He looked at her sideways. “Maybe you are as delusional as you think Gilby is.” She said she was a diplomat a lot…but she often did not act very diplomatic.
“Hey! Hey! Hey! I didn’t say I was a fully vested bard,” she gave him a mock hurt look. “I said I had bardic training! Gilby, on the other hand, just picks up a flute one day and says, ‘I’m a bard, I’m a queen, I’m the best at everything,’ and everybody is ‘ooohhh…aaaahhhhh’!
“At least I have documentation,” she said, pointing at the tattoo on her right shoulder.
“And what the hell is that thing?” Toot-Toot replied gruffly. Somebody else might have taken offense to the tone. But Siobhan understood. Non-Kelts had a hard time with Keltic symbology.
“That thing,” she replied, with feigned offendedness coating her words, “is a wolf, my friend.”
“That’s no wolf…”
“It is too, you big oaf!”
“I’ve seen wolves…that’s not one.”
“It’s a perfect likeness.”
“I see why you are trying to get training in art…but maybe you need something for eyesight.”
“I would like to see you do better!”
“I don’t claim to be an artist…like, apparently, that butcher did!” He shouldered her this time.
“Bah! Ye wouldn’t know a wolf from a weasel if it bit you on the ass!”
“I know that’s not a wolf…or a weasel on your arm.”
“Tlachtga told me that there were people like you in the world. She is really smart. A living legend. But I thought she was nuts when she told me that. Most druids are at least a little nuts and they will lie to you just a bit to see how gullible you are.”
“What does that mean,” he asked idly. “‘…People like you’? What’s wrong with people like me? You don’t like purple?”
“Ack! Purple is fine…though a bit unnatural. It’s like your mudder masturbated with a fairy ‘shroom before mating with your pa. Or maybe it’s your fey gift.”
“So…warned you about ‘people like me’…what’s that mean?”
“Non-iconographic.”
He screwed his face up at her. “Non what? Are you just making shit up?”
“No. Honest! I promise. Non-iconographic. It’s a real thing.”
“What the hell is it then?”
“It has to do with some people’s minds. They’re…damaged, retarded or just…wrong…and cannot process the symbology of shapes, so, for example, they will never understand the symbol of a star as being a star because it is a five pointed symbol…not a perfect illustration of a star.”
“Whatever. I’m not non-iconolg, non-iconic, non-…, non-whatever! The tattooist simply could not draw a wolf to save his life.”
“You’re blind, you big lug! Or have no appreciation for Keltic artwork.” She looked down proudly at her shoulder tattoo of the…thing she called a wolf under which her arm was ringed by blue and green and black Keltic scroll work from the base of the creature to just above her elbow…almost like a sleeve. “Anyway, there’s Tim’s. Let’s see if anybody is home.”
Awkward Club 