Rather than merely walking through the door, Drancy stalks, with all the awareness of being wholly outclassed and outmatched at every turn. Not to mention underdressed, considering she's still in the clothes she was wearing to the club - which feels a very long time ago now, separated and cut off by both distance of space and time, and ... experience, in an odd sort of way.
Meanwhile, her mind is whirling. It's more than she can process, at least readily.
Champions, ancestors, immortals, demons... how am I supposed to keep up with this? Train? Defense?
Drancy isn't used to feeling stupid, and the feeling makes her defensive. (Surprise, surprise.) Turning to glare at Hwyll, she sniffs with the haughty disdain of a true Jewish princess, at least. "Well, since you've attached yourself to me, you can at least act as a proper guide. If, that is, you can do anything properly at all." Unfair and mean, but right now...
The Jewish princess and the high fae. Sounds like an off-color joke of some sort. Which happen to be, of course, Hwyll's favorite sort. Blonde eyebrows lift and the beauteous smile is wide. Lightning quick. Davydd has a similar expression. Or had you noticed. Maybe it's just something inherently Welsh. If Hwyll can be called that...
"Fish out of water, you shall have to learn how to breathe another way," he riddles in sing-song, and chuckles. "But as for propriety..."
Here we go...
"You have a lot of rules, yes? For what is proper and what is improper. What are they? For..." his voice deepens as it turns toward the sly, "...you cannot expect me to adhere to rules I do not know."
You stalk to the door and he comes along behind you, a glance to several of the other doors around you all. God knows -- and who knows which god, even -- what he's up to. But you wouldn't be wrong to suspect him.
Drancy sniffs slightly. "Oh come on," she says impatiently. "Is it really too much to ask, that you not constantly hit on me, at least?"
She doesn't think she's asking for that much. Of course... she doesn't have the faintest clue what she's in the middle of, does she.
"Besides," she adds stubbornly, "I do have a boyfriend. Kind of." Maybe... if it's him...
She tugs impatiently on the door, half expecting it to refuse to open, and snapping at it as she does. "Don't even think of pulling something funny or I'll -find- a way to hurt you."
"I wasn't the one who started this relationship off by fondling," he notes, "...if my lady recalls her introduction. If you don't want to be flirted with, don't grab a man's package. Women," Hwyll snorts, "... no matter the dimension you're all the same. Touch me, no don't touch me, love me, no don't love me. Make up your minds!"
As you pull open the door, the room disappears. You stand in what appears to be England. For all intents and purposes it is England. Rolling hills. Green, green valley. Fields of yellow flowers. And standing stones in a circle -- not Stonehenge. Older.
And Hwyll is gone...
There is a river that runs down a green mountain, moving in cascade over grey stones. There is a herd of white horses, with red-tipped ears, tipped it seems with blood. Their legs... what you can make out of them... are white light. They lift their heads from their meal as you arrive.
"I was not fondling you!" Drancy snaps it rather abruptly, cheeks reddening dramatically. "I was trying to open the door. How was I supposed to know that... you... were..."
The sight makes her speechless - no mean feat, by any stretch of the imagination. She moves forward, mainly by dint of momentum, turning around to look for the door, to have some assurance that the door's still there, that she's not now stuck amidst horses.
"I'm going to take him up on his bloody offer," Drancy mutters, "just so I can learn how to properly turn him into a bloody toad. Cat, my arse."
With a shiver, she heads cautiously towards the horses, and - having learned this lesson, at least - she tries addressing them, albeit in a feeble sort of tone. "Erm, hello? I don't suppose you can talk, can you?"
Of course not, they're horses...
They go back to eating, seemingly unconcerned for your nearing presence. Their ears, of course, are pricked toward you, occasionally turning back as they listen also to one another. They are alert, Drancy, even if not overtly suspicious...
Turn your eyes once more to the vista. The standing stone circle. The mountains. The waterfalls...
Do you hear that?
The sound of approaching hooves?
The wind lifts and carries the sound toward you, the sound coming toward you...
"Okay, so you can't talk." Drancy mutters. Just when she had a viable hypothesis, they had to go and blow it out of the water like that. Her gaze flickers over the landscape with somewhat reluctant appreciation. She could almost relax...
If it weren't, that is, for the utter strangeness of it all. Even if she could forget that, then there's something coming towards her? Great, just great. Drancy turns with brief disappointment, away from the waterfalls in particular, towards the sound she hears.
"Now what? Rampaging Vikings, I suppose?" When in doubt - make a snarky remark. Hey... it's worked so far... kind of...
No, there is only one approaching. The horse is darker. Blood red, with white tipped ears. The rider is long-haired. Bronze-red. Definitely male. And you are alone. Left to your own devices with whatever horny fae is next on the list. Where's your demon lover when you need him?
The horse is not armored, but the man riding him is. Not typical knight, but something more of Dark Age chieftain. The armor is a muddle of chain and leather. The cloak is red, and red trails out behind him. Blood?
My way is a bloody way...
When he comes closer, with the next blink of your eyes...
The face is clean-shaven, ruggedly handsome, but not beautiful. Nothing like Hwyll or Huw or William, such men that you have seen. There is an uneven beard, either growing in thus or pending a shave -- but there is not much. Just enough to cover the scar at his chin. Just enough beard that you recognize him.
Davydd Llewelyn. Or... some image of him...
Gloved hands curl the reins of the horse in his grasp. There is blood on the gloves. And he leans forward, dark green eyes fastening on you, and fiery brows lifted. When he speaks, it is in a rush of Welsh. Not angered, no in fact there is no emotion on it at all. His cloak trails blood behind him, yet appears to be shimmering cloth. Do you understand him?
Does Isabel understand him?
Drancy shakes her head. Recognition comes hard, like a brick to the back of the head. "I'm so tired of being Ignatz," she whispers half-heartedly. Some things are in the blood, though...
"Davydd?" It's mostly Drancy, but a little bit of Isabel creeping in - here, more than anywhere, she's open to that influence, Isabel's physical proximity on this plane lending strength to it. It's with two voices, then, that she addresses Davydd, the voices overlapping almost, before Isabel drowns her out.
"Llewellyn... where do you rush to, then, Prince of things past?" It brings a touch of a smile that crinkles the corners of her eyes in a very unDrancylike fashion. But then, this Davydd has never met Drancy, has he...
"To see who has stepped upon the field that is under my protection," the words are suddenly clear. And there is a smile that makes him handsome, and a humor that makes him human. Human. Mortal. "But I see in the end it is friend, not foe. Cymru lives another day," a wry jest, but he takes his role seriously. He must. He bleeds for it.
...Or perhaps it is the world that bleeds...
Davydd sits relaxed astride the great blood-red beast, whose withers seem to glisten even as his cloak does. His long hair is curly on its own, wayward over his shoulders and a true bronze. He shifts upon the horse slightly, and the horse shifts beneath his weight. "You are an unexpected pleasure, Artist. I have not seen anyone ..." All day? How many days. There is no time here.
"A very admirable goal, that protection," Isabel murmurs through Drancy's mouth and throat. The difference, this time, is that Drancy is aware of it - knows it - can feel that control stripped away, leaving her both vulnerable and furious. And, of course, easily ignored...
She settles down on the grass below, pulling her knees up, an oddly wistful little gesture. "You are conscientious, and I am glad of it. It is well, that choices made sometimes can turn out for the best. Do you ever regret having been chosen?" In a fey mood, even for a creature of faerie, Isabel's whimsy makes her ask questions which will be pointed, a hundred, two hundred, three hundred years hence and more.
"No, my friend. It is what I was born to do. Bound to do." But the blood...
My way is a bloody way...
He seems all too aware that the world bleeds behind him, that gore trails from the cloak over his horse's hooves. Davydd's hands curl again, and the horse shifts again. His eyes lift to the horizon. "I do not regret," he repeats. "To regret would be to dishonor all the costs that have been met, and paid. Lives lost. Life gained. I do not regret. It is... as it is supposed to be."
My way is a bloody way...
"How did you come here, to be here in this form?" he asks suddenly, his eyes back upon you. The look is studying. Engaging. Curious. No, you are not in a form he recognizes, though your voice he could never miss. "My body is blue all over," he laughs. "I have no more room to be your canvas..."
Isabel strokes her fingers through the long hair, so familiar and yet not. "My being here is a riddle for someone else's education, you might say," she replies, clearly amused and pleased with herself. "You will learn of it later, if you remember... but remembering is a hard thing, at times, and I doubt you will. I am not she, and she is not me, but we are kin, and you..."
She can't resist, giving little hints, teasing even now. She is sorceress and artist and minx and highborn lady, all at once, parts played by seasons and by dramas. "You will meet her. You will see. I have not come for your body this time."
It provokes a trilling laugh out of her, a gay sound... More like Hwyll than Drancy would ever dream of being...
"She is not afraid to get her hands dirty, either, though it is a different way than yours."
My way is a bloody way...
"She is not a king's son. Or the Devil's Due," he adds. "My way... cannot be her way," and for this there is to be no debate. That lift of the chin, that strong demeanor, it brooks no argument. It knows itself. Bloodied gauntlets curl again and the horse tosses his head. "Since the Devil found me, my way is Two-fold, Isabel. For the blessing, I received a curse. But one in a millennium should have to. But that she may learn... who shall you find?"
"She will learn from whoever will teach her," Isabel's reply comes swiftly, voice lilting slightly. "In the long run, I do not know who that will be. She is like unto a beacon, Davydd... those who see her, are drawn to her. Those who taste her spirit, it compels them - and so far, by some miracle, it has saved her."
She doesn't need to tell him what sort of people might be drawn to that power, doesn't need to explain how amazing it is that none have pushed at that fragility. "She has come very close to death, and only the Hunter has kept her safe, by chance, by cunning, by roguery and by luck." There is no insult to Huw in that, mere statement.
"He can teach her, of course, but if she will not agree to be taught... I do not know. She is younger than you ever were, a child of an age where magic is far away, held locked in dim, dark places where noone goes, and noone thinks of. I do not believe she will refuse - but Huw cannot remain in the world she lives in, and she cannot remain here. Have you a thought on this matter?"
In this world, in that world, this always comes to an impasse. He is between the worlds, and yet he says he cannot teach her. Too much danger. They would eat her alive. There are dark clouds upon the horizon at that. And a chilling wind...
Davydd is waking up...somewhere...
"The best teacher is oneself," he replies. "In the end, Isabel, that is all there is. She will have to teach herself. Speak the truth fantastical as it is and it will seem...strange, maddening, a lie. There is no way to speak of it. There is only... living it."
The horse begins to nervously move and Davydd turns his head, eyes cast to the horizon behind him. "Night is coming, and the nightly deal must be struck again." Caught in the Devil's bargain. "I must go..."
"Of course..." Isabel, whether she likes it or no, understands too well about bargains, and being caught in them. "Then take care, old friend. If you remember, remember with fondness, and no fear or concern."
Rising from the grass, she brushes herself off with an element of regret to her expression, flickering, then fading. "She will live, or she will die, but she will learn... Go with whatever grace you yet believe in."
"Let me not be her death," Davydd ap Gwynedd murmurs, a serious look to that, a knowing and an understanding. It could easily be so, directly or indirectly. There is an expression of helplessness, followed by one of resignation. The ground thuds when he turns his horse away. Heavy charger bearing the bloody Champion.
The grass goes red beneath your feet...
And Drancy, of course, is left wondering what exactly has happened here, even while Isabel remains watching with the weight of years in her own eyes and soul, as Davydd rides away.
"Things fall apart - the center cannot hold - Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned : The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity."
Turning, Isabel guides Drancy's body towards the blood, one hand splayed out flat against the grass. "Time... time and past time, I think."
...and in that Somewhere Else...
A hand reaches past the coverlets, stretching for a phone. A strange compulsion to make a stranger call. The number dialed, the phone couched and cradled. But there is no one there.
No answer. Again, no answer. But the trees are calling out each night. No sleep, no sleep but when Death takes me.
Davydd frowns and places his cell phone back in its charger.
Posted by rowan at May 26, 2003 07:16 PM
