Lá Bealtaine [open thread, come one come all]

[mnemosyne]

By the time Calden reaches his cousins, though, there is no longer any need to rescue the girl from their attentions. Instead, he finds them a big beleagured, under a certain degree of siege from a small knot of group of kids varying in age from seven to eleven or so. A handful of boys and girls wearing the rowan-and-hawthrone flower-crowns Étain contributed to the celebration.

Their attack was stealthy. They studied the pair of cowboys, in their crisp new boots and fine, well-brushed Stetsons and giant belt-buckles from a half-dozen yards away, whispering then invaded, aswarm, swamping and then drowning them with cowboy-related questions.

Which included questions about horses, cattle rustling, and the size of their belt buckles. But most particularly included one very pointed question from one rather serious little girl.

"Are you sure you're real cowboys?" This is the third time Ellie's asked Calden's cousins the rather pointed question. She needs a real cowboy, one who is preferably not already allies somehow with her mother, but she doubts the authenticity of these two, nevermind their protestations to the contrary, because their boots are so very new and so very clean, "because," the girl continues, quite seriously, her nose wrinkled with a rather skeptical consideration, her dark brows drawn close over dark eyes. "what I need is a real cowboy. With authority."