Aodhgan's Advice

We all feel like this at one point or another. A little moment between Karla and Aodhgan:

 

Karla sat and hugged her knees. She watched Darryn getting on with a few of the villagers, the farmers asking him about the best wood for building a fence. “Aodhgan?” said she, still watching Darryn.

Aodhgan turned. “Hrm?”

“What do you do when people are mean to you?”

 He gave her a curious look. “You mean when people accuse me of being a monster?”

Karla nodded and seemed distressed. “When people don’t like you for no reason.”

Aodhgan watched her follow Darryn across the field, but he sensed that the question was meant more about herself. He moved closer to her and looked thoughtful. “When I was young, all the unpleasantness from other people I experienced would happen whenever I left our kingdom.”

“So, you stopped leaving?”

“For a time, but there were times when I had to go to other kingdoms to do things for my father. My father is really my uncle—his brother, my birth father, died when I was young, and Eochaid’s father became a father to me.”

Karla’s brows did the heavy work. “So, you’re really brothers then, you and your cousin?”

“We are, but don’t tell him I said so.”

Here was a sly wink, and Karla held up her small finger to suggest that she promised not to say anything about it.

“Whenever someone outside of our kingdom would point at me or shout at me and tell me to leave, I would always just return home and seek my father’s company. He would always tell me that I did right and that fighting or challenging those who hated me was not the answer. I know coddling me perhaps wasn’t the best thing to do, but it made me feel better.” And with a graver aspect, Aodhgan added, “But when people who didn’t like me began visiting me at home, it was not so easy to ignore them. They were diplomatic visitors, and I had to be civil to them. Practicing patience, especially to those who did not deserve it, was a trial.”

The smiles in the corners of Karla’s mouth grew stronger. “Did you ever throw them out of your kingdom?”

“I may have done and said some things that made them want to leave sooner than they would have liked, but I learned a better way to deal with them.”

Karla turned and looked expectantly at him.  

“I learned to help others who want to be helped.” Aodhgan glanced at Myndil in the near distance. He was talking the ears off one of the local sheep and telling her what a nice name Daphne was. “There is no changing the mind of someone who hates you without reason,” Aodhgan continued. “The only thing you can do to make yourself feel better is to help someone who needs you. My uncle Finngeal taught me this indirectly. He was a difficult man for many reasons. He knew many people disliked him, so he chose to spend his time either teaching me or helping my father. He told me that he welcome hatred, because it gave him leave to do what he wanted.”

Karla nodded and hummed. “Did it ever bother him, or was he ever lonely?”

“Maybe when he was younger, but he was always with us. He had a wife who loved him, he had a son, and even though he was really my great uncle, he was always Uncle Finngeal to us.”

The light in Karla’s eyes suddenly dimmed. “I wished I had family like that for a long time.”

Karla was silent, and Aodhgan felt his heart in his throat.

“Did someone hurt you?” said he, in a quiet voice.

Karla shook her head. “Not in the same way that Darryn was hurt. People used to throw rocks at him and shoo him away from the village. That never happened to me, but I was a slave for a while, and at times I was very lonely.”

“May I ask how you freed yourself?”

Karla looked up at him, the light in her eyes brightening. “A big man who was disliked by everyone helped me.”