Post by niamh on Oct 10, 2021 9:37:10 GMT -5
The intricately designed mouldings that topped columns made of carved marble, were a stark contrast from the motel rooms Niamh had found herself in of late. A form of escape, if you wanted to look too deeply into it. By never having a permanent address, she could never be expected to lay roots that had long since curled up and died. Booted feet stepped across the flooring slowly, a slight spring beneath her step. Flooring that had been designed and laid for the precise purpose of the room.
His training centre.
MacNamara’s spread far and wide across the world, each with opulent homes and carefully designed rooms to train their nature or skills. But none of the ones she had seen, ever compared with this room. Perhaps it was just her old fondness for it. The room where she had learned to dig out the beast from within, the room where she had changed her life not once, but twice.
Armless weighted dummies and racks of weights no man could imagine lifting, dotted about the mirror walled room. Whilst at first it was easy to assume that the mirrors were some strange, American psycho-request ego thing. They were a teaching tool, just like everything else in that room. A way to remind you, that an enemy can come at any time, from any side and so you must learn to find the eyes in the back of your head.
When Niamh had received the request, she seriously considered not coming at all. Of course her mentor wanted to see her, now that she had finally shown her potential as he knew it to be. It was of course, almost certainly likely, that he also knew she had spent time with his estranged younger brother. That in her moment of doubt, it had been Danny and not Connor that she reached out to. Perhaps that stung a little bit.
She hoped it did.
That’s where he was now, except that he wasn’t training, he wasn’t fighting, he was.. Cleaning.
One of the greatest experts in the application of violence, and that’s what he was doing: cleaning. It all went back to his mentality of no one being above a single job, that an entire warband’s strength was equivalent to the weakest spear in the shieldwall. Of course, there was also the fact that Connor’s standards for what was clean were surprisingly high, so high that he’d go after anyone cleaning and just redo it himself in the end.
Calloused hands worked a wet cloth over the last of the free weights, making sure that dirt and sweat were scrubbed almost meticulously from the rubberized steel with the same meticulous effort that one might take in shining up the religious paraphernalia within a church, but wasn’t this gym the equivalent to a place of worship for him? It certainly felt that way, didn’t it?
”Are you going to stare at me, Girl?” Asked that brogue tinged voice, not once pausing in his work.
”You asked me here.” Her tone was cool, almost off hand and very clearly trying too hard. She made her way across the flooring, pausing to stand just far enough away to not be seen as attempting to stand over him. ”You tell me what I’m gonna do, coach.” That last word was spoken with a harsh edge to it, her own lilt shining through.
”Aye, so I did.” Came that sigh that flowed out after it, his cleaning coming to a halt all the same as he finished drying off that dumb bell and just sat back in his chair. Those blue eyes flickered over to Niamh, staying on her own eyes and never wavering in his stare. ”There something you want to say to me, Nee? No one’s here but the pair of us, and there won’t be for quite some time.” Calm as a sky without a single cloud, just the unnerving tranquility of those likewise colored eyes of his.
Her hands balled into the small, tense fists that w child’s would. A juvenile attempt at maintaining composure as he did. But even as she tried, she could feel the heat of blush in her cheeks. Was there something she wanted to say?
There was everything to say.
But she remained silent, shaking her head and folding herself into a seated position on the floor not too far from him, she tried to avoid her own reflection not wanting to see the emotions she knew were etched into her face. She blamed him, she blamed a lot of people. But namely she blamed herself, which was why all of the words, the spitting anger and the devastating heartbreak stayed in her throat, never to be spoken.
”You called for me, I’m here. I can only assume that you brought me here to what? Show Cat that she got lucky? To run me through my paces? Or maybe…” she faltered, a dark glowering look darkened every last one of her features. ”Maybe you want to tell me that he’d be proud?”
There it was. His lips shifted from a neutral expression to that tight, grim, line of a forced smile that stopped well and short of his eyes. That’s when Connor stood, and after dropping the rag into the seat where he’d previously been he stepped forward into her personal space. ”No, because I said that to him.” He knew what was bothering her, what caused the tumultuous look in her eyes that so often turned poisonous towards him lately. ”...And look where that fucking led.” Sharp, pointed, he wanted her to feel that one. He needed her to feel that one, because the time for slow healing and soft words were things that he simply no longer had.
Then again, maybe he did, maybe being reminded of his greatest personal failure was something that was getting too painful to abide.
She sprung to her feet, hands finding those broad shoulders and she unleashed a flurry of anger and pain, tears streamed down her face as she all but beat those fists against his shoulders, his chest. Words, if they were words at all, came out as nothing more than angry screams and yells. Slowly as the ferocity behind those flailing arms and hoarse bellowing began to temper and calm, with one last shove against him, Niamh turned away.
Stomping halfway across the training room before spinning on her back heel to look at her mentor once more, she shook head to toe, her voice quivering along with her body. The tone trembling with the raw agony his words had cut into still healing wounds.
”YOU got him there.” The words were a low guttural tone and had he not known better, this would be the moment when he believed her to be like him. ”Not his ego or his pride. You. YOUR PRIDE did that. The whore your own fucking sister cuddles in bed at night did that.” She spat the words with intent, but still she held back so much more than what could be said.
”So why. WHY do you want me here if not to applaud my victory?”
Connor’s response was strangely lackluster, there was no grand reveal, no script flipping. Not once had he reacted outwardly, not to the fists that hit his shoulders and chest, not a sympathetic hand was lifted to dry her tears, not a micro expression was out of place during what might have looked like a breakdown. Her forward step before the turn? He hadn’t even prepared to defend himself from a second assault, not that he’d done anything to the first one.
He was stone, he was unyielding.
….And then he sighed.
”I did get him there.” It came out as a quiet confession, his arms unfolding and his hands slipping into his pockets. There was no tremble to his voice, no theatrics, this was nothing more than what he believed to be the truth and for the first time in a long time, his age actually showed. The gray in his stubble almost seemed more prominent in the moment, the silver at his temples shining brightly in the light among the sea of black. ”It was my pride, and my actions, and my choices, and my failure to act sooner, that gave Patrick the push onto his path.” There was no denial, there was no but to be added in.
There was no defending himself in that particular moment.
There wasn’t even an attempt.
”Morrigan, had nothing to do with that. Riley? Aye, she did, but there was nothing that she did that a hundred others could have subbed in for with their actions.” Pausing, just for the moment, Connor gave a slow shake of his head, pulling a hand from his pocket to run his nails through that still mostly black mane. ”If you were waiting for some grand explanation, or for some sign that what happened to him served a greater purpose, then I’m sorry, Niamh. There isn’t one. It was my failure as a leader, and as his mentor, that caused him to be as he was in the end.”
”You’re a liar.” She scoffed, turning away from him again and running a hand through her hair. ”It happened because it was her and only because it was her. You love Maxx, but she’ll never be Riley.” A slow turn, all edge of anger lost from her voice as she looked to her mentor once again. ”Just the same as no one will ever be him.” She seemed to exhale the remaining anger that was present if only for that time. Looking around the old training room and half shrugging.
”If you’re wondering what changed, what happened out there? It was me.” There wasn’t a hint of ego in those words, the conversation she and Danny had shared had awoken something in her she had let lie sleeping. ”I had to make a choice… continue to question and take pause, or act. So I acted.”
The smallest amount of pride there, she pulled the smile at her lips. A quick turn around on her emotions, even if it were a slightly sad little smile, it was present all the same and it existed purely because she had found the beast… unleashed the wolf as it were.
”Maxx won’t ever be Riley, because she’s not Riley, and she’s never tried to be her. She’s a different woman entirely, and that’s why I love her.” Pause. Beat. Those were the words that he opened up with. ”..Just like Riley wasn’t Aoife, and when I lost her? Only the thought of my daughter losing two parents that day instead of one is what kept me alive.” He hadn’t uttered Aoife’s name in years, hadn’t spoken in fear of it being a cursed word in and of itself, and yet in this moment? He said it as casually as the rest of the name.
”No one’s going to be Patrick, just like he wasn’t even Patrick at the end. If you want to hate me, Girl, then do it, but don’t lie to yourself about what happened to make it easier to swallow.” With that said, he rose a hand, aiming to grasp her shoulder, to squeeze it. ”If you want to make him happy, then leave this life and never look back at it because seeing you become the man he was, wouldn’t bring him peace.” Pause. Beat. ”...But if you want to ignore my words all the fucking same and do what you’re going to do anyways? Then stay, we have work to do, and little delicate hands to turn into iron.”
She stared at her mentor for a long, breathless moment. For the most part, all he had said was true. And, in all honesty if she didn’t feel as though she needed to work harder, to get tougher, she wouldn’t even be here. But Connor was wrong about one thing.
Patrick would always be proud of her.
His training centre.
MacNamara’s spread far and wide across the world, each with opulent homes and carefully designed rooms to train their nature or skills. But none of the ones she had seen, ever compared with this room. Perhaps it was just her old fondness for it. The room where she had learned to dig out the beast from within, the room where she had changed her life not once, but twice.
Armless weighted dummies and racks of weights no man could imagine lifting, dotted about the mirror walled room. Whilst at first it was easy to assume that the mirrors were some strange, American psycho-request ego thing. They were a teaching tool, just like everything else in that room. A way to remind you, that an enemy can come at any time, from any side and so you must learn to find the eyes in the back of your head.
When Niamh had received the request, she seriously considered not coming at all. Of course her mentor wanted to see her, now that she had finally shown her potential as he knew it to be. It was of course, almost certainly likely, that he also knew she had spent time with his estranged younger brother. That in her moment of doubt, it had been Danny and not Connor that she reached out to. Perhaps that stung a little bit.
She hoped it did.
That’s where he was now, except that he wasn’t training, he wasn’t fighting, he was.. Cleaning.
One of the greatest experts in the application of violence, and that’s what he was doing: cleaning. It all went back to his mentality of no one being above a single job, that an entire warband’s strength was equivalent to the weakest spear in the shieldwall. Of course, there was also the fact that Connor’s standards for what was clean were surprisingly high, so high that he’d go after anyone cleaning and just redo it himself in the end.
Calloused hands worked a wet cloth over the last of the free weights, making sure that dirt and sweat were scrubbed almost meticulously from the rubberized steel with the same meticulous effort that one might take in shining up the religious paraphernalia within a church, but wasn’t this gym the equivalent to a place of worship for him? It certainly felt that way, didn’t it?
”Are you going to stare at me, Girl?” Asked that brogue tinged voice, not once pausing in his work.
”You asked me here.” Her tone was cool, almost off hand and very clearly trying too hard. She made her way across the flooring, pausing to stand just far enough away to not be seen as attempting to stand over him. ”You tell me what I’m gonna do, coach.” That last word was spoken with a harsh edge to it, her own lilt shining through.
”Aye, so I did.” Came that sigh that flowed out after it, his cleaning coming to a halt all the same as he finished drying off that dumb bell and just sat back in his chair. Those blue eyes flickered over to Niamh, staying on her own eyes and never wavering in his stare. ”There something you want to say to me, Nee? No one’s here but the pair of us, and there won’t be for quite some time.” Calm as a sky without a single cloud, just the unnerving tranquility of those likewise colored eyes of his.
Her hands balled into the small, tense fists that w child’s would. A juvenile attempt at maintaining composure as he did. But even as she tried, she could feel the heat of blush in her cheeks. Was there something she wanted to say?
There was everything to say.
But she remained silent, shaking her head and folding herself into a seated position on the floor not too far from him, she tried to avoid her own reflection not wanting to see the emotions she knew were etched into her face. She blamed him, she blamed a lot of people. But namely she blamed herself, which was why all of the words, the spitting anger and the devastating heartbreak stayed in her throat, never to be spoken.
”You called for me, I’m here. I can only assume that you brought me here to what? Show Cat that she got lucky? To run me through my paces? Or maybe…” she faltered, a dark glowering look darkened every last one of her features. ”Maybe you want to tell me that he’d be proud?”
There it was. His lips shifted from a neutral expression to that tight, grim, line of a forced smile that stopped well and short of his eyes. That’s when Connor stood, and after dropping the rag into the seat where he’d previously been he stepped forward into her personal space. ”No, because I said that to him.” He knew what was bothering her, what caused the tumultuous look in her eyes that so often turned poisonous towards him lately. ”...And look where that fucking led.” Sharp, pointed, he wanted her to feel that one. He needed her to feel that one, because the time for slow healing and soft words were things that he simply no longer had.
Then again, maybe he did, maybe being reminded of his greatest personal failure was something that was getting too painful to abide.
She sprung to her feet, hands finding those broad shoulders and she unleashed a flurry of anger and pain, tears streamed down her face as she all but beat those fists against his shoulders, his chest. Words, if they were words at all, came out as nothing more than angry screams and yells. Slowly as the ferocity behind those flailing arms and hoarse bellowing began to temper and calm, with one last shove against him, Niamh turned away.
Stomping halfway across the training room before spinning on her back heel to look at her mentor once more, she shook head to toe, her voice quivering along with her body. The tone trembling with the raw agony his words had cut into still healing wounds.
”YOU got him there.” The words were a low guttural tone and had he not known better, this would be the moment when he believed her to be like him. ”Not his ego or his pride. You. YOUR PRIDE did that. The whore your own fucking sister cuddles in bed at night did that.” She spat the words with intent, but still she held back so much more than what could be said.
”So why. WHY do you want me here if not to applaud my victory?”
Connor’s response was strangely lackluster, there was no grand reveal, no script flipping. Not once had he reacted outwardly, not to the fists that hit his shoulders and chest, not a sympathetic hand was lifted to dry her tears, not a micro expression was out of place during what might have looked like a breakdown. Her forward step before the turn? He hadn’t even prepared to defend himself from a second assault, not that he’d done anything to the first one.
He was stone, he was unyielding.
….And then he sighed.
”I did get him there.” It came out as a quiet confession, his arms unfolding and his hands slipping into his pockets. There was no tremble to his voice, no theatrics, this was nothing more than what he believed to be the truth and for the first time in a long time, his age actually showed. The gray in his stubble almost seemed more prominent in the moment, the silver at his temples shining brightly in the light among the sea of black. ”It was my pride, and my actions, and my choices, and my failure to act sooner, that gave Patrick the push onto his path.” There was no denial, there was no but to be added in.
There was no defending himself in that particular moment.
There wasn’t even an attempt.
”Morrigan, had nothing to do with that. Riley? Aye, she did, but there was nothing that she did that a hundred others could have subbed in for with their actions.” Pausing, just for the moment, Connor gave a slow shake of his head, pulling a hand from his pocket to run his nails through that still mostly black mane. ”If you were waiting for some grand explanation, or for some sign that what happened to him served a greater purpose, then I’m sorry, Niamh. There isn’t one. It was my failure as a leader, and as his mentor, that caused him to be as he was in the end.”
”You’re a liar.” She scoffed, turning away from him again and running a hand through her hair. ”It happened because it was her and only because it was her. You love Maxx, but she’ll never be Riley.” A slow turn, all edge of anger lost from her voice as she looked to her mentor once again. ”Just the same as no one will ever be him.” She seemed to exhale the remaining anger that was present if only for that time. Looking around the old training room and half shrugging.
”If you’re wondering what changed, what happened out there? It was me.” There wasn’t a hint of ego in those words, the conversation she and Danny had shared had awoken something in her she had let lie sleeping. ”I had to make a choice… continue to question and take pause, or act. So I acted.”
The smallest amount of pride there, she pulled the smile at her lips. A quick turn around on her emotions, even if it were a slightly sad little smile, it was present all the same and it existed purely because she had found the beast… unleashed the wolf as it were.
”Maxx won’t ever be Riley, because she’s not Riley, and she’s never tried to be her. She’s a different woman entirely, and that’s why I love her.” Pause. Beat. Those were the words that he opened up with. ”..Just like Riley wasn’t Aoife, and when I lost her? Only the thought of my daughter losing two parents that day instead of one is what kept me alive.” He hadn’t uttered Aoife’s name in years, hadn’t spoken in fear of it being a cursed word in and of itself, and yet in this moment? He said it as casually as the rest of the name.
”No one’s going to be Patrick, just like he wasn’t even Patrick at the end. If you want to hate me, Girl, then do it, but don’t lie to yourself about what happened to make it easier to swallow.” With that said, he rose a hand, aiming to grasp her shoulder, to squeeze it. ”If you want to make him happy, then leave this life and never look back at it because seeing you become the man he was, wouldn’t bring him peace.” Pause. Beat. ”...But if you want to ignore my words all the fucking same and do what you’re going to do anyways? Then stay, we have work to do, and little delicate hands to turn into iron.”
She stared at her mentor for a long, breathless moment. For the most part, all he had said was true. And, in all honesty if she didn’t feel as though she needed to work harder, to get tougher, she wouldn’t even be here. But Connor was wrong about one thing.
Patrick would always be proud of her.