[august 1]

A year ago, Mad Sweeney had been wandering around this bloody city calling himself the God-King of the Tuatha Dé Danann, and while that isn't inaccurate, he sure as hell prefers knowing who he actually is and remembering most of the years between Lugh and now.

Still, the first of August arrives and with it, Lughnasadh. His bloody day.

He does everything in his power to ignore it, seeing no point to any of it. Maybe he had been Lugh once, but he's not that god-king any longer. He doesn't need a day, doesn't deserve one, and he'd rather not be associated with the gods in such a way. Being a leprechaun is fine by him. Better, really. It all boils down to his luck and his coins and he's perfectly content living with all that.

But the world has other plans for him, it seems, and in the early evening, as he contemplates either stopping for a drink or just heading home, a young woman with fine braids woven delicately into her hair, like those Lugh had worn into battle, stops him with her hand on his arm. She smiles up at him, her expression open and bright, then passes a corn doll into his hands.

"I think this is yours," she says, then she's off again, leaving Mad Sweeney to stare down at the corn doll representation of the god he used to be.

The weather is fine, warm and overcast without any suggestion of rain, and he makes his way to the park where he sits down on a bench. His flask is full and he presses an unlit cigarette between his lips as he stares down at the doll. Lughnasadh is a day of offering and sacrifice. He has no bull, no harvest, but as he takes out his lighter for his cigarette, he holds it, still unlit, to the edge of the doll's arm.

"Ought t'burn you up," he says to it. "Make myself the sacrifice."

[august]

Never in all of his very long life did Mad Sweeney figure himself for this sort of shit, the friendship he's cultivated with a girl from a fairy tale, but now that he has he can't imagine it being any other way. Even now, after everything, his memories can be fickle and turbulent, but if there's one thing he knows for certain -- besides his love of violence -- it's that his very being will always be connected to the sun. It only makes sense that he and Rapunzel have the connection they do, even if they look utterly absurd from the outside.

And absurd they are. Especially on a day like today. Sweeney's eye is blackened from a recent fight and there's a cut on his lip he keeps probing with his tongue. He's not hungover, but he looks as if he could be, or maybe that he'd spent the entire night sleeping on the bench where he's currently seated, his arms resting along the back, his legs spread out in front of him. He's a big man and he takes up a great deal of space.

And this morning, looking as he does, he's waiting for Rapunzel.

There are few things in the world he could care less about than the opinions of the people who live in this place. He's got the folks who matter, the rest can go fuck themselves, and when they glance his way, whispering at the state of him, he just bares his teeth in a deranged grin that tends to send them all scurrying away.

Rapunzel won't approve, but she always seems to forgive him. He figures she's got a soft spot for him, just like he has one for her.