Dancing colors and painted ships, lights and sights and smells and sounds, stimuli of all sorts abound here. And in the hectic to and fro of feet there is the sound of a city, a themesong symphony, the applause is in the laughing chatter of a hundred separate voices, like birds singing in their own trees.
     The King walks through this busy living world, on this thriving, light-filled street sometime after sunset (as it always has to be), his hands in the pockets of a lamb's leather coat over black woolen trousers, the shirt a layer of two onion-paper thin sweaters, cream and red. Red and white and black, his colors. His red hair, fiery bronze-copper waves a bit longer these days but still short, the wave in it tempted to ringlet up with the moisture of the river.
     The dragon of a man breathes smoke through his nose, like all proper dragons do, as he makes his way through the crowds, moving to walk instead along the pier-side, looking over The Thames, an older dragon than he, snaking its way through The City.
     Davydd ap Owain, you are called, the Oak King of Summer and ruler of Avalon. And you're standing here like a great Welsh git, worrying about things that aren't in your control anyway. It's sort of like stepping outside, Llywelyn, and worrying about the weather...

     The problem with birds chirping is that there is always so damn much noise to it...
     Some people have sharper hearing than do others, of course. Some people can't hear at all - they keep their heads pulled in and down, turtle-like, the shell of their ignorance and mundanity risen about their ears as if it were a cowl, a hood. It's an apt metaphor for some more than for others.
     Time skips a beat. There are some few trees here, ringed round with iron but yet living. Water droplets have formed from some earlier rainfall, or perhaps just from someone being a git and tossing a bucket of water out of some upper floor window in mimicry conscious or unconscious of days gone by, when the night soil was routinely tossed out in such a fashion - they cling with desperate futility to each leaf they've touched, as unwilling to relinquish their hold as any lover to lover might cry. Gravity is cruel but inevitable as they slide slowly and inexorably to the unfragrant and unforgiving stone and cement.
     In the beat of that passing time, between droplet's slide and droplet's fall and droplet's inevitable collision with the covered earth, there is a brilliantine moment, sparkling air colluding with gypsy-abandoned garments as two appear where none were before. They appear in a pocket of emptiness amidst the crowd - as if the crowd were holding its collected breath for them. One is chocolate-colored, skin kissed by some edible sun, hair braided and black and drinking available light as thirstily and with as little regret as an Irishman on the fourth night of a week-long bender. He has long hair, silkily kept back by red and green scarves, and the blue vest he wears glitters, the white trousers short enough to show his ankles - he is barechested and barefoot.
     His companion is female, and pale - sloe-eyed and languid of movement, the whiteness of her skin would have been prized by any Victorian. However, her hair is quite short - almost crewcut - and that odd sort of strawberry-blonde which looks almost pink in the wrong light. This light seems very wrong indeed. Her tunic is black, tucked into tannic trousers that open at the cuffs, folding over the tops of her boots.
     They exchange secret smiles - the smiles of twins, or of lovers. Hands clasp together in a light, loose touch for just one moment... and time resumes its natural course. You, of course, see it all. You are no mere mortal, with only fragile dreams...

     In the moment between the drop of rain, the slide against the skin of a leaf, and the inevitable splash of that single drop, there are eternities, friends. And the drop of water in one world is the ocean of another....
      ... Smoke pauses on the air like fog, drifting fragrant and floating, hovering as Davydd ap Owain turns his head toward the shimmering, his thoughts lifting from himself to the worlds at-large, his forest green eyes shifting from a gaze inward to a sudden seeing outward. Fiery eyebrows open outward as the two appear, and the lips of the king of summer quirk at the corners and an arc of sparkling fire leaves his fingertips -- the cigarette sent sailing even as the raindrop slid against the skin of the leaf of one of the last trees in London...
     Surrounded by iron as it is...
     There is a glance to the humanity gathered around them. But their world moves slowly, so slowly they cannot imagine. Trees move more slowly still, their conversations on frequencies few can hear, lower, deeper than the songs of whales. In that time between Falling and Landing, Davydd gives the Twins (or Lovers) a salute, a greeting sign of his hand. Yes, I see you. Lovely weather we're having. Where do you do your shopping?
     Though he can be Seen as well as seen, he's without his kingly bronze and scarlet today. His golds and reds, exchanged for reds and whites, more palatable for the crowds around him. But there's little that can hide the golden sunlight that backs him. He stands like a permanent Eclipse...
     A cursed king he may be... but a King nonetheless...

     The one has a sword - it becomes evident as she turns slightly, one shoulder lifted, one hand lifting, coming up to cup her mouth, right hand's edge to the left side of her lips. She doesn't speak, just grins, a small grin which curves into mischief for a moment as she glances to her companion. He is unarmed - or, if he holds any weapons, they are nowhere to be seen. Hand in hand like such, they approach carefully, with the woman slightly ahead of and in front of the man.
     "Your Majesty," she greets respectfully, with a quarter's turn of bow, then straightens. "Rumours of your Awakening have been buzzing. It is ... interesting to see that they are at least in part confirmed."
     "Diana," the young man says quietly, eyes widening as if shocked, "is that how one greets a king? Really!"
     "It is how I greet a king," Diana answers, unperturbed and still grinning. "Your Majesty, allow me to present to you Rimnos of Tainbridge, to whom I am constant companion when he steps out of certain quarters, and to whom I am constantly apart whenever he is within certain quarters. For myself, I am ... a bodyguard of sorts, I suppose that you could say. Diana of the Fecund Waters, knight in service by contract alone."
     It is difficult to tell, with his complexion, but the man appears to be blushing. He does not draw his hand away, though now he offers his own small bow from where he stands. "Your Majesty. Forgive us, I pray. Dame Diana," he glances to her archly, "has little tact in her bones."

     Golden light at the edges of him, Davydd looks very much like the sun at full eclipse, and yet is he not more in his power than ever? It's a visual effect, for certes. The Oak King chuckles, unarmed he spreads his arms out a bit and with humor (for he doesn't need a sword), he approaches the two, meeting them midway as raindrops hover midair...
     "I've heard worse, trust me," he looks at both Diana and Rimnos, eyebrows and lips still tilted. "Tact has its place, I suppose, but rarely in my presence. Diana of the Fecund Waters... Rimnos of Tainbridge..." Green-worlded-eyes, their forests and meadows and orchards in the light of another summer day living in his every look (if one were to stare very intently and peer into his eyes, one might see the ladies of Avalon strolling to the riverside to sail in comfortable skiffs). "It is a pleasure to meet you, Rimnos... Diana of the Fecund Waters..."
     Davydd twists a grin, a glance given up to the rain-spittling sky (not that any of it is landing just yet), "If they move half as fast as the rumors of my death, then I shall likely have people waiting at my doorstep by the time I get home." Which is not here. Exactly. "Interesting... is a word for it, Dame Diana. Tardy is another word..."
     So is lazy... ha... riot...

     "I haven't a tactful organ, let alone bone," Diana agrees blandly, giving Rimnos a brief glance which is illuminated with the reflection of electric blue off a neon sign. "It's not my place to be tactful. I leave the stroking of egos and ... other parts ... to those more suited and trained to it..."
     Is that a meaning behind the look she glances Rimnos' way?
     Rimnos shakes his head with a soft sway of silk down his back, focusing curiously pale eyes down at his feet, at the mortal world frozen beneath them. "The pleasure, Your Majesty, I assure you is ours. Dame Diana speaks truly-"
     "Diana," the lady-knight interjects dryly. "A dame is always a dame, but some dames are more déclassé than others - and dis dame is out of de class."
     Continuing as if Diana had not spoken, Rimnos lifts his face to look resolutely and directly ahead. "The knight speaks truly. There are enough rumours that the air is thick with them - they say many things, Your Majesty. Would it be a terrible imposition to ask of you what the truth of matters might be?" Scarves and silks tremble and flutter as he asks, with the bruised brushing of butterfly wings.

     "Well," Davydd rumbles out, an exhale and his hands are digging for another cigarette. He has to have his prop, "I suppose not. How about an exchange?" Davydd offers with a grin, a pause, a flash of fire and a breath of smoke. Stowing away his lighter, exhaling the first puff of cigarette smoke, he looks to the two of them: "What you've heard for what I know..."
     That's a fair exchange. Even money, as it were...
     Davydd props himself up against one of the lamp posts that line the river-walk, curiosity in his features, and interest. There are traces of humor on the mention of organs, but he leaves that bait well enough alone. That's a quagmire if he ever heard one...

     The two exchange glances again - and it's unusual perhaps, but they still haven't let go of each other's hands. "There are a great many rumours, Your Majesty," Rimnos begins delicately, his free hand waving in a negligent little circle. "I would neither desire to waste your time nor risk possible offense by recounting them all to you here."
     Time progresses, though at so slow a pace that the humans with their dull, creeping lives scarcely even have yet finished a blink - slow, glacially slow, they move, patches of shadow hovering over illuminated heads, blindfolds drawn over closed eyes and ears stoppered with banality. The knight shifts slightly, a minute adjustment of her weight, and with her free hand, she banishes Rimnos' words.
     "There are quite a number of rumours," Diana agrees. "Some of 'em claim you're dead, but that there's a fetch wandering in your shape. Most agree that's just foolish talk - or wishful thinking, depending on who you ask."
     There's a soft gasp and tut-tut from Rimnos, which she ignores as she continues, strawberry champagne dancing in her hair and a Picadilly Circus gleam glimmering in her eyes. "They say you are retaking your throne, some of them. Others claim you're planning on annexing the other kingdoms, one by one - here and there. Since you've got ... happy feet, that can be in more than one place at a time, unlike most of us..."
     The man shakes his long hair out with a low sigh. "Diana only hears the barracks gossip," he murmurs slyly, glancing up from beneath thick eyelashes, mouth forming a girlish purpled cupid's bow. "There are many other rumours, Your Majesty. They say that you will kill the Council of the Silver Tree, to avenge yourself on London for Wales' sake - they say many things. Is it truly your desire to hear more?" He's tempted now - it shows in his eyes.
     Diana laughs, though not unkindly. "Rimnos has more of an ear for gossip than I do," she agrees, "though I do hear more than the barracks' worth. Thanks to the guarding of him, I end in places I normally wouldn't pay much attention to..."

     "Men are far worse gossipers than any woman," Davydd clips out, cigarette bobbing as he does. "Well," another exhale, "I'll say this, I don't have it in for the Silver Wheel and I'm not gobbling up territory." He pauses and cracks a smile and a wink, "...well...not much in the way of territory. What does territory mean to me?"
     He leans his fiery red head (hair even more fiery to those with eyes to See) against the lamp post. "It's a state of being," being King. "But," he pauses to gesture with the lighted stick, the gesture lingering, burning 'Yes' against the air, "...it is true, I have ended my exile from the True World, an exile that ... wasn't truly necessary as Time has shown and Fate has proved to me. That much is true. When I awoke, the land that is my Self," as any land of a king or queen is, "... wakened with me."
     And the crown?
     That comes with the land. He wears the corona already, the constant backing of sunlight, even though he hasn't seen the sun himself in eight-hundred-plus years.
     "I shall be paying my respects to the Council, respects long overdue, but I mean no more harm to the Silver Tree than I have posed these many years. Which is to say...none at all. I expect they're hardly worried," Davydd smirks.
     "It's hard to waste the time of the Timeless," Davydd chuckles. "Has this answered your questions?" Or concerns. He doesn't address the subject of annexation more than the first casual comment. There is some agreements. He wouldn't be a king without them. Green eyes (worlds) look to Diana of the Fecund Waters and he smiles. "Wales remembers when London was its own. Short memories may view the enmities of a thousand years. But where memories run long, they will find forgotten kinships. That bit about the murdering is a load of horse biscuits..."

     "To the Timeless," Diana agrees, "there are more ways than one to overthrow a world. Or worlds. A sword dragged behind can leave a long furrow. Your Majesty."
     Rimnos glances from king to knight, then back. "I am sure that there will be many questions, Your Majesty - and many ... offers. Few wish to be on the wrong side of the Oak King and Lord of Summer..."
     "And fewer still," Diana interrupts, "want to fail to make their arrangements before the seasons change. If I were you, Your Majesty - I'd examine any carpets sent to you carefully before you have 'em chucked into the storeroom - or rolled out."

     "Thanks..." he says. "I think. You know, I've read Julius Caesar. I won't be accepting any lumpy carpets," Davydd continues, earthly voice lilting, inflection lowering with his humor, "...whether or not they're from Egypt. Duly noted. And your point is well taken, Knight," he says to Diana, looking at her directly for the moment.
     "But... I prefer plow-blades to sword blades," his mouth tilts a smile. "...there's more than one way to sow the seeds of change..." And the Oak King likes to sow seeds...
     He's good at it...
     And he grins, broad and warm, that comet-streak smile, as he takes another breath of the burning stick, inhales fire, breathes smoke. "Are you offering to inspect the rolls as they're carried in?" Fiery eyebrows arch upward and outward as he looks to the Knight, and what knight isn't a knight for hire?

     "So I've heard," Diana answers, one corner of her mouth pulling upwards, hand going to her hip. "I was thinking that dragon's teeth tend to spring up as fighting men, from what I've heard - and Irish toothaches and Welsh ones, well..." One eyebrow cocks upwards at a comical angle. "The history's known, after all. If it weren't, no doubt Rimnos would be fluttering a bit more than he already is, right now."
     The chocolate skin hints at darkening, and Rimnos turns a pout and roll of the eyes up at Diana. "We can't all be bold and fearless fighters, you know, Dame Diana," he breathes out, the lips parting just slightly as he lifts his unclaimed hand to tug back one floating scarf. "The lady knight refers, of course, to my position in the court - such as it is."
     "On his back, on his stomach, or on his knees, depending on which of the Council he's on call for," Diana agrees, unabashed in the extreme. "All the more reason why he needs a bodyguard who's unimpressed by ... who he's with ... even when he isn't with them."
     She snorts, then, the city-lights in her eyes glowing brighter for just a moment. "Check your urns for asps as well as your carpets for concubines and would-be queens, Your Majesty. Do you really need the help? I wouldn't have thought so, mind."

     "I'm a fan of comedy, as you know," he says to Diana. "The scene of murdering carpets and textiles is amusing me at the moment. I will... keep it in mind. Diolch," he says of the asps.
     But what has a dragon to fear from an asp?
     Perhaps everything...
     Davydd chuckles again, arms folding across his chest, a relaxed pose of a confident king it would seem, and he grins after the earthy sound of it issues out upon the incense of cigarette smoke. He says nothing of the dragon's teeth -- or the bodies of oak trees for that matter, though Macbeth had cause to fear a forest army -- but rather cocks up his eyebrows as he glances between the two of you.
     A male courtesan. Well...
     The Oak King doesn't so much as blush. The look is more blasé. Hey, once you find out Edward Meurelle, Vicomte of Blois and all around man's man is taking it up the back nine, nothing is shocking. "Sounds like a lot of positions," Davydd cracks, lips tilting at the corners. "So, I expect you do hear quite a bit of gossip. The Court of the Silver Tree," Davydd begins, hand plucking his cigarette from his lips, rolling it between his fingers and watching the fire swirl against dark air, "... know where they're keeping themselves these days and nights? I haven't seen heads or tails of them for ... a long time..." Before the Second World War in the world of men. Seventy-five years ago.
     Unbelievable...

     There's a faint suggestion of a squirm of protest, and the arch look Diana receives from Rimnos suggests that at the very least, the air around her will be blistered from his comments - once they are out of the presence of royalty. "Your Majesty is kind," he murmurs coyly. "But yes, I suppose I do hear quite a bit..."
     After all, it wouldn't do to have him put a bad word in with the powers that be...
     "The Court? Why - it moves, of course," Rimnos answers, eyes widening with a butterfly effect of dark grace, "depending upon the mortal time. Some places are just more comfortable at certain times - and there is the Weight to be considered, as well. Let us see, it is ... Diana, dear, do tell me - you know that I cannot see - what time is it?"
     "Very nearly the end of Spring, and the moon is waxing gibbous." Diana answers with only the briefest glance at the sky, as if for some sort of confirmation. "That means that for the time being, it's based out of Regent Park. You'd know where it goes next better than I would, Rimnos, but it'll be changing in, what, three days?"
     "Yes," Rimnos agrees, a bit sourly, making a face. "Three days. Ugh. And I'd just gotten everything set up the way I like it, too..."
     "Considering how many attendants they allow you to have, if it takes you that long to get set back up, it's on your own head and noone else's," Diana answers unsympathetically, grinning again. "At any rate, Your Majesty, there you've got it. Planning on going to put the fear of you into them?"

     "Fear is another king's business," Davydd answers, extinguishing his second cigarette on the sole of his shoe, glancing up as sparks fly. He smiles. "Regents Park. Three nights. Diolch," he says to them both.
     A glance to the raindrops, the water hovering just above the ground. It's time to go. Cigarette remains tucked into his pocket (to be thrown away politely elsewhere), he nods his head to them. "For now, I should go. Timeless does not mean one doesn't have appointments." The grin is a flash of sunlight and warmth.
     "Rimnos Tainbridge and Diana of the Fecund Waters, good evening to you both. Next time, a pint of honeybeer on me..." He steps away from the shimmering portion of the world, walking between raindrops slowly falling toward their destined landing on cement, his hands in the pockets of his lambskin coat, his eyes on the slow moving world, and his mind remarkably clear.
      Amazing what two cigarettes, a dose of magic and a conversation about carpets can do...

Posted by rowan at April 17, 2004 08:26 PM