Dreamfire

I dream of fire…

I come from the old blood. Sure, every Irish-wannabe from the latest Celtic / Keltic popularity trend claims that, but in my case it’s true. I was born in Ireland, in a little house that had been in the family for 120 years, and as a girl, my mother would take a brick out from under the big cast-iron wood stove that heated our cottage, wrap it in a towel, and put it under my feet, to keep me warm at night. I would wake up the next morning cuddling the towel-wrapped brick like a doll. We butchered our own lambs, and warmed pots of stew atop that same stove.

So when I say that my family was traditionally Irish, I’m not just one of those people with an Erin Go Braugh bumper sticker on their Japanese-made SUV or that drinks coffee from a mug with a four-leaf clover on it. And yes, my hair is really red, not just that trendy red-tinted that everyone and their poodle has these days. Feria, and their ‘dazzling colors’ can bite me. If you ask the question I sense in your mind about the carpet and the drapes, you’ll be having nightmares of fire for months. Watch it. Irish redheads and a bad temper might be a stereotype, but in my case, it’s a fact.

In my family there is a tradition. When a woman is pregnant, she has some sort of recurring dreams that are discussed by the family, and the child-to-be is dedicated to one of the old gods, based on those dreams. If the mother dreams of conflict and fighting, her child is dedicated to Morrigan, the war-goddess. If she instead dreams of many people all working together, moving or singing in unison, her child’s patron is Dagda, the Dozen-King. And so it goes. Dreams of water, lead the child to Manannan, the sea-god, dreams of jewelry to Goibhnu, the smith. My mother dreamt of fire. Not the destructive, ‘oh my god the house is burning!’ sort of fire-dream, but a gentler hypnotic dream of faceless people, people that felt like family, sitting around a campfire, listening to some singsong story to which she could not make out the words. My grandmothers and aunts all agreed, and I was dedicated to Brigit, goddess of fire and poetry, upon my birth.

My mother even named me Brigit, which makes me happy that she didn’t dream of jewelry, I guess.

It was in my teen years that my ancestral blood proved to be stronger than had been seen in four generations. My great-grandmother, dedicated to Manannan and regarded in life as a sea-witch who could command fish to her husbands nets, and calm the stormy seas, was the last of our family able to touch the powers of her birthright the way I can. She had passed away before I was born, and I found myself dreaming of fire on a nightly basis, the sing-song chant of the storyteller becoming insistent. I began writing, attempting to channel my birthright into storytelling, but I lacked the education to refine my talents. I also lacked the self-control to restrain my power. People who annoyed me began to suffer, and with my temper, that included friends and family alike.

I chose to come to Paragon City for that reason. I needed to learn to control my powers, and my temper, and the spirit of great-grandmother encouraged this choice. Yes, I still talk to my dead great-grandmother. Another family tradition, I guess. Leaving my home and my family was the hardest thing I ever did, and I still send them my love when I can, although we have no phone in the old homestead, so I must make do with letters. The seers and mystics at M.A.G.I. are helping me to channel the dreams of fire, to not inflict them on all around me, and to tap into powers that I never knew I had, the power to stoke the fires of life within another person, the power to heal!

With the work I do here, I also have enrolled in college, to develop my other skills and channel some of my frustration into art and storytelling. I will go home some day, but I will make my great-grandmother proud before I do.