hope and determination. 

He was a shell of the boy who’d marched off to war that day, who’d believed so deeply in his own brave facade. Who was he now, but a coward? An abandoner of his best friend, without even any scars to prove he had reason for fleeing in terror. 

He stopped cold at that realization. Even if he did stumble back home to his family with any of his sanity left intact, they wouldn’t want him. Cassidy could practically see the disappointment and resentment in his mother’s face now. 

His knees felt weak at the prospect, and he started to back up. As if he could hide himself in the bushes on the side of the path leading straight to his family’s little cottage. It wasn’t that far away, really. Hardly an hour’s walk, and he’d be home. 

But he couldn’t do that to them. Better to let them believe he died along with the rest of the freedom fighters than bring them such shame as a retreating fool. 

Cassidy felt warm tears sliding down his cheeks as he took another weak step back. His trembling hands brushed against cattails and he shifted to look down at the weeds he’d begun walking into. Swampy water crept up his boots, leaking into the seams and quickly drenching his feet. 

The man felt his blood run cold, suddenly, and not due to the way his socks were now soaked. Something was watching him, he was sure of it, but the weight of unbearable sorrow in his heart clouded his ability to do anything to defend himself. As if he’d predicted it, Cassidy heard a loud explosion as a wave of water crashed over his back, and two icy arms wrapped around his torso. 

A terrible pain tore through his spine as a pair of something sharp was driven deep into the side of his neck, and he was dragged into the water of the bog behind him. His screams were muffled by the gallons of cold swamp water rushing to fill his lungs as he was pulled deeper and deeper, down to the depths. Cassidy tried to fight, kicking wildly and flailing both arms to no avail as the creature began tossing him around, tightening its grip, almost as if it was trying to still him. 

For some reason, Cassidy felt he should obey, for his own preservation, and stopped moving, despite the panic at his quickly darkening vision. 

He craned his neck, bringing one hand up to rest on the claw clutching his left shoulder, and he gazed into the murky eyes of his killer. All he could see through the dirty sludge of the bog was a pair of glimmering white eyes, surrounded by a cloud of crimson that he assumed was his own blood. 

Just as he took another deep gulp of soggy mud mingled with floating plant particles, and his sight began to fade, he saw the face pull away from the gaping wound on his neck, the eyes filling with an emotion Cassidy couldn’t recognize in his dying state. But the creature released him, letting his corpse drift to the bottom of the swamp and land in a dusty heap among the weeds and dilapidated animal pelts and bones and broken rocks which would serve as his gravestones. 

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Cassidy did not expect to wake that morning. Sunlight filtered hazily through the top layer of filmy water of the bog, warming the surface but no further than an inch. Which left Cassidy in the coldest part of the dank space. 

He sat up from his fetal position, confusion flooding his tired mind as he tried to look around in the dirty water. There was no sign of whatever dragged him under, and he had no desire to seek it out. He didn’t even question how he was still alive at all after being chewed on and drowned. 

Seeing the faint flicker of light from far above gave him the inspiration to propel himself upwards towards it, waving his arms and legs and looking not unlike a rabbit in a trap, trying hard to free himself. When he broke the surface, he gasped for air, water coming up to be hurled and dribbled down his chin. He splashed, eyes flying open to stare up at the sun as a crazed grin broke out on his lips. 

His joy didn’t last long, however, as he crawled onto the shore and began to feel an uncomfortable heat licking at his flesh. He had been chilled to the very marrow in his bones just a moment ago, and now he was quite literally burning up. Flames sparked and caught across his exposed skin, along his hands and face and dripping hair. Panicked, he tore off his shirt, and screamed as even more of his body burst into flames. 

The pain was worse than he’d ever endured, like the time as a child when he’d accidentally touched the side of the cast iron wood stove and burned himself to the bone. Except now he felt like the wood stove had been shoved into his chest cavity and a fire was raging from the inside out. 

With no other thoughts in his mind but stopping the pain, he turned and jumped straight back into the bog, the flames instantly extinguished as he plunged back to the icy depths. 

His lungs were filled once more with the disgusting, fishy liquid that surrounded his frozen limbs. He felt himself shiver, and let himself sink once more to the swampy floor. As the debris settled, and the minutes ticked by, Cassidy became used to the burning sensation in his throat and lungs as he breathed the water before realizing he didn’t need to do so at all. He stopped, waited and realized there was no pressing urge to intake another breath, only a faint habitual thought in the back of his brain that told him he should be. 

Once he got his bearings back, overcoming the strangeness of the whole situation, Cassidy began to look around, and immediately regretted it. Across the ground, in a clump of particularly slimy weeds, sat a body-shaped thing. The young Irishman felt fear inching through his veins like coagulated blood, slowly making its way from his thrumming heart to the top of spine. He froze in place, keeping his stinging eyes open to stare at the creature in the murky depths ahead of him. 

It shifted, part of its humanoid face coming to rest in front of the drifting strands of lakeweed around it. Cassidy gasped— more of a choking gargle —and blinked a few times. Now he could see what had attacked him a little clearer. 

It was a woman. Or once was, judging by her long hair and flowy dress. It was tattered and stained, wilted to nearly translucent by decades of water. Her skin was pale and scarred beneath the cloth, even her lips looked ghostly whiteish grey. But the most startling thing about her, even beyond the way her hair was stained with dirt and old blood, was her eyes. They were bleached with moonlight and water, the irises resembling something purple but long faded, the pupils an eerie, iridescent grey. 

The sight caused Cassidy’s heart to stutter against his ribs. He lifted one hand, awkwardly, as he had to compensate for the way the water dragged his movements out, and the woman recoiled, baring a row of sharpened teeth. 

Cassidy lowered his arm slowly, inch by inch, and pulled his knees up to his chin, just like he had in that alleyway. He let himself cry, then, his tears leaking from his blurry eyes, and began to rock forward and back. Tearing his gaze away from the woman in the shadows, Cassidy risked feeling the wound on his neck. It was raw, bloody, and sent a jolt of pain through his skull. He gasped again, that awful gurgling sound escaping him, and he pushed his heels into the mud at his feet, wishing there was some sort of wall to lean up against. 

The woman in the water seemed intrigued by his reaction to the pain, her ghost-like face lighting up with attention and something like concern in the faint crease between her brows as she sat up. She pressed her hands down into the earth like she was used to crawling, and then kicked her feet out behind her, drifting forward before lifting off to the surface. Cassidy watched her, squinting against the streams of sunlight trickling through the water, refracting like diamonds through the muck. All at once, and quick as a fish, the woman was gone, disappearing into a corner of the bog in a silent flurry of bubbles. 

Cassidy resorted to wallowing in his devastation, hugging his knees close and replaying the sound of his friend screaming in the alley over and over again through his mind until night fell. 

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Chapter Text

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The rock made a hollow thunk as it cracked against his skull. Cassidy startled awake, whipping his head to look around and then at his lap, where the stone landed. There was a bundle of fur wrapped around it, or at least, that’s how it looked to Cassidy as he stared down at it. For a second, he was too afraid to touch it, and instead looked up until he spotted who dropped it on him. 

The woman was back, floating lazily in the water above him, watching his movements. Their gazes locked and the girl darted far away, hovering in a spot of muddy water while keeping her eyes on the man. 

Cassidy finally found the guts to look down and lift the rock and fur pile from his lap, inspecting it closer. He nearly gagged as he realized it was a bloody, broken squirrel, wrapped and bound with stringy weeds to the stone. The motion of him touching it sent a cloud of acrid blood drifting through the water and into his face, and Cassidy was suddenly able to pinpoint the ache in his gut he’d been feeling since the previous night. 

It was hunger. 

Grimacing at the grotesque idea, and ignoring the way his stomach screamed in protest, Cassidy yanked the carcass out of its plant confines and brought it to his lips.

The first bite was all hair and stretchy skin, making the young man’s stomach flip. Then his teeth hit an artery, only just barely chilled from lack of life, and he went wild. A sensation like growing pains emerged in his face, as long fangs poked from his gums and dug into the flesh of the squirrel. He swallowed mouthfuls of swamp water along with the warm blood and bits of bone as he ravaged the thing. 

At the same time, he felt the ache of his wound fading, the skin stitching itself over and under as the pain subsided and blood finally stopped leaking from it. He even reached up to feel it and be sure. He smiled at the smooth skin beneath his fingertips and licked the remnants of blood from his lips and drank up the stained water swirling around his face. 

When the water in front of his eyes was clear, he looked at the woman who had brought him to this habitat in the first place, and put as much thanks as he could into his gaze. He even offered a small smile, opening his mouth before he remembered he couldn’t verbally express his gratitude. 

Instead, he dipped his head and lifted his hand, palm up, keeping his smile on his lips despite the fact that he was most likely dead or hallucinating vividly. 

She looked scared by the gesture, her head jerking backwards as she tensed, her hands flexing shut and open again. 

A sudden shaft of moonlight broke through the murky water and illuminated the space behind the woman’s head. Her wild, unruly hair lit up silver, dazzling Cassidy like he was looking at the stars themselves. As much as he wanted to keep staring at her (for reasons unknown to himself at that moment), the light from above reminded him that there was still life above the surface. 

Tentatively, he started to paddle upwards, past the woman who ducked frantically away from him as he did so, and made his way to the surface. 

Cassidy hesitated before sticking one finger out, dreading the wretched burning that came the first time he tried to emerge from the swamp. But it never came. So he went further, pushing his head up past the cold water and dragging himself on land. 

Once firm, unmoving, non-muddy earth was under his palms, he wretched and vomited bucketfuls of brown water onto the ground. He marveled momentarily at the lack of blood in the refuse, wondering if he’d somehow ingested the liquid differently than the rest of what he’d just puked up. 

When he was sure he’d coughed out the remaining water from his lungs, he took a breath of brisk night air and sighed a deep, broken sigh. Quickly, Cassidy slicked back his dark curls, wiped the dirt from his eyes, and began crawling on all fours until he reached the gravelly edge of the bog. 

“Shite,” he panted. He looked around, eyes wide and soaking up the white light of the clearing around him before he twisted and sat down, water draining down his limbs and into the grass. 

He spied the pale skin of the woman in the water, her eyes poking out of the deep as she watched him like a wolf watching prey. Cassidy’s blood ran cold at the sight of her, his fear back and twice as strong. He was alone now, again, and there was no one he could let take the fall and die for him. Not this time. 

He started to shift backwards, away from the bog, and she started after him, her clawed hands outstretched as she scrambled onto the shore, screeching like a banshee. 

Cassidy nearly vomited again. His family had told stories of the banshees out in the wild forests of Ireland, and he’d never believed them. Now he had living proof that every tale that his granddad had muttered around the campfire was real and true. 

Not exactly sure how he was going to fight off a creature from the depths of hell itself, Cassidy fell back, kicking and screaming. He tossed stray stones and sticks at her as she charged, and he felt a faint remorse in his aching chest when she flinched away from the projectiles. Still, she leapt atop him and they grappled, his hands shaking as he tried in vain to push her off. She seemed to possess some kind of supernatural strength, the ability to pin him with ease, despite her being almost half his height, and it scared Cassidy. Scared him more than her wild screams and ghostly appearance. 

He shut his eyes and took a deep breath, summoning the odd feeling of power that had corded through his blood stream when he bit into that squirrel. He certainly summoned it, feeling a strength he’d never had before crashing into his bones like a tidal wave. 

Still, it was nothing compared to the raw power this girl possessed. 

She bared her teeth again, two of them long and pointed things, the others cracked yet shiny white behind her pale lips. Cassidy drank in the moonlight pouring down from above them and pressed his hands against her shoulders with all of his might. 

“Please!” he cried, throat tight with emotion. The banshee ceased her screaming, confusion furrowing her brow. She didn’t let go, but she halted her movements, taking shallow breaths that wheezed through her tattered lungs. Cassidy swallowed and tried again, daring to gaze into her unearthly eyes. “Please. Miss. I dunno how you got me under th’ water like that. Or where I’m gonna go after this, but… don’t let me die here. Not like this.” 

She stared at him, grey pupils dilating to soak up the starlight streaming down, but didn’t speak. 

So Cassidy continued. “I wanted… I wanted ta–” He sucked in a breath and realized the warmth on his face was from twin trails of tears running from his eyes. “I wanted ta die a hero, if yeh must know. Still do. I wanna ‘nother chance at it, someday, if’n God t’inks I’ve earned it.” 

At the mention of God, the woman hissed, curling her lips in a snarl that she somehow managed to make look angelic in Cassidy’s waterlogged eyes, and recoiled ever-so slightly. 

“It’s alright,” Cassidy assured her, voice breaking an embarrassing amount as he did so. He softened the grip he had on her shoulders, shifting so that the touch was more of just that: a touch. No longer an attack or even a defense. Just a touch. Gentle and sad and hopeful. 

Unexpectedly, the girl began to mimic the motion. She uncurled her elegant fingers from his body, flattening her palms and bringing them to rest on his heaving chest, instead. She blinked her alien eyes and tipped her head like a confused mutt. It was the most endearing thing Cassidy had seen in years, and he couldn’t stop the giggle that escaped him. The sound startled her, and she fell back, off of him, her lips pinched and fear saturating her face. She sat herself down on all fours a few feet from him, just staring, and Cassidy sat up again. 

The pair took a moment in the dark to just breathe, a gurgly, wet sound emanating from the woman’s chest, like a rattling toolbox fell underwater years ago. Cassidy’s fear still fell from him in waves, gentle sounds tumbling from his lips against his will. Fear alone drove him to this point. 

Then he spoke, knowing it would break the spell of beautiful, intoxicating silence that had fallen over them. 

“I’m Proinsias Cassidy, miss.” He held one hand out shakily. “Pleased ta meet yeh.” 

The woman shifted until her hand was on her near-bare chest, and Cassidy pointedly avoided looking below her eyeline. She spoke in a ratty, raw voice that made the man tremble. “ Ide is ainm dom ,” she whispered. 

Cassidy frowned. “Beg yer pardon?” 

The woman bristled. “Ide is ainm dom,” she repeated, hitting herself in the chest a few times, making a hollow smack. “Ide. Ide!”

A slow recognition of the words came into Cassidy’s mind, then, and he nodded fast. “Hold on, I t’ink I understand, lass. Ee-duh? Is it? Ee-duh’s yer name?” 

Unimpressed with his awkward pronunciation, she growled, “Ide. Ainm dom.” 

“Yeah, Ide, that’s what I said,” he chuckled nervously. “That’s a pretty name. What language yeh speakin’ there, anehway?” 

She tipped her head again, and Cassidy choked. The way she did certain things told him she was younger than himself, yet she spoke words he’d only heard referenced from ancient times. It was strange, but then again, what wasn’t strange about this whole ordeal? 

“Mo theanga,” she said. “… an dtuigeann tú Proinsias?” 

“Yeah!” Cassidy cried, opening his arms. “Yeah, that’s me name! That’s exactly right.” He pointed at her, and she bared her fangs defensively. “And yer Ide.” 

She held out one hand, frowning again, and said, “ Labhraíonn tú an iomarca focal.” 

Cassidy racked his mind and guessed, “Gaelic? Is it Irish Gaelic?” 

The girl’s face lit up— well, as much as it could being scarred and pale and nearly not human. She nodded, saying, “Gàidhlig . Gay-lick.” 

“Sure, yeah,” Cassidy said with a shrug. “You know English?” 

“Enn-gliss? Béarla,” she said. “Enn-gliss is Béarla.” 

“I really don’t know how we’re gonna overcome this here language barrier,” Cassidy said. “Listen, we got names down, an’ that’s somethin’.” 

“Proinsias,” she rasped again, looking pleased with herself for getting it right. 

“Ide,” he said back, pointing. “Great. Now, do yeh know any English at’all?” 

“Tuigim , ní féidir liom labhairt,” she said softly. 

“Alright, we can work with that, I t’ink,” Cassidy said with a nod, completely lost. He added, “Can I ask yeh somethin’ first?” 

She blinked, which he took as permission, notwithstanding his fear. 

“Are yeh a banshee?” he asked, his voice disapating. 

The question seemed to trigger Ide, and the girl tensed, her lips twisting into a sneer as she straightened up on her crooked legs before staggering towards him. Cassidy yelped as she pounced, slamming her hands to the earth on either side of his head while he fell onto his back. 

He snapped his eyes shut, taking in horrified breaths as he waited for the killing blow. Surely, this time, she’d finish the job. 

But instead, he just felt her warm breath against his ear as she bent low and whispered, “Dearg-Due.” 

The words sent terror shooting through his whole body, and Cassidy screamed, striking out and colliding his fist with her collarbone.

Ide howled, leaping off of him and flailing back into the swamp. 

Cassidy sobbed, “Yer a vampire?” She’d spoken the name of the ancient blood sucking temptress from centuries before, an Irish legend. She would seduce men and drink their blood, and was supposedly immortal. This must be the same woman. Cassidy was convinced. 

The girl glowered at him from the reflective surface of the water, her eyes filling with hurt. Immediately, Cassidy regretted his words, and even more so, hitting her. He held out one hand. “I— I’m sorry,” he croaked, heart wrenching. “Don’t leave me…” 

Clearly, she either misunderstood his words, or just wanted to drive him further into madness, and dove down to the murky depths of the bog. Cassidy choked on his tears, watching the bubbles rise and finally stop on the top of the water. 

Straining for every breath after that, Cassidy curled up in the cold bushes at the waterside and tried to sleep. When morning broke, he slipped into the water before his entire body reignited for a second time. 

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Cassidy didn’t see Ide the entire next day. He sat in a patch of mud near the shore, beneath the surface, poking at broken shells and slimy weeds settled around his feet. It was strange sitting underwater fully clothed, watching mud drift in and out of his vision constantly. He blinked the muck away, to no avail, and sighed out of habit, watching bubbles and dirty water flow from his throat. 

The loneliness hurt the most, probably. Not the faint burning in his waterlogged lungs, or the bruises on his knees and palms from crawling in and out of the water the night before. Not even the horrible replaying of nightmarish memories in his head over and over. 

He almost wished the banshee, or vampire, or siren, or whatever the hell she was, would return. Just to keep him company and remind him he wasn’t alone in this devastating never ending imprisonment at the bottom of a bog. 

But she did not return that day, of which Cassidy mostly slept through, nor the following night.

 Cassidy cried. 

On the second evening without Ide’s appearance, the man swam back to the shore, just as the sun was setting, and dodged the shafts of weak sunlight pooling on the earthen path nearby. 

The same strange, aching hunger that had gripped him after his first interaction with Ide was back in full force. He felt… thirsty, in a way he’d never experienced before, and craved something warm and metallic and alive. The hunger scared him, if he was honest. But he was too starved to care. He was bent on fulfilling this desire whatever the cost. 

He waited in the ditch of the path, not really sure what he was waiting for, but eventually decided he would just let his instincts guide him.

And that they did. 

He snatched a rabbit darting from a warren with inhuman speed, immediately gobbling it up by the throat and swallowing every last drop of precious blood from its veins. 

And yet… it still wasn’t enough. He hunted through the night, and slept the next day, struggling to ignore the growing need in his gut to be fed. Three gruesome days and countless small animal carcasses later, Ide returned. 

She sat down, unbeknownst to Cassidy, a few yards away from him as he drank from a writhing lamb that had wandered from the field down the road. He panted against its flesh, knowing how sickening his actions were, but too drunk with insatiable hunger to care. 

When he was nearly finished, he noticed Ide sitting placidly beside him, and he retreated. “Yeh want it?” he breathed, cheeks colored from exertion as he caught his breath and wiped streaks of dark blood from his soaked skin. “Take it.” 

Ide didn’t hesitate before taking his place at the throat of the animal, immediately crouching and pressing her lips to the gaping wound. She drank the remainder, and Cassidy watched in wonder as her paleness seemed to fade just barely from her face. Or maybe it was just because of the dark clouds passing overhead, blocking the moonlight. 

When she was done, she sat back up, eyes half lidded (only adding to the eerie effect her appearance gave off), and lips saturated in blood. It dribbled down her chin and neck, coming to stain the front of her torn dress, and Cassidy caught himself staring. 

“You hunger.” The voice startled Cassidy to the point of him jumping nearly a foot in the air. He looked up at Ide, at her calm expression and broken gaze. 

“What?” he asked. 

She spoke again, her voice now smooth as honey (Cassidy silently wondered if that was due to the amount of blood coating her raw throat but decided that was a question for a different day), and repeated, “You hunger.” 

Shocked at the fact that she was now talking in English to him (albeit with a thicker accent even than his own), Cassidy balked. Then regained his bearings and stammered, “Y-yeah, I— I’m hungry, I— I can’t stop. What— what’s wrong wit’ me?” 

“Stay.” She held out an open palm, as if ordering him to not move, and for some reason, he listened. He watched her disappear into the dark of the forest and return a few minutes later, her eyes wide and hair wildly mussed. She beckoned him with one pale finger. 

He followed her, his wet boots making uncomfortable squeaks as he trampled through the underbrush after her. The clearing she finally stopped in had a heavy stench of something sharp in the air, and he stopped cold at the sight of a man sleeping under a tree just across the space. He took deep, calm breaths, shifting under his woolen blanket as his feet brushed his traveling satchel full of supplies. 

“W-who’s this, eh?” Cassidy stammered softly,  trying to keep his trembling voice low. 

Ide stared him down, squatting near the man and whispering in response, “Traveler. He speak Gàidhlig. Teach En-gliss.” 

“So that’s where yeh’ve been the past few days?” Cassidy shook his head. “Listen, I’m sorry fer what I said—”

She held up a hand to silence him. “Must eat.” Ide pointed to the sleeping man and repeated, “Eat.” 

Cassidy, to his credit, knew what she meant without too many words on Ide’s part. He felt revulsion creeping up his throat, and he pressed a hand to his lips. 

“Ide, I— we can’t kill ‘im,” he cried under his breath. “The animals were bad enough. I just— I just need a good, home-cooked meal an’ I’ll be good as—”

 “I vam-pyre,” Ide snapped, clumsily pronouncing (but pronouncing nonetheless) Cassidy’s word. “You… now vam-pyre.” Her eyes were glistening with something that Cassidy only just realized were tears, and he felt a pang in his chest at the sight. Like watching a little girl get hit by a dog and waiting for someone to tend to her. “Must. Eat.” 

Her cracking voice must have been just loud enough to wake the sleeping man, because he began to stir, blinking in the darkness and smiling as he caught sight of Ide. 

“Hello, lass,” he rumbled sleepily. “Didn’t expect to see ya again…” He glanced at Cassidy and sat up. “An’ who’s this?” 

Ide ignored Cassidy’s silent plea for her to leave the man alone and instead sidled up to him, wrapping one arm around his shoulders and climbing into his lap. The man looked fully awake, now. 

“Fer Pete’s sake, lass, yer forward, ain’t ya?” he chuckled, slurring his words as if he’d been drunk. He eyed Cassidy over her shoulder as he placed a hand on her waist. “This fella botherin’ you, girl?” he growled. Then the man whispered something in Gaelic, and Ide stopped breathing. Her body tensed as she tucked her face into the man’s shoulder and Cassidy started to back up, not wanting to see what was about to happen. 

Too late to look away, he watched as the man’s lustful grin turned into a pained scream, his body writhing as Ide bit into his neck and refused to release him. He struck her hard in the ribs, and Cassidy winced as he heard cracking sounds. Somehow fighting the laws of vampirism (as far as Cassidy knew so far), the dying man flipped Ide onto her back and started to yank himself away from the grip she had on him with her teeth. 

He rammed one knee into her stomach and wrapped his hands around her throat, pulling his bloody head back as he squeezed. It all happened in a matter of seconds, and Cassidy did what any coward would: watch in horror. 

And then Ide made a noise. A small, broken whimper as her windpipe was brutally crushed by the man’s massive hands, and something snapped in Cassidy. 

It wasn’t right, strangling a girl like this, on the forest floor. Notwithstanding the fact that she was a bloodsucker, and a killer, long turned into this monster. Ignoring the fact that she probably couldn’t die this way anyway, Cassidy felt a sense of justice rise up in him like he’d never felt. 

And something about her screamed innocence. Whether it was her faded eyes or moonlight bleached silver hair or scarred skin or tiny frame, it was something ingrained in her, and it touched Cassidy deep. 

He threw himself into the fray, anger surging in his chest, and he wrapped his wiry arms around the man’s neck, dragging him backwards and off of the girl. Ide let out a strangled sound as she was freed, and Cassidy guessed her throat was worse for wear at the moment, seeing as she rolled over in the grass and wheezed weakly for a few minutes as the men grappled. Cassidy felt his own fangs protruding, poking past his lips and he snarled loud, biting down into the meat of the stranger’s neck, at the base of the skull. His teeth hit bone, but he didn’t have time to feel the pain of it before he was being crushed under the man’s spine. Cassidy cried out as he heard bones snapping in his back and chest and one of his shoulders finally collapsed with a sickening pop. 

Suddenly, just as Cassidy was ready to give up on his passionate struggle, Ide was back atop the man, mouth on his neck. He let out one last yell before Ide pulled back, taking his entire jugular and part of his windpipe with her. 

Cassidy shoved the corpse off of himself and panted, grimacing at the awful pain coursing through his entire body. Blood trickled down his chin and chest and back. He briefly wondered how the man had bled so much and realized most of it was his own. 

Dizzy from the fight, Cassidy looked up at Ide and just stared. He expected to be disgusted beyond belief at the prospect of either of them chewing on a human being. He even expected the sight of her to cause him to fall into another fear induced tantrum. 

Instead, he was dumbstruck. 

He watched in awe as she sat back on her haunches, soaked in blood, animalistically biting down hard on the throat of the traveler, her grey pupils wide and alive. Cassidy decided in that moment that he’d never seen someone— anyone, man or woman, so beautiful in all his life. The image took his breath away. 

Or maybe that was the way his lungs had been punctured by his spinal column. Either way, a puppy-love sorta smile broke out on his face and he tried to sit up. 

Ide pulled the lump of flesh out of her mouth and crossed the clearing, pushing it against Cassidy’s lips. He resisted at first, stammering something about morals before sobbing his gratitude and biting down. 

He hated that it was exactly what he’d been thirsting for all this time. He hated that he went back to the body for more after he finished the throat. He hated what he’d become in just a matter of days, after losing everyone he’d ever known and loved. 

But there were things he loved, too, despite it all. He loved how powerful he felt at the taste. He loved how he instantly healed from every ailment as he drank. He loved how close Ide sat beside him and shared in their kill. He loved the way she looked at him like he was hers and no one could ever take that away from either of them. 

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Chapter Text

Cassidy and Ide ate their fill until all that was left of the traveler was a pile of tattered, blood stained clothes. The sense that there was something inherently wrong about devouring a man’s flesh stuck with Cassidy long after he’d chewed the bones and licked them dry. Ide seemed unfazed by the horrors that they’d just endured (as well as inflicted) in the last few hours, but somehow, she still looked radiant as ever. 

Cassidy decided to just stare, for a while, pretending like it wasn’t extremely rude and as if he hadn’t been raised to not do that to nice young women. Ide didn’t seem to mind the attention at first, however. And then she started to squirm, shifting on the earth until her shoulders were hunched and back was turned to him. She craned her neck to keep her eyes on him, though, and Cassidy chuckled. 

“Listen,” he said after a minute of sitting and staring. “I’m sorry fer what I said. An’ fer hittin’ yeh. That was rude o’ me, an’ I’m sorry.” 

Ide blinked, dipping her head to show her acknowledgement. Cassidy continued. 

“An’… thank yeh. Y’know, fer this.” He gestured vaguely to the remaining bone fragments with a grimace. “An’ I got no right ta judge yeh, ‘cause we’re th’ same now. I’m… like you.” He swallowed the tears rising in the back of his throat and avoided Ide’s ethereal gaze. 

She took a deep breath and turned back towards him before responding, and spoke in a staggering accent, struggling over the strange syllables despite her understanding of the language. “We eat for live. Eat body. Eat… man.” 

“That’s…” Cassidy sucked in a breath and wiped a stray smear of blood from his chin. “That’s what vampires do, huh? To live?” 

Ide nodded serenely. Sadly. She swallowed, ducking her head in a way that would hide it, but Cassidy wasn’t about to take his eyes off her. Not in this moment, when she was moonlit and finally at ease beside him. 

“What’s wrong then? Hm?” Cassidy shifted and tried to catch her gaze again. When she didn’t answer, he continued, “I appreciate yeh learnin’ a bit o’ English fer me sake. Lord knows I’m not th’ sharpest knife in the cupboard, certainly not enough ta learn much Gaelic,” he added with a chuckle. 

She looked at him funny at the sound of his soft laughter, and he halted, afraid to incur her wrath, or worse— scare her away to the point of leaving again. But then he remembered that she’d returned. She came back to see him, and feed him. She left ta learn me language, his mind whispered, and he felt color rising into his cheeks. An’ she came back. 

Quickly, he tamped down any hopeful glimpses of selfish romance and instead accepted the idea that Ide had returned because this swamp was her home for years unknown to Cassidy. 

It was somehow still unexpected when she spoke again, in that soft, lilting tone that reminded him of a siren, beckoning him towards the rocks. Cassidy was ready to go willingly. 

“Should learn years ago,” she shrugged. 

“What made yeh decide ta learn the bloody language now, lass?” Cassidy pressed, feeling slightly emboldened by her lack of hostility at the moment. 

Ide’s faded irises flicked from her feet to Cassidy’s face, eyes narrowing. But something soft resonated deep in her gaze, and it made Cassidy realize that she was more scared of him than he was of her. And maybe not only scared… maybe something more. 

He looked away, trying not to read too much into her expression. 

“So this lasts forever, then, eh?” he asked instead of demanding an answer to his last question. 

He stared down at his soggy boots, his bloodstained hands, and then reached up to fondle his new fangs. They shrunk under his touch, and then grew back rapidly as a drop of stray blood dribbled down his dirty wrist and in between his lips. 

He felt his pupils shrink in honed severity, the thirst having been quenched but his instincts begging for another taste. 

Cassidy yanked his hand away, wiping it on his wet shirt and taking deep breaths until the desperation withered and left him. 

Ide answered him softly, then, though the question had already wandered from Cassidy’s focus. 

“Yes. For ever.” Shd lifted one hand, staring at the palm and Cassidy noticed her eyes were slick with tears. She choked out, “We… ollphéist, for ever.” 

“Oll-ollfist? Eh? What’s that?” Cassidy frowned in confusion. 

Ide blinked and lifted her hands to her mouth, pointer fingers outstretched as she bared her teeth and contorted the rest of her face to look threatening. 

Cassidy fumbled and guessed, “Ya mean like a monster?” 

Ide nodded. “Monster.” 

Cassidy swallowed as she continued, “And ollph— monster live in dark. For ever.” She pinned Cassidy with her piercing gaze before standing and speeding back through the woods towards the swamp. 

When Cassidy didn’t immediately follow, he heard her call, “Proinsias! Sun comes!” 

His heart began hammering against his ribs and he peered at the watery light leaking through the thicket. He stood and followed the woman who’d bitten him, ignoring the way he felt when she spoke his name aloud. Ignoring how his cheeks pinkened at the syllables in her graceful accent. Ignoring how he’d gladly sit in the burning, terrible sunlight if Ide ever asked him to. 

Instead, he stumbled over the gravel path and through the weepy grass and finally dove deep into the green water of the bog. 

Ide watched with dreamy eyes as Cassidy kicked, gagged on the dirty sludge around him, blinking sand from his eyes, and sank down to rest on the floor. He dug his fingers into the earth and looked up as morning light started to trickle over the surface of the swamp. 

He missed the moment they had almost shared. And wished they had even a second longer just to talk to one another, in that choppy, misunderstanding way they did. The longing in his chest prompted him to look away from the glimmers of deadly light far above and into Ide’s eyes; soft purple surrounding deep grey fathoms of her pupils. The sight made his chest hitch— no air to choke on, but the sensation remained despite it. 

Everything about her— though terrifying at times, was beautiful. She drew Cassidy in like a moth to a flame… or a vampire to hidden waters… He just wanted to watch her, see her, hear her, be close to her. So he pushed off from the ground to drift through the water and come near, hesitantly kicking his feet in a slow swimming motion. 

Ide drew away, pulling herself with a swift movement of her long arms deeper into the abyss, her face flashing with a desperate expression. Something resembling defensiveness. And beyond that… fear. 

Cassidy frowned, trying with everything in him to portray in his face that he didn’t mean her harm. How could she assume so? After all they’ve been through? Besides, she was th’ one who attacked me, his mind whispered. 

So he tried again, this time pulling his lips up into a soft smile. Ide’s gaze glittered dangerously in the dim light beneath the water’s surface, but she didn’t swim away. 

Instead, she mimicked the smile, scrunching up her nose and twisting her lips into a small curved thing. 

Cassidy let out a watery laugh upon seeing her confused form of a smile, his mouth open wide even as debris and grey water traveled through his esophagus and swirled around his face. 

The muffled sound from his throat made Ide jolt, and she mirrored him once more, pulling her lips wide to reveal her rows of glimmery white fangs, a distant stain of crimson coating the enamel of each. The sight caught Cassidy off-guard, but he didn’t flinch. He hardly let himself blink, wanting to soak up every inch of this creature’s beauty in the moments he could. 

Almost like magic, a swath of sunlight broke the surface of the murky waters above and shone directly down over Ide’s body, illuminating her long pale limbs and billowing silver hair. Shadows caught on the numerous scars on her arms and legs, and Cassidy’s gaze was dragged down over the once-painful wounds all along her. 

Yellow morning light crept into the spaces between the fabric of Ide’s tattered dress, revealing glimpses of her smooth torso and jutting hip bones beneath. Cassidy sucked in a lungful of tainted water and turned his head away fast, forcing his eyes down to the sandy bog floor. 

A heat rose in his chest, and filled his face– he was blushing, surely, but he refused to let his eyes take something he hadn’t been given explicit and English permission to take. 

Ide shifted, and all at once she was gone from the sliver of filtered light and disappearing into the shadows of the bog beyond. Cassidy could see the flash of white of her feet kicking off as she swam through drifting weeds and chunks of waterlogged wood. 

His mind flicked instantly back to the day she’d left the first time– albeit to learn some English, but she’d left nonetheless and a worry struck him deep in the chest that she would leave again. Flailing his arms, which felt unnaturally heavy under the water, he swam after her, letting himself adjust to the awkward sensation of swimming in such deep and dark waters. Cassidy squinted in the shafts of murky light from above, following the ripples left in Ide’s wake like a beacon. 

The woman kicked her feet with practiced precision, pulling herself along with ease through debris of the bog. Cassidy kicked and kicked, straining with the weight of himself and he finally stopped, panting and letting the bogwater travel in and out his lungs– still uncomfortable but quickly growing familiar. The Irishman bent and let himself float gently towards the earth until he was propped on his haunches, and one at a time, he lifted his legs and wrenched his rotting boots from his feet. 

Instantly, he felt a freeing feeling at having his skin further exposed in the depths of the icy water, and wiggled his toes before yanking off his socks, too. It was gratifying, in a sick sort of way, to bury his feet in the slimy muck and muddy bottom of the swamp. For the first time in his entire miserable life, Cassidy felt at one with a part of nature like he’d never felt before. 

Except maybe the beach. Cassidy thought back to it with a sigh of bubbles, shutting his eyes against the dimness surrounding him. 

The beach… where his mother had taken him and his brother when it was just the two of them, before the twins came along followed by all his countless sisters. They’d pack a picnic basket with fruit and cheese from the cows and little sandwiches with fresh baked bread. Cormac, the little gobshite, Cassidy thought back to him fondly, a smile creeping onto his face. He would run into the water at full tilt, arms outstretched as he went, Cassidy following with trepidation in every step. 

Cassidy would never feel the warmth of the summer sun on his skin again. The sand between his toes that he felt now would never be the same Irish ocean water that used to warm him to the bone. 

Unable to tell whether he had tears coming out his eyes or not, Cassidy started to cry gently, his chest hitching and sputtering, filled with dirty water. He sat there for a time, mind quite literally bogged down with such pain of his loss that he didn’t remember to keep following Ide into the depths. 

Luckily enough for him, the girl had noticed his odd behavior and stopped just beyond his sightline, sinking to the floor and staring out towards him, her grey eyes wide and curious. Cassidy eventually opened his back up, and spotted her hiding in the aquatic brush, his face instantly filling with embarrassment. 

He opened his mouth to explain, yet again forgetting his inability to do so underwater, and promptly shut it. Ide swam away, and this time, Cassidy did not follow. 

He had some proper mourning to do. 

Chapter Text

…

“I’m sick o’ this,” Cassidy complained, licking the quickly cooling blood of a pheasant from his palm. 

Ide lifted her head from her rabbit, crimson trickling down her chin in a way that made Cassidy’s heart skip. “Sick?” she echoed. 

Cassidy worked a feather out from his fang and rectified, “Tired. Don’t want no more o’ it.” 

“O’… eat?” Ide tried. 

Cassidy shook his head. “No, no, I–” He hated to admit how much he loved their nightly feedings, after nearly a week of living below the surface of the water and coming out at night to hunt, he’d grown a fondness for their moonlit meals. “O’ this–” He gestured between the two of them and Ide remained deadpan. “Only bein’ able ta talk at night, ya know what I mean, lass? I wanna spend the days breathin’ air and sittin’ in th’ grass like a person, like,” he explained. 

Ide frowned. “We not peer-sun.” Shook her head and corrected, “Purr-sun.” 

“Person.” 

“Pair-son.” 

“Got it.” Cassidy offered her an encouraging smile, which she did not return. It quickly disappeared though, as his train of thought came back around. “I can’t waste me life at th’ bottom o’ th’ bog, Ide.” 

“No life,” she hissed, squeezing the remaining chunk of her animal carcass, and Cassidy winced at the sound of bones cracking. “No more life. Marbh, an bheirt againn.” It was her turn to gesture between the two of them. 

“Just because o’ whatever th’ hell yeh just said, don’t mean we gotta punish ourselves by living down there!” Cassidy argued, his voice breaking. He could see tears– clean, fresh, salty tears blooming in Ide’s eyes and he softened. “We didn’t ask fer this.” 

Ide appeared hurt for the first time since that night the man had strangled her and something snapped in Cassidy’s brain. She looked away, letting her silver r hair fall into her scarred face. 

The boy looked down, seeing his ratty soldier’s uniform and sighed softly, sadly. Blood stained the greenish cloth, murky water settling in a near-constant trickle down his limbs as he sat in the cool night air at the edge of the bog. 

Then repeated, mostly to himself this time, “We didn’t ask fer any o’ this.” 

Ide sighed, too, the sound still strangely foreign to Cassidy’s ears. He had grown used to hearing her growl threateningly and hiss her need for personal space in these past few days. 

“Spend day in bog… for not see self,” Ide whispered. Cassidy looked up from the pile of discarded feathers in his lap and frowned, his chest constricting with emotion. He hardly knew this monster of a girl and yet… any distress of hers caused him tenfold. “Spend in bog for cold. For rot. For not sound.” She covered her ears and shut her eyes as if to demonstrate her point. “For dark.” When she opened them again, and let her hands fall to her lap, Cassidy’s breath caught in his throat at the unearthly sight. “Monster, Proinsias… monster no life. Monster die.” 

She stood, then, wiping her dirty hands on the crumbling remains of her dress and stared down at the man she’d turned. “Want die in bog, far of sun.” 

With that cryptic message, she walked back into the water and slinked into the darkness, leaving Cassidy alone. 

The man swallowed thickly, his stomach suddenly roiling in distaste. He hated being alone. 

…

The next morning, early enough that Ide was in a mood to be left by herself yet late in the day enough for the sun to cause a wickedly fatal scorching to any blood suckers that may have decided to surface, Cassidy found the Gaelic girl hiding in a wallow at the bottom of the swamp.

He grabbed her attention from afar by flailing wildly, kicking his legs out and shaking his head back and forth, rather obnoxious like. The girl feigned annoyance, as usual, but Cassidy could catch a glimmer of curiosity in her bleached eyes. He grinned around the swirling mass of bubbles he’d created and beckoned her with one hand. 

Ide seemed to debate on whether or not to waste her time following the man while he appeared completely out of his mind with undue excitement, but finally yielded to her own curiosity and swam out of the reeds to approach him. 

Cassidy’s smile grew wider and he reached out as if to take her hand in his own before stopping at the sight of her violent flinch. He pulled his hands back toward himself, pale face twisting with apologetic embarrassment, and beckoned once more, kicking himself backwards. 

Ide followed obediently, her soft brow knit in confusion. 

The young Irishman finally turned– when he was sure the woman beneath the water was close behind– and hurried into the bog, ducking between weeds and debris and sunken driftwood until after a lot of frantic swimming, he reached a spot that seemed to be blocked off, near the opposite end of the swamp. 

The marshlands stood just beyond the underwater wall– made of broken stones wrapped in aquatic plants, apparently impassable. 

Ide started to drift back to the familiarity of the bottom of the bog, when Cassidy stopped her with a fierce look. A look of pleading. 

The man changed direction in the water and started toward a dark spot beneath one of the large stones blocking the supposed path beyond, before pulling himself all the way to the earth and crawling through. Ide jolted in surprise, her purple eyes flickering in the dim light of the depths as she stared down at the space where the boy had disappeared. 

Waiting for him to resurface, she stayed floating in limbo until the bubbles stopped trickling from underneath the stone. Then, worry creeping along her spine, Ide carefully found herself slipping low to the bog floor and peering into the space where Cassidy had gone. 

All at once, his face appeared from the darkness beyond, startling Ide to hiss silently– muffledly, and recoil. He just grinned, waving for her to follow before vanishing backwards again, behind the stone. 

Ide let out a soft, bubbly sigh and contemplated. She wondered, sometimes, why she hadn’t just killed this man when she had the chance. Not that she couldn’t now, if she really wanted to. But that was the strange thing– she didn’t have any desire to bite into him. In fact, she found herself thinking of his soft eyes and kind smile as she struggled to sleep during the day. 

Before she dragged him into her swamp and let him learn her ways, Ide would spend every waking moment trying to quench her undying hunger. All she felt was the cold emptiness of her stomach as she swam aimlessly through the bog water, day in and day out. 

Now… Cassidy had brought a bizarre peace to her. A warmth Ide couldn’t remember ever feeling before. 

A muffled call broke into the girl’s scattered thoughts, and she made a final decision to trust this stranger– and ducked to swim under the stone behind him. 

It was dark– darker than the rest of the bog, in this place beyond the makeshift stone wall. As if no sunlight broke the surface here. 

Ide gazed around the watery space, her face turning to a scowl as she realized Cassidy was nowhere to be seen. She heard the call again– coming from above, and started to swim, her long-numb heart pumping with the rotten blood of innocents. 

She could see Cassidy’s legs far above her, kicking wildly, the call continuing. Ide’s throat began to close. An emotion she forgot the word for filled her, a type of fear clutching her tiny ribcage as she shot to the surface and grabbed for his ankle. 

Her hand, slick with slimy cold bogwater, slid over his boot as he pulled away and out of the water, disappearing once more. This time to a place Ide could not follow. 

“PROINSIAS!” Ide cried through the muck, a stream of grey bubbles flying from her throat as she stared upwards in horror. 

She could hear the man’s muffled voice from past the sheen of dirty water above her, “Ide! Come up!” 

Ide was shaking– a weakness she’d normally never show to the light of day, or rather the moonlight of silent nights— and yet it racked her body like a seizure, now: at the fear that a boyish stranger with dark eyes and stubble might be burning up in the air above her head. 

She broke the surface with a scream of rage and terror and shock and pleading, arms outstretched and eyes shut tight as she awaited the sting of fire to engulf her skin. 

Instead, she felt nothing but cool air, a pleasant sensation that was laced with a strange warmth of daylight that she hadn’t felt in decades. Ide opened her eyes and stared around her, marveling at a clearing of water— like a separated little pond, surrounded by murky land and looming trees, a canopy providing ample shade. Enough to protect the vampires below from any sunlight. 

Cassidy’s voice was high and lilting as he laughed, kicking a bootful of water over the back of Ide’s head, and the girl spun, fangs bared and body tensed. 

Relief— though she couldn’t possibly name the sensation— flooded her like her waterlogged lungs at the sight of Cassidy resting safely and soaked in the shade of a huge tree. His trousers sagged with dank water, his hair dripping into his dark eyes as he leaned back on his palms and grinned lopsidedly. 

Ide let out a low growl, willing herself to appear angry beyond belief, despite her huge joy to see him sitting above water in the daytime without bursting into flame. 

“Oh don’t be like that, eh?” Cassidy tried, pouting his lower lip like a sad puppy. Maybe Ide was growing soft, but that look made her forget her rage in an instant. “Oi, come on up ‘ere, then,” he said, reaching out one hand toward her over the water. 

The woman hesitated yet again— considering her options carefully. Somehow, for the first time in forever, she felt like taking his hand was worth more than hiding away. 

Her body quaking visibly, eyes narrowed and pinned to the boy who was once her prey, Ide lifted one hand out of the water and held onto Cassidy’s. He pulled, and all at once, Ide had broken the tradition of never emerging in daylight. 

It was a beautiful thing— this world of light and warmth so long denied the poor girl. She felt her eyes widen as she tried to soak up every color of the leaves and brush around her, Cassidy helping her onto the shore and into the soft, mossy grove beside him. Ide choked and sputtered on water, emptying her lungs into the bog before recovering and staring up at the sky in fear.

A thick canopy of leaves blocked out any sliver of direct sunlight from them, yet diluted the brightness enough to provide illumination in the entire clearing. 

“Well?” Cassidy grinned at her hopefully and Ide glowered. 

“What place?” she ground out through her teeth.

“It’s a– actually, I don’t really know what ta call it,” the boy chuckled, scratching at the layer of stubble growing in along his sharp jaw.

“Glade.” Ide’s ragged chest heaved gently beneath her tattered dress as she breathed in the sun-soaked air. 

Cassidy turned to look at her in wonder. “Yeah,” he sighed softly. “That’s it.” 

“How much– days you come here?” Ide tripped over her words, heart swelling at Cassidy’s unending patience with her. 

“‘Ow many days? Just this mornin’,” he admitted. “I mean, I was lookin’ all since last night– what I said, I meant it, Ide,” he said, dark eyes twinkling in his pale face. “I don’t wanna live out my days down there.” He must have sensed Ide’s hurt at his words, because he softened even more and added, “Monster or not.” 

“You… find place?” Ide rectified, rolling the word around her tongue– tasting it, “Glade?” 

“I sure did,” Cassidy boasted, looking up at the golden-tinted green of the leaves above their heads, mimicking the green of the bog water when the sun shone through. “For us.” He swallowed, head still tipped upwards, and Ide watched his throat bob. Usually she’d be ravenous at the sight, and yet this made her feel… warm. Cassidy looked at the girl, his cheeks lightening to a nervous pink. “For you,” he whispered. 

Ide couldn’t name these feelings she was experiencing, let alone decipher them. So as her heart was hammering unsteadily in her cage of rib bones, and her body begged to touch him, Ide did what she thought might quell the sudden fire inside.

She tackled him. 

The Irishman let out a squeal, tossing her up and over his shoulder with the momentum of her leap. The two wrestled playfully in the long grass of the glade, bumping tree trunks and scraping knees on exposed roots– falling and coming to rest in a hollow beneath a swaying willow. 

Cassidy was lying with his elbows buried in the peat below his body, still-wet clothes dripping dirty water down his limbs, as he stared up into Ide’s faded eyes. 

She was panting, feeling the rise and fall of the man’s chest under her palms as he breathed in the same choppy way. 

A feeling– an urge rushed through Ide’s body, from the pit of her empty stomach to the ends of her fingers, a temptation to commit to something she’d never even known the name of. The feeling welled and suffocated her, from every angle of the dark forest beyond, and every rotting cell in her pale body– a feeling she quickly confused with fear, and hurried to shove off of Cassidy and jump into the water. 

The bog dragged her down, deep, and she squeezed back through the hole in the wall and hid herself away where she knew Cassidy couldn’t find her. Ide assumed she’d want to sob– another thing she refused to allow herself the luxury of– or become enraged and devour the nearest animal she could find. 

Instead, she found herself smiling. She couldn’t stifle the bubbly feeling in her chest at the very thought of her new friend– this was new, this was dangerous. 

It made her hungry in a way she’d never felt. She practically thirsted for Cassidy’s presence, now. 

And she would quench her thirst one way or another. 

…