A First Friend for the Faoladh

 Aodhgan and Eochaid grew up in Osraige with only their family as friends. Their fortune with regard to friendship changed once a certain someone came along:

                The evening was soon approaching, and the king’s residence was alive with animation, the thrum and bustle of preparation overtaking the main hall: the cook and her assistants brought out the meats and encouraged the fire, the windows were hung round with fine festoons, and all the little cousins were scampering about, running in and out of legs while the tables were being arranged and chairs setting down. Myndil watched and cooed in the elation of what was coming, standing on his toes and clapping his hands at his heart.

                “This is going to be my very first feast,” he declared, “--well, not my first feast ever, because we do have feasts for holidays—but certainly my first wedding feast. I’ve never celebrated a wedding before. I know there will be cake, but will there be dancing and music? And do we all get to sing before the bride and groom and wish them a joyous life together?”

                Myndil clasped his hands and pined wistfully at Eochaid.

                “Everyone else would want to know whether there would be mead for the feast,” Eochaid simpered. “Only you would want to know about singing.”

                “It’s very important,” said Myndil feelingly. “It acts as a sort of blessing for the married couple, and everyone wants to see the two of you be happy ever after.” Myndil spied the cook setting down the giant spit over the fire. “Oh, I’m so excited! This is almost as exciting as when the abbot first came to the abbey. I could hardly refrain from saying how excited I was every few minutes.”

                It was really every few seconds, but Myndil’s propensity to talk about everything to everybody made him a poor judge of time, his ramblings making every minute feel like ten and all hope of escape from the penury of his conversation irrelevant.

                A little collection of many small cousins suddenly crowded around his feet. They sniffed his robes, touched his hems, and peered into his pockets, their inquisitive looks demanding to know who their visitor was.

                “Oh, hallo there!” Myndil chimed, patting a few of them on the head. “Are you excited for the celebration this evening?”

                One of the children curled his nose at Myndil. “Are you one of our cousins?” he asked, sniffing the air.

                “No, I’m only a visitor, here to marry Eochaid—rather, here to marry Eochaid to Lady Eadaoine. Are you all Aodhgan and Eochaid’s cousins?”

                “Probably,” said Eochaid, watching one of the children fumble over his feet. “We’re all related somehow, which is why we have to marry someone from outside the kingdom usually.”

                “Do you have any cousins?” one of the children asked Myndil, in a tiny voice, his chin resting against Myndil’s leg.

                “Not that I know of. I don’t know whether my mother and father had siblings, so I’m not sure if I ever had any cousins. If I do have any, I’ve never met them.”

                The child gasped. “Not-a-one cousin?”

                “No, not one.”

                The children looked at one another all aghast.

                “But when God found out you didn’t have any cousins,” another child added, “didn’t he send you cousins from the place where cousins come from?”

                “I didn’t know there was divine cousinerie,” Myndil mused. “Maybe that’s why he sent me Aodhgan. I’m an orphan, you know, and haven’t got any family of any kind, but I have so many friends, I’m sure to never feel alone, especially because God is always with me.”

                The children seemed not to understand about the nature of Myndil’s god. “Is he your cousin?”

                “God is my very best friend in the world,” Myndil ardently declared. “Do you have friends?”

                “We have cousins,” Eochaid explained. “And we siblings, whether we want them or not.”

                “But you must have friends outside of your family. You invited me to your wedding-- didn’t you invite the rest of your friends also?”

                Eochaid laughed and patted Myndil on the head. “You’re the rest, Myndil.”  

                Myndil blinked. “What do you mean?”

                “I’m sure you saw the way Aodhgan is usually treated when he walks through a town.” Eochaid put his hand Myndil’s shoulder and gave it an affectionate press. “Wolves usually stay among their own, Myndil. It’s not preferred but it’s easier that way. That’s why everyone is so eager to meet you. You’re Aodhgan’s first friend.”

                “Oh, isn’t that wonderf—” Myndil paused and caught up with himself. “--What? I cannot be his first friend. What about you, Eochaid? You were his first friend surely.”

                Eochaid looked arch. “He raised me. He has to like me.”

                “But what about everybody else you grew up with? Aed and Caoimhin and Caoilte?”

                “We’re all related in the king’s house. Everyone here is a cousin of someone else.”

                “But what about all the people who live in the villages and towns? You must have friends there—there are so many people to talk to—it’s impossible not to have any friends at all with so many people nearby.”

                “It’s impossible for you to have none, Myndil,” said Eochaid, smiling and pointing at Myndil’s chest, “but most of us in Osraige don’t make friends outside of our father’s house. Foreigners are not fond of our wolves.”

                Myndil’s heart began to sink. “But Lady Eadaoine is your friend…” he offered ruefully.

                “I hope she is,” said Eochaid sagaciously. “We’re getting married. If she didn’t like me, that would be along time to be miserable. We did begin as friends, but we’ll be family by tomorrow evening, and everyone else I know is related to me.”

                “Deaglan isn’t related to you,” Eadaoine added, coming into the hall from behind them.

                Eochaid turned and grinned at her. “Deaglan and I aren’t friends.”

                She tutted and shook her head. “Never mind him, Myndil. Eochaid does not have friends because he is insufferable.”

                Eochaid drew her close and leaned his head against hers. “I hope you like insufferable ever after.”

                Eadaoine indulged him with quiet mirth, but Myndil was silent; he was thinking, and thinking of something without asking god for help about it. He had never known what it was not to have friends. From the time he was five years old, from the first moment he was brought to the orphanage, he was met with his very first friends: Sister Iarlaith, Brother Crannach, and Brother Vindimir. They taught him what it was to treat everyone like a friend, and showed him how important attachment was and how nourishing a friendship could be. He made friends wherever he went because he had not been taught to do otherwise, and was always friends with people whether they wanted to be friends or no.

                There were no such things as strangers; there were only people Myndil had not happened to yet. His best friends were those who accepted his happening to them and loved him for it anyway.

                It was incomprehensible to him that someone as loveable and caring as Aodhgan could not have a friend; claws and fangs meant nothing where nightly nestles were concerned.

                “So…” Myndil began, a confusion of feeling breaking over his face, “You and Aodhgan never had a friend growing up?”

                Eochaid shook his head. “I had him, and unfortunately for him, he had me, and we both had our father, but no friends beyond everyone you see here.”

                “Oh.”

                Myndil fidgeted, and Eochaid heard the faint tinkling sounds of Myndil’s heart shattering.

                “Remember when I told you about Aodhgan’s difficulties of finding suitors,” said Eochaid, in a gentle voice. “I don’t think you believed me.”

                Myndil’s whole body frowned. “But Aodhgan is so cuddlesome,” he protested.

                “He is, but perhaps not everyone deserves to know him that way.”

                A resolution suddenly seized Myndil, and his lips pooled tightly together. “Well,” he huffed, pounding his fist against his palm, “I shall be friend enough for both of us. I will love him and be his best friend ever, so he shall never feel lonely again.”

                Myndil gave a humph! of determination, and Eochaid and Eadaoine shared a doting look.

                “You already are, Myndil,” Eochaid assured him. “I’ve never seen Aodhgan so happy.”

                Aodhgan suddenly marched into the hall, and Myndil immediately leapt up and attacked him with hugs.

                Aodhgan was accustomed to affectionate tackles from the children at the orphanage, but that Myndil should have done it when they had only be away from one another for an hour was concerning. “I wasn’t gone long,” said Aodhgan, looking down at the top of Myndil’s head and letting him hang from his torso.

                “No,” Myndil moped,” nestling his cheek against him, “but I shall never leave you for a moment again!”

                He pressed his face into Aodhgan’s chest and hugged him as hard as he could, and Aodhgan looked to Eochaid for an answer.

                “What happened?” Aodhgan demanded, lifting Myndil into the bend of one arm and cradling him against his shoulder.

                Eochaid smiled. “I think he  became too excited, cousin.”

                “Mm smm mmxmted,” Myndil mummed, his face planted into Aodhgan’s shoulder.

                Aodhgan leaned his head against Myndil and caressed him like a fond parent caressing a child, patting him on the back and whispering a consoling, “There, there…”

                Eadaoine’s heart bloomed in delight. “Your friend really is so precious,” said she, speaking to Eochaid in a whisper. “Can we keep him?”

                “We could,” Eochaid replied, with a wry smile, “but not if you want to have peace in our house.”

                “Do not be cruel to him. You see how much he loves you both.”

                They watched Aodhgan walk with Myndil, bobbing him up and down, showing him all the decorations fitting up around the hall.

                “He’s good for your cousin, I think,” Eadaoine remarked. “I remember how sullen he was when I fist met him. His stands with his chest high and head in the clouds, but his eyes were so sad.”

                “I think Bhaldruithe also has something to do with it,” said Eochaid, watching his cousin toss Myndil playfully in the air.

                Eadaoine gave a start; it felt like her ears had broken. “Is that his lady’s name?”

                “It is, which is why everyone refers to her as the abbess.”

                “Good God, her given name is nearly as bad as my family name.”

                “Fortunately, that will change tomorrow.”

                “MacCellaig is easier to say, but does it have character, I wonder?” Here was an arch look. “Does Myndil have a family name?”

                “He told me once his family name was Plodostirr.”

                Eadaoine seemed bemused. “Surely you mean Plosdottir?”

                “I don’t,” said Eochaid, with a broad smile.

                “Oh, dear,” said she, with ready sympathy. “Does he know?”

                “No, but that’s part of what makes him so endearing.”

                She watched Aodhgan set Myndil on his feet and muss his hair about. “You chose well for a first friend, mo cuisle. If only we all had a Myndil to love us so well.”

                “There is only one person in the world who deserves Myndil as a friend,” said Eochaid, motioning toward Aodhgan. “Everyone else deserves him as an enemy.”

                “I don’t think Myndil is capable of being an antagonist.”

                “Not purposely.”

                Eochaid pumped his brows, and Eadaoine held back a laugh while telling her soon-to-be husband to be kind.