by D.J. Clark

Content Warnings: Implied Sexual Content, References to War and Death

The first time I saw her, the very waters slowed around me.

Running red over my feet, she washes their clothes and armor as they march to another nameless battle… Some see her. I definitely see her. She does not look my way though, as I am half in half out, as any good goddess knows to do when she is observing mortals.

Or other goddesses.

I could see in her eyes a fire, and a softness at the same time. As she washed, it was almost a warning… But she didn’t want it, never wanted it to happen. Yet somehow knew that it had to.

It was like watching someone you love do the one thing you didn’t want them to.

She would wash their bloody garments in my river, in me, and I would stand there. Always, she would be on the opposite side of the war band heading toward victory or defeat. She would run the cloth down the washboard, then look up at them as if to say “you go to your doom, soldier… You will meet your end, warrior,” but the ember in her eyes was never anger. Or rage.

It was sovereignty and prophecy; fate. Like the end was assured but without the blame of fault. As if bidden by the gods themselves.

Or maybe just her.

She would beguile them, with a veil over her true form… But I could see it clearly. Skin as fair as the rocks I had run smooth over thousands of years. Clean and fresh-cut white like the marble that lay in the bedrock of me. Shimmering in the sun, when it would grace her giving fortunes to the unfortunate.

Hair like the raven’s wings, sweeping in the wind as dark as the coal of a long dead fire. The color of the shadow she rubs under her eyes from that same coal—from the fires of the fallen whose armor she washed, wearing the black of their death, for me to see.

Her lips, I dared not linger. River though I am, perpetually wet, it was much to confess to admit what I longed for, but even so:

Her lips were red clover; honey-sweet and perilous of poison, at least to my eye. I yearned for her to sip from me, just for a touch. It was too much to ask, I knew. It was enough to have her fingers in me, running through my wild currents and back and forth as she vigorously washed in my waters.

Oh, but her eyes, I couldn’t look away. The moment mine met hers, I fell into them. Lush as my green river banks, a shade only the reddest of our peoples, the ones with flame on their head and in their hearts, could shine upon me. I imagined they could grow anything, even love for me. Nowadays we call that delusion, but I was struck for days considering who would dare make such perfections that destroy the goddess, Boann.

Days, and months, and years I floated down my waters with her on my mind. By now you know who. An enigmatic deity in every interpretation. I tell you true, it’s all mostly correct what they say of her. The Morrigan.

I have seen her terror on the battlefields near my blue waters, running red with the last gasps of men with no names other than “chosen.” To be chosen by her, I rippled.

Those days, the few of us that kept the lands and nature under our watchful gaze had little else to do. It is no small wonder that my heart would wander to the busiest goddess of our time.

And she barely knew I existed.

We had never interacted directly, she had no reason to speak with the goddess of the river of The Boyne, clockwise walker of the well that sprung forth my sweet waters as I ran and ran. Touching other tributaries, underground rivers, watersheds. I was more than most thought. If I had known then what I know now, I would have not flowed so quietly past her divinity sitting on my banks. But a young river I was and am. And she was providence and regalia incarnate.

I drifted with her on my mind often, thankfully distracted with my responsibilities and few supplicants. Every month at least a few farmers or fishermen would say a prayer or whisper a desire to me to catch fish or water crops.

But you aren’t here for that.

You want to hear the truth of that night at the fork of the Unias river, the famous union on the alleged eve of battle. You are right to want to hear it, no scholar has recorded it true yet, what happened on that river bank.

Listen well. I will tell you the story true, as I was there.

I touch everything with water on this isle. That includes rivers and lakes that are not of land but of liminal places beyond. Places where myth is born and gods can wrest away from the mortal world. That is where I found them.

Of course, the first one I saw and felt was her, and I could feel her satisfaction radiating from that place in waves, could feel the Good God meeting with her as they do often this time of year. She lay with him there, the father of my child, whom with his power brought him into this world through his manipulations of time. I knew well his honeyed words and ample stamina and there he lay with the object of my lusty figment… Of course, it was his wife.

I stalked up the side of the banks, crawling on my hands and knees. I shuddered to think of her eyes on me, she who is ascendant and as such, my survival is not guaranteed… Though, maybe worth it. I remembered: I am the waters. I am not brook, nor stream. I am river, it does not do well to act any way other than boldly.

I stood. Watching them in the throes of their annual union.

“So. This is what that looks like from the outside.” I heard my voice say, mustering the courage to speak in front of her. I crossed my arms, for dramatic effect more than anything, smirk lingering on my face.

He startled. She didn’t.

“Boann…” He said in surprise, though I knew he was not embarrassed, nor had he any need to be. “What are you doing here so far from your waters?”

“Silly Dagda, good god but not smart god, aye? Though you are not entirely wrong, I do oft stay near the Boyne but any waters become my safe passage, even here.”

She finally spoke, amused but also incensed at being interrupted. Who wouldn’t be?

“Gentle waters, you interrupt our union? Was it not enough that he lay with you and give you child, a strong one at that? Does your husband know where you are, mistress goddess?”

She was sharp, direct. Though, it did not feel akin to being admonished. She stood, closing the distance slightly on the river bank where they lay.

He spoke again, “You should go Boann. Unless it is your intention to stop us.”

“Oh, but no, I am not here to stop you,” I started to say, intending to play innocent till the last point, but I could no longer contain myself, “I am just a little put out… That you did not invite me.”

There it was, my confession wrapped in my words. I stepped closer to her, my hands clasped at my chest, unsure if I should be so close to the goddess of prophecy.

She stopped. For a brief moment, it hung in the air. Had I offended? Was she about to strike me down? Even in my doom, I could not help but warm at the thought of being touched by her, even to be struck.

A smile carved onto her perfect face. She moved, I was still unsure, I flinched slightly. But, then she was there in front of me, not a foot away. For what felt like eternity, she just stared at me as if weighing my worth, as if questioning my sincerity.

Inclining her head back, “You wish to lay with him as well?”

She must have seen the hunger in my eyes, “…But dark goddess… He is not the one who I am here for… Not the one that caught my eye… Not the one that makes me feel… More a river.”

Her smirk deepened, eyes now locked to mine, “Ah, so the river bends to the crow and not the plough.”
This was it, my chance. I stumbled into her.

She caught me gently, so gently. I melted at her light touch, holding me firm, I slowly snaked my hands from her sides where I had grabbed to steady my fall, up her back. Locked into those perfect green orbs rimmed by black, I looked at her lips again and a flood of every kind, especially emotion, flowed through the currents of my body.

I craned my face up to hers and hungrily drank from those perfect lips. I pulled away slightly, still afraid I had overstepped.

Until she lowered her regal lips back onto mine and drank back deeply. For years, I dreamed what it could be like and imagined being in this position more times than I care to admit. It was everything I dreamed it could be. So soft, perfect moisture (which, to a water goddess, very important), color vibrant, flavor… Inescapable.

I heard a slight shuffle behind her, as the Dagda sat up. Wryly and in good humor he said, “Well, it seems the plough has been indeed set aside in favor of the crow. I have no quarrel with that, but… Now I’m the one left out.” He exclaimed, his smile warm and waiting.

Morrigan and I looked back at each other and birthed a smile between us as we turned to him, and both jumped into bed.

The rest, I will leave to the imaginations of the more lecherous, but know even their imaginations still fall short.

David Clark (he/him) is a writer drawn to stories of liminality and epic myth. A longtime reader of science fiction and fantasy, a non-practicing pagan, and registered nurse, he aspires to craft stories that are both inclusive and mythic in scope.