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It was the eve of Samhain, and the opening of the great burial mounds. The people of Ireland had their feast ready, their merriment meant to welcome those from the Otherworld. Bonfires were started, and some food was even thrown into the fires as sacrifice for the aos sí which only came but once a year.
For two creatures, it was their reunion. Their one chance to see each other, their one chance to dance above the land. Their one day to make love.
One, a monstrous Fomorian, the other his natural enemy, a descendent of Bres of the Tuatha Dé, bastard son and amalgamated. The Fomorian was called many things: blood-taker, war-mongerer, son of Morc (son of Dela), and his true name, Ky’lo. The Tuatha was also gifted with many names, and many legends: he was called star-finder, knowledge-giver, son of Brendol (son of Ruadan son of Bres son of Balor), but his true name was Armitag, and only the two lovers knew their true names.
The people who kept statues or remembrance for them knew them together as a force of reckoning, a malevolence avoided by bringing them sacrifice. They together were rain and thunder during harvest season, crashing waves and sharp rocks for fishers, heartbreak and jealousy in springtime. But if one appeased them properly, if one gave them treasures, good things - they were blessed. Given knowledge, given strength, given fertility and power.
The two together, who danced on Samhain and battled endlessly in the Otherworld, were called Réaltmharú - the two who killed the Stars. They were thought to have brought the very bodies down from the sky, and comets or shooting stars were attributed to their great victories.
As Samhain began, and the spirits of aos sí joined the humans, the Réaltmharú joined once more. Noise clashed where they stepped in their joined form, sudden winds blew, fires blazed all the brighter.
The wind’s picking up into screaming, into noise and cacophony, was the sound of the pleasures they were having, this one night where they could join on lands and live the lust they wished. The sounds would last for hours, and the humans would join them by screaming their own, invigorated with the presence of the spirits.
In the forest, hidden from human eyes, Armitag and Ky’lo rolled on the ground, content with pleasuring each other.
“Do you think,” the Fomorian asked, “they can hear us fucking all the way up there?”
He was looking at the stars, eyes violent and wanting. He always did love a fight.
“My love,” the Tuatha said, “if they cannot, let us be ever the louder.”
With a smirk that could rival the beauty of the handsomest man on the isle, Ky’lo pounced on his waiting partner, marking him for all to see. They were beautiful both beyond comprehension, yet also ugly with their evil, covered in sick malformities and marked by their deeds. The Fomorian was scarred beyond his looks, covered head to toe in the memories of his battles. The Tuatha was cold and sharp always, with claws and biting teeth which made him look more monster than man due to his muddled creation. Yet they both saw the immense beauty in the other, the beauty and violence made them fall in love. Their families respectively had been enemies since the beginning of time, so it was an unnatural joining, and the very Earth itself did not understand it.
But they joined regardless of what others thought, dragged into a cycle of fight-fuck-fight-fuck-fight-fuck until they were tired, which was never. The day they got tired would be the day their enemies finally slid swords in them, and their souls would rejoin the cycle, where they would eventually find each other again and fall once more.
“Did you know,” Ky’lo said, as he took his lover from behind, who screamed in pleasure at the act, “that from the moment I saw you, I knew you were mine?”
“Yes,” Armitag panted, his fine pale features tinged pink, “and I knew you were mine. We were made for each other, destined to be enemies but doomed to be lovers. Even doing this, we are signing our deaths away. And I do not care, for I have you, and you do not care, for you have me.”
“You talk too much for what I’m doing to you,” Ky’lo responded, silently agreeing with the assertion.
“Then make me sing, lover.”
Ky’lo put all his power into pleasing his beautiful Tuatha, who did sing properly, and quite loudly. The people joined in, the stars shimmered above in fear over their power, and they remained joined all night long.
“Do you wish to have children?” Ky’lo asked, when they were in their fifteenth position of the night, his lover finally slowing to a “making love” pace. “I would like to leave a legacy behind, and they would be strong and smart, like us.”
“It would be against every law of the aos sí. We are forewarned to never try. Think of the balance.”
“...I am thinking. I do not care. Do you wish?”
“I do, desperately my love. My father was cruel, and I killed him for it. Our child would know our love, and would be feared and powerful once grown.”
“Child?”
“Let’s begin with one. If we’re not dead by the time it’s born, we can discuss again.”
“Yes, my love.”
And the people of the isle felt the winds shift, the seas crack, and the sky fall open as the decision which would change the world was made. This child - this further joining of the Réaltmharú - it would doom the Otherworld, it would put nature out of balance.
The lovers did not care. They wanted power, not balance. And the aos sí would rue the day that they ever let the two of them get away with falling in love and claiming each other. The tale of the Tuatha and the Fomorian was nowhere close to complete, yet when it was, the tales of their love and their power would be told for centuries to come.