Hal took the chance to mention what he'd learned about fairies being able to hide themselves from view. That they can even be selective about who sees them. He accepted that I could be hallucinating, but he was not willing to let go of the possibility that I wasn't.
Sam was the only one to not jump for joy at what I was seeing. I think he's still skeptical about it all, and in a way I need that. He was very curious about the details, and fascinated that what I'd seen was so detailed. I had intended to avoid mentioned their state of undress, but I was answering his questions so automatically. Once I realized what I'd said, I was blushing furiously while Max was interrogating me on whole new details.
I think even Hal got a little embarrassed by it because he used the opportunity to change the subject. So he brought up another fairy creature, the Cú Sídhe. I had spelled it phonetically yesterday because we didn't know how it was spelled. Hal gave us quite the lesson today. While I was at work today, he met with Tim in order to find out exactly why Tim was warning him and to ask a lot of the questions we had.
So here's what I've learned, as best I can remember. As a whole, they are called the Fae. Fairies is another general term, and not wrong, but typically used to indicate specifically the small winged humanoids. In addition to fairies, Fae include everything from goblins to boggarts, elves, gnomes, ogres, dryads, you name it. Much of the language and terms come out of Celtic lore, but human cultures have encountered these beings all around the world. Each culture has their own language and terms, djinn, loa, oni, spirits, the list goes on and on. Each culture has it's own beliefs and understandings concerning those it encountered, and had it's own relationships with them. For instance, while the Celts treated them as a nation unto themselves, African tribes tended to treat each loa individually as something to barter with.
With that understanding, the Illuminati tends to turn mostly to Celtic lore when it comes to describing and understanding these Fae.
With that explained, Hal finally turned to what he'd learned about the Cú Sídhe, Cú meaning dog, and Sídhe being another word indicating fairy or Fae. So fairy dog. These creatures appear very much like the canines we are familiar with, and in many respects share traits and qualities. However, they are extremely loyal to whom they are bonded. And the important thing is that they are bonded, they are not pets, or even trained companions. Once bonded, they can be trained, and can even function as pets. But instinctively they will protect the one to whom they are bonded with their very lives. Once trained though, they can be sent out on missions to achieve some goal. Or they can be ordered to guard an item or location while their bond leaves.
They are rather rare, and this gets into why they are referred to as Cú Sídhe rather than as Cú Fae or otherwise. The Sídhe are something of the noble class among the Fae. And this is something of a confusing word, while it is spelled Sídhe, it is pronounced "she." Which is why I had spelled it like that yesterday. But the word isn't natively English, nor even human for that matter. As such there's actually a number of different ways to spell it. Si and Sith being the other more common ways. Hal suspects that Lucas had come across the spelling of Sith when he decided to make use of it, without ever knowing how it was properly pronounced.
As the noble class, it is these fae who most typically seek to bond with a Cú. Which is where they are called Cú Sídhe. The Sídhe themselves are fae that if we were to see, we would most immediately recognize them as Elves thanks to The Lord of the Rings. Actual elves are more like Santa's helper elves, they are short, though not squat. The main difference between elves and fairies are the fairy's prominent wings. All fae have wings, but different fae have different wings. For elves, the wings are barely there, completely useless. While for fairies, well Disney has spread the fairy wings far and wide.
All that said, the Sídhe and Cú Sídhe are suspected to have wings as they are fae, but the lore indicates that they go to great lengths to hide their wings. That should one see the wings, it means their life is in danger.
Now, as for the Cú Sídhe themselves, and why Tim was so unnerved by its rumored sighting. As mentioned, they are to be considered extremely dangerous. If this one is bonded, then it's sighting indicates most likely that it is hunting someone or some thing. It will allow nothing to interfere with its mission. So don't get in its way. If something was taken that it was guarding, then "woe be to that person." Tim's words. The other possibility is that it is unbonded. And what Tim suggested is that an unbonded Cú Sídhe is considered in similar light to the Ronin in Japanese history. Without someone guiding it's actions, it is unpredictable and an equal danger to anyone it comes across.
On a lighter note, Max brought up the Fairy sign hashtag. There were a lot of neat things to see, but nothing overly informative. She apologized that she didn't have anything more saying she's had a lot of school work.
So I brought up the news article I had found about Bunny Rinne and everything it lead me to find commented about at DIA. As I had mentioned this to Hal before, he again raised the desire to just go visit DIA and see what we could find. Max thought it was a great idea, "school trip," she cheered. They were already making plans to go next Saturday when I realized that Sam hadn't raised any objections.
He was deep in thought when I looked over at him, so I asked if everything was okay. He said he was good, was just thinking about what he needed to do for the project he'd been commissioned for. So I asked him how that was going, he said it was challenging and he was stuck on how to do something. He said he could weld the pieces together like he needed, but that he really wanted to be able to work them together properly with his tools. He just wasn't sure how to go about doing it and was worried he might have to start over from scratch. Of course, he still wasn't telling us what he'd been working on, so I couldn't do anything but listen.
Though realizing we were all now listening to him grip about work, he apologized. He felt bad that he wasn't bringing anything to the table, but he wanted us to know he really enjoyed being here. He said he's always been interested in mythology and stuff. Because of how religious his parents were though, he wasn't allowed to go anywhere near that devil worshiping malarkey.
Our evening pretty much wound down from there. Though Hal remembered to ask me how my day went yesterday, which gave me the chance to tell everyone what had happened. Max was interested in the coin the guy had offered me, and even tried doing some image searches to match. She didn't come up with anything though.
Max's Mac and cheese was actually pretty good. She added little sausages to it, which was fun. It's not something I normally had growing up, but Hal was thrilled saying that was just how his mom used to make it. Even Sam liked it, though like me he hadn't grown up with it. My parents had a whole separate culture going on which was my excuse, Sam's parents just didn't think it was healthy for him.
But that was our night. Work again tomorrow, and Hal will be out training with Tim, so I get to have an evening with the parental units.
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