There are good ways and bad ways to meet your significant other's family, but among none of the Emily Posts and Dear Abbys has this situation ever been covered. It can't be a good thing...
     Fiona is red-faced and flustered, humiliated and embarrassed, fleeing the joint forces of Kelly and Gwen with rapid footsteps as she hastens for the bedroom. Through chambers and halls, up flights of stairs, all of which half of the time she doesn't get to traverse on foot but slung over a blue-toned shoulder or scooped up in blue-painted arms - she hurries, as if the piano's next move will be to come to life and chase her into a corner and play bad renditions of Hoagy Carmichael songs.
     Up, and up - and up! Into the bedchamber, her first move is to fling herself onto the bed, through the curtains. Oh, but wait - there's no warmly heated Welsh male there, not even his corgis in absentia. Fiona frowns, scrambling across the bed and to the other side, hair swinging against her back and hips as she rights herself again. "Davydd!"
     Damn the man, where is he - if he's over in some other house with family, I don't know what I'll do ... He's going to be pissed, I just know it. I ruined his piano, and in front of his kids. How did I get myself into this one, anyway?
     The sound of water running is half-relief, half-torment. It means he's here, and thank god, any god, for that, but it also means she'll have to tell him. With quickening pace, she moves to the bathroom door, then flings it wide and steps inside, with almost a loss of nerve as she closes the door again behind her.
     And all of a sudden, while her nerve's not quite deserted her, it's gone round back to hide, voice gone soft and hesitant as she looks to the shower. "...Davydd?" She's not going to have to turn the hot water off, is she?

     The corgis weren't in the bed -- as they sometimes can be despite Davydd's warnings to the contrary and their tremendously tiny legs -- but they were underneath it, mind you, and now they're yawning and stretching, murfing and looking to the door as you walk to it. Door shut, the dogs return to their beds, wooly-lined and stuffed mattresses made of old cloaks.
     The other old dog is in the shower. Steam billows out like the breath of a dragon and from that steamy interior, glass giving off only the hint of blue here and there, comes the growl of a dragon. Well, it's more like a moan really, as he stands there, face in the hot water, flesh going all pink and red. He's in there, you can see the mountain moving -- albeit slowly, as if mountains could move at any other rate -- the bevelled glass keeping modesty, if he had any, in place.
     "Fi?" comes the grunt, though warming a touch. He's monosyllabic this morning. He says it as if maybe he was imagining the sound, but no... face turning on the other side of the glass, he sees a figure standing there. Hands cut off the water and he opens the door a tick. A roll of heated, honeyed fog spills out, and a blue tattooed man behind it. Davydd extends his hand. The towel's behind you his voice moves beneath your skin.
     Is it late? that internal voice continues. I slept like the fucking dead. Well... even more than usual... Words within you transform into audible laughter, just a chuckle, but warming as he wakens to yet another new night. Green-worlded eyes, still somewhat dream-bound, take their first look at you of the day.
     Didn't his mother ever tell him it wasn't polite to tare?

     Oh, thank god, he's here. - What the hell am I going to tell him?
     Conflicting urges, as ever - it's natural, isn't it? She sighs with a bit of a relief, reaching behind herself for the towel and offering it through the crack in the door. It's always harder for her to maintain her concentration, her energy, when that voice sinks beneath her skin, but her present agitation is not so easily dispelled - even if suddenly she's reluctant to hurry to confess all.
     The long hair's pushed back with Lady Hamilton's combs, but otherwise is allowed to hang free and unadorned, free of crystals or braids, just the wings of mother of pearl tucked in to either side. It's paired with soft cotton - a thin, light jumper of simple construction, long sleeves to her wrists, vivid purple with a small satin bow at the neckline, slit cuffs widening slightly at her wrists. It tucks into a pair of cream-coloured trousers, with a prosaic pair of walking boots on her feet. Tasteful. Overall, understated - well, except that the boots are a pair of old Doc Martens, suitably cleaned up.
     "It's not that late, no," Fiona answers aloud. "I'm glad you slept well - I hope it was for the right reasons and you're not - I don't know, coming down with a cold or something, after our dousing the other night. Um... I'm sorry for interrupting your shower, but..."
     It's purely coincidence, isn't it, that uneasy look, so much like dragging a poor report card home?

     "So what's up then?" he murmurs, wrapping a towel around him, togaed Romano-British king that he seems at the moment, condensation left to dry natural, it seems, beading on the skin, and from the water and the heat, the dragons seem to breathe the mist that lifts around him. His hair a vivid red with the water. He looks at your clothing, admires it without saying anything and looks back to your face, contracted with something...
     Something's the matter. A pause. "Is everyone okay? You look like someone died," he smiles a little, a hand patting your hip, lingering there as he bends to place the first kiss of the night. He doesn't let a night go by without it.
     The touch on your hip draws away as slowly as he does, heading to the sink. A tilt of his chin and he inspects the skin, to shave or not to shave. Shave it shall be it seems as he sharpens the straight razor on the belt. Green eyes lift from that to look to you, waiting to hear whatever's got you looking like that...

     It's hard not to melt, just a little; emotions run strong, and there is always that pull, from her towards you. As there always has been, really. "Everyone's fine, it's fine, really, I'm - nobody's hurt or dead or ... anything like that."
     Her hand goes to yours, closing over it against her hip for a moment, then releases as she leans into the kiss - she's greedy, she'll take it, even in the fear that there might not be so many in a few minutes. Then she steps away.
     "You might," Fiona says carefully, voice just slightly tremulous, "want to not shave until I've told you." She doesn't want you cutting your own throat and doing others' dirty work for them. For a moment, her gaze goes past the razor, to the belt, then to the shower with a faintly increased flush to her cheeks. "It's ... well, it's your piano, Davydd."

     There is a succession of blinks as he tries to parse out the significance of a razor and his piano. Eyebrows cock up and the expression is golden humor. "Sounds bad. Bad enough to slit my own throat?" He grins, "... or yours?" Smirking, Davydd turns back to the mirror, runs the water, steam billowing again.
     Setting the razor down, hands rub together, emulsifying the lotion that is rubbed into his skin. The razor will be next. "So what happened? It's not on fire is it? We don't need to..." wetting the razor, he brings it to his skin for the first, expert swipe. It's as sharp as a sword, but his hands are well-versed in holding sharp metal objects, "... evacuate the house or sommat do we?"
     Glancing over to you, he smiles, his expression amused. Did you have a little outburst? Were you thinking of me, Fiona-bach? Green eyes glimmer in the mirror, the reflection of the Oak King's face looking to you in between swipes of the sharp metal.

     "It's not on fire, no." Fiona crosses her arms over her chest, huddling her shoulders and scowling; to her, it's not funny! Yet, anyway. "I just - don't want you hurting yourself when I tell you. I'd hope you wouldn't slit my throat over it, but ..." She doesn't think you will - but she never knows for sure, does she, how you'll react about things. And the piano, after all, is a priceless antique, or so she's been given to understand. Women seem much more replaceable.
     At the questions aimed from mind to mind, she pinkens; she seems to be spending a remarkable amount of time that colour, she should dye her skin and be done with. "I don't know what you're talking about. 'Outburst' - it didn't have a thing to do with you! Not everything does, Davydd Llewellyn. I ..." She can't quite sustain the anger, face falling suddenly. "I was just trying to tune it."
     It's almost the way she used to grin suddenly, from time to time, and years would be stripped off her already youthful countenance; now her expression crumples, and she's uncertain and younger than ever for a moment. "I was tuning it, because Kelly couldn't get natural C, and I was concentrating, and - and I don't know what I did wrong, but ... I was just trying to help."

     "This is starting to sound mighty ominous... here," he pauses, water running over the razor and he's nearly finished now. "... get me a pair of trousers and drawers and we'll go down and have a look. It's not the end of the world, whatever it is...besides... it's just a piano..." He looks at you, smiling a little.
     Calm down... even if it's in tiny bits... which, well, I just have to see it for myself now, I'm morbidly curious... but even so, Fiona... He almost called you Drancy when you youthen before his eyes. Whatever it is, love, it can be mended...
     Now, who would have thought that he'd have taken such news in stride?
     Razor cleaned and back in its kit, the counter wiped down and his face warm-toweled and clean, Davydd turns, smile all but sewn on his features, eyes glimmering brightly. Full of light he is today, Lord Sparkles. Mr. Sunshine as Kelly called him. And even though it's nighttime, the room is suddenly very bright indeed.
     A warm hand brushes back your hair, lightly moves over one of the gifted combs, and lifts your stubborn chin and stubborn mouth to his own. "Don't worry," Davydd ap Owain murmurs there. "... there's nothing you can do to change my mind."
     A pat lands upon your hip again at the end of the kiss, like a light spanking, and he grins. "Go get me some clothes ready. We'll go have a look at it, hmm?"

     Just a piano? Fiona is almost taken aback. "I ... I don't really want to go back down there," she admits, even against your mouth. "But I suppose I've got to. I - Kelly and Gwen were there, Davydd, when it - happened."
     She's not telling it very well - either that, or she's telling it exactly right. She steps back and away, almost with reluctance, moving towards the massive closet, even as she's seized with a brief, wild desire to throw your trousers out the window as she did her lipstick, earlier. But you've got far too many clothes for that to work, and she wouldn't put it past you to stride down there naked...
     Maybe you can see the edge of that glimmering desire to defy in her gaze, the wry twist of her mouth and roll of her eyes as she parts from you. "I hope you can cope with my choices," she grumbles as she slides one portion of the closet open. "I don't usually dress men, you know. I should put you in hot pink for it - hot pink spandex."

     "I look good in pink," Davydd rolls out, voice earthy and warm as he puts the towel in the towel hamper and heads into the bedroom in nothing but blue dragons. The hair's not going to be dried tonight, he'll let it go natural. You can see it already starting to curl on its own. "I'm not past the occasional crotchless PVC either, but that's part of the beauty of having a decorated knob..." He laughs as he sits on the bed. "I can be a regular peacock..."
     And with that, he promptly roars in laughter, killing himself with it, you see. A double joke as there's nothing 'pea' about it.
     "Ah... me... so! You were tuning the piano, helping Kelly and Gwen? I'm more afraid of Kelly going near it than you," he rumbles. "And... darlin'... come on now," the inflection and accent lilts as he comes in the closet behind you, hands landing on your shoulders. "Come round... now... whatever it is... I don't care," he says. "My home is yours. There's not a door shut to you, and if you've suffered at the words or hands of my children, I'd expect you to tell me so I can give them a sound what-for..."
     Davydd looks at you, all business now, meaning every word of it. "You don't need to walk on eggshells or impress anyone. You've already impressed me. I rule the family, not the other way around," eyes go large and he grins. "So... stop fretting will y'... and hand me a pair of pants. My jimmy's getting cold..."

     "I'm going to murder you one of these nights, you know that, don't you?" It's a mutter, and not really meant, though every now and again she does want to smack you. She drags out a pair of fawn-colored trousers, followed by - after a moment's hesitation - a green turtleneck, and jacket to match the trousers.
     She holds them to her chest as you put your hands on her shoulders, and she leans back against your chest with a small sigh. "I promise, they didn't do anything wrong, Davydd - it's not their fault, it's mine. I fucked up, and - and they're going to think I'm completely incompetent, and ..." Insane, she could put up with. But incompetent or ineffectual? This is more than just tuning the piano.
     With a small, resounding sigh, she turns round to push the clothing into your hands. "I hope you like my choice," Fiona mutters. "If not, take it or lump it. I'd try to explain about the piano, but - I don't think I can do it justice." The edges of her mouth turn downwards as she looks upwards, exhaling. "Are you sure we can't just stay up here and get your ... jimmy warm again? Because you're really not going to like what I've done to your piano, Davydd."
     Isn't that a heartwarming proposition? But at least she's already handed you your clothes.

     "I always knew I'd get it in the end by a woman," he mutters back, lips twisting in a smirk. "Why do you care what they think? Not that they think it. If they were thinking that, they'd have told you to your face, my happiness notwithstanding..." The drawers and trousers are taken first, pulled on as he talks to you. "You know... maybe it wasn't fair, this trial by fire, your feet feeling toasty from the looks of all the clan. Maybe we should go to England... get you back on your own turf so you can recollect..."
     He's mostly thinking out loud...
     "I would care a fuck all what they thought, honestly. You're not incompetent," Davydd notes, "...you just haven't had a lick of formal training. Not your fault. If it's anyone's fault, it's mine for having put it off for two long years. So, we square now? You going to leave off," words pause as he pulls on the turtleneck, making the contours of his body like the rolling mountains and valleys of Wales in so much green, "...kicking yourself in the ass?" Davydd smiles sidelong, taking the jacket, looking down at himself. "For all your protesting, you know, you do a good job. Fiona Arundel, habbahdashah," he mocks the English accent, then damn near giggles. Oh, the English. So entertaining.
     "Alright then, let's go have a look," he says stepping into a pair of shoes at his bedside. "I fucking can't take the suspense any longer. I have to go see this catastrophe of yours..."

     "I care what they think because they're your family, of course." Fiona doesn't seem to understand why this would even be asked. "And," she admits, a bit ruefully, "I ... didn't give them any real time to react. It happened, and I came running for you, because... well." You'll see, the grey-eyed glance implies.
     She stiffens a moment later, marching over to you and slapping her palm against your shoulder - not with full force, but enough to get your attention. "Since when have either of us been about -fair-, Davydd Llewellyn!" Now she's angry, though as much with herself as with you. "I can put up with this. I just..."
     It trails off into something unsaid, and her chin dips down for a moment. A deep breath's taken - she's been forgetting to breathe, a little, in all the excitement and tumult.
     "I'll try to stop kicking myself," Fiona mutters, then glances up again, with a glower. "Fine, but if you're going to make fun of how I talk, I get to call you Taffy." She heads for the door, prepared to lead the way - even if it means stepping out of your way at the last moment to give you an unimpeded view of The Catastrophe.

     "That's Your Supreme Majesty Taffy to you," Davydd murmurs, unruffled and unwrinkled by your rancor. Nor phased by the slap on his shoulder. It doesn't even make him flinch in surprise. He just looks at you for a moment. "King Taffy is also sufficient..."
     He's down the stairs in the next moments and maybe it's for Drama's sake that he doesn't say anything for the entire trip downstairs to the sitting room from the bedroom, from the sitting room to the turret hall, from hall to stairs and stairs to ground-floor and then main walkway.
     Someone's had the foresight to close the double doors to the ballroom. That'd be Kelly or Gwendolyn, surely. Perhaps neither of them are inside. Davydd stands at the double doors, glancing back at you, his hands poised on the doorknobs.
     "Okay, cariad. On the count of three... I'll pull open the doors, you scream and then I'll shout out an expletive: Dear God, what in the fuck have you done. Got it?" He's chuckling again...
     "Un..."
     "Dau..."
     "Tri..."
     And with that, he pulls the doors open in an unisoned whoosh. To reveal the piano with an apple tree growing out of it, glimmering, glorious, full of fruit. "Holy shite..." Davydd folds his arms against his chest and looks over to you. "No wonder you were scared shitless. There's an apple tree growing out of my piano...I mean," he's grinning now, "...when I want a snack, all I have to do is just pluck it, but it's going to be hell trying to play it without getting knocked unconscious like Newton when they fall on my noggin..."

     "Yes, Your Supreme Majesty Taffy," Fiona mutters, refraining from further physical abuse, though her eyes roll. She doesn't say anything on the trip down, though it's plain she's uncomfortable, arms again folded over her chest.
     The doors being closed are of small relief to her, but not enough. She doesn't even respond to the suggestion of the scream, except with a glower and a muttered, "Oh, you're laughing now, but just wait."
     And ... she should have known, really, that this would've been your reaction, not anger. But ... clearly, to judge by the look on her face ...
     "You mean - you're not upset?" Fiona's face is still slightly screwed up, kittenish in wariness, eyes lifted up with chin downwards, lips slightly parted, a suggestion of ears flattened in the way she hunches slightly. "I mean - I didn't mean to, you know. I just ... was trying to get it in tune."
     She peers cautiously around the edge of one door, and adds meditatively, "It was just in bloom when I left. Does that mean something? - You can fix it ... right?"

     "Hmm," Davydd's doctor-like response resonates in throat and in that chest and he comes in, holding the door open for you. He'll expect you'll close them. "I can fix it, oes," he tilts his head. "I rather like it though. In its way it's sort of like... art...and no," he chuckles, "...I'm not mad. Look at it -- Christ, Fiona, it's funny as hell." Davydd walks around the piano, looking at the tree, the roots, the leaves and blossoms all over the floor, and then he looks up at you, grinning ear to ear. "I mean, honestly. You can look at this and not laugh? I think it's fucking hysterical...but," he exhales, expression softening a touch, "I can see how it would have been upsetting. I bet Kelly's cowering somewhere and Gwendolyn's casually drinking tea. Course, neither of them could do anything about it..."
     A large hand plucks an apple and takes a bite. Pure magic. Like the serpent he is, he holds out the apple to you, and the devil in him makes him wink. Go on then, take a bite. "I'm going to have to have a few apples before I let it go back to Avalon...hmm...Don't sit under the apple tree," he sings, gah that voice. Male loveliness. "With anyone else but me..."
     "I don't know what it means that it's bearing fruit now. Maybe nothing. Maybe it's a metaphor. Maybe it's just feeding off the piano's own energy and hastening along to fertility," Davydd thinks aloud again. "Likely it's like anything else: it has as much or as little meaning as you want to put to it. Come here," he murmurs, sitting on the piano bench, lap missing an important decoration -- you.

     Once she's inside and you're inside both, she turns to close the doors, turning the handles in order to shut out the world - and any strays who might wander in and be more shocked than even she or Kelly or Gwen. "I'm glad you're not mad," Fiona admits, voice low, a bit caught in the back of her throat. "I ... really, I was afraid I'd ruined things, somehow."
     All this newness, and then - this, dropped into the midst of meeting the family. She's leaning up against the doors, not quite fainting with relief but louche in her sudden loosening of tension, watching you again. "Is it from Avalon? - You know entirely too many songs, Davydd; I think you'd find something halfway appropriate if you were being pursued by cannibal pygmies with your pants on fire."
     You call her over, and she arches up her eyebrows; not quite impudently, but on some level, there's an element of relief in her expression. Pushing off from the doors, she makes her way over to you, sinking onto your lap and suddenly turning, pressing her face in against your shoulder with a blink, biting at the cloth-covered flesh a moment after. "I hate doing this to you," Fiona mutters. "Springing things on us both like this. I'm sorry, Davydd. I know I'm not..."

     "What," he says, eyebrows cock upwards as you take a seat on his lap and take a bite from the apple. Amazing thing, that apple. On one level it tastes like an apple. On another level, it tastes like this love, on another maybe his skin or his kiss. His arms come around you and he leans in for another bite. He tastes you there. It's rather extraordinary, that fruit, and he's in no hurry to send it away.
     "What," Davydd says at your forehead. "You know you're not ...what... what are you trying to be that you don't feel you're reaching. For you're the only one who's putting you there, you know. And ... springing things...? That's half the fun of life. If it were predictable, then Life would be Death."
     His hold is warm, as solid as the earth, as comfortable as lying in soft grass and sunbathing. He smiles. You are so young. And it appeals to all of his nature -- the nature to nurture, the paternal spark, the dirty old man. All of it. "It looks like one of my trees," he murmurs, "...and the fruit reminds me of your skin, the sweetness of your thighs." And apparently full of the kind of magic that makes him spout poetry like an everlasting font. "...and in between. I miss you, even when you are here with me," he continues in an earthy whisper, "... and am constantly seeking to lie in your shade..."
     "So..." he says, mouth full of another bite, "...you know you're not ...what... the source of inspiration and love for me? The girl whom I can't imagine spending one day away from her company? What... what are you not..."

     "When you put it like that, it makes it very hard for me to not be anything, you know." Her voice softens, and she leans up against you, eyes drifting closed for a moment. It isn't as if she's tired, but just ... sensing you, focusing all that energy and attention into finding you without her sight to get in the way. "I just feel very imperfect sometimes - as if you deserve something more," one hand comes up and out, "fitting to these surroundings."
     She shifts up, touching a fingertip to the apple, then to your lips, tracing them. "Someone who could be serene, and confident, and ... polished. I can do that, but never for very long - it's a harder act than anything I had to do when I was working the underground, you know."
     Unspoken, there is the comparison to others you've had, lain with, been with, whether in her own memory or only in your own - stretching back across the centuries. Queens and ladies and princesses...
     There's a slow easing of tension in her, and she turns to wind her arms around your neck. Poetry begets poetry, it seems, her eyes shading from grey to blue again, with a glimmer of green reflected from your own eyes, your own country. "I told you before that I want to crawl inside your skin, Davydd," Fiona murmurs. "I want to tie myself to you so thoroughly that I can't get away... All the different parts of you. Your strength, your emotion, your nobility - and you /are/ noble, not just in birth, you know. Your gentleness and your violence - I can't decide if I love you more when you're tender with me, when I see you almost at tears over some small thing, or when you're being the land-pirate, ready to throw me over your shoulder and remind me that you're bigger and stronger than I am..."
     Reluctantly, the corners of her mouth tug up in a small smile, small but growing. "I look for you in mirrors and around corners, even during the day when I know you wouldn't be there. I'm not perfect, and my life isn't perfect, but it's so much closer with you in it. Just, I'm scared of screwing it up somehow - it's as if I managed to pull off something fantastic, but I don't know how I did it. And I want everything to be as perfect for you as I can manage."
     Her fingers track down from the corner of your mouth to the edge of your jaw, then down and around to behind your ear, sliding into the copper curls. "What can I say? I knew that I wouldn't be able to give in to you without giving in all the way, Davydd. I've never been good at ... halfway. I fight you. I'll always fight you. But it's only because surrendering to you is more fun than just letting you have your own way - and I can't let it be easy. For either of us..."

     "I am not this tree, Fiona," he murmurs, mouth pulling in a smile both serious and humored. "You did not conjure me in the midst of an antique piano, as a byproduct of accidental magic. I will not dissolve like a spell miscast or fade away like time. Close your eyes and Believe that. You do not have to be anyone or anything other than what you are. If I wanted a perfect lady, if that's what I was meant to have and what was right for me, what I loved, then you would not be here..." And Sandrine would be. She was perfect...
     "But you are on my lap," he murmurs, eyes on your mouth for a while, and then to your eyes and your smile. "It's your skin...your sweetness I taste in that apple. No one else's. I don't want serenity, nobility, I'm not looking for Sleeping Beauty. I'm Sleeping Beauty enough for both of us. I just want Fiona, whomever she is, and whomever she is becoming, and whomever she will be at some later date. The girl who's as much at home in a fancy red-brick castle as she is in a leaky boat. A girl who can wear Prada one minute and Doc Martens the next. Strong and sharp as a nettle, sweet and tender as a primrose...who never lets you forget one moment you're with her... that's what I want..."
     The kiss is as wild as it is tender. It is sudden, living, warm and wide. It is warrior, husband, king and lover. It is savoring, sweet and uninhibited. And too soon over. Parting, he leads the apple back to your mouth. "Fight me, love me, taste me, wear me..."
     "Marry me..."
     Be my Queen...
     Bear my children...
     Grow apple trees in my instruments and make music on my pots and pans...
     His hands lift you, setting you softly down upon the remaining keys of the piano and the roots of the apple tree, blossoms and leaves and fruit hanging heavy from the branches. "Queen Fiona," he says, and you can see the apple forests of Avalon in his eyes, the glimmer of sun on the oak leaves, the reflection of that life on the silver river filled with fruitful fish. "... take your King and take your land..."

     She listens to the words, almost dolefully, neither convinced nor unconvinced. It's certainly true that she didn't conjure you - though the entire thing has had that element of the fantastic, from first meetings through to this very instant, seated upon a piano bench, shaded indoors by an apple tree laden with sweet unworldly fruit that grows out of a piano - really, who'd believe it without seeing it?
     Even seeing it for herself, she sometimes has to pinch herself and make sure she hasn't lost her mind...
     The mingled waters that colour her gaze focus on your face for a moment, and then the pale lashes sweep down, cutting off the gaze as she leans in to you. "Sleeping Beauty never had a body like yours," she interjects in a murmur, her arms sliding down to go round your waist in a loose hug, her curves pressed to your hardness. But she's still listening; in fact, it's almost as if she's listening for your heartbeat, even as she listens to you speak. She lifts her head, eyes opening again as she looks at you, and it's -that- look; the one she gets once or twice a day, as if she's seeing you for the first time, trying to figure it all out all over again.
     The kiss catches Fiona by surprise, even though by now it shouldn't, really - she leans into it with a momentary urgency, as if needing the reminder, this is real, this is not imaginary, this is magic but it is real...
     Kiss-darkened lips remain slightly parted as the apple comes to her mouth, and she dips her chin to take a bite, teeth crunching through firm skin and white flesh.
     She almost chokes a moment later, one hand flying up to cover her mouth and keep her from spraying you with bits of half-chewed fruit. She's caught by surprise, utterly unguarded, the sea-coloured eyes widening as she looks up at you, with that 'am I losing my hearing already' sort of look, while forcing the bite of apple down with a rough swallow as she's being lifted.
     "I ... Davydd," she whispers, and she begins to cry. Not noisily, but instead, silent tears that leak from the corners of her eyes to trickle down her cheeks, small gasping breaths taken until she's managed to catch herself, though she hasn't taken her gaze from you save for blinking away crystalline wetness. "There isn't ... there's nothing I'd want more. It's been bigger than me since I met you, b-but..." Almost, she asks if you're sure, and she stops herself, shaking her head, wiping her eyes with the back of her wrist.
     "Old Man," Fiona mutters, voice gone soft and shaky with emotion, "you're an idiot for asking me, you know. You won't have a moment's peace that you're awake, but ... I can't say no. I can't be that noble. You've gone and made me greedy, Davydd." Her hand comes down on some of the remaining keys with distant music, and she lifts her face towards yours, paused on the edge of speech.
     "Well ... aren't you going to claim your Queen?"

     "Aye well, I know," he whispers, smiling in the face of his own idiocy. What's new, wot? The expression seems resigned to it -- and humored by it all the same. "A pirate for a pirate, Fiona, a queen for a king," he murmurs as he stands, leaning against you where you sit upon a musical, fruit-bearing pedestal. "Eye for an eye, hmm? Tooth for a tooth," he whispers at your mouth.
     And then he makes it his own. Claims it, keeps it, steals it and puts it in his pocket, makes music in it, keys miraculously in tune despite the invasion of roots. In that kiss, flavored by the apple you've shared between you, is a sealed fate, a sealed agreement, and a wedding vow. He needs no other church than this. His question. Your answer. And Avalon as his witness.
     Hold safe the door. And you can hear the doors locking themselves. Let none enter... Davydd smiles as one hand plays a sweet chord, while his other begins to slip between the folds of clothing.
     "Let's not start counting the ways we're both foolish," Davydd speaks it at your mouth, sucking apple juice away. "You know, in olden tymes," since he did live in olden times himself, "... those who were mad were said to be simultaneously blessed, touched by Inspiration. They were poets and magicians like Merlin himself. Maybe we are mad," he smiles. "But we're in good company, darlin..."
     There are no more words for a while. There is the sound of music with every slight motion, his hands at your clothing, beginning to peel it away. There is humor -- there will always be an edge of trickster humor in it -- but there is also solemnity, serious solemnity that also understands the ritual, and the meaning, and the depth of emotion. His jacket is shrugged off large shoulders to fall to the floor. Davydd looks at you, hair nearly dried, a vibrant bronze-copper, curls that are going their own ways, not uniformly. Just like his life is left to Chance despite all the notions of Fate.
     You've been with the man now two weeks or so. You've known the tenderness and the wilderness of his own embrace. The strength and the softness. The wickedness and the nobility. The kiss is all these things at once. It is everything you love, everything you fear, everything that makes you laugh, and everything that makes you cry.
     And everything is accompanied by the random notes of the piano beneath you.

     If you're an idiot for asking her, after all, how much more an idiot is she for saying yes? Fiona makes a small sound in the back of her throat, immediately muffled by the seal of your lips against hers. Her arms lift to go about your neck again, eyes closing as she pours all of herself into her response.
     How wickedly Biblical, to seal a union with an apple-flavoured kiss...
     It's hard to hold still, under the touch, being undressed by music and musician's hand. "Why you didn't just come downstairs in a towel," she murmurs with breathless laughter that still borders on a sob, "I've no idea, Davydd." Her hands move up over your chest, fingers plucking and tugging, helping you to become as naked as you're working on making her become. She is overwhelmed... but finding in it everything she wants and fears alike.
     Fiona shifts on the piano with a random sounding of perfectly tuned notes, only a brief glance spared towards the door; and there's a momentary mischief in her own gaze. It'd be almost amusing, having the family walk in on them - it'd certainly make things plain to any who still had questions. But utterly unnecessary. She turns her attention fully onto you, silent for a long moment before she gives voice to what is in her thoughts, voice quiet and far away.
     "Love me, Davydd... I'm yours, forever. And I've never promised forever to anyone before." Thoughts of anyone else are gone from her, you and the worlds you encompass reflected in her eyes as she lifts her hands to you, to pull you down towards her. "Yours... my King. My heart. My Davy."

     Beneath an apple tree
     We'll make like Adam and Eve
     That's the truth of it, honey...
     Off comes the turtleneck, red hair displaced by it, the shorter bits sticking up with the static in the air. It's kind of a punk-fairy affair. All that's left behind are seven of nine visible tattoos, the most expansive -- apart from the one that's still hidden -- is the one directly in front of you, claiming the Welshman's chest. Your Welshman, that is. A painted pagan, a fairy king, a Celtic warrior, a poet prince, a name in the index of a history book, the man who's going to have you on the keys of a piano.
     Brings a new meaning to the term 'make sweet music together'...
     He laughs at your little concerto, deep and quiet, "It would have been a shade more convenient," he murmurs, "but a good deal more drafty," green eyes go wide and he grins. Not that he would have felt the draft -- certainly not now from the flush of his skin and the summer sun emanating from it. He lifts your shirt up and away. "The better question is, why do I let you get dressed at all," Davydd suddenly quips. "You should only be wearing my sheets," the low rumble hangs in his chest and his throat, and the Oak King lays his claim again...no pun intended... on your mouth, biting, grinning, kissing and savoring.
     You feel those hands pulls you in close, cupping you beneath your hips and crushing a series of notes with you, a hint of songs to come. His green eyes glimmer with mischief as he looks from where you are soon to be connected and the music you make, to the door. "What's life," he whispers, "...without a little bit of chance," and you hear the doors unlock again.
     The hulking mountain you're soon to call a husband as well as king leans in and leans you back, his mouth finding your neck, nipping his way to breasts, and you have an eyeful of apples. Pinkish like your skin turns, sweet as your skin tastes, firm as you are in the mouth and in the hand. "It looks like one of my trees," he murmurs the poem again, words against your skin, "... and the fruit reminds me of your skin, the sweetness of your thighs, and in between. I miss you, even when you are here with me, and am constantly seeking to lie in your shade..."

     You have her complete and utter attention, undivided by thoughts of anything else. Her hands come up to your chest, tracing the paintings upon your chest - you wouldn't be you without them. Her mother might fuss, but she doesn't mind the tattoos at all...
     She draws her palms up, then drags the backs of her nails down slowly, smiling up at you with almost puckish frailty. "You let me get dressed because I bring you jamcakes and tea some mornings - and I keep you off balance by not ever letting you know which mornings I might."
     Never mind that these 'mornings' start after the sun has set. Words are put an end to for a bit as you kiss her and and bite her, soft sounds which can in no way be taken as objection coming from her. Your warmth is absorbed, fueling a heat of her own, from in the core of her belly and radiating outwards through her.
     "Wicked man," she whispers as you pull her to you with the concordant song, the edges of her mouth tugging upwards as she hears the lock disengage. She sprawls back, letting her head fall to her side with a spill of oak-blonde locks to expose her neck and throat to you, her hands reaching out for you, trailing over your hips, over your skin wherever she can reach.
     "I know of nothing sweeter than being with you, Davydd. The sharper moments - the edge of your strength... it's all perfect, even when it isn't." Slowly, she stretches her arms up and out, over her head, changeable gaze caught upon yours, inviting you to look at her, touch her, taste her, take her. One leg's drawn up, almost coyly, and she turns one-quarter over towards you with her palm against a swelling of tree limb. "I know there was a life before I met you, but I've almost forgotten it. I don't just love and need you, you know... I want you, too."

     "That's true, you do feed me, god love you for it as I do," you feel the smile as well as hear it, Your hand at his hip meets his skin, woolen cloth falling somewhere below the horizon of the apple tree and piano keys. And you become the fruit of the tree to him, devoured as much as loved. Not the first night, not the second night either, or the night in the shower, not even the other night in the boat has he seemed as in it for his own pleasure as to show you what pleasure can be.
     It is an honest look at his own passion. An open and uninhibited display of his own vulnerability interlocked with that strength you have come to know so well. That virility you have come to know and to treasure. He has his own needs. He doesn't sacrifice them. He shows them to you instead.
     Consider it an engagement gift...
     In the absence of a ring, what you have is greater still, a proof of passion, the existence of his own need, the song he makes when he moans at your mouth, his mouth lifting from your breasts to say your name again.
     In groan...
     In grasp...
     In bite...
     In kiss...
     It is punctuated by the strong chords of the piano beneath you, as he parts the kiss to pull you in. He smiles, corners lifting in sudden quirks, his fingers sliding between your thighs. "The piano... never sounded better," he grins. "I ...like it this way... an apple tree erect, you spread out on top of the keys... I think I'll leave it this way..." he murmurs, mouth on yours as his fingers play between you.

     Speech has become impossible - no, not impossible, for there's a random scattering of words, interrupted, punctuated by sighs and moans and gasps and, more than anything else, by your name. There is no room for shyness or modesty in this heat. She takes what you give her, opening herself, granting you free access to look, to touch, to consume.
     Whatever her fears, however you have answered them, she now answers your passion with her own, hands moving across your chest, fingers brushing your face and through your hair, gripping for a moment, nails digging in at your shoulders as she squirms with open-mouthed pleasure. It clothes her skin with colour and texture in her nakedness.
     "You'd have ... an awful lot of questions to answer," Fiona murmurs, features flushed to almost a hectic colour. "Davydd... I don't care about the damn piano or the damn tree, just - I want you now, damn it!" Her gaze is heated, and she squirms, leaning up to catch at your mouth, nipping your lower lip before she then soothes with a kiss that threatens to turn wild, thighs still opened for your attention as she arches up to meet you with the swell of her breasts. Ah, encouragement.

     You know, some music historians postulate that this is how Beethoven came up with that intro of his to the Ninth Symphony. Though, one really can't imagine Beethoven having wild sex on a piano, or if one does one might want to tear one's eyes out or quickly follow such thoughts with those of some better looking celebrity or historical figure having wild sex on a piano.
     Nevertheless...
     Strains of that symphony may be heard, a banging beginning, a cluster of notes that sound out loudly between the two of you as fingers are replaced by a thing far more formidable. Hands grip your hips and cup you, cup you to him and bear you gently, balancing, despite the wild flurry of biting, grasping, pulling and groaning that follows at your mouth.
     There is a wicked turning grin there, a suckle to soften the biting that precedes it, the spreading of his mouth, the spreading of your thighs, the welcomed invasion of the tongue, the sudden thrust of him inside you. There is no lesson here. There is nothing he is teaching you. Well, that is not true. For if you pay attention, he will show you how well you please him. How he takes pleasure for himself. The strength he brings to bear in the movement of his body, echoed by the sound of struck notes and sweet, Welsh groans. Your name. His love for you. Praise for the way you envelope him, snugly... as if you had another choice. How he enjoys everything, each moment of you beneath him.
     And if you watch him, listen to him, as you feel him around you and inside you, it is not altogether unlike how he devoured the apple before. You are the fruit in his mouth. The inspiration. The muse. The queen.
     That is how his passion, his needs, his wants are expressed. In fairy gluttony for a well laid feast....
     And if the piano didn't need to be tuned before, it certainly will after...

     Fingers press in at strong shoulders, fingernails biting into blue-screened skin. Beethoven? Who the hell cares about him...
     The only male Fiona has any thought for right now is you...
     Not that she's spending much time on conscious thought right now. She's busy, busy at your lips, a wanting, squirming bundle of nerves and reactions.
     Your fingers coming away leaves her almost pouting for a moment - such a girl she is sometimes, and now at least as much as any time. Kiss and thrust at met openly, thighs spreading just a little wider.
     She is nothing but need and want and love right now, a feminine greed come to life and flesh, wrapping herself around you as if by your possession of her she possesses you back, as if to mark you with her scent and her touch and her hunger.
     It may have started in a more ordinary music, piano chords and refrains, but the song it is becoming is one older than that instrument. And it wouldn't do for it to fail to be a duet...
     If anyone is anywhere in earshot, they'll hear the percussion and the chords and over them, that voice you've praised so highly, lifting in a wordless song older than recorded time itself.

     What exists here, blossoms elsewhere...
     While here, an old piano is played and the vision of a blue-painted man summarily having a young woman on the keys of it moves amid the falling blossoms and fruit bearing leaves of a magically positioned apple tree, the power and the life, the magic that is raised moves over an otherworldly landscape.
     There is the feeling of being rolled in flowered grass, of sunlight and summer moving through you. Of Life Itself thrusting there. There is completion. And completion is perfect...
     The music sounds rhythmic, haphazard, creating harmonies and melodies at the end of rolling hips and spreading thighs. Man to woman. King to Queen.
     Where there were two kingdoms, you create one between you...
     Such echoes on the skin that meets skin, the friction and the grind, the slide and the consummation, the hands that grasp tightly and push and pull upon younger hips. There is nothing he holds back. Everything is given, and everything that is wanted is taken. And it is like the burning of crops...
     The storming of gates...
     The sweetness of spring...
     The fire of summer...
     It is primal, every thrust like the first thrust that ever was, and in it the twitch and promise of every May, when blossoms litter the ground and fruit is longed for. Power leaves him, meets you, fills you and returns to him.
     Yes, it is a duet...
     An unmistakable one at that, not one that could be missed by any in the household on this side of the castle. The shouted groan, the knocking against piano wood, the sudden striking of more than several keys, the sound of a woman's name echoing off the marble.

     It doesn't matter which world is which - both worlds are there, and both worlds are a part of both participants.
     Spring has its winds and rains and sweet shoots and flowers, the openness of fields and valleys, the rises of hills and dales... the geography of passion is given and taken unstintingly, open generosity in her movements commingled with her desire and her greed.
     There is tension, but the tension of mounting heat, and power and need are met from you by her own. What Fiona lacks in finesse, after all, she makes up for with raw energy...
     Legs wrap around hips; hips arch, limbs writhe and tremble amidst sighs and squeaks and moans that are echoed not only in wood but in womanly cries. Almost she slips from underneath you, your weight and position keeping her pinned to the piano, to the grass...
     The high, clear, rounded tones of her voice would be beautiful if caught on tape. As long as that tape were sold in a brown wrapper...

     In a brown wrapper, in southside London...
     Or maybe on a tape playing to a DJ mix in the Phantasmagoria...
     There is the low sound, the reverberation of his voice midway between a chuckle and a growl, and with a grin, Davydd scoops you up. Arms of oak hold you to him as he moves to the settee. "So, Mrs. King," his earthy voice gravels out, not breathless in the slightest -- you might have cause to worry as he shows no sign of stopping for long, "... I suppose this means you'll want to head back to London as soon as possible and go shopping for a ring..."
     He'll not be so crass as to offer one of the many rings he has in one of the many boxes of Black Jack Davy's spoils.

     "Um," Fiona murmurs, leaning up against you, eyes more closed than not. She'll take her breather while she can, and worry about what else you've got planned later...
     If worry is the right word...
     Not the most coherent she's ever been, is it? Her cheek rubs against your shoulder; she's much more breathless, but then, she's had less practice. "I don't know. I'm not in a tearing hurry - you don't have to pay through the nose for me, you know." She lifts her face for a moment. Crass? She was a London punk for an awfully long time, you know...
     "Any ring you give me will mean the world to me, you know, Davydd," she adds, quietly, her hand lifting to touch your face, then sliding down to rest her palm against one dragon's head. "But I'm going to insist on a real ring. As long as it's real and not off of a curtain rod - I'll let you pick."
     There's a pause, and then she laughs, quietly, rising into exultancy, and she straightens up with a squirming motion up along you, to straddle your lap and brush her lips against yours, hair in a wild tangle down her back.
     "You do realize," Fiona remarks conventionally, "my mother's going to practically adopt you, don't you? But let's worry about rings later - right now," one hand reaches down to between entwined bodies, "it seems like I've still got my work cut out for me... my husband and husband-to-be."
     And a dainty feminine hand closes around an entirely different dragon, while the overly innocent smile that parts her lips leans forward to test your mouth...
     Who cares if the door's still unlocked, after all?

Posted by rowan at March 29, 2004 03:00 PM