... Such pleasant dreams...
Do you ever recall them being so vivid, so wild? So full of people you didn't know? For part of it, you could swear you were flying. Then dropped into liquid, warm. Then dried off and placed upon pillows softer than any clouds...
So many colors...
The smells, spices and incense and honey and mead...
So symbolic that it didn't make any sense at all. But not a bad dream. Just... surreal...
And soon it begins to recede, slowly, like fingers of sunlight trailing against blankets, receding, as the sun dips below the horizon. Fuzziness of dreaming becomes clarity. And waking.
And sensations...
Softness, like you're suspended on clouds. Warmth, like you are bundled in a blanket, but it's not stifling. Sounds...like soft voices...
Or maybe that's you, telling yourself to wake up...
"Mrph." No matter how pleasant it might all be, Drancy's not very good at being a morning person. One hand lifts to rub at her eyes, and she tries to peel open her eyelids, one at a time, to glare balefully up at the world.
No bloody idea where I am, but damn, this's comfortable. Pity I've got work...
Slowly, the events of the (previous?) night come filtering back, but only slowly, through the haze. "Wheh eh I." Cotton mouth, the dreaded curse of all early mornings, with or without alcohol being involved.
Well, one thing's for certain...
You're not in London anymore...
Well, no London you recall visiting. It's possible that it could be someone's truly posh pad, perhaps even one you'd imagine William living in, were he not living in a castle in France. When your eyes open, they open to a warm, almost golden glow of soft lighting -- like the sunlight of ten a.m. -- and the round chamber is filled with pillows, large and small. They serve as chairs, as bedding. The walls are a light yellow.
There are no windows...
If you sit up, you will see low-sitting tables spread out in a banquet. Fresh food, honeyed drinks. All pendulous upon your choosing. The tables, it seems, have been set for you.
In the center of the room, there is a harp. A large harp. Inlaid with gems, with swirling spiral designs, with golden strings...
"Oh, this can't be good news."
She's hardly aware of saying it aloud, but the sentiment is most certainly heartfelt. Drancy mutters, under her breath, while checking for the sanctity of her clothing.
Just woke up, not my room, no bloody clue how I got here, and I'm supposed to trust this? Kee-rist. Talk about breaking the backs of the poor... But, well, it certainly makes a pretty picture.
That's admitted to herself, though ever so grudgingly. Drancy pulls herself out of the bed, trudging over to examine the room for all possible exits and scenery and to lock the door, if possible - buying herself time is always good.
The circular walls are interrupted only by the nine arched doors. Each one painted exactly alike, deep blue with a golden spiral starburst. Not too helpful, but, my, doesn't the feast look amazing. And still warm. Someone's brought this in -- from somewhere -- and recently too...
Your clothing is exactly as you left it. As is your hair. You, in fact, seem well. And it's hard not to feel fan-fucking-tastic when you have a spread of kings in front of you...
The room is circular, almost perfectly so, and there is space amid all those pillows to actually walk around. The floor, where not covered by pillows, seems to be made of a kind of blue stone. And maybe, if you're really perceptive, you'll catch onto the pattern.
If you were a fly on the wall, or a ghost hovering at the ceiling, it'd be obvious. You're in a spiral. So, the circle turns in upon itself. Huh. So, where do they put the loo?
Funny thing is, they don't need one. They don't need anything...
And don't you just want to bet that all doors here just lead to one another. Open door number one, you appear at door number five. That sort of craziness.
Well, it couldn't hurt just to make sure now... could it?
First things first, and knowing where she is seems a high priority in Drancy's mind - even higher than the food, though her food rumbles disagreeably at the notion of postponing breakfast.
"Wonder what the harp's for... not like I'm a bloody musician," she comments sourly. "Maybe it's like a bellrope." Not that she's in a hurry to summon whoever's brought her here... she's a little too acutely aware of feeing like a rat in a maze.
She wiggles out of her bra, from under the shirt, still looking round warily, and helps herself to some of the colder foods - "Just in case," she murmurs, "this turns into some sort of psychological experiment like rats in a maze... read a book about that once. Kids kidnapped, waking up in a maze..."
That being said and decided, she approaches the door closest to the bed, putting her hand on the knob.
It turns easily enough...
Feels like a door knob...
Turns like a door knob...
Complains like a door knob?
"Oh, so you're awake. You know, we had to put a perfectly good party on hold for you, Miss I Can't Keep My Eyes Open Just Because I Did A Little Transdimensional Traveling. Light-weight."
Was it before he started speaking -- and the door is most assuredly a he, as you're finding out -- or after he spoke that you realized you were holding onto the private parts of a beautiful man. Fortunately, there's some clothing between your hand and his bits. In fact, there's a lot of clothing -- armor to be precise. And he is beautiful to the point of giving someone a headache. And blonde. Eyebrows lift and eyes twinkle -- what is with the men in England that their eyes sparkle so? If this... is... England. He clears his throat and blinks three times thrice. "Can I help you? Or are you just particularly friendly..."
Drancy yelps, letting go in a hurry and stumbling backwards to sit down hard, on the floor. This brings out the Cockney in her, ingrained as it is by countless hours spent trawling the less well-known, well-lit sections of London. "Who the fuck are yew?"
Her face is reddening, though, even as she's scrambling up to her feet, brushing herself off, the bra with the food wrapped in it splatting to the floor, forgotten. "I, you. You were a door. What? What the fuck is going on here?"
Well... grace under pressure, she is not.
He laughs. He can't help it, you see. And it sounds like music and it comes like fire and his hand goes to his armored stomach, then up to his crystalline eyes. They'd be grey, maybe, if they weren't so bright and clear. "Oh," he trails out, "...that was good."
The armored young man with the beautiful face, the body midway between warrior and musician steps forward and offers to help you up. This time with his hand. The touch of it is soft, like he hasn't done a day's work, and they're fine, like musician's hands, fingers long and slender. He's dressed in a kind of chain, more mesh from what your fingers were able to feel. It seems like metal. Maybe it isn't. Maybe it is. Just like doors are not doors, perhaps...
"I'm sure you can come up with your own names for me right about now, but ... just for introduction's sake, the name is Hwyll. Now that you're awake, I'll have to call the others back in. Course, what happened just now... well, we'll make that our little secret."
He winks again and gives you a tug. He's quite tall, not unlike the one you've come to know as Dei, and as he gives you a tug he frees your hand, with a little tickle of fingers against your palm.
The great flirt...
"Hey Huw," he says to the harp. "Wake up... your pebble's grown arms and legs..." And breasts...
It's not possible for Drancy to go any redder, but she tries, flushing visibly as she yanks her hand away once on her feet again, folding her arms across her breasts. "Good to you, maybe," she mutters tartly, and if she were wearing the boots to, she'd stomp across the room. Instead, she has to settle for pacing.
She's keenly aware with sudden uneasiness at the realization of the difference between masculinity and femininity, of a sudden, and it's not a feeling Drancy's used to at all. Paradoxically, it makes her wish for Dei.
Dei... except it's not Dei, not really, anymore, is it? If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it is a duck - but when it's only a duck in looks, what is it?
Shaking her head as if to clear the thought away, she turns back to the knight, gaze raking over armour and figure with aggression and anger. "I'd introduce myself, but I'm fairly bloody sure you already know who I am. You certainly seem to have all the answers, anyway. Who the hell is Huw?"
The fact that he's talking to the harp sinks in rather belatedly, and she backs away from it, eyeing the room for other doors. Maybe another one won't turn into a knight. Then again, maybe it will, but that doesn't mean it's not worth a shot.
What walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, seems like a duck... may be a duck. But what really makes a duck a duck? Its seeming like a duck or some quality of being a duck?
Same thing goes for the doors, probably. Such is a life in metaphor...
In your aggression and your anger he stands quite easily and quite calmly. "Oh, the whole kingdom knows who you are, Drancy, long lost daughter of Isabel. In fact," he pulls up the chain shirt to reveal tattoos in spirals, his not dragons but dogs, Celtic hound imagery etched into a figure of strength and beauty. "You gave me these once upon a time. Well, your ancestor did, I should say. The best night of my life." He lowers the armored shirt with a wink and goes back to his position against the wall. And maybe he's your ancestor, too. Despite the thoughts of one who feels responsible...
"But, I'll let Huw explain... he's much better at words than I am. But if you know... you have a little mead and want a little company, I'm the third door on the left."
And then the guard is a door again.
"I'm afraid the rest of them have the same sense of humor," another voice says clearly, yes, from the direction of the harp. "In fact, the fifth door on the left is turning his own knob in anticipation. Stop it, Dewi," sounds like Davy, but of older syllables. "Sorry for that. You can't take these doors anywhere." There's a chuckle for that, but it's brief.
And the owner of the second, earthier voice is tall and lean, and leaning against the harp. There's one goblet less on the table, if you'd bother'd counting, but likely you hadn't so it goes unnoticed. His hair is the color of wine. His eyes are black-brown. And he, like his golden comrade, is rather startling looking. He's not dressed in armor, however, but in shades of green and brown, shades and hues of the earth. And he's barefoot. "Why don't you have a seat, and I'll explain it all, Drancy..."
If they don't stop popping out of the woodwork, I'm going to scream...
She thinks it, doesn't say it, but it's likely plain on her face nonetheless. And isn't it just as well Drancy hasn't anything like a weapon on her? Judging by her expression, well, maybe not.
"I'll stand, thanks, but you can start talking, sure." Her shoulders are bunched up, the muscles knotting and tensing with her anger, frustration swallowing down the fear and unknown she's got bubbling under the surface.
Kingdom? Isabel? What the fuck is he talking about? Wants me to just sit down like a good little girl, does he.
Aloud, Drancy says, "Who're you, who's Huw, where's this and how did I get here, and for that matter, why? Is this something to do with Dei? Or Davydd?" Stabs in the dark, but those're the only people she knows who she's... 'felt' things off of... She narrows her changeable eyes at this new figure, arms relentlessly folded.
It's a posture countless teachers in countless schools recognize - youthful defiance. Go ahead. Teach me. I dare you.
"I'm Huw. Also known as bloody cat, fucking cat, bastard and asshole. I think those are the appelations I was most often known by. Or would this help?" he suddenly queries, eyebrows lifting and then there's the familiar yellow and white tomcat. A stretch and then the young man with dark eyes is sitting by the harp again..
Funny thing that, because he doesn't play a lick of it...
"I know Davydd, if that helps you. I was there when he fought his battles. Got his marks. I held him down. Well, one of seven who had to hold him down." He smiles, grins then in the memory of that. "I wouldn't have known the slightest thing about you if you hadn't touched the tree that night. You're like a roman candle...lit up the sky."
He laughs, and it is instant warm and brightness. Even the golden glow in here seems to take on an extra brightness. "I was walking the last woods, minding my own business, and then... wham, branch in the forehead." The laughter ends abruptly. "Sometimes it happens like that, an awakening. You are minding your own business and then... suddenly everything changes. You have my sympathies. But!" He grins. "You found The Champion. No small feat, young magician. He's a slippery, crafty serpent, the Dragon."
She listens intently, eyes widening at the sudden changes, though with a certain air of 'I should have known...' Then her eyes narrow again, and how much she's hearing of what's being said isn't entirely clear, but her reaction is as explosive as the roman candle she's being compared to.
"You sodding BASTARD!"
It's a screech that can likely pierce the eardrums even of the inanimate (and there's so much inanimate here, isn't there) as Drancy launches herself with fury at Huw.
"Sleep in my BED, eat my FOOD, not TELLING me a sodding thing, you... you!" Now the origin of the phrase 'mad enough to spit nails' becomes clear, doesn't it, the punk animal in her overriding sense which might otherwise suggest that people who can change in and out of various forms and look and talk like this might not be as easy to punch as your average mosher...
No, not easy to punch. Not like that. He seems to disappear...
Seems... because he isn't really gone...
You have a sneaking suspicion...
Call it a hunch...
You wouldn't want to place a wager on it, but what could he be...
A goblet...
A piece of bread...
A pillow...
Oh, like a punk ever needs an excuse to trash a room. But... still... Drancy's angry, but she's not insane. Those doors... The table...
She grabs the tablecloth's ends, and moving as quickly as she can, ties the entire thing up onto a single package, then moves on to the next table, and the next. Then Drancy sits down by the harp. "I can't play a bloody note, as you're bound to find out quite quickly," she says with grim, vindictive satisfaction. "So if you're in one of those parcels, prepare y'self, and if you're not, well... you're still in the room, I'm pretty certain. Wouldn't want to let your eyes off me, now would you."
And mimicking Bugs Bunny, she poises her fingers on the strings of the harp...
Perfectly good waste of food, even if magical...
Oh, look, now the silk's going to be stained. That's going to cost you. Better hope it's not 'You Break, You Buy'...
Maybe he's the harp...
Maybe he's just a golden string...
Maybe he's one of the doors, or one of the men who would be doors...
Or maybe he's the cloth...
Or maybe he's the pillow beneath your arse...
Maybe he wasn't a goblet at all....
Drancy rakes her fingers across the strings of the harp indignantly, as if it will provide some balm for her wounded sensibilities instead of just adding an equivalent of ropeburn to the mess. Aloud, she comments dryly, "I don't know what the deal is, but if you expected me to be happy about all this..."
Then you wouldn't be dealing with Drancy, now would you? Drancy isn't very good at 'happy', either. She pushes herself to her feet again, and goes to lean up against the wall sulkily, closing her eyes. She's aware she's made a bit of a scene, thrown a bit of a tantrum, but damned if she'll admit to it...
"Fuck you," she says aloud, bitterly.
The harp only makes the most beautiful of music. There is not a single note out of key or out of tune. A jumble of notes, such as you had hoped for, comes out rather like harmonious cascade. Loudly.
"The problem with you, Drancy, is that you don't listen... Not when people offer to help you, or... even to save your life. Now, how do you think you'll be able to save your own life if you won't even listen? Listening... is the surest way to living..."
He was one of the pillows, he was the one beneath you. Now, you're sitting on his lap. "You dine with immortals and kiss demons. You bounce from thing to thing with such defiance that you make yourself weak. You will be as easy to pluck as a ripe grape from a grape-heavy vine," Huw whispers at your ear. "You are barely controlled power. And you have a decision now to make. Will you control it... or will it control you..."
This elicits a yelp, and of course in her haste not to be in anyone's lap, she falls off, tumbling to the floor and sitting down hard. At least Drancy doesn't knock the harp over or anything like that.
She takes a deep breath, evidently about to yell, or give some level of exasperated retort, but at the last moment... she closes her mouth instead, pulling her knees up to her chest.
"Fine," she says finally, though very, very quietly, eyes still narrowed. It comes out as a hiss. "Just... stop DOING that, and I'll listen."
Not quite a miracle, perhaps, but... progress... maybe.
"Let's start at the beginning," Huw says. "And first things first... a new round of food. I'm bloody starving..."
With a snap of his fingers, your handiwork is gone and replaced by a newer, more sumptuous spread of meats and sweets and breads and honey. "Ahh," he rubs his hands together and reaches for a silver flagon. "Mead... have some. And... just so you know... it won't be like those stories. I'm not tricking you into eating so you have to stay here forever, blah blah blah... eat, drink what you like. No tricks. I vow that."
"I was more worried about rat poison or drugs." That's our Drancy, concerned with the mundane. She rises to cross to the table, reluctance in her features but not in her belly, which growls loudly, eliciting a look from her, down at it.
Drancy accepts some mead, then reaches for bread and meat, piling it together into a crude sort of sandwich. Little miss culture here - or rather, pushing away the culture she was raised to revere... "No tricks? Good. Then maybe you lot'll stop trying to make me feel like a fool, with me landing in laps or groping crotches."
Pulling the food in front of her, she hovers over it predatorily, as if ready to snarl at anyone who tries to take it away from her. "You were saying?" No trust here, no... just lack of choices, and submitting to the inevitable just like a cat - only barely.
Huw grins slyly at that, "Can't make any promises there." He pours the mead for you and for him, and he takes up the golden goblet, leaning back upon the cushions and pillows. "You are the descendent of ancient folk stock, you come from a long line of magicians and artists, singers and sinners," lips twist at that. "When you touched that tree -- well, by now you must know that it was no ordinary tree -- you touched the blood of a wounded creature, and the energy of that... exploded in your own blood. Call it awakening. Call it quickening. Call it orgasm. Drancy the punk was transformed then. You're more than what you seem. That the Champion happened to be in the same city that night, and nearby... a complete fluke. The bleeding tree, however, was a trap. You stepped into it."
He eats bread and honey, beautiful creature that he is, and drinks honeymead. His eyes are sharp, exacting and there is a kind of hawkish quality to his demeanor. "My guess is that someone was watching you already. While we knew that Isabel had progeny still in England, had no idea it was you until that night. You have shadows all around you, you know." He plucks at the honeyed bread. "You need to learn how to defend yourself..."
"Ordinary seems in short supply." Drancy's lip curls up in distaste, maligning the food, which is excellent. But of course, her distaste really is aimed for the conversation, and the ... strangeness of it all. "You call it orgasm, I think I'll call it something else. Is everyone around here this bloody obsessed with sex?"
She makes comments because she has to, to push away her own self-conscious awareness of the fact of evidently being surrounded by and watched by male eyes that she can't see, men of preternatural beauty. And we all know how comfortable Drancy is with her own sexuality.
Sipping at the mead, she then puts the goblet down, picking up the 'sandwich'. "What d'you mean, Champion? Who's been watching me, and why? You're telling me things, but I have no bloody clue what you're getting at, it may's well be in sanskrit..."
"Just listen..."
How disconcerting is that...
Huw stands, goblet in hand, which he lifts to his mouth in regular intervals. "Davydd ap Gwynedd, the one you mentioned earlier. You missed, in all your 'sodding bastard' and yelling that I called him The Champion? Well," he twists his lips, "...he was brought here a long time ago, we chose him. Your ancestor tattooed him, embued him with powers. She cast him into a living set of spells. You... being a magician of her line... well... let's just say your blood recognizes one another. You create an electricity together. You've felt it, haven't you?"
"And as for sex... you wouldn't know this because you haven't done it... but it is the single greatest force. That of creation. You should look into it. I think either Dewi or Hwyll would oblige..."
Now whose tone is dry?
"Sorry, I'm skipping ahead. Let's get back to you. Where do you think you got the marks... thin air?"
Drancy blushes furiously, scarlet with embarassment and mortification, grip tightening on the goblet. To her credit, she doesn't fling it, or its contents. After a pause, she answers.
"I thought I got drunk and got it done. Wouldn't be the first time such a thing's happened. And Dewi and Hwyll can yank off, I'm not available!"
Even if she's uncertain about Dei... well, no doubt that'll give a few people a laugh, from their listening posts behind doors... or as doors...
"Go on with it." Drancy takes a large bite of her sandwich, as if by filling her mouth she'll be able to resist the need to speak out at whatever she'll hear next. Hopefully, someone here knows the Heimlich maneuvre...
"How much of the past month do you really remember doing yourself..."
"What are the things you recall..."
"Have your friends told you that you... haven't been yourself?"
"You shouldn't stuff so much into your mouth, you're not going to be able to answer my questions..."
The gorgeous blonde heard his name, and being vain, couldn't help the reappearing. He stands behind you, grinning ear to ear, looking at you ass to head -- or thereabouts -- but otherwise being silent. He'll wait his turn.
Well, it doesn't make her choke, not quite, but she does therefore take a certain satisfaction in chewing her food quite thoroughly, even more than necessary. Buying time to think...
Too much I don't remember...
Things people've told me - Davydd, about France...
Nah, surely not... but what if... well, maybe.
Nah...
If?
Finally, Drancy swallows, with great deliberation, washing it down with more mead. "A little," she allows, grudgingly. "A few things, here and there. Something about France."
The blonde gets a singularly suspicious look from Drancy, out of the corner of her eye, and then ignored. Cruel woman.
Eh, Hwyll's had worse...
"Thought as much," is all Huw says. With an exhale, he downs the rest of his mead and then sets his goblet aside. "You're not being held prisoner here," another thread of discussion altogether. "But I think for your safety you should stay here a while. One of the shadows nearly grabbed us both last night. It happens, of course. Only problem with magic is that it gets you noticed. I'll teach you how to cloak it at least, before you leave. Or maybe... how to hide. I'm good at that. For now... though... I think I'll let you rest, eat... feel free to wander around. It's not every day that a girl gets to visit Tir Na Nog..."
"Could've fooled me," comes the rebellious mutter. Drancy wolfs down the rest of her sandwich with more speed than grace, then wipes her mouth off deliberately, with the back of her sleeve.
Her gaze darts cynically around the room, then seeks out Huw. "So... get me curious enough to bite... then turn me loose to stew, without explaining too much... I bet you're an expert fisherman, aren't you." Statement, not question.
"I assume this one's getting to 'guard' me to make sure noone tries to hurt me, or I don't injure myself, right?" Exaggerated sarcasm. "Right. The next one who touches me in a way I find inappropriate, gets a knee in the conkers. Let's go."
Turning with regal haughtiness, her profile no doubt is recognizable by anyone who knew Isabel 'back when'... even if Drancy is herself, unaware of it...
Drancy aims herself at one of the doors, snapping, "Just open, and no funny business. If I wanted to fuck you, I wouldn't have my clothes on. Now get out of my way."
Posted by rowan at May 26, 2003 06:57 PM
