Where Time Thins: A Samhain Dispatch from the European Tempus Militibus

 

Good evening, my lovelies.

Come in, ohh close the door and shut the wind out. The fire is warm and there’s whiskey to spare.

Rare Midleton, of course. The Militibus have developed a taste for it even though they claim it helps them think, though I suspect they simply admire Irish craftsmanship when they see it.

It’s Halloween again, yes, it is the old Samhain.
A time when the veil between our world and the Otherworld thins like morning mist, and time becomes unreliable. The puca are stirring in their hedgerows, full of autumn mischief.

Tonight, we’re talking lore, the kind I grew up with. Ireland wasn’t just built on myth and legend.
It breathes them.

So, settle in. Pour yourself a glass. Let’s have a little chat.

The Sluagh

Across Ireland and Scotland, the Sluagh are known as the Host of the Unforgiven: souls who travel in dark flocks, seeking the lonely and the dying. Unlike the Tuatha Dé Danann, they who are beautiful, terrible, and bright. But the Sluagh are neither noble nor elegant.

They appear as winged, withered figures, or great black clouds of scavenging birds.
And they lie. Oh, how they lie.

Luca and his officers in the Tempus Militibus have crossed them more times than I can politely recount. The Sluagh tried their tricks: cunning, pleading, manipulating. But the Militibus are not so easily swayed.

Still, on this night especially, be wary of the old figure who asks for help on the roadside.
Not every lost soul wishes to be saved.

The Dullahan

The headless horseman of so many tales?
He is ours. Irish. And his name is Dullahan, or gan ceann: the one without a head.

He rides the roads of the West, around Connemara, Sligo, Donegal, carrying his own head, and cracking a whip fashioned from a spine. He calls only one name at a time, and when he does… well there is no bargaining.

My mother told us stories of him, and of the Cóiste Bodhar, the silent death-carriage that precedes him. They say only those close to death hear its wheels first. Often it comes a night or two after the wail of the banshee.

So, if you’re out over the next few nights and see a faint, eerie blue light on the road…
do not follow it.
Beauty is not always benevolence.

The Caorthannach

And then there is the Caorthannach: the mother of demons.
Her name is one not spoken lightly.

Legend says that when Saint Patrick banished the serpents and devils from Ireland, the Caorthannach fled before him, poisoning every well and stream she crossed. He pursued her to the shores of Lough Derg, where he finally banished her.

But sometimes, it is said, that on still, hot days, the lake steams without warning.
A reminder.

She is not gone. She is merely waiting.

A Word from the One Who Watches

Ah, but you’re wondering…why all this, and why now?

Well, my dears… next Wednesday approaches, does it not?

And time…that fickle little creature…is beginning to fray at the edges.

So, allow me to pass the firelight to someone who knows this night well.

“Bonsoir, mes amies.”

I am Lieutenant Remy Étienne Mael, second of the Tempus Militibus (European Division, Lutetiae).
What you have heard tonight is troubling for mortals, but for us, it is simply another Thursday.

We keep this dimension safe from those who slip through it.
The Sluagh, the Dullahan, the Caorthannach… we have faced them all and worse.

You have not met us yet, but you will.

Our story has been recorded by our chronicler, Anna.
It will be told next Wednesday, when the Lunae Sanguinis rises.

Until then

Au revoir, chéri.
Do keep the candles burning.
We find our way more easily that way.

R.