Another night, another crate of bottles behind the bar - Davy's is doing brisk, but not unwarranted trade tonight, with a small crowd gathered to listen to the almost random performers on stage. There was one girl with a guitar doing covers of Suzanne Vega songs, aiming many of the songs almost deliberately at another girl in the audience who - oblivious - curled up closer to a rather large young man of the sort usually described as a knuckledragger.
     Faces give way to other faces, and it's not quite late enough to be early, and not quite early enough to be the beginning of the evening, when in walks Drancy, her long oak-golden hair worn in a complicated style that surely took at least three people to do - two long plaits hang down in front, braided with bells and beads and ribbons woven throughout, while another two plaits have been braided and arranged and pinned to the top of her head, with the rest unbraided, hanging down her back in shimmering waves down to her hips. A soft, heather-coloured sweater leaves her neck and shoulders bear, coming down just to meet the top of a pair of faded, comfortable-looking denim jeans, with floppy-cuffed black boots. A pair of sunglasses hide her eyes - a trifle affected, but well, Black Jack Davy's sees all kinds, doesn't it?
     She takes three steps in, and one to the side, turning her head slowly to do a measured scan of the inhabitants at this not-late, not-early hour, a sort of serene calm clinging to her skin.

     Like I'd be singing on open-mike night. Christus, I should do this for money, but I don't need any. Probably won't need any for a while. Course, coins come down like rain over Plantagenet's shoulders. I don't have crazy money, still... I have no worries...
     No worries in all the world...
     Is this the benefit to growing Old?
     Large hands, the hands of a Once Warrior, come together at the end of the young woman's set and then reach for the cigarette poised on a glass ashtray nearby. Kelly, the owner and tender, stands nearby and they drop back into their conversation. Laughter trails it. Loud. Raucous. Something of a throaty, earthy sound to it. And the language falls from his mouth, a cascading torrent down the living Snowdon Mountain known as Davydd Llewelyn.
     He sits at the bar with what is probably the third Guinness and the fifth cigarette. With March moving over the island with all its blustery wind and wet weather, he's in a leather coat, something with a docksman's cut. Very modern, very new. Beneath this, he wears a thin, scarlet sweater over an underlying white t-shirt. Red, black and white. The colors suit him. His hair is copper, as brash as his laughter, and as he glances about there's a twinkle in the dark green.
     But there's a sight that stops him. Golden. What could bring The Oak King to a dead, silent halt, aye? But a vision of an oak-haired woman...
     He openly stares.

     Drancy spots her quarry, and a slow smile moves across her face. She doesn't move, not immediately, waiting for lovers kissing in front of her to part, as a pair of doors might open their seam in their separate directions, and then, she steps forward, movement remaining unhurried as she pads forth towards the bar. She takes an empty seat, coincidentally but one over, with an empty seat in between, and leans forward with her sunglasses still concealing her eyes behind their mirrors.
     "Cider, please." It's Drancy's voice, but no, it isn't - not really. London and Powys meet and mingle, the harsh intensity of the punk girl's usual tones washed away so that the two words conjure up images of windfallen apples in lady's hands, of blue skies obscured by misting clouds and a light rain. Images easily ignored, if one's not listening closely : a glass is set in front of her, the thunk of glass on wood making reality somehow solid. "Thank you."
     She turns her head, the smile still present, and one hand rises, sliding the sunglasses off with the same rested lack of speed - two eyes, colour undecided, but the left's marked with an elongated vertical loop of complicated pale, silver-green knotwork that tapers to a point both above her eyebrow and below her eyelid, not quite resting on her cheekbone, turning the eye into a star shape.
     "Mad nosweithiau, Draig Davydd." Good evening, Dragon-Davydd.

     Kelly Morgan, proprietor of Black Jack Davy's, is also its resident bartender. Resident, in the old way, for he lives in the apartments above. But that's another story...
     He's an affable sort, has owned Davy's since anyone who cares can remember, it's been in the Morgan family since the end of the Big War. A big barrelled-chested man, he pulls a double-duty as the peacemaker. But he's the finest tender this side of the Thames, and maybe even this side of the Severn...
     There's a raise of brows nearby, both fiery copper. And from both an open interest. Oh, sure, they've seen the face before but... there's more than a few differences. And it stops both Celtic men mid stream of thought and with mouths poised to speak.
     But those mouths do not...
     Not immediately. But then there's a narrowing of forest eyes, and a sparkle is held deep within them -- a glimmer in a glade still distant. "Nos dda," he says, an abbreviated, and therefore familiar, greeting. "And how are you daughter of the oaks," his Welsh rolls northern, more speaking to Gwynedd than Powys, but even so a touch of both linger in his voice and the modulations of the tongue.
     Quite a change, Drancy. And though I call you Drancy I should say daughter. And though I call you daughter... granddaughter, I should call you by Her name. You ... centuries later... you are as much a copy...
     "You look... quite fetchin'..." green eyes flit to Kelly. I'll be buying the drinks.
     "And how does such a lovely thing come to know such a horrid man as Davydd Llewelyn," Kelly wonders, his own voice a lovelier lilt that would be expected of a man his size, not so gutteral as Davydd's own.
     "Bad luck," Davydd mutters, and he leans in toward her grinning. "Death and taxes. Inevitable fate. She can't help the association," he continues, settling back and looking to Kelly, "...we're ... related."

     Oh, and won't she just be having fits when she comes to, and finds the mark upon her eye, a line between doubt and certainty? There'll be hell to pay, no doubt - if not the Christians' hell, then some older place of misery and anger and hideous discomfort. The corners of her eyes and her mouth curve now, though, crinkling as she smiles at the two men.
     "Fetching, is it?" Apparently she's gained control of enough of the punk girl's tongue and thoughts to have gotten some English, though it's a bit halting, and definitely flavoured by the Welsh. "You ever were quick to flatter, Davydd."
     She lifts a hand, pulling back her hair, and for the first time, one ear is made visible - sure enough, her ears come just to the barest suggestion of a point. It's not inhuman - there's plenty of people across the globe that will have it - but she uses it as if it's a passkey into other places. Her hand hovers for a moment, then gently smooths her hair down, as if it were a normal gesture, just toying with her hair.
     "Davy and I've known each other long and long, aye," she agrees with quiet mirth to Kelly. "He watches my pets for me while I'm away. Though I am not the one more taxed by our acquaintance, I suspect - and death comes only in small doses."

     There's a look that passes between both men, and Kelly, quite visibly and quite openly raises his hands, a cocking smile at the edge of his lips and he turns. I don't want to know. The less I know, the less complicated it all is...
     "Free with flattery? Me?" Well, he's not known for it nowadays, exactly, or at least he protests that he's not known for it and hasn't a way with it, but in younger days, when he wasn't pushing forty -- let alone forever -- before seasons of battles aged him twice over, surely his tongue was crafted gold.
     "It's been long and long since I've seen you," he says back, Welsh coming freely now and English easily discarded. "It's a clear night, we won't be able to see stars for the pissing light of the city, but the rain's stopped. Care to take a walk?" Oh, he can hear it now. When you wake to see that new mark. The new look. The new damnation, at least in your eyes. It is a bittersweet thing, seeing your grandmother coming through you, someone I once cared for. There's the sweetness of it. But to know how you will react. What it means for Drancy. She whose body this is.
     It isn't fair, Sweet Oak. Your time was Then. It is not Now...
     He stamps out his cigarette and washes down the moment with the last swallow of Guinness. Kelly takes the glass and smirks. "Does that mean you won't be going on tonight? You ditching bastard," but looking to the young woman, there's a grin and a wink of ... understanding.

     And no doubt her words would be the same whether he was known for flattery or for insults - it's a game that's to be played, at such times, when infinity curves along straight lines. Her smile remains, lingering before slowly fading. "A walk in the rain... ?" Her Welsh is flavoured with an older Welsh, before coal collapsed the countryside, before London burned, then burned again, and again. London is as immortal as Davydd, and perhaps as hard. "A romantic notion. Very well - I accept." And it's less like a girlish giggle than like a gauntlet being picked up, a flash of Drancy underneath solid seasoned oak. Her smile to Kelly contains another world's mischief, a world that touches humanity's world, but which humanity has long since decided it hasn't conscious room for. "I'd hate to make him not perform his given duties - perhaps though the set could be arranged? I'll even contribute my own meager skills to his, if desired..."

     Speaking of gauntlets...
     Now, this is a challenge that Kelly can't resist. Eyebrows open upward and outward, and curiosity spreads across his features. Who could forget his last duet session with the lovely, if aloof, Rosamund Clifford Caermichael? The pub was packed -- and Davydd packs it anyway, weeks in advance. An impromptu performance would sell a lot of beer. "You've got a deal," Kelly says, hands upon the bar and a challenging look given to Davydd. "Be back by nine, I'll take care of the setup..." And it's a done deal before Davydd can protest...
     ...Though his mouth was parted open to do so. But he relents, a great sigh of resignation and his own hands hit the bartop, even as he rises. "Alright, I guess there's no getting out of it. We'll be back at nine. That's, what? Three hours?" He pulls up leather and sweater to mark his watch. The silver watch that overlies blue, swirling dragons. "Something like that, that'll do." Green eyes settle on you, Daughter of Oak and he leans in, smirking. "Now look at what you've done. I've got to live up to the hype." His smile erupts into a cometing grin, streaking warmth across his features. "You've tricked me fairly. We'll talk it over as we walk..."

     "That, no doubt, and many other things, but fear not. My word, once given, is my bond." Another smile from Drancy/not-Drancy, and she rises, having barely touched her cider, and not having yet paid for it. It's only a belated impulse indeed which causes her to reach for her wallet, fumbling with the paper currency and frowning a trifle at it. Kelly gets another smile as she replaces her glasses. "P'rhaps I'll sing this place's namesake's tune."
     The long, heavy hair is tossed back nonchalantly, and she slides fully free of the bar. "I've no fear you'll be able to live up to expectations, Davydd... worry, rather, what other tricks I may yet have up my sleeve." That faint mischief returns, changeable gaze hidden from view so only your own green glance is reflected back. "And oh, aye, we'll speak..." She turns on one heel, swaying towards the door, pausing about halfway to look once over her shoulder.
     "Coming, Davydd-Draig?"

     I was outmatched then and I'm outmatched now. I'm good as an Oak King. Stalwart and hell on wheels in battle. But matched to fae or woman's wits? Forget it. You have to laugh. Duw knows I do. A hand in my hair, there's not much to muss. How civilized I am these nights...
     There's a roll of his eyes to Kelly and a roll for that returned. I know I'm in trouble, and yet I know the game, so... at least the eyes are open, aye? "I don't fear the inevitable," he rumbles, voice held at throat and chest, and he chuckles, coming along with that stride of Mars, that walk that is forever a march mercurial. He does nothing in half measures, Llewelyn...
     But his hand swipes at the bar and it picks up the money. No need for that, and Kelly wouldn't take it anyway. His hands to his leather coat pockets he's out the door next, exhaling mist as warm breath meets cooler air...

     She glances around the city street with a distaste that Drancy would never have known. "Which paths shall we walk tonight, Davydd? Yours or mine?" A hand waves, a tingle of power behind it, suggestive of portals and doorways that lead to greener fields by far.
     Outmatched? There's no telling the end of a battle until it's been fought and won, but she has a quiet grace and confidence which Drancy, for all her fight and bravado, cannot match and will never match, not for centuries if at all. "I will allow you to guide my steps for this time." Hear the laughter beneath the words, the richness to her cool, quiet voice.

     "It's only fair," he quips, "... for all the previous blindfolded journeys I was led into." He grins for that. So long ago. Long and long. But he doesn't lead you headlong into alleys, or into the dangerous shadows that have comprised his second home. it's to be a walk along The Strand. View of the Tower, view of the city lights like spectral stars.
     His hands come out of his pockets, and one presses your money back into your palm. Back to Drancy's. "It was my pleasure, and no cost to you. I owed you a drink, did I not?" His larger hands fall away, and lace behind his back as he walks. It gives him something to do with them. A focal point. An old habit. "She's got a good heart," he says softly, his eyes moving from you to the surroundings, to space and Time. And all the time that has passed. "From what I know of it. So," a leading sound, a leading word, and he keeps moving. "... she is ... a long-time echo of us both? I did not know..."
     And did it happen with the last set of markings? Did it happen as part of the ritual given to the dragons that were... and still are... etched at his groin? The 'mistletoe' power and spell forever marked there. Was it then that it happened...
     When he was later taken by a darker group than even the darkest of Your Folk. Was it after that, when he sought shelter beneath the earth. When he learned your name -- and then remembered it. In that span of years when he lived with you. With all of you.

     The money's tucked away again, fingers clumsy on unfamiliar trappings - a camouflage wallet, with velcro tab. "Debts? Who is to say what debts there are or are not? The marks cut both ways, Draig... not one way, but two." Amusement wins the day again, that face so smooth and ageless when freed of Drancy's glares and scowls and black looks, for all that it's a borrowed body.
     "Her heart is troubled," comes a small, almost absent correction as she follows you, glancing around her surroundings with a moue of disfavour. "She is an echo of the past, Davydd. If she were not, I would not be able to walk in her flesh. It comes and goes, an ebbing tide as her power rises. If you are asking, is she yours, then you'll get no answer from me, Prince of Dragons." The mirth rises again, into a silent laugh.
     "I remember you being a merrier soul than you are now. Has too much blood dimmed your eyes so truly?" The glasses remain on, gaze mirrored, but her scrutiny is palpable, running along skin as if it were a touch. "I do not know... time will come, though, when you may be called for another mark."

     "Ah, now... you only see me in a quiet and reflective mood. It is hard not to be a bit ...sober. I'm still an ass of a man," comes the roll of his voice, northern dialect pulling hard upon the vowels. "That hasn't changed. But... aye... I suppose there's been a lot of blood. I don't think about it. It is what it is. I suppose I am a touch worried for her..." He admits it to you without hesitation. Something he cannot tell her -- how would she ever understand it?
     There is quiet then after. Another mark. But your studying gaze will see Understanding. They will not see Surprise. "I spent a little time resting," from 1945 to 1975 to be exact, "... when it comes, if it comes, I will be ready." But Sandrine. Sandrine is not...
     There's an exhale, and warm breath turns to mist again, like smoke from the Prince of Dragons. "The laugh's as good as an answer," Davydd quips, and his grin is quick and the green eyes sparkle, "and so's the silence." I know she's mine. "You... walking in her flesh. You know she... doesn't know. And there's no way for me to tell her. I should find her a mentor," one of her own kind, one of yours, "...but you know how hard it is to find fae-blooded magicians these days in London? It's like finding a virgin in Amsterdam..."

     "I am still as much a trickster as a sage, Davy-bach." The voice sparkles, even if the eyes remain mirrored. "My silences are not so deep as you give credit for." In short, she's not saying - really not saying, not just pretend not saying.
     She makes no further mention of marks or Marks, for the moment, walking in silence for a few minutes longer, looking at concrete and steel with the faint revulsion of one for whom the green glens of another world are open and rolling still.
     "She is mine, most certainly." That much answer, she gives freely. "If she were not, I would not be able to walk in her flesh. She does not yet know, but she is ... learning. She is much afraid, which is why I've done what I have." One slender hand goes to her stomach, the tattoo covered by flesh. "That binds power and keeps it from 'leaking' - your touch and hers are safe, as are any others who normally would need fear such floods."
     She slides the glasses up, fingers probing at the mark there with petal-light touch. "This binds sight so that it is controlled, rather than random. She does not know... but she will learn. Trial by kindness or trial by fire - they both burn just as much, Davydd. And as for magicians to teach her - well, some might say finding one is as difficult as finding a virgin in London herself."
     The disincarnate sorceress smiles with Drancy's mouth, a small, knowing smile, eyes darkening before fading once more.

     Ah well, that's true. Between Edward Meurelle, William Plantagenet and I, there wasn't much for Mortimer, Grey or the others to spoil. The country is ... well used. And he laughs at the notion. Well, more cackles really. "True enough. Well, what else is one to do to keep entertained and occupied here? It's why I moved back to Wales. Soon, business will be concluded and I will be returning to Powys. It is impossible to think of spending spring anywhere else." He pauses and looks to you. "I've stayed longer than I intended. I didn't want to just... abandon the child to the street, as frightened as she was. It is good... that you are giving her control. Though you know... the marks for her... they are problematic for her. There is ...not another way?"
     Yes, Davydd Llewelyn is compassionate. He's not totally devoid of heart. "I can't look out for her. She cannot go where I go...it is a bloody way, dear one..." The Welsh is hushed at that. And he doesn't have to explain what ...way that is.

     "There are ways and there are ways, Davydd." They say that the Fair Folk, what they feel, is deeper and more immaculate than what mere mortals feel. If that is so, then it is little wonder, the desolation that briefly moves through her voice with those words. "No one way is alone the right way - something which men have fought and died and failed to comprehend in vaster numbers over the centuries than even I can fathom. The power is in her, though - the only aid I can give her is with what I know, what I and mine have in our possession."
     She steps through a pool of shadows, and almost seems to disappear into it, save for the pale luminescence of her skin, her voice seeming disconnected from flesh when she speaks again. "It is well and wise that you did not abandon her. Imagine, if you will - what sort of lure will that power present, to those sensitive to it?" Whether it's Plantagenet or Windsor, power calls to power, her glance implies.
     "However dark your paths, Davydd... think you not that our own paths contain no darkness. Wherever she goes, she is a flame, and shadows will approach. We cannot take her from this waking world o'erlong - for a span of time, and no more, any the more can we you. Her spark will continue to burn, Davy-bach. And where a fire burns, there will be those that seek to warm themselves."

     And do what, Davy? Set up house in Powys Castle, make Sandrine your queen and Drancy your heir? There are worse ways. But there has to be a better way than that...
     There is a heavy exhale for that and arms fold against the expansive chest. The world has gotten suddenly so complicated, as if the usual twists and turns of the labyrinthine average immortal day and night weren't enough. Now what. Now what. "Aye, I hear you," he breathes. "And there is none you trust." It is question and not question. He answers, even as he asks. Arms come unfolded and face is turned toward the stars -- or would be if they could be seen, "Christ!" Well, there's no real point in asking Him...
     A hand rakes through what hair he hasn't cut, moving through the copper and bronze, and he shakes his head. It's several more moments before he speaks. Finger and thumb presses his lower lip between in thought and then he looks to you. "And then, what is there to do," he whispers lastly, tongue lilting thick with the old words. "If I tell her who and ... more importantly what... I am, I endanger her... if I take her in, and not that she'll go, then she's as much a danger to me. If I do not take her, she becomes a sweetmeat for every sharp nose in Britain. These are not good options."

     Drancy-not Drancy seems sympathetic, even if still entertained by the dilemma. "These times are not as times past, Davydd. Would that they were, in some ways, but the world turns onwards. Most of us have severed our ties with humanity, because humanity has little room for us save round the edges - and our own pride will not allow us to be relegated to dusty corners of bookshelves." For a moment, she draws herself erect, every inch the immortal sorceress and battle-maiden - no mean feat, considering it's still Drancy's body and wardrobe.
     "You have some interesting friends as well, Davy-bach," the voice teases and caresses, as she steps again from shadows into light. "Who was that man in the silver-dark chariot with portals like wings that fled the city with her? Is he a lover you've selected for her? He was most kind and most chaste with her - much to my own surprise." The smile that accompanies the words has a definite teasing bite, sparkling eyes hidden by mirrors.
     "Danger is everywhere - whether of our people, or your new people," to her, knowing as long as she has, it is a newness, and hers is an older claim, even if there is no jealousy, "or simply in the living. That has not changed over the centuries, Draig. What would you see her do? What would you see her become?"

     He cocks up a brow -- usually it's both, but this time there is just the arch of the one, in fiery quirk of ...sudden curiosity. Who the hell could that be? Not Edward, he's not in town, I checked and he's still not returning my messages. William was in town...he met her...
     William...
     "Fuck no," he quips, "...not if it's who I'm thinking that is. She'd be wise to cut him a wide path. That's the quickest way to a short," if devastatingly enjoyable, according to local legend, "...life I know. I don't know what I want to see her become, but I know what I don't want and that'd be tops of my list. And it's not out of some sort of familial obligation. It's just a public service warning." Go that way, and you'll be ruined, Drancy. Davydd halts the rant by the raising of his hands and a quicksilver smile. "She'll have to find her own lovers. This Cupid's retired."
     But the quicksilver grin is chased away the next moment and he shakes his head with widened green eyes. "I don't know," he murmurs. "I would see her do... what she most desires to do. I would see her... come to desire something, rather than fighting everything." Davydd shakes his head, hands shoving into the leather pockets of his coat, "...but this is up to her. I cannot guide her to this. Even if I were her father," a pointed look to you and a smirk, "... or a grand-father or a goddamned great uncle, all I could do would be... to want her to do well. Whatever she wishes to do. What my place in it should be?" A roll of his shoulders.
     I have no fucking clue...

     That gets an answering smile, cat-like in its enigma. She refuses to answer any hypothesis as to Drancy's parentage, even refusing to hint. "I could tease you by telling you who she fancies," comes the droll, rolling lilt, "but I think I shall not - you need little enough ammunition to defend yourself against her, if you've truly of a mind to do so." Cupid, indeed.
     Her expression turns more serious, and she turns in her steps to begin the journey back towards the pub. "She is angry and she is afraid, and who can blame her? The world is a fearsome place - what mankind has wrought... the things she has lost... they are kindling to her fire. This newness, she does not understand that it is power, only that it is different, and that she is changing. Do you remember the first of your changes, Davy-bach?" Perhaps she means the marks, or perhaps she's referring to puberty, an even older change.
     "She knows too little to choose... and sooner or later, someone will seek to choose for her..."

     And it all comes back to you doing sommat about it, Davydd. You, Prince. You. You of Gwynedd and Powys, who have been presented with a bit of a problem. But see, this is precisely why you are Prince. Why the North still answers -- at least in some of the darker valleys -- to the name Llewelyn. To the older, Gwynedd. Because, boyo, you know damn well you're not going to just leave and then that'll be the end of it.
     Maybe the new mark you're to be given isn't on you at all, but Marked on another. And where would all your talk and understanding of Fate be then...
     Well, if you're referring to puberty, he couldn't possibly tell you. When peach fuzz turned to fire and voice dropped, the world was thought to be flat and ended on the other side of Ireland. That was over eight-hundred years ago. He's been nigh-on forty for a long, long while. But if you're talking about the marks that you yourself set on him. He remembers that. And he remembers what it meant to him when the earth swallowed him and he learned the truth of it. And it's that realization that wins the inner skirmish.
     "I will speak with her," and then he smirks, mouth twisting in a snort of laughter, "...fuck me what am I saying? As soon as she sees the new handiwork she'll be aiming for the nether dragons." Riot! And he has to chuckle at that. Thank the gods I do not recall when those were done.
     Davydd moves along with you, steps leading back to the pub away from The Strand. "There's one, though, that I need to speak with first," he murmurs. "I'm going to have to take a raincheck on our song..."

     Drancy's face smiles, but it's still not Drancy behind the mask. "Ah, but Davy-bach, whatever happened to the show must go on?", she teases. "Besides, I did promise, and my word is my bond - if you're not to sing, one of us must." She wriggles away, eel-like, expression filled with mischief again, and she parts her lips, a rich contralto voice, sweet and remarkably pure comes out.
     They say that when the Tuatha de Danaan sing, mortal men laugh or weep according to the song, that the world itself stops for their music and their tales. Perhaps it did, in another age. As for now? Well, London is an old city, with older echoes.
     "Late last night, when the squire come home
     Inquiring for his lady
     Some denied and some replied
     She's gone with the Black Jack Davy.

     Go saddle to me the bonny brown steed
     For the grey was never so speedy,
     I'll ride all day, and ride all night
     'Til I catch that Black Jack Davy..."

     He knows the song. He bloody well should. And all its incarnations. And while he'd never say he had a voice that would rival a Danaan Daughter, it is what it is and it's deep and fine, a rougher edge of Welsh slate for it. A voice fit for a dragon prince.
     Hands in his pockets, and bronze hair getting damp with the mist thickening the air again, he moves along with you, his stride marking the measure of an old song. Old, but still younger than the pair of you...
     "He rode up hills and he rode down dales
     Over many a wild high mountain
     And they did say that saw him go
     Black Jack Davy he is hunting

     He rode east and he rode west
     All in the morning early
     Until he spied his lady fair
     Cold and wet and weary..."

     It's answered by a tinkling laugh, before she swings into the song again, sunglasses coming off so that you're regarded by a pair of changing, too-knowledgable eyes unmarred by fierceness or anger, which makes them abruptly not Drancy's. The sunglasses get slid back up, and she rejoins with the next verse. If Kelly's listening, if the world pauses to listen, as it likely won't - and such a pity - they're receiving a rare treat indeed.
     "Why did you leave your house and land,
     Why did you leave your baby,
     Why did you leave your own wedded lord,
     To go with the Black Jack Davy?

     He rode up hills and he rode down dales
     Over many a wild high mountain
     And they did say that saw him go
     Black Jack Davy he is hunting..."

     It's with a considerable look of mischief, then, that she turns to face you, and there's a hint of Drancy's fire to the voice and eyes.

     "What care I for your goose feather bed,
     With the sheets turned down so bravely?
     Well may I sleep on the cold hard ground,
     Along with the Black Jack Davy...
     Then I'll kick off my high-heeled shoes,
     Made of the spanish leather
     And I'll put on my lowland brogues
     And skip it o'er the heather..."
     He rode up hills and he rode down dales
     Over many a wild high mountain
     And they did say that saw him go
     Black Jack Davy he is hunting."

     A rare treat indeed, and rarer still when the voice sounds outward and then turns inward. That whisper taught to him, that way of speaking upon air so subtle it nests in the mind even before he could nest in the ears. That way of mind-whispering given to him by you, by the dragons coiled on his chest. You blessed him with hazel. The tree of the mind, of wisdom. And he became the second coming of Gwydion...
     Take her home, dear friend, and let her rest. I must go. There is much I must do...
     And his striding slows, and the song gives way. His hands come out and he gives a warm smile. And a touch wistful. For well he knows, this may be the last time you call him. How good it was. Do not let the next time be so long...

     Drancy's eyes crinkle around the edges, the amusement plain even with mirrors barring the way. Relax, Davy-bach, comes the answering whisper. She will be tired, but all will be well - for now... and you will see us again, perhaps sooner than you think.
     With that whisper of earth and air, she smiles one last time, sliding away, into shadows again once more, the oaken-gold hair shining but once before she's swallowed up by the night.

Posted by rowan at May 09, 2003 10:06 PM