It's February and that means one thing: it's ruddy cold on the Salisbury Plain and windy and rainy, but at least the rain is more like purposeful mist, dew with a vengeance. Where it doesn't fall, it loiters, turning into mist and finally to fog.
     No one in their right mind would be out on the henge at this time of night -- of course, no one is allowed to be out on it, mortal men having lost that privilege with their own misdeeds and petty vandalisms. No longer can Mr. and Mrs. Joe Smith from Illinois or Iowa touch such ancient figures as these. They lost that when their disobedient children left chewing gum behind on the sacred bluestones, ruining it thereafter for everybody else...
     Thankfully, Stonehenge exists in more worlds than that of Mr. and Mrs. Joe Smith of Illinois. Times and lands and realms unroll from the standing stones, these stones figuring proudly in each one somehow.
     In one such realm, each particle of mist can hold a separate conversation. In one such realm, the entire complex of Stonehenge still stands. In one such realm, Davydd ap Owain steps from the body of one of the Welsh bluestones, as stalwart and mighty as they. And sometimes as intractable. Here, though it is misting, there's a crack of starlight and moonlight that makes it more like a permanent twilight. It is here that the Oak King has come ...
     To think...
     Clad in a jumper and trousers, reddish brown and earthen brown respectively, his boots earthen as well, and a scarf of scarlet around his neck to warm him, Davydd sits upon the sacrificial stone and then lies down upon it, giving his face to the sky.

     Upon a white horse he rides, the messenger between worlds - hoofbeats that echo across the worlds. Across realities as multitudinous as grains of sand, some might say - they wouldn't be correct, but it's a nicely poetic way of saying it.
     Across Earth and Faerie... down into the depths of Hell, even if only once...
     He rides. He could walk and get the same results, in many ways. On Earth, he could have had an 'upgrade' - motorcycle and all that - but he'd refused the notion. "It shames the face," he'd told someone who'd suggested it, laughing and shaking his head. The horse might be traditional - but some traditions are worth holding onto.
     Now Mad Peter rides across the Salisbury Plain, hoofbeats heard across both worlds he touches. He's unseen on Earth, though the whiteness of the steed is visible, the fluttering brown and grey cloak streaming behind him as he slows from gallop to canter, from canter to trot. "Hulloa the stones," he calls, grinning recklessly as he comes from trot to walk and then stops.
     "Hulloa to you, your majesty," Mad Peter adds after a moment, one brown eyebrow cocking up over a hazel eye. "You're affixed to nothingness this time, I see. What do you do there?"

     "I'm giving my brain ample country to stretch and ample quiet t' think," he quips and sitting up, smirks a bit. "Though the world not be so large or so quiet as to afford me both!" the quip goes grand and he makes a sweep with his arm, indicating that, perhaps, the whole world'd be needed to give his brain ample country.
     Ha! I could be, as they say, bound in a thimble...
     "Where are you riding to tonight?" fiery eyebrows cock up and he wears a face most curious. Here, the sun backs his expression and the warmth of summer follows him. His bronze hair is all fire and sunshine, his eyes the color of a vibrant, living earth. Closer inspection shows his garments to be as magical as all else, the knitting down by inspired hands, and the scarf. Nothing mundane. He's garbed in the earth itself, the color of fertile soil.
     Davydd rises to greet you, and a golden apple appears in his hands, proffered to the beastie. At his sod covered boots, periwinkles and wildflowers shoot up and spread the ground over in color.

     "There's enough stretching room and quiet in all the worlds to allow you to think?" Peter looks quizzical, grinning as he slides from horseback, giving the mount a light pat to the side of its neck. "No, no, it cannot be, I scarcely can believe that!"
     Well, he's never been known for his reverence...
     The reins are left to trail in the grass, the long cloak pushed back from white shirt and dun trousers. The horse is only too pleased to accept fruit - how often does the poor beast get fed, anyway? Though at that, it looks well cared for.
     "You're looking ... interesting," Peter says after moment's thoughtful examination, coming to a halt. "I've ridden from one end of the Plains of Night to the other, just in time to dip my mare's tail in the sunrise. A pretty sight, but regrettably lacking in wenches or brandy."

     "You always were able to spot the shite as it fell from the bull," the dragon's voice rumbles as the old Welsh tumbles from his mouth, clipped after and punctuated by quiet laughter. He gives the white horse a rub of the ears, a pat on the neck and a soft word of friendship and greeting before he steps away, arms folding against his chest. Davydd looks down at himself, then across the blooming plain. The fiery hair, cut short, stands up here and there from the wind's tussling. A moment's wildness surround a face at peace.
     ap Owain at peace?
     Thoughtful's most like. The still waters of his peaceful expression belie the deeper waters of his contemplation. "Aye well," Davydd rumbles on, voice earthy but warm, and wondering. "Interesting?" He laughs then shrugs. "I don't know about that," he continues, consonants rolling on, "...but I do look like Me. And you, how're you? I haven't seen you since your fateful ride. But..."
     There's the grin, comet-like and full of stars and suns, "I suspect that's going to be changing now... in't?"

     Peter snorts, almost equine in sound, and he leans up against the side of his saddle, smirking as he shakes his head. "When you've seen as many bulls as I've," he quips, "you learn - you learn. You should know, for all your time spent among the nightwalkers!"
     Oh, there's things even Mad Peter doesn't know, but whispers have their way of making through to every corner of the messenger's long ears. He pats the horse's flank, then straightens, digging his feet into the grass a moment.
     "I've been riding, still," Peter answers, grin flickering and creasing as he slides his palms along his hips until he finds his pockets. "It is What I Do." Who he is. What he chooses to be. Why change?
     There's always a use for an able messenger, after all.
     One eyebrow cocks, followed by the other one, and Peter smirks with another shake of his head. "Word's spreading, aye, Davydd, if that's what you were after. I hold my tongue when I'm paid to - but I've been through and over the realms enough to see some of what's up. Some, even if not all. I can't say that I'm surprised, though."

     Davydd wrinkles his nose, "I think I've provided the world with ample compost in my many nights, lord knows," he waxes on. There's an acknowledging look at the mention of the spreading word. It spreads like the wind that carries it. "Summerland has long been sleeping, the West of Summer dormant in a near eternal winter," Davydd murmurs. "But all things change eventually..."
     "Well, there's leaves on the trees," he continues, voice picking up in inflection and a grin sliding, "...that can't have gone unnoticed. Come the spring, it should be a bit obvious. Probably won't be worth reporting. But..."
     Wait for it...
     "There's a pouch in it for you, a fat goose and a jug of mulled mead, my secret recipe no less," the Oak King grins, leaning in. "...if you wanted to trumpet the end of my Exile. I'd have no better herald for my return than you. Though I've been in Cymru now these last three years." Three. The perfect number. And at the end of three, he re-emerges.

     "All things change," Peter agrees, though for a moment the habitual grin slips, fading to an intense frown as he glances at the standing stones behind him. "All things do, at that. For better or for ill."
     His cousin, for instance. Her death. And ...
     He turns back, then, rubbing his chin as if feeling for emerging bristles. "You announced yourself with a herald already, though I'll not turn such a purse and prize down, as well you know. I grant you, not everyone's had eyes to puzzle the bits together, but I'm no fool, Davydd."
     And for a moment, there's that grin of delight as he hops up onto the altar himself, perching there lightly, arms rested on his knees as he crouches, hands dangling inwards. "Not every fool has eyes to see, but brilliant flashes to light up the sky and warmth to set worlds on fire? You wouldn't be the sort to wait for the Great Comet to return - when you make up your mind, you make up your mind. Though there's those doing the asking, now..."

     He whistles I've Got The World On A String, but the song trails off into a bird call as he takes a seat on the Sacrificial Stone again, no thought to sacrilege. His gods are half so sensitive. A complimentary position to your own, Davydd turns his head to look at you. "A comet burned the night sky the night I was born, the dragon's tail, just like every other Welsh prince born in the age after Arthur," he smirks. "What need I to wait for it again? It marked the hour of my birth. My rebirth? Must be of my own marking, blazed with my own fire..."
     Davydd looks up at the sky a while, leaning back so his palms bear his weight. He glows, the stone hums with warmth. As Davydd cocks his head over to you, his expression is curious all over again. "Herald or no, the goose and mead are yours, you meet me in my Hall, and we'll toast it up proper. So, who's inquiring?" he clips softly, eyebrows opening outward.

     "Hell's own fires, half the petty little lordlings and at least as many of the greats," Peter answers casually, reaching into his cloak and pulling out a stick of leathery, tough, dried meat. He holds it out in offering. "The sky alight, the chiming bells - it hit like a castle falling, man. And a little different for some than for others."
     And for me ... there were perhaps more echos than I liked ...
     It shows a moment in his eyes, the one hazel, the other blue, the mismatched colours which shade his windows out onto the world. There's a shrug, nonchalant, and he continues on easily, easy as riding.
      "I'll spread the word - if nothing else, there'll be those glad or otherwise but happy to have some inkling as to what's what," Peter then promises. "But tell, tell - you are still a Welsh prince, even if more than that alone. You must have a tale to tell, this exile's end. What was it?"
     The mismatched eyes are canny, curious. "Was it time alone? The temptation of Summer? Or was it Spring-time's approach, at long last? Or ..."
     Or...
     "Was it a woman?"

     Green eyes green as summer grass, green as Cymraeg forests, green as the stem that cups the rose turn to you, in them the same flecks of periwinkles that appear around his feet wherever on earth they may land.
     "I was crowned by three queens," Davydd ap Owain says, "...and only three women could wake me. Three who in their love of me are joined as if they were sisters." His mouth curls the smile. "It could have been no other way for me."
     No, everything is in threes...
     There was Hafwen, who spoke of a King Lost...
     There was a Girl, the daughter of Isabel...
     And the Queen of the North, the dark world, not unlike Ragnell in her way...
     Davydd's smile is comet quick and broad, and the warmth of it trails like illuminated dust over the whole of his features.

     Ahhh. Peter nods his understanding - not of the whole, but of one underlying point he's seized upon, grabbed by the balls.
     "Women," he pronounces sagely, "are ever the best and worst thing to happen to a man. Any man. A wise man limits himself to one - or at least, one at a time. Three women in bed at once sounds pleasant, but it's that many more elbows which descend into your kidneys when you're wanting to sleep and something's wanted of you."
     He sounds as if he speaks from experience...
     He reaches into his cloak, the beef returned to a pocket, and this time, he takes out a slender silver chain, which he tosses to you. There is some glittering stone or other set directly into the chain at the bottom.
     Quick ... catch.

     "I was never a man who trod the easy path," his hand comes up and he catches the silver in flight, eyebrows knitting together as he holds the bright and glittering thing for closer inspection. "Nor would I ever call myself wise... bold, honorable, handsome, mouthy, oes... but wise?" Davydd laughs at the notion.
     He leaves the wisdom to women, they're better at it...
     Standing, he holds the glittering stone and chain up in the moonlight and starlight, his own beaming helping to set it off against the matte of dark night behind it.

     "She wanted you to have it." Peter says it as if talking about the cat's mother, or somelike. He shifts, finally, dropping to sit with legs dangling over the edge of the altar, fingers splayed wide with palms flat to either side.
     Women ... never more trouble than when they're talking ... Except when they're not, of course ...
     "The tower has altered," Peter continues, the perpetual quirk of half-madness still tugging up one corner of his mouth, though it's not echoed in his eyes; those are almost oddly serious.
     "You do not take the easy path any more than any like you." He shrugs easily, unfussed by such notions. What's it to him if Davydd ap Owain, the Oak King gets himself in trouble? It'll mean more messages - and friendly though he may well be, he's just the messenger...
     He doesn't say how things will unfold ... or take responsibility for when they do ...
     He just tells what's been said and what has happened. It's a simpler life, really.
     Peter exhales slowly, watching you hold up the necklace. "Her realm has changed as well. Before this - but without odd flashes. And then I found this. It was hers... and it told me it was to go to you."
     Not one stone, but two - ruby and emerald, as if fused together in a wavering s-shaped seam along the middle, a wave shape to it - they glitter together on the silver chain, warmth from the ruby and chill from the emerald. They are not uncomfortable. But they echo dimly...

     "Perhaps that was the best reason of all," Davydd murmurs. Nature abhors a vacuum, isn't that the saying? Isn't that the truth. His thumb runs over the joined stones, trailing over the S-shaped seam. He listens to it.
     And it promptly goes around his neck...
     "There is more than this," Davydd notes softly, "... there is a swell of magic like a wave, a swell of life where there has been death, music where there has been silence..."
     He tucks the pendant stone against his throat, so that his skin might feel it past the layers of his wrapped and tied scarf. "The world is altered, Peter," Davydd ap Owain says, "... and where there is a chance to light the darkness, I must." A pause. "And who better in some ways than the one who has been cursed to darkness but who brings the sun on his heels." There is a little bit of a smile, but his eyes are grave, the message in them intense, unvoiced for voice is unneeded.
     The return of the king...
     From the brambles and catches of a mortal, industrial world, he is returning, like the promise of the sun at Yule. Though it slept long, it was not vanquished.
     Nor hope...
     Nor magic...

     "Curses can be broken," Peter observes lightly. "Unless the result of the curse is death. Everything can be turned on its heel - and even, sometimes, they say - death need not be permanent. Of course, that's most wishful thinking, I'd say." Because the ones you'd want to have come back - well, they never do, do they.
     He brings one foot up and inwards, propping his elbow on his thigh and leaning forward, chin on his palm. "The world is always altering. I do not know if the direction it has altered towards is desirable - but I do not control it, gods be praised." Such as he believes in.

     The necklace is lifted, and it sings...
     Water dripping, somewhere, in a sense of distance - the broken rhythm of the ocean wearing away the land. There is distance, there is something broken...

Oh, my love
My darling
I've hungered for your touch
A long, lonely time
And time goes by
So slowly
And time can do so much
Are you still mine ...
     It's an echo that quivers, but an echo - caught in the stones, as it were, as if a shell being lifted to one's ear, miles and miles from the shore.
Time goes by
So slowly
So slowly...
     It fades, then, just that small echo that fades out, a glitter of dust falling from that waving seam. Peter has lost his smile, frowning at the necklace, gaze caught somewhere in the past, posture otherwise unchanged. "You there, Davydd, or did you go maundering in your wits?"

     The sea finds its echo in the salt water tear that lands upon the cliffside of his high cheekbone, the cheek that reddens even in this darkness, his high complexion unable to deny itself in equally high emotion. But his legs are rooted into the earth as deep as an oak, his body as strong and as stalwart as that tree. The emotion does not ripple through him past his skin.
     Dark green eyes blink about seven (no wait, make that nine) times in succession as he pulls himself from the hearing, the seeing and the singing, turning to look at you some minutes, maybe five, after you speak, his skin tone going slowly back to normal. He peers at you a moment, "Aye, I'm here," he rattles off, then clears his throat, then exhales. "Well, the curse is ... something to ponder, in't. I don't know... blood borne as it was, whether it can be lifted or no. I've not had luck so far, in eight centuries. Course... I think I stopped trying after the third one..." he smirks. "But... then, if I can end my own Exile, what mightn't I do?"
     He's quiet a tic more, eyes to the earth for a moment and then back to you. "The sun is peeking at the skin of the earth," Davydd murmurs. "And... for now... that means I'm bound for the Hall of Arthur." He smiles a little. "Dreams and lying there stiff as stone."

     Music has power. Isabel knew it. You know it. Fiona is learning it. Which voice was it - Isabel's, or Fiona's? Does it make a difference at this point in Time?
     "Curses all have their endings. If you've not found the ending to yours yet, even in eight centuries, then the stars hadn't yet come round right." Mad Peter rises, stretching his limbs and tilting his neck first one way, then the other. "Who has the sharpest eyes of those you know? Go to him - or her - and ask them to lift your curse."
     As simple as that? Surely not, but that's never stopped him from running his own mouth. "Aye, I must fly, returning to my rounds. The mail does not deliver itself." Faerie mail is something ... other than human mail ...
     And the Hounds of Darkness different from any on a postman's route ...
     Peter strides easily towards his mare, picking up the trailing reins. "Sometime, over strong drink, I'll tell you about my ride into the bowels of Hell, and what I found there. Go to your post, Davydd ap Owain. You are marked, Oak King. The time has come - if your curse is not to be lifted now, it is out of your own familiarity with it..."
     One foot into a stirrup, the other leg swung over, and the cloak billows out again. Peter grins lopsidedly down at the red-haired Welsh Prince-Summer King. "I will come to your Hall when I have delivered your message with the rest, and we shall drink and feast. Go in grace, Davydd."

     Wakened fully now, Davydd holds his spot of earth, arms folded against his chest and the smile pulling warm and broad. "You'll find a feast not even you could polish off and... we'll share stories then. Maybe I will have a tale of the breaking of a Curse and you can tell me of your tea-time with The Devil Hisself. Only you, Peter, could sup with the Devil and live to tell a tale about it."
     The Oak King lifts his hand in a salute, "Go in grace, Mad Peter. Safe and fast riding to you. A mead hall awaits..." He grins and bids you farewell.
     He's gone in a moment himself, back to the Welsh bluestone that bore him here, leading him back to the bowels of an old, red-stoned castle and a circle of carved stones held deep within. There to sit awhile, and maybe to think upon what was said and what was heard...
     And all that lies ahead...

Posted by rowan at February 29, 2004 12:34 AM