Chapter Text
Year 0, Day 0
Excerpt of email from [emailprotected] to [emailprotected]
…Look, Mom, it'll be fine. I'm sure Cousin Paul will be OK with me staying at the farm for the next few weeks, especially when I can lend a helping hand or two, even if I won’t go near those @#@!% geese of his. It won’t be too much of a hardship to keep company with all the little McCullochs (I can’t believe the law made them give the kids full-on Icelandic “legal” names. Oy, vey), either…
- 90 Years Later -
The letter lying open on Jon Jónsson’s desk was marked with a peculiar postscript: Remember me to all those of the name.
“That’s a bit of an enigmatic epigraph,” Einur Jónsson (no relation) remarked as Jon efficiently cleared the drawers of his personal belongings.
Jon barely glanced at the letter before replying, “Oh, yeah; my aunt always ends her letters like that. None of us has any idea why.”
Einur’s “internal lie detector” was going off like mad, but since Jon was just leaving, he let it slide. “Are you going back to that little place in the Suðurland? Ah, what’s the name… Ása… Ása…”
“Ásahreppur? No, I’ll be heading west, out to the Westfjords; they say there’s opportunity out that way for those ready to seize it.” Jon, finished with his task, turned to Einur. “I will go back to the family aviary for a visit, though. Would you care to come along for a few days?”
Einur thought for a moment before replying, “Actually, I think I will; I’ve never been to a poultry farm.”
Jon smiled. “Watch out for the geese.”
*
The coach pulled up at the Ásahreppur drop point, barely pausing long enough for the two passengers to leap off and grab their luggage before hurtling away again. Einur turned to Jon.
“So, how far will the Heel and Toe Express have to take us?”
“Actually,” Jon said, pointing at a nearby wagon, “since I called ahead, they sent someone out to get us. Twelve klicks is no joke, especially in this terrain.”
Einur nodded in approval at this foresight, and they walked over to the wagon. Jon’s folk had obviously decided to make a virtue of necessity, since most of the wagon was loaded with the kind of stuff you’d send a wagon into town for; there was, however, more than enough room for the two visitors.
The trip was short and relatively painless. The wagon dropped the two passengers by the main entrance before heading around to the back of the house to offload its cargo.
“So this is the infamous homestead and aviary,” Einur remarked, the rather banal comment being just about all his brain was up to at the moment. A few seconds of silence later, he asked, “Didn’t you say this place predates Year Zero?”
“Yep,” Jon replied. An air of uncertainty hovered about him, and had since the wagon pulled up to the porch. “I guess we’d better go in.”
As Einur started towards the entry, something about it caught his eye: an inscription above the front door. The letters adorning the lintel above the door were old, but cut so deep that the inscription would last as long as the doorway stood: Threk og Thror. Einur contemplated the epigraph for a brief moment, then went inside…
- 90 Years Later -
From My Trip Into the Hidden World of the Caledonian Exiles, by Hörður Einarsson
…The grounds the festival had always been held at were incredible. It seemed like a perfect layout for everything that was to take place over the three days of the festival. Of course, it was also so well camouflaged that someone could ride around the perimeter and never once think anything special lay beyond. I was informed that the grounds had been constructed all the way back in Year Zero, after the quarantine had been put into effect but before the pain of the disaster had really begun to make itself felt. For a set of structures that were nearing their second centennial, they were all still in incredibly good shape…
…The festival itself was in no way what I had expected to find. I had formulated a vague and lurid image of hooded figures gathered by torchlight for the most nefarious of purposes in the back of my mind; what I found instead was almost pedestrian in its banality, though still exotic and even bizarre to my eyes…
…I was glad to see that most everyone was wearing their weapons openly rather than keeping them hidden; it reinforced my impression of the crowd as very friendly and polite. The weapons themselves were quite interesting as well; I had never seen their like before…
…No words I write can express the power of twenty or thirty of these odd instruments all playing in unison and accompanied by snare and bass drums. I watched in stunned silence as they marched past me, oblivious to the cheering crowds. Then, once they were past, another such band began to march and play a completely different, though no less powerful, tune. I must have watched at least ten such bands go by in that parade.
The main avenue down which all these bands were marching and which led to the main arena was lined with booths on both sides; upon closer inspection, I found that these bore a bewildering array of names, maps and plaid patterns--by far more names than I'd ever suspected, just as the crowds were so much larger than I'd anticipated. At one end of the row of booths were a few small tables under a banner reading "Allies"; I later found out that they were those of Welsh, Irish and even English extraction who had joined the defiant Scotch in celebrating their Old Time heritage…
…The man who I have known for most of my life as Snorri Bjarnasson and who was responsible for my being here at all stepped up to the microphone and began to speak in English, the only language I had heard spoken throughout my whole experience at the Games. "My name is Paul McCulloch, son of Charles and Deborah, of the Clan Ross, Master of Ceremonies for the Games, and I am so happy to welcome all of you to this one hundred and eightieth round of these Games." He paused to let the cheers die down. "Most especially, we here at the Games would like to welcome the emissaries from the Scots of Norway; we hope that they leave looking forward to coming back next year and bringing their own kin along." There was more applause…
…I remembered that I had once been to a concert in Sweden that had featured what they called "Schottisch" music; I found the music (or at least that performed on the fiddles) at the Games to be very similar to that…
…The Games that gave the festival its name were mostly about burly men throwing heavy objects in a wide variety of ways. What truly stunned me, however, was the Caber Toss, where a man picked up a trimmed tree trunk and heaved it as far as he could…
…I hope my descriptions here have been sufficient for the reader to realize that these “Exiles of Caledonia”, while maintaining the distinct culture of their forebears, are also true Icelanders rather than a sinister cabal of evildoers plotting the overthrow of our homeland, as some foolish sensationalists would have it. When attending the Games, I was shown nothing but courtesy of the highest order, which seems to be the standard for these people; I can only entreat the reader to believe what I write about them…
