Strange Sights

*‘Nothing’s ruined,’ Ash said again. ‘We’ve weathered everything life has thrown at us, haven’t we? Sure as fuck we’ll weather this too.’*

## Summary

The Each Uisge and the Glashtyn – predatory waterhorses with a penchant for eating humans. But in the fae world they’re known as Augus and Ash, two brothers entangled in each other’s lives despite not seeing each other often since Ash moved out. When Ash visits Augus at his lake one day, looking for some company, he sees something he can’t forget. It launches an obsession that ends up having serious consequences for the both of them.

A *Fae Tales* AU about a relationship between Augus and Ash.

## Characters

#### Ash Glashtyn

Ash is Augus' younger brother and a waterhorse. 'When he was younger – *too young –*he’d moved out of home. He’d had his bags over his shoulders and human money and fae items for trade and barter, he’d joked about how he’d be back crying in a day, in three days. It was an uncomfortable joke, because he was crying when he *left,* and Augus didn’t seem anything beyond concerned about him and not particularly upset. But they’d not been talking as well at the time, it was becoming harder for Ash to read Augus, and Augus had never been forthcoming about his feelings. Sure, Augus had raised him. Sure, they’d made it through hard times as underfae. But Augus still always needed Ash to be the little brother, always needed to be playing a certain role, and Ash was sick of it, and they’d fought on and off in the months leading up to his moving away.

The fact was he’d broken down within hours of leaving, and by the third day he was exhausted and dehydrated and heartbroken, furious at the idea of Augus calmly going about his business at home. He told himself he’d go back at the end of the week, when he felt like he was less likely to end up in tears seeing him again. A week had become two, then three, and then by the fourth he was distracting himself with drugs and alcohol and fucking, and by the time he realised a month had gone past, he realised he’d been away too long and Augus might be angry at him, or worse, might be *fine.* He’d stayed away longer. He’d given himself alcohol poisoning and couldn’t go to a human hospital for it. He knew enough to know that he’d nearly died. Nearly died and still didn’t feel like he could go back to Augus to see if he had anything to help him in his herbalism kit.'

Ash is 'mischievous.' He often drinks alcohol, despite the fact that it's poisonous. He has a reputation of stealing from the fae, particularly from distilleries, which has caused him to be blacklisted from them. He also has many different partners. 'Nothing about the body repulsed Ash, it never had.' He also wrestles, so he's quite strong.

Ash's hair is 'streaked liberally with red, waterweed cut short.' 'He possessed short, curly hair that invited people to touch it. His eyelashes were not quite all one colour, lighter shades of red and brown in the mix.' He also has hazel eyes. When he's drunk, his dra'ocht ratcheted up like 'an electrical warmth that shimmered off him.' Ash is shorter and broader than Augus. Augus noted that 'Ash’s skin was so much more olive than his, a life spent aboveground in the sun, but also he was just born darker.' His waterhorse voice, which he detests, is 'deep and forbidding'.

#### Ashton

A magical construct copy of Ash using schema crystals, which Ash made for his birthday. Ash originally called him 'Mister Sarcastic'. Augus called him the Glashtyn. 'Ashton seemed the most different of the three [Ashes]. . . . Ashton was mostly silent, taciturn, his hazel eyes perpetually bright, his curly hair darker than average. But he was biddable, and a smirk alit upon his face every time Augus’ name was mentioned that seemed promising enough.'

Augus noted that Ashton was particularly cruel. While Ash and Nice Ash were busy, Ashton assaulted Augus, noting that he wanted Augus dead and to claim Augus' lake. Augus finally managed to get Ash's attention, and Ash smashed the schema crystals, destroying the constructs.

#### Augus Each Uisge

Augus is Ash's older brother and a waterhorse. There were six Each Uisge before Augus. 'There was only one Each Uisge; and there could only be one at a time. No one knew who had made the rules, but those were the rules and they were inviolate. To make up for this, the Each Uisge returned, called back into existence by a lake whenever a previous Each Uisge died. The last six Each Uisge had each built a reputation around the same identity, that of a single, malicious creature. Glorious and beautiful, charming and dangerous, sinister and serious. . . . The seventh Each Uisge called into existence was anomalous from birth. A tad too fastidious. Fantastically powerful. Far more thoughtful than the calculating creatures that had gone before. The fae will never know whether the introduction of another young horse changed him, or if he was already changed. But when the seventh Each Uisge was young, the lake he lived in spat out a tiny runt of a thing; a dappled, bedraggled colt. . . . *Starved . . .* Underfed from the very moment the spirits of the lakes didn’t talk to each other and you were born at the wrong place, at the wrong time. It seemed nature intended for you to die, killed by the Each Uisge, a Glashtyn’s lifetime snuffed out in but a moment.' . . . [But something] overcame the Each Uisge. Instead of tearing that tiny thing apart, he fed it. . . . He was not like the other Each Uisge that had gone before. Oh, he would grow to love the lust of the kill. He was Unseelie down to his very bones. But he was not quite so mindless. He *thought* about that tiny runt, and forced thought before instinct, dominating his own will, telling the part of him that was teeth and the tearing of flesh to *wait*.’ ‘But it was too hard to keep it up in waterhorse form . . . He had to make himself look human. A different shaped brain, a different body, better able to carry thought and not instinct. He had to be even more different, spend far less time in waterhorse form than most.’

When Ash moved out, and stayed away for a year, Augus was afraid after three months that a rival waterhorse had found him, among other fears. Augus takes clients for healing work. Augus noted that Ash broke Augus' core and heartsong during their first time together, and was upset when Ash left him alone to deal with it. At one point during a later encounter, Augus managed to tie Ash up for answers about what was going on. They worked out an arrangement together, which mostly worked until Ash's birthday, when Ash used schema crystals to make copies of himself. When the magical construct more like the Glashtyn assaulted Augus, Ash broke the crystals, and he and Augus talked their relationship over again. Augus noted, ‘I’ve been contemplating the possibility of apprenticing to a healer'. He ultimately did so, and became a level 1 healer. He didn't become a green or brown healer, and instead combined his specialties.

Ash calls Augus 'austere', 'private', and 'reclusive'. Augus 'didn’t like staying at places other than his home, with his rooms, his pantry, his bed.' Augus 'was usually so composed, so calm, even in his anger. The exception was when he was throwing tantrums over minor things, and they were always an exception precisely because they were *minor.'* Augus is also 'competent at herb-lore for freshwater fae.' He makes his 'own poultices, tinctures, salves and more' for himself and Ash. He also has a 'side hobby . . . trading in rare herbs and ointments in exchange for half the things' in his house. He also knows wortcunning and how fae minds work. Augus is also a homebody, in great part because the Each Uisge prefers to hibernate at the bottom of the lake when not feeding.

Augus has black hair, with bangs. He also has pale skin, and the pale skin and black hair are typical for waterhorses. Augus is considered very attractive: 'significant chunks of the fae world held him up as an example of Unseelie fae beautiful; charming, menacing, androgynous in appearance, always a calculating glint in those green eyes.' 'Augus knew he had fine features, that he had a reserved beauty about him'. After passing his initiations for becoming a healer, he gained 'a waterproofed, wooden kit', which he carried with him.

#### Nice Ash

A magical construct copy of Ash using schema crystals, which Ash made for his birthday. 'Nice Ash had a sweet-tempered sense of humour, seemed enthusiastic about everything that was to occur, talked about how gorgeous Augus was.' He was destroyed when Ash broke the schema crystals.

## Locations

#### Ash Glashtyn's lake

Ash likes bringing Augus to stay here once every three years 'for the weekend and seemed to think that Augus needed to be drunk for it to happen.' Augus was typically 'deeply unimpressed' by Ash's lake. 'The foyer itself was nothing more than a cluttered space filled with sneakers and Converse and the leather boots Ash used for clubbing, jackets and coats tossed in a heap, many of them designer labels, all of them treated like they were second-hand.' In the foyer, Ash keeps a 'gaudy, orange towel' to dry out his hair after they teleport, and a 'nice, charcoal grey' one for Augus.

The lounge had a 'long, overstuffed, comfortable dark red couch to the right, an assortment of cushions – none of them matching – piled in one corner and on the ground beside it, next to folded and unfolded blankets, signs of the nests that Ash made for himself when he was recovering from benders, or wanted to watch DVDs. He had his own generator half-fuelled by magic, a television, a DVD player, gaming consoles that he rarely used except to play *FIFA 13* when he was bored. There were DVDs scattered everywhere, along with their cases, gaudy and bright and housing a technology that Augus wasn’t interested in. There was a single, floor-to-ceiling bookshelf up against the wall leading to Ash’s kitchen, filled with high quality whisky, stacks of boardgames, several rows of philosophy books down the bottom. To the right was a four seater table which had been used as a wide, flat shelf.' Ash had some of the jars Augus had stored food in, which he'd stolen, sitting on the shelf. Ash also had a lamp he left on at all times by the couch.

On one wall was a 'large, detailed map on the wall. It was covered in coloured thumb-tacks, post-it notes, notes in red sharpie. It detailed all the bars, pubs and cafes that Ash liked to visit or didn’t want to visit again. And where Augus’ lake was, a bare patch of wall behind a ripped off piece of map. Ash had scribbled a most unflattering sea monster face onto the map, and Augus had torn it away. Ash had simply scrawled a grumpy sea monster onto the wall behind it, directly onto the paint.'

'Ash’s room wasn’t like the rest of his house, in that it was always clean even if it was a little cluttered, designed to be cosy. Ash had asked Augus to get his entire bedroom suite for him, and Augus knew all this furniture. He knew the katalox he’d sourced himself when Ash had said he liked dark red woods, he’d travelled to Mexico to look for the best woodgrain and imported it back. Everything in here was hand-made, designed for Ash’s comfort, his lifestyle. There was a daybed made out of the same wood, a cupboard, chest of drawers, a storage box at the base of the bed for extra blankets because Ash and an excess of blankets were a necessity. The quilt was new, black'.

Ash had a 'generous bathroom', with 'a spacious, well-appointed shower, with more than one showerhead. Ash liked decadence in his bedroom, in his bathroom. He liked overstuffed couches and an excess of blankets and throw cushions, showers that you could happily spend an hour in. It was conservatively decorated . . . It was tiled in white, a single horizontal line of black tiles running across the walls, about a foot from the floor. The towels here were mostly black'.

#### Augus Each Uisge's lake

Above the lake housing Augus' home 'was a flat sunning rock hidden in a stand of weeping willows and an understorey of dense brush. The rock hung over an ever-babbling, blue-green creek that fed directly into Augus’ lake, and was protected by more stands of rock and tree nearby, cloistering the flat, dark grey stone and giving it privacy. Augus slept there, outdoors, when the weather began to warm.' 'Augus’ lake was a haven. It sung its strange magic even to the fae. Every plant sang with life, every insect, amphibian and crustacean was healthy and cared for. Wild species that needed shelter, protection and could live in the environment would come and find homes if Augus allowed them. Even the weeping willows were huge, friendly trees. The lake only became foreboding when Augus wanted it to be. When he was on the hunt, when he could change the weather around it, make the shadows larger and the darkness darker.'

The house itself has a front door and a pantry. The pantry 'was connected by a single, wooden door to the kitchen, and opened into a room larger than the kitchen itself; a childhood spent worrying over having enough food for he and Ash meant he frequently overstocked. There were cabinets, floor-to-ceiling cupboards, a fridge that ran on magic to replace the cooler he used to have. The shelves were all elaborately organised – jar after jar of fresh and dried ingredients. [Overhead] exposed beams had herbs hanging; rosemary, lavender, elodea, more. It was large enough that it had a bench within it, underneath a single, circular stained glass window that depicted a bulb under the ground, and a single bud rising from it. Towards the back was a large basket of dried lotus root.'

Augus' 'bed was larger than Ash’s, in a room that was uncommonly big – high ceilings, arched windows, enough space that he could change into waterhorse form in his room if he needed to and still feel comfortable. Watery blue and green light streamed in from the lake, artificially lit to be warmer and more inviting with globes of pale yellow incandescent magic that he’d been gifted from a client. The bed itself was crafted from the most expensive wood he could afford at the time; black walnut, and the quilt cover was a green so dark it was almost black, sparsely embroidered with pale leaves. The sheets beneath were bright, pale mint.'

#### Human realm

The residence for most humans. Ash has a home there, hunts prey there, and sometimes just finds company there. 'Ash had been investing wealth in the human and fae worlds for some time, and sometimes he cruised the stock-market for fun. He gave long-term investment a whole new meaning, and he had enough fake identifications from semi-reputable sources to last him many human lifetimes.'

## Quotations

* 'Augus was the Each Uisge, after all. A terrifying waterhorse fae – to humans at least, who formed the main part of his diet. In all previous incarnations, he and Ash had never seen eye to eye, and they certainly weren’t brothers and technically weren’t now. For Ash was the Glashtyn, a fellow predatory waterhorse, Unseelie and territorial, and it was only in this lifetime that Augus had apparently decided to both give himself a first name, and a younger runt brother, and ignore all the traditions and lives that had gone before. By the time their previous life memories started trickling through in abstracts and impulses to draw blood and chase waterhorses of their territory it was too late; but biology remained, dictating their appetites, their need to hunt.'
* Ash to Augus: ‘I dunno, I just couldn’t do it. All those restraints and controls and rules and strictures. It’s just...don’t you ever just want to let loose?’
* [Augus]: ‘Everyone’s a client.’ . . . ‘How come we’ve never talked about this?’ Ash said, voice faint. ‘Your complete lack of a personal life?’
* Ash: 'all his life, there had been a line inside of him. An invisible line which constituted the point of no return once crossed. He loathed hunting humans right up until he crossed that line, and then when he compelled them back to his lake – sometimes even before he changed into waterhorse form – he threw himself into what he had been resisting all along. He *loved* the hunt. It was possible he loved it even more than Augus did. Chasing new humans to bed every weekend and many weeknights, hunting for prey on an irregular basis, even looking for new bars and pubs to frequent, all of it barely managed to satisfy a hunger inside him that he’d had since he was very young. That hunger existed alongside care, compassion and even guilt and remorse over the way he lived his life. He’d never learned how to navigate it all, how to be aware of that dark hunger seething inside of him and accept it, not simply shove it away with a hard kick and look towards the nicer things instead. When he crossed that line, when he could no longer look to the nicer things, he abandoned reluctance in favour of something greater than himself. And hours or days later he returned to the rest of his mind, tried to find something that looked like equilibrium, made a nest of blankets for himself and shoved hard at the darkness.'
* Ash: 'Homesickness was nothing more than a word for feeling sundered from Augus. And he’d forced himself to be a good younger brother and forget about it, he’d lost himself in men and women and drugs and booze until he’d returned far later than he was meant to, *months* later. Ash had promised he’d be back in a week, had even laughed and said he’d come back crying in a day. He’d left in May, not returned until the following April, drunk and lost and wondering when homesickness ended. Augus had *judged* him, seen him unworthy, things had never been the same. Augus had been so distant. It wasn’t that Augus appeared not to love him, only that Ash didn’t feel invulnerable anymore, nor invincible. Augus didn’t need him anymore, didn’t even seem upset that Ash had been gone for much longer than he said he would.'
* 'He had meant to cherish Augus, but he had forgotten how to be a sun a long time ago. Now he was nothing more than a greedy waterhorse who wanted to tame the moon.'
* To Ash: '‘It is my life, and it is mine to live the way that I like.’ Augus’ voice was cold.'
* Augus to Ash: ‘I thought I did a good job of raising you! You’ve made a lie of *all* of it!’
* Augus to Ash: ‘I have to be strong for you'.
* Augus to Ash: ‘But I am so used to loneliness, brother.'
* Ash to Augus: 'No one should get used to loneliness.’
* Ashton/Glashtyn to Augus: ‘I never get to eat enough . . . You know what that’s like, don’t you? Forcing both of us into this…starvation diet. What happened to you, do you think, *brother,* that you made us like this? That I can’t just…*eat…*whenever I like?’
* '‘I’m a fucking monster,’ Ash whispered to himself.'
* ‘I have this beast inside of me that doesn’t like the way I live. Doesn’t think I eat enough. Doesn’t like *you.* Doesn’t like anything except the hunt, tearing things apart, doing it all over again. . . . You have that part of you as well,’ Augus said. ‘The Glashtyn lives inside of you no matter what you do. We are what we are, brother. I’ve always told you as much.’
* 'You are the Glashtyn. I am the Each Uisge. And in order to become brothers, to live the way we do, we had to become *more* than that. Our waterhorses aren’t terribly happy about it. You repress your hunger – but it’s not just your hunger, Ash, it’s the beast that lives inside of you. You’ve heard him. You know what it’s like to have him whisper at you before a kill, to tell you to take it that one step further, to do a little more, to eat more frequently.’

## Trivia

* Ash has an apartment in New York.
* Ash adopted a dog in the past.
* Ash is against type, physically, as Augus noted, 'previous incarnations of the Glashtyn typically had raven hair, pale skin.'
* The story appears to take place at least over the course of 300 years, though mostly after 300 years have passed.
* Augus 'had nightmares about Ash disappearing, Ash dying, Ash not coming back.'
* Augus doesn't believe in birthdays.
* Schema crystals are a type of magecraft where someone can 'make multiple selves through the Magecraft of the crystal itself'. The magical constructs 'pull from aspects of the self, and they lose all corporeal form once the crystal runs out of charged energy, or is shattered.' Without 'several spells woven into the crystals, the schemas became confused and often tried to exert power or experienced identity crises. So their personalities were constrained within magic. They had to obey [their maker] no matter what, and despite possessing many of his personality traits, they were not capable of a great deal of philosophical, self-reflective thought.'
* 'Mages were one of the few who sometimes bartered cash instead of objects or trade.'
* 'Healers in the fae world were classed by colour, across a broad spectrum.' Augus considered apprenticing to a green or brown healer. Augus and Ash noted that apprenticing for healing and becoming a healer would involve him being away from his home for long stretches, particularly when he needed to visit clients.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 not\_poignant. "Strange Sights." *Fae Tales - AUs, Oneshots and More. Archive of Our Own,* 16 May 2014. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1447171/chapters/3460901. Chapter 5: I Listened Like a Stone, Unshaken.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 not\_poignant. "Strange Sights." *Fae Tales - AUs, Oneshots and More. Archive of Our Own,* 11 April 2014. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1447171/chapters/3045613. Chapter 1: The Lightly Draws Its Breath.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 not\_poignant. "Strange Sights." *Fae Tales - AUs, Oneshots and More. Archive of Our Own,* 1 September 2014. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1447171/chapters/4906878. Chapter 15: Thou Be'st Born to Strange Sights.
4. ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 4.12 not\_poignant. "Strange Sights." *Fae Tales - AUs, Oneshots and More. Archive of Our Own,* 14 April 2014. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1447171/chapters/3131983. Chapter 2: Flashes, Beams, and Darts.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 not\_poignant. "Strange Sights." *Fae Tales - AUs, Oneshots and More. Archive of Our Own,* 25 April 2014. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1447171/chapters/3215303. Chapter 3: I Taste A Liquor Never Brewed.
6. ↑ 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 6.12 not\_poignant. "Strange Sights." *Fae Tales - AUs, Oneshots and More. Archive of Our Own,* 22 August 2014. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1447171/chapters/4773447. Chapter 14: In the Tense and Heavy Fire.
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 not\_poignant. "Strange Sights." *Fae Tales - AUs, Oneshots and More. Archive of Our Own,* 16 May 2014. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1447171/chapters/3296483. Chapter 4: My Skin is Sun-Stung.
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 not\_poignant. "Strange Sights." *Fae Tales - AUs, Oneshots and More. Archive of Our Own,* 23 May 2014. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1447171/chapters/3562640. Chapter 6: Lights that Spatter Heaven Above.
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 not\_poignant. "Strange Sights." *Fae Tales - AUs, Oneshots and More. Archive of Our Own,* 11 July 2014. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1447171/chapters/4184370. Chapter 11: Beside Me Singing in the Wilderness.
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7 10.8 10.9 not\_poignant. "Strange Sights." *Fae Tales - AUs, Oneshots and More. Archive of Our Own,* 8 August 2014. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1447171/chapters/4585518. Chapter 13: Pinned With a Silver Pin.
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 not\_poignant. "Strange Sights." *Fae Tales - AUs, Oneshots and More. Archive of Our Own,* 27 June 2014. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1447171/chapters/3993103. Chapter 10: 'Til Night's Black Wings Do Overtake Me.
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 not\_poignant. "Strange Sights." *Fae Tales - AUs, Oneshots and More. Archive of Our Own,* 4 June 2014. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1447171/chapters/3713915. Chapter 8: Secrets Once Open, Can't Be Closed.
13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 not\_poignant. "Strange Sights." *Fae Tales - AUs, Oneshots and More. Archive of Our Own,* 30 May 2014. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1447171/chapters/3651467. Chapter 7: This is My Curse and Cure and Care.
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 not\_poignant. "Strange Sights." *Fae Tales - AUs, Oneshots and More. Archive of Our Own,* 25 July 2014. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1447171/chapters/4380663. Chapter 12: I Know the Course Set By Your Eyes.
15. ↑ not\_poignant. "Strange Sights." *Fae Tales - AUs, Oneshots and More. Archive of Our Own,* 13 June 2014. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1447171/chapters/3811777. Chapter 9: As Fire is Contagious, I Need.