Midnight, twilight, treble in and out...
     The words seem appropriate to Fiona where she lies staring upwards at the ceiling of Kelly's first guest room from on the bed. The wood and leather of it are comfortable, but yet not. They remind her too much of Davydd, and that in conjunction with where she is reminds her too much of earlier revelations. "Barking the shins of my brain on shadows of reality, aren't I? Or just barking mad," she mutters, an arm draped over her forehead. She squeezes her eyes closed, then restlessly shifts and rolls over, eyes again wide open. They meet the luminescent glow of a wristwatch, the numbers on the dial alert and unblinkingly vigilant as the 3 in 12:23 vanishes into a 4.
     It's too early for bed...
     Never mind that it's been a full afternoon and evening, at least, of shopping, it's too early for bed - when you've been living a 9 to 5 day that begins at 9 at night and doesn't end until the first hint of sun comes to steal your lover's life away again, you get out of the habit of being able to sleep so early as midnight. Now she sits up. Television doesn't appeal - though modern cable service had to have been invented by a vampire. Books - no. Music - too loud for the landscape of her thoughts, even if not for the man in the other room. Fiona casts a glance at the wall shared by the bedrooms, and with a sigh, wrests herself upwards to her feet. Vindictively, she thrusts first one foot, then the other into her slippers and moves for the door.
     If in wine there is truth, then in chocolate there is comfort - and if she's supposed to feel comfortable here, then there's got to be chocolate nearby. "I hope Kelly stocks a decent brand of cocoa," Fiona mutters to herself, rubbing eyes that are bleary from her half-napping restless state. "If not, there's always the truffles, I guess."
     With a brief shiver for the cold air, she tugs down on the edges of her nightgown, glancing in the mirror to make sure that the reflection that greets her is the one she remembers having seen on the way to the bed. The long oak-blonde hair is free of braids and bangles now, slightly disheveled from tossing and turning; it courses back over her shoulders and clings a bit to one cheek as she tucks a bit behind her other ear. Her nightshirt doesn't qualify as lingerie, technically; an oversized man's shirt, Davydd's perhaps, the collar sticking up halfway, the cuffs unbuttoned, the hem falling to slightly more than halfway down her thighs, in a bland, boring white. She's got her newest pair of bunny slippers on - tie-dyed in blue and pink and green, they've got tiny wafer-thin plastic sunglasses glued over their shiny button eyes, the lenses a dark purple, with peace signs and smiley faces dangling from pierced ears. The only undyed part to them are the fluffy white tails in back. With a sigh of dissatisfaction, she turns away from the mirror and shuffles out to find the kitchen as discreetly as she can.
     "Cocoa," Fiona mutters as she eases the door closed behind her. "Cocoa, and possibly biscuits. Or better yet - scones." She comes by her appetites honestly, without Davydd's corrupting influence...

     I don't regret saying it...
     I don't regret doing it...
     Not for her sake, for his sake or mine...
     I don't have to care, do it? If you have a connection with someone, it's a rare thing. Not to be ignored, no. Not to be regretted either...
     If I ask her... I wonder what she would say...
     He's not bound to sleep when the sun rises, but the life of a bar owner, and bar tender, is not that unlike a vampire's. Life begins a shade before twilight and rolls straight on till dawn. Even so, he had gone to bed after conversations twisted and turned to anything but what was revealed and admitted, until he surmised he should let you get to bed with the usual polite 'You must be tireds' and the congenial, platonic 'Good nights'.
     It wasn't what Rhodri wanted to do...
     When he fancies something, like a thief, he takes it, plucks it right up, not caring a fig for the owner of said jewel and he pockets it. Sitting on his bed, reading, his back was to the headboard which butts against the skin of wall that separates you. It was for a moment nothing more than a veil. He could imagine himself there. He could become the wall, and therefore become the thing between you, canceling out such separation. But in the end, he just decided to leave it be for a night.
     The morning would offer more time, another opportunity. Black Jack Davy still had his chance...
     As the hours wore on, he was more into his own thoughts, planning even how he would make up for the tardiness of his suit by making it all the more earnest. Yes, I will tell her how I feel again. Yes, I will ask her to consider me an option. To consider me as a choice. She does still have a choice...
     The opening of the doors were simultaneous, the sound of one blending into the other, and eyes that were downturned, drawn downward in his own thoughts, did not see the figure immediately to its left. It's not until the impact that he snaps awake, his hand coming out to brace you even as the two of you collide.
     You're far lighter than he is. He must be used to women bouncing off of him...
     "Duw, esgusawd," he says softly in Welsh. He...
     If Davydd were some ten years younger in mortal seeming, you would be faced with a slightly taller version of him. This is not the 'Kelly' you've come to know but the Rhodri you've just met. His cheekbones, Cymric high, small nose, bridge of freckles, all there, and all speaking to his parentage. His hair is not the red-blonde of Kelly but a deeper red, not as burnished as his father's, more seeming a natural shade of scarlet auburn. He must resemble his mother there. It's neither terribly long or terribly short but some wavy middle ground. His green eyes, they are emerald indeed, widen a touch at the sudden collision. He looks all of twenty-three, twenty-five at the outside. Not as otherworldly as the fae in aspect, but handsome in that way of Glorious Celtic Youth.
     Thank god he's dressed. He actually has lounging clothes vs. Davydd's dressed to the hilt or completely full monty. The robe is white, undone, over a grey Black Jack Davy commemorative t-shirt and a pair of grey shorts.
     And his face isn't the only thing he inherited from his father. Peeking out from the shirt, at the collar, and again at the hem of the shorts, the hint of tattoos. Only... his are red.

     "Yah?" It's more yelp than exclamation, but it's got a question in it nonetheless. And bunny slippers aren't made for traction - when you want to run, you'd be better off trying to run in high heels than in bunny slippers (even though the slippers don't hurt the arches nearly so much). Both hands go up defensively in front of her, patting aimlessly at your chest as you steady her, until she's steadied. But what accompanies it is more unsettling than a mere collision, even a collision of such weighty thoughts.
     It is, in some ways, both better and worse than the first time, when Davydd tried to scoop up an unaware London punk from the sidewalk of a bleeding tree with its iron cage. Fiona's different from who she was then - she's fewer cages of her own, fewer wounds of her own. But, on the downside?
     Well, the downside is she's got much more power...
     It's as if the skin of her is off, the cover off the book. In a flicker of lightning outside a dark room, there's the moment of illumination, revealing in stark black and white and thin bands of grey the shape of the contents. It lasts only a moment, but impressions formed in a moment can stay with one for a lifetime...
     She's limned with it, now, a slender framework of glowing magic that runs along her skin like ghost light, like willow-the-wisps, sheeting off of her from her to you, through her and flavoured with the essence of her, the heart of her. Fiona stands there, eyes wide and shocked, greys and blues and silver shadows in them reflecting to other worlds presently held in nighttime as much as the world she presently occupies.
     "Um," Fiona tries again, colour rising into her otherwise pale and magic-drowned cheeks, looking up at you as the glow lingers and fades. She knows it's you; how many Davydd-clones are there, anyway? But then again, with Davydd, who could say for sure? She tries to reorganize her thoughts, then gives it up as a bad deal, taking a small step back unsteadily (and you thought her bouncing off your chest was bad for her balance) and letting her gaze sweep up and down along you.
     She wants to say Who are you? and give lie to the knowledge, but she isn't built for it; she can lie, but it's an effort, especially in moments of honesty. Even if the skin's back on her now, the magic fled back to where it sprang from, the moment hasn't passed yet, and she isn't the sort to hold its head under until it stops kicking. "So," Fiona finally settles on. "How many more of you are there back at home?"

     What you are gifted from Rhodri's own magic is not a pop or snap of defensive power, but visions. Not prophetic, but revealing all the same. His totem is not the dragon, no there would only be one of those, but the hound who is the seeker of knowledge, who guards the herd of faery horses, the creatures of living inspiration. Davydd may be a totem of power. To touch Rhodri is to touch creative inspiration, to hold the poet's honey on the tip of your tongue, to know what a muse is. He is all catalyst, the matter that makes other matter more than itself.
     "Well," Rhodri dead-pans, hands going to his hips (Davydd would be crossing them against his chest), but only as he sees you right yourself, "...there's me, you know me... and Gwendolyn, you met Gwen. Two men, Two women." Just like Davydd's original group of children, their descendants. Two sons, two daughters. Then he smiles. "But I'm the graceful one," he drags out, hand to his forehead and his hair, raking backwards.
     "So... ah...I was just going to put a kettle on... would you... like something too?" He looks at you, he's going to look at you. It is appreciation, but not so much as to be an outright stare or leer. "Tea... cocoa?" he offers. "I ...couldn't sleep..." he admits softly. He looks down at the bunny slippers and smiles. "Bond Street Bunny?" Formerly hippy central, well...still is for tourist reasons. Kaleidoscope eyes, Lennon glasses, tye dye, hashish and peace are still for trade there.

     It is something she'd have been better off not knowing, this, and the knowledge of it moves for a moment in her eyes before being bidden away. Fiona considers and discards several comments in the time it takes you to speak, then allows words to just come without her mind being entirely connected to her mouth. Davydd wouldn't be surprised by that.
     "It must be hard to connect with others with that. People can't know what you are, because if they did, they'd keep taking and trying to get to the bottom of what you've got to give until you couldn't give any more..." Fiona reddens, ducking her chin as she finishes blurting it out, then looks away, over her shoulder. Folding her arms under her breasts, she mutters, "I meant like you and Davydd, but god forbid there be more than two of you. Two is complication enough." She looks forward again, to your chest, and holds her chin downwards to allow her hair to fall forward to hide her face. If you're the graceful one, it means she's the awkward one - the one who bursts out as the unexpected, the cuckoo in every nest, the gatecrasher at every party. No wonder she's taken to preferring to be Nowhere...
     "Cocoa," Fiona admits after a moment's used up in holding her tongue. She doesn't look up right away, until it suddenly seems to dawn on her that where her eyes are placed unseeingly is by dint of lowering her chin, lower than your chest. The colour leaps into her cheeks as she glances up; she hauls her hair back from her face and expels air with a gusty sigh. "I figured I'd go for cocoa and biscuits if you had them, and be a greedy pig. And yeah," she never uses yeah - she's rattled again, "I buy bunny slippers by the gross and fix them up. Too easily amused, I guess. I ... couldn't sleep either."

     "All comedy teams have to have a comic genius and a straight man," he comforts. "You can be the funny one," he stage whispers as he leans in, creating a secret that the two of you can now share. However this goes. There's a moment of what most would term 'uncomfortable silence' as you look him down, you blush, he sees you and then backs up a step and gestures to the kitchen.
     But he's not embarrassed. Not by a longshot. He's encouraged by it...
     "Cocoa it is then," he says, heading to the kitchen. "It is hard connected with others," he actually answers that question, even if it was a hypothetical. "The 20th century's made it harder, in a way. It's... harder to recognize. I think it ends up making more modern individuals wary. They've forgotten, or worse yet...they never knew that feeling. I blame the telly," he quirks suddenly with a quicksilver smile. "And," a slight shrug follows as he takes the kettle to the sink and fills it with fresh water, "... there aren't many who have your magic, Fiona. It's hard for you too, I imagine. But," a glance over his shoulder and he winks, "...here you're not alone, aye? We can be odd together."
     There's a moment's fidgeting with the electric knobs of the stove, also red, you might be sensing the theme now, and the burner goes from orange to red as it begins to heat. Rhodri reaches into the cupboard, taking down two cups. More odd glassware. The cups are ceramic, red, and slightly squared. Wide-bodied, they're like cappuccino cafe cups. Another reach, and he's hauling down a brown bag and looking to you. "You don't mind peppermint do you? I'm all out of orange..." Orange infused cocoa. It's actually loose chocolate bits and crushed cocoa, rather than the store bought box o'powder.

     "Everyone finds me funny," Fiona murmurs as she follows into the kitchen, arms still folded, discomfort still present. "I'd probably be more comforted by it if I meant to be funny." And there's Truth in that, in the underlying livewire crackle that you probably saw. She chooses to live by Truth because she feels everything, and everything cuts so deeply. Truth hurts, but it's over sooner.
     "The way things are, I'm not surprised it's made things harder. People don't want to connect," she continues - she can talk about this, with your encouragement, and it's easier to talk about because she can pretend it's hypothetical and not personal, not intimate. "They don't want to create much, either - they want the end results, the sellable, tangible goods. If they're in touch with the process at all, it's only vaguely."
     The statement is left to stand alone as she watches you, and she moves to a moderate stretch of wall, leaning back against it. One arm is left crossed over her body, fingertips touching the other elbow; that arm's left down, palm open against her thigh. "Did she..." Fiona has to pause; there are questions and there are Questions, and she wants to ask but isn't sure she wants the answers, or the consequences of the asking. "Peppermint's alright. You've got a taste for the real stuff, I see. If you tell me where, I'll get the biscuits, or if there aren't any, we can overdo it to the point of gluttony and I'll bring in the truffles."
     She considers her options, to prattle or not to prattle, and abruptly, she loses her patience with herself, with all the caution; Drancy moving forward, perhaps, and Fiona receding. "Did Isabel put those on you?" Unspoken is the followup question - and were you two lovers? She remains against the wall, perhaps comforted by something solid at her back and under her feet. Something solid and felt without being a feeling. Something real.

     He looks at you for a long while. The emerald eyes are no less intense than Davydd's, but they don't speak of his father's dark-forested world surrounded by forests of thick thorn. They speak of meadows, the groves of Avalon itself. His inheritance. "No, I never met her. Davydd talked about her a few times. All I have are stories from around a campfire dodging the King's men, drinking mead, roasting meat."
     The water starts to bubble, condense on the stainless steel kettle. The first smoke begins to leave the spout. A few moments more and it will whistle. Not that anyone's going to notice. Downstairs the pub's closed and locked and no one else lives nearby.
     "Mine ..." Rhodri says quietly, spooning in chocolate flakes and actual cocoa into the two cups, "... I was born with them. I inherited them much as I inherited abilities from him. Mine are ..well, they're mostly artistic, inspiration, the gifts of bards, like the old druid harpers of legend, Taliesin, Myrddin. But also the ability to take the shape of... anything that suits me, to alter my shape. Davydd's are far... they're far more reaching. Life and Death and the Underworld." He's sure you know this, that last part was said in dismissive fashion.
     And the kettle whistles as the water boils...
     Rhodri pauses, twisting to take up the kettle and pour the hot water in each cup, one at a time to allow his other hand to stir the quickly melting chocolate. "My ... feelings for you are not based in feelings for her. She's not even a ghost to me. It's just honest attraction and interest. I like you," he says through the steam. He turns his head and looks to you past the strands of scarlet-auburn hair. "And you're right... connecting... well, it's frightening, isn't it. It's messy, and scary. But it's also exciting, when it happens. I was married once," he tells you, "... in the 1800s, I fell in love with a baron's daughter. Being as we have titles, I assumed the face of the Earl of Snowdon those years. She bore me two children, she aged, they aged and I made myself age with them. They lived this world as natural things. She never knew that it would be a young man who'd visit her grave. I say this only to... illustrate," that's a word, he slides the cup gently to you, "... that connections, when they happen, rare as they are, I treat them... with respect. They're real, Fiona. The biscuits are in the pantry," he tacks on, as naturally as all else, nodding to the pantry behind him as he pours his own cup.
     "I have never lived in the world of fairy. My place is here. The fairy kingdoms don't need me. They have inspiration and magic. It's what they are. People need me. This earth needs me. It needs people like you, who are good. Not to love figments, even if we are something other than purely human. That's the long way of answering your question," Rhodri notes with a smirk as he blows across the hot, dark liquid in his cup. "Both the one you asked and the one you thought about asking..."
     "Can I ask you a question?"

     She's never been comfortable with intent scrutiny; too often she's gotten weighed, measured, summarized and dismissed. She's worn paints and feathers to catch the eye, to divert attention from her nakedness. Sometimes it's even worked - usually it's worked. More often than not. But oh, those times when it didn't...
     "I never met her either." Fiona can admit that truthfully enough. Isabel may have walked in her flesh, may have stamped her image upon her, but she is unaware of it save as a fleeting suspicion. And with her shell still shaped to the human mold, without the dainty points to her ears, without the otherworldliness to push her from something pretty into that blinding beauty of faerie, there is no reason for her to give it due consideration. "I just wondered."
     She's quiet now, listening to you speak, lifting her hand from her thigh to under her chin. To explanations of your skin, your powers, your inheritance. "I haven't given Davydd's powers that much thought. He has them. He knows how to use them, but they're different from mine. It was ... what drew us together originally, but it's not why. So it's ended up not mattering much." She can accept the supernatural far more easily than she can the natural, most days.
     She watches the cocoa being made, shakes her head slightly about Isabel as the inspiration for feelings; it's plain that hadn't occurred to her, particularly, and even now that it's been brought up, it means nothing. But your feelings are important to her, as are the feelings of any she cares for, cares about, and she goes on listening. She listens to you talk about your wife, your children, takes up the cup in one hand by the handle, turning to shuffle to the pantry.
     She opens the cupboard, face flushed again as you continue, hiding within the shadows of the pantry as she roots about for biscuits. "I don't know if I'm a good person, Rhodri." From Kelly to Rhodri, depending on moment. "I'm not even very good at being a person. And I'm not rooted here or there or anywhere, except by the connections I make. I'm not sure the world I'm meant for exists yet, or if it ever will." Fiona turns, biscuit tin in hand, bumping the pantry closed with her hip and crossing towards you with the biscuits held like a brick, solid and promising protection. Wariness lurks behind the glass of her eyes, but she nods, glancing down at the surface of her cocoa as if looking for the world she mentioned in its depths. "You can always ask."

     Rhodri smiles, he chuckles and even in the dim room his eyes sparkle. "That's just because you haven't met anyone truly wicked. You have nothing to compare yourself to. Put it this way, compared to Davydd and any of his friends, you're good. Compared to the little old lady and her pusses, maybe not so much. It's all relative. What I mean is... you have a heart, you care for those around you, and I think, at your base, yes... you are a good person. You don't seem mean-spirited for mean-spirit's sake to me. Not malicious." Leaning against the kitchen counter, he continues to sip at the cocoa. There's space between you. There's no insistence or pressure in occupying your space. No need at all to dominate.
     "Maybe the connections you make, maybe that's what you're here to do. I don't know. That's for each of us to sort out. You do seem to have a gift of it, making connections, connecting others. To what end, well..." he smiles again, "...I hope it's to a good end. Sorrowful ends are unpleasant." He reaches for a biscuit as you come near, nodding his head in thanks. They're old-fashioned scones in a tin. Ah, England.
     "I think the world is exactly what you make it out to be. Your place in it is the one you make for yourself. I'd hate to see you give up on it. The world needs people who are willing to get their hands dirty, Fiona."
     You give him license to ask and he goes quiet. He seems to mull over his question as he looks at his biscuit. He takes a bite of it and washes it down with cooler (though still very warm) cocoa. "Are you happy, Fiona?"
     Are you, his eyes ask afterwards and Rhodri settles back against the kitchen counter. "I'm not asking to pry. I'm asking because I care what the answer is..."

     "I've met some of Davydd's friends. I don't see them as wicked - they've never been anything but nice to me." As far as she knows. Even as far as she doesn't know, they only started having real problems with her after she and Davydd became an item...
     Setting the cocoa down, Fiona looks down and turns to prying open the tin, thumbnail pressed in under the metal edge. She picks at it as she listens. She isn't entirely comfortable, no, but it's not a subject which inspires comfort in her, no matter who's doing the talking. And maybe she's holding herself the way she is in waiting for that move to dominate, to loom, the bite and kick that prompts bite and kick back that between her and Davydd, at least, ends in a tangle of limbs in a bed or on a piano or on the floor.
     The lid pops off, she sets it aside, holding out the tin so you can help yourself; then she shakes out a handful, setting them down and propping up the tin, all on the counter. She leaves crumbs on the counter, just as she systematically untidies the lives of those she encounters...
     "I'm not known for giving up." Fiona's voice is a little dry at that. She picks up her cocoa in one hand, takes a biscuit up in the other, biting into the sugar and washing it down with more sugar. She licks her lips, waving her bitten biscuit as if for emphasis or balance. "And I'm used to getting dirty."
     But she'll go quiet, then, settling in against the counter with one hip resting alongside it, looking up at you with eyes gone blue as summer mornings, eyebrows furrowed as she listens to your question, giving it serious thought. Perhaps it's a measure of her respect that she thinks about her answer before she speaks.
     "I think I am," Fiona says slowly, setting her cocoa down and promptly forgetting about it with the weight of the question. "I'm happier than I was. When you met me, I was ... running away from myself, from the person I used to be - because I was hurt," she admits it freely, now, or at least to you. "Someone had ... betrayed my trust - gotten me to trust them as a game, in order to use me, and I ... well, I reacted badly. So I spent all that time running, and bleeding all over the place, pushing people away. I couldn't accept that anyone could value me, and I wouldn't settle for second place or second best." She glances up, meeting your eyes for a moment with a small, slightly sad smile. "I still won't. Even though I suspect some people think I have."
     She isn't done, though, setting down her half-eaten biscuit and frowning down at her hands as if they've become oddly arranged. "I can't say I'm entirely happy. I don't think it's in me to - I'll always wonder what's on the other side of that door, did I do the right thing, why do some people not like me, what's wrong with me, what do I do now. But even aside from that," Fiona glances up again suddenly, taking a deep breath, "if you mean about Davydd... It's less that I'm not happy than that I'm afraid. And I'm not comfortable with that fear, Rhodri. He's warned me before about sabotaging his relationships, and I've told him he needs to get over it. But I don't know if he will. I believe," and it's there in her eyes, in her voice, the absolute, resolute conviction, "that he can. But I don't know if he will ... for all that he doesn't mean to hurt me, I don't know if he can do that for /me/. And now there's his business, and I can tell it weighs on him, and I don't know what it's about."
     She closes her eyes, not against tears but as if against a sudden headache. "I'm alright with not knowing, you know. But he's worried for me, he sent me here because he said I might be in danger, you know - so he's worried for me, and I'm not really worried for myself, though I suppose if he is I should be. And I'm worried about him. I'm worried about the future - about living through each day one step at a time and not being able to do a damn thing to affect what happens because none of this is about me. I suppose even if it were, I still couldn't do anything about it - but I hate being that powerless."
     Despite her words, Fiona is calm throughout her speech, eyelashes lifting so that she can look at you again, hands coming together in front of her, lifting to under her chin again, and she sighs, winding down. "Sorry to rattle on and on in answer to a yes or no question. I guess it boils down to ... sometimes I'm happy and sometimes I'm not. I want to lose myself in what I do, and I have to hold myself back from that because of these fears. But maybe losing myself isn't what I should do anyway. I think too much," she finishes, voice going soft. And as calm as she was throughout her labyrinth of explanations, now there's tears springing into life. "I talk too much, too..."

     "We're very different thieves," Rhodri says suddenly, twisting slightly to set his cocoa aside, the biscuit also gone. "And I will say, and I'm not going to speak ill on him, I don't mean it that way. He's my friend, he fathered me but what does father and son even mean after a few centuries? But I will say if you're looking for fidelity you picked the wrong Black Jack. I've never seen a happy ending for him, as I think I've intimated before. I'm only saying this, asking this... I want you to know that ... you have a choice and a say in it, too. It's not all about him."
     Rhodri pauses, looking from you to the kettle and gesturing toward it. Seconds? A brief and needed interlude.
     "Fiona... maybe this will sound like I'm being... disingenuous... opportunistic, that's the better word, as only thieves and highwaymen truly can. But ...I ...want to ask you to consider me. I think we can have a grand life, at least... I get that sense..." His hand makes a motion, as if he's clairvoyant. Maybe he is. Most of Davydd's children are in some manner. "I know there's much we don't know about one another. Before the 20th Century, that never mattered. All I can tell you is... I can offer you happiness, and I can offer you fidelity, and I can offer you love. The rest, well... as I said... it's up to us to make the world what we want it to be. What do you want it to be?"
     He lets that sit there for a moment. He waits for some signal to whether you want more. "All I'm asking for is your consideration. I know you care for him, they'd be hard shoes to fill. I think that if there's a man on this earth who can do it, however, it's me..." There it is, his vulnerability handed to you as if on a plate, for you to pick over and chew on its contents. His heart is borne easily, he did not lie earlier. He is not lying now. "I'm not asking for you to decide," Rhodri whispers as he steps slightly away the counter that's borne the majority of his weight. "I just... want you to know I'm here, and my heart's made up. And if you ... want to... choose another way, all you have to do is say my name..."

     She lifts a hand in negation, glancing to her cup; she's barely touched it in her long litany of happy... not happy... happy but with an explanation... Fiona listens to what you say, keeping her eyes turned away. She's heard it before - heard it directly from Davydd, though not until after it was too late. To her, it still feels too late...
     "I never said it was all about him, Rhodri," Fiona says softly, blinking back those droplets of salted water that are so inconvenient. "Look, I'll try to explain, but ... I don't know if I can explain without it sounding silly, without being laughed at." She answers vulnerability with vulnerability, trying to explain what perhaps she hasn't entirely managed to explain to Davydd. It's not something he'd be very good at, perhaps...
     "I held myself aloof from forming any real connections," since that's the topic, or been the topic, "with anyone. That was the one thing I couldn't do - until I went to Davydd." Fiona looks to you, trouble in her eyes, in the slight pucker of her forehead to match her mouth. "I told him how I felt. I couldn't ... give myself unless I did it all the way. I was a virgin, then." Now she smiles slightly, admitting the absurdity of it - in this day and age, yet! And a virgin around such notables as William and Davydd, so long before giving in.
     "It isn't that we don't know about each other, Rhodri. If that mattered... well, I'd hardly be with him now, would I?" The same slight smile remains in place - how absurd it all is, how ridiculous. She knows so little of her own lover, the man she intends to marry, who she's accepted into her heart and into her spirit and into her flesh. "I know more about you than that. I know where you are almost every night of the week - I know what you want, and," her breath catches slightly, "I know where you are right now."
     Unlike the father of the man before her...
     "It isn't that I care for him," Fiona whispers, eyes suddenly sightless with the wash of fresh tears. She lifts a hand towards you, her smile filled with pain. "It's that I love him. I don't do things by halves, and I warned him when I went to him, that if he ... if we ..." She stops, closing her eyes to stop any more tears from falling, acknowledging the losing battle she's fighting with herself against them. "I warned him that I'd want everything, but that I'd give everything. I can't speak for the future. I don't know. But until he breaks that, he has me... all of me, even the bits that would otherwise go somewhere else."
     Almost angrily, Fiona lifts her wrist to slash it across her eyes, dismissing the tears as unwanted, then brings her arms to over her chest again. "If he does as you and he both think he will do, I am afraid that I will shatter like fragile glass," she says quietly. "I know the shape of my heart. You deserve better than that, Rhodri. I care for you - I really do. It would be very easy for me to love you. But I can't tell you to wait in order to pick up the pieces of another man's broken toy. I hope he won't. I pray he won't, and I'm someone who normally avoids prayer... But at the same time, you also deserve better than a woman who'd leave the man she's promised herself to based on a 'maybe', and you deserve better than a woman who'd give you a 'maybe' yourself. I can't give you anything and still be the person you think me..."
     She sighs, suddenly deflating, eyes closed again, leaning back and hoping something's there to catch her. "Even though it tempts me. It does, Rhodri. I am lonely tonight, and there are parts of me which... I feel Davydd doesn't want. But what am I to say? I can't accept your offer. Even though I know that losing me, to you or even to death wouldn't hurt him very much. He'd weep a bit, perhaps, and have a dozen drinks, and sooner or later, there'd be someone else. But right now, there is noone else for me... noone but him until he breaks me and I turn into someone else."

     You'd think he'd be hurt by your refusal. Touched by it though he is, he neither weeps nor looks nor seems offended. In fact, his mouth quirks a smile, just a bit of one. He knows it is too late, for you in your love and he in his. It's the irony that strikes him as amusing. And it's knowing that you are, despite your protestations to the contrary, a good person. You cannot cheat, you cannot lie, and you love with all of your being.
     "I don't want to tempt you. I ...just wanted you to know," he says. "You always have safe harbor here. Anytime you need a friend, I am that friend. And all of your drinks will always be free. Despite your insistence to pay for them," he tacks on. Rhodri exhales and he comes over to you, and he wraps you up in a sudden, gentle hug. "I mean it," he murmurs. A kiss is left upon the crown of your head.
     "You love my father, you wear his ring, therefore you are family. I will simply bear a double-faceted love." Rhodri parts from the embrace and he moves to pour another cup of cocoa for himself. But first, he opens another cupboard and removes a bottle of vodka. A grin and a wink to you as he spikes his own cup.
     "Let's choose to have faith," he makes a sudden suggestion, setting the vodka aside. "That he will love you, return your faith and you and he will be very happy. Let's drink to that instead of to the lies he wants us to believe, that he doesn't care, that he doesn't love and that he can never be true. Though I am his better half," he grins at that, "...I wish him... and you," he includes you softly, in gentle tones, "... to be very happy. And you," Rhodri sips at the concoction, "...will have two protectors. Two shields for your heart and the undying affection of both the men who comprise the single legend of the Black Jack Davy..."
     To that, he raises his cup in salute, and in the making of a vow. For you better believe it, Rhodri is in your life. He will be there to protect you, even if he must from his own father. There's no dissuading him.
     "What are you doing to do out there in the country," he wonders suddenly. "I mean, apart from redecorate the castle. Is there anything to do yet in Welshpool? Apart from sheepdog competitions and trainspotting?"

     It's ironic all the more, for if she'd been asked, would she if given the opportunity, she'd have undoubtedly sputtered and denied it and then wondered, uncomfortably, if she could. She's a creature of her times, after all, and women are so free to move, from one man to another. And she has always been proud of her independence...
     But she's bound herself, willingly and unwillingly and unknowingly to Davydd, so tightly that even she cannot break herself from him. Nor in truth does she want to, nor does she want to be broken - but if he does, what's broken isn't easily mended. You wrap your arms around her, and she sighs, quietly, tension easing in and out of her with each breath.
     "I don't say you mean to tempt me. If I'm tempted, that's on me, not on you. I don't blame you. I think you're a little bit mad, falling for someone like me, but I don't blame you... it's your heart to do with as you see fit." Fiona looks up as you move away, managing a small smile at the vodka, at the suggestion that follows. "I almost wish I could roll the two of you into one, but that's unfair and unkind to you. I hope," her voice wobbles, going unsteady, "he knows what a good person you are, but aren't we all blind to what it is we've got until we've lost it?"
     Fiona takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly, lifting her attention to the kitchen ceiling, hands now resting on the edge of the counter as she leans back against it. "Going to do? What I've been doing, mostly. The occasional day trip down to London. Reading. Walking. Being... it isn't easy, you know, being me." She offers it as a quip, but her lips twist and curve into a somewhat abashed smile. It's true, you know. "Learning. Having a lot of sex. Picking up a few new tricks - things noone else can teach me. How to turn into two people at once, and how to make stars. Things I could do anywhere, but anywhere else, there'd be too much going on."

     Eyebrows quirk upward at the talk of having a lot of sex, then there's something of a snort of a laugh and he pours a tad more vodka in the cup. Say it again, and he might move straight to ethanol. "I'm happy to show you a few things too... if you want. You can...double yourself... it's not a far journey from that to turning yourself into some other creature or thing if needed. I've found that a very handy trick. Especially," he grins, "...when running away from the law."
     "I think he knows," Rhodri says. "In truth, there's not a whole lot I wouldn't do for him, wouldn't do if he just looked at me, he barely has to ask." He sips at the spiked cocoa, makes a Why didn't I do that sooner? expression and sips again before settling back against the counter again. "So, now... the same goes for you. That's the long and the short of it, Fiona. It's what I want to do with my heart. I've given it, and I'm content with who has it."
     "I still like that idea you had... well, he mentioned it to me. The idea of ...forming a band. I'd like that," Rhodri says, taking another swallow of the vod-cocoa. "You've a beautiful voice. I'm not half bad either," he has a fine, fine voice actually, and he's a hell of a guitar player, "...I think we could ...do something interesting. We could make stars out of ourselves," he laughs suddenly. "Kidding. I don't want the marketing. But... there's something to be said for not being behind a bar..."

     The answer was honest, even if not necessarily tactful - but tact's never been Fiona's strongest point, let's face it. Let's ... be honest ...
     "I'd like to learn more. I've been learning on my own, and I've gotten so that things don't just - randomly explode around me so much. Things don't seem to just up and happen by themselves the way they do, but I don't know," Fiona admits, "if that's me or where I've been. It's another reason why I haven't been wandering more. As for turning myself into something else," she goes quiet for a moment, then speaks again.
     "I know I could turn myself into a bird - a swallow. I felt it move in me once before," when Davydd was gone to William, though she didn't know it, the long hours she spent awake and afraid of losing him, there's a pattern in this, "and I felt it again recently. But the problem with that, I don't know if I'd be able to turn back."
     Casually, she reaches across for the bottle of vodka, pulling it to her chest and unscrewing the top and taking a pull on the contents. Oh, are you surprised? But it's not as if you'd be getting her germs from it. "Be glad I'm not drunk," Fiona says lightly, "or ideas might run off my own tongue about what's between you and your father. But," her tone lengthens, softens, "I'm honored, Rhodri. I really do feel honored - Davydd's friends and family have been good to me. William gave me that painting, and you... well, let's just say I hope never to need the key you've given me." But she won't forget it.
     "Your voice is better than just half-bad, and you know it," now she sharpens, eyeing you with belligerence in your own defense, then mellows again. "But I'm still willing if you and Davydd and the boys are. Though," Fiona arches her eyebrows, setting the vodka back within your reach, "I thought you liked running the bar?"

     "The first time I turned myself into a tree, I got stuck," he grins at the rim of his cup and then takes a heartier swallow of the laced cocoa, grinning as you spike your own. "I had to let it wear off. When I woke up, Davydd was sitting there, laughing at me." Jewel-toned eyes give a roll. "What a fucking comedian. But you know... it happens, but the magic wears off. Eventually you sort it out. Trial and error, mostly. Sometimes with an emphasis on the error... that's really the only way to know what you can do. Try something."
     But he's sure he's telling you something you already know by the way he says it. Green eyes don't smolder, but they do glint. "What do you mean, between me and my father?" An eyebrow cocks up with comic suspicion. "And... you're welcome... feel free to use it anytime, even... or especially if you don't have to but simply want to," he finishes off in a whisper.
     The smile returns to his face, full of mischief that, as he finishes his cocoa and reaches for the vodka again. The Kettle is put back on, the chocolate let to soak in the alcohol as the water returns to a boil. Yes, this is much more like it. "Aye well," he chuckles, "... I can carry a tune. And I like running the bar. It's become a nice little music venue. We're getting more acts, more press. It's... part of who I am. Giving folks a place to play, a place to sing, a place to gather. The drinks just keep the doors open, but for me it's about the music, Fiona. I'd love it if you would take the stage a time or two a season." Besides, it'd give him a reason to make sure he sees you.
     "Let me know if you want another round," Rhodri offers, turning his head to glance at the kettle. Another minute and it will be whistling its own tune.
     Those bright green eyes shift to you again and he lets them shimmer a moment in silence. He smiles, but you can see by his face that he's thinking of something. Of you, perhaps. But the look shifts when the kettle starts to sing, he lifts it and pours it into the wide-bodied cup, letting it mix with the now vodka-infused chocolate flakes.
     Blessed alcohol...

     "The first time..." Fiona hops up onto an empty stretch of counter, sitting there, letting her legs dangle. "I'm not sure what the first time was. If you mean the first time things happened to me, well - they happened a bunch of times, but they happened without me having much say in the matter. When I started doing things on my own? Well..." She smiles faintly at the memory. "You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you."
     Even you...
     It's that strange, you see...
     "I'm not drunk enough to answer that! Not yet, anyway." Leaning over, Fiona makes a grab for the vodka with a grin of her own, one slipper about ready to just fall off her foot. She's putting emotions all in the background, letting another voice do her talking for her right now - the one she's used for years to avoid getting hurt or hurting, keeping things at safe distance. Drancy's voice is filtered through Fiona's and Isabel's now, but it's still there; and maybe it's that reason which makes Davydd think her so young. "Thank you. Hopefully if I ever need to, it won't be because the police're after me."
     She takes a pull at the vodka, then leans over and puts it back where she got it from - your vodka, after all, and your cocoa. Gathering up her hair in both hands, Fiona cocks an eyebrow in your direction. "Music has always been important to me," she admits. "Not just punk music, even if it might've looked like it for a while. There's music I like and there's music I don't like, but it's less about categories and more just about ... what I like. I don't mind performing, though I'll have to figure out what to sing - can't keep singing the same stuff every time or I'll start driving your customers away. You're sure you and the others wouldn't mind?"
     For a moment she starts to add, 'and Davydd and I still owe the pub a duet', but her tactlessness hasn't reached such lows. She shakes her head at the offer of another round. "Honestly, I think I'll just stick with the vodka by itself right now. If you don't mind... it's been a while, anyway, and it's unlikely to ruin me. Not like the days when I'd now and again go through a whole bottle or so by myself." The life she led before the magic came and messed things up. Or fixed things up, if you prefer. "Lord only knows what you must've thought of me then," she adds, with a bit of a wry laugh. "Though I admit it - I like the paint. Then it was warpaint. Now it'd be more like playing dress-up. But I like costumes..."

     "Actually," he grins as he leans back, spiked chocolate coming with him. The grin pulls at the rim of his glass and he sips and then he winks. "I think I fell in love with you when you threw a punch straight at Davy-bach's noggin. I thought to myself: you know, self, you should throw that girl over your own shoulder. I thought you were funny, a little crazy, but you never took shite off of him or anyone else that I could see. I admire that in a woman."
     Twisting, Rhodri sets aside his cup and then reaches for another bottle of Stoli in his cabinet, this one Stolichnya Vanil. "I like diamonds in the rough," he notes. "It's a jewel, more often than not, that no one else knows what to do with. But I know sommat about jewels," Rhodri grins. "It's the ones most others pass over that usually have the greater worth..."
     He's standing before you now, and the thought he had earlier must have germinated because in the very next moment, the world goes ass over tit as you are slung over the shoulder of the Black Jack Davy. Laughing, he feels your weight there, what there is of it. "Just as I thought," he grins and makes his way to the living room and its sofas.
     Now, it takes a real professional land-pirate to sling a woman across his shoulder and not spill two bottles of alcohol. "You like costumes, d' ya? Well, we could always dress up as the highwayman and the high-born lady..."

     Whatever she was going to say - she's forgotten what she was going to say. She isn't someone who's heard of 'I love you's; not ones from the heart, from the gut, not ones that were meant for more than the privilege of getting her knickers off. It as much as anything is what causes that repeated flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, in her face. "Well, I suppose I am a little crazy at that. Sometimes. Some ways."
     Fiona twists her hair back and into a knot, the main of her hair not bound but now away from her face, watching you move from cup to cabinet, blinking as her vision of the kitchen is suddenly cut off by shirt and glimpsed red tattoos. It's a Rhodri-eclipse, and like the Spanish Inquisition, she wasn't expecting it. Before she can remark, though, the universe goes cockeyed.
     "What the fuck?" Startle a Fiona and find a surprised Drancy underneath. She beats on your shoulder with the flat of her palm, then with her fist. "The hell are you doing? Put me down! I can walk on my own two feet, you know!" To a lesser man, no doubt it'd be like trying to cart off a wildcat. To someone who knows what he's doing - like you - it's probably more kittenish than wildcat, but both the kitten and the wildcat hiss and spit and lift their paws, after all.
     And, after all, it's not that she's not reacting...
     Doesn't she always get the most belligerent when she has the most to lose?
     "Put. Me. Down! If you don't," Fiona scrambles wildly for a threat that might actually work, "I'll. I'll drink all your vodka by myself! I'll ... dammit, I'm out of practice at this. Rewind! Rho-o-o-driii!" A foot passes perilously near your nose, but it's clearly coincidence; she's flustered, maybe even a little panicked, but also wild. "I'll bite you!"

     "Yes, just like that. You have it. Put me down you brute," he says theatrically in a musical falsetto. "I'll give you anything you want: money, jewels..." There's no reasoning with him, you have to know that, but there's no point in tormenting you. Besides, he's had his fun. He sets you down easily, gently in fact and he's trying not to laugh. His mouth succeeds but his eyes are complete failures.
     "And then I say, well the money and the jewels are the point, m'lady. But maybe if you spare old Jack a kiss, he'll let you keep your earrings." He hands you the bottle back now that your safely on ground. "And you can have as much vodka as you want," Rhodri whispers, leaning in. "I have a whole bar of it downstairs. If you think your woman enough to take it from a man like me..."
     Oh, he could kiss you now, and he wants to. Better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission but he manages to keep it to one assault at a time. "I just couldn't resist. My shoulder's been aching to do that for years." It has been years now, you realize, since that fateful night at Davy's.
     With the vanil in hand, he takes a seat on the sofa, robe spread out like the mantle of a king or prince. When he sits, more of the tattoos on his legs can be seen. Glorious red hounds upon his fair milk-and-strawberry Welsh skin. He balances the bottle of vodka on a painted thigh. "That was fun," he grins. "It's been ages."

     Whereas you put her down, her face flushed, hair straggling out from its impromptu knot to frame her face - she takes a step back, hurriedly tugging down the ends of her shirt back over her thighs, then works on picking loose the remains of the knot. "I might buy that money was the point," Fiona mutters, not even bothering with dignity, "if I had anything even remotely resembling money on me. What would you be after - my bunny slippers?" She glowers, then blushes despite herself, pink as pink can be as you lean in.
     The temptation is there, the temptation that you represent; it's plain for you to read in her eyes, in her face, on the slight pucker and part of her lips. But she doesn't lean forward; if she gives encouragement, it's unconscious and unintentional, and she takes a small step back in order to turn and find a seat for herself. But retreat is not unknown to her, is it? "I know my limits. A bottle - sure. Two - maybe. Three is definitely pushing it, and I'm out of training," she grouses, stalking for one of the sofas and dropping onto it and curling up.
     She grabs a cushion, pulling it into the pit of her stomach and leaning forward with it between her body and her knees, reaching for one of the bottles of vodka - out of reach despite it is. "So why didn't you do it years ago?" Fiona looks at you, demanding the answer rather than asking it of you; defensive as you've made her, it's Drancy's voice even if Fiona's blush. Her eyes travel along you, and as they do, her blush travels further up; if her ears still came to points, likely they'd be pink to. She hurls herself onto her back, finding the ceiling safer ground. "Anyway. Since you're being a bastard, you can bring the vodka here. - How long?"

     "Wherever I turned to see you," Rhodri says, bringing the bottle of vodka over -- and himself. He plops down beside you, rolling his head to look at you as he offers you the bottle like a gallant. "...there was always Davydd. I didn't know much about Sandrine at the time. We hadn't met her. He was quiet about it. I knew there was a woman. But there were lots of women. But you... you and he were like static cling."
     He rolls large shoulders, "... I don't know. I shouldn't have let his 'Do I or Don't I' indecision stop me. You were into him and I could see it. So I did what most men do, tried to forget you and let it go. But... I'm not very good at that, you know. Tenacious as all thieves," he motions to himself. "Why I let my loyalty get the better of me then and not now?" he chuckles a little at himself and shrugs. "I can't blame the vodka, we just started drinking. I don't know. I ...just think I can give you a happier life, and... I'd rather tell you now before it really is too late..."
     He takes a long swallow of the vanil and sits back. You have a pillow to protect you, but will it be enough? But it's not danger he promises. It's just a different life. "It's not about ...answering some lust or sommat, shoving you into the cushions and making rude noises. It's about the quiet time, like this time. This, Fiona... this is what I've been craving." Rhodri looks to you, to your blushing to your mouth, back to your eyes in those instantaneous moments, all portending a kiss.
     "If I'm wrong," he whispers, "... then this will mean nothing. And if it means nothing, then I'll accept that, and love you as my father's bride. But if it means something, Fiona... "
     He leans in just slightly, he doesn't need much motion to bring him there, nearly to your mouth but halting there. "If it means something, then I'm asking you ... to let it not be too late..."
     The kiss is only a brush of his mouth, the simplest and most chaste of embraces. The taste of vodka and vanilla and chocolate. The kiss is the thrill of the song when the music starts playing, that feeling of butterflies in the pit of one's stomach when one's on stage, playing before a handful or a multitude. It parts with silent applause, the retreating of the nervousness and the excitement of performance, like the crowd filtering slowly out after the last encore.
     Now, Rhodri is demanding his own answer. He neither drinks nor speaks. He sits there, settling back into his own personal space. He waits for you to yell, slap, sting, retreat, cry, sigh, smile, and any and everything in between. But he has nothing to lose...

      She takes the bottle, bringing it to her chest like a doll, listening to you talk - and how many people would pay money to listen to the fount of Inspiration talk about them? She is not most people, though; she listens, sensing trouble wash over her in a wave. It does not take prophecy to sense...
     "I didn't intend to fall for him," Fiona murmurs, gaze inwards, looking back to who she was then, what Davydd was - what was, what is, what lies between those two facts. "But yes, he was with Sandrine, then. I..."
     She stops herself from speaking, sitting up in order to be able to turn her attention to the bottle, feeling less threatened, in a way, by not being on her back. It's an illusion, but as all good illusions, it works. The top is twisted off and she takes a swallow, coughing slightly as she lowers it. Vodka clings to her lips, and she licks them clean as if it were milk, one hand on the pillow in her lap.
     She sets the bottle down, turning to look to you, and there you are, looking back at her, inspiring awkwardness and twistiness and panic. And you lean in...
     Davydd... where the hell are you?
     It isn't said aloud, but it's thought. She doesn't know how to handle this, she doesn't know what to do about it. She's never been good at admitting to herself what she really wants, let alone allowing herself to have it - the life she's led is littered with the wreckage of that. In her eyes, you can see her response - emotional. Visceral. Even spiritual. Of all elements admixed...
     Carefully, slowly, she reaches out a hand to touch gentle fingers to the back of your own hand; not to take, but to touch, as if that bridge is needed for words to come to her - to be Inspired, perhaps. "Rhodri," she says quietly, "it's not that I'm not drawn to you... I am." But. There it is, in her eyes with the rest...
     "It isn't meaningless. If it were meaningless, I couldn't be sitting here, with you. I'm as drawn to you as I've been to anyone. If I weren't with Davydd, I'd..." She halts herself, closing her eyes. There's the slight pull of her eyebrows downwards and together, echoed at the corners of her mouth; she inhales deeply, forcing herself to continue speaking. "I hate this. I don't want to be having this conversation, but if I run away, I'll be hurting you and I'll be hurting myself and even Davydd, ultimately. I don't know but that going on will anyway - at the very least, it's going to hurt you and it's going to hurt me. But ... I've got to." Her hand remains where it is, her eyes remaining closed, walls being built to contain her distress, to hold back tears from falling, to steady her thoughts as best she can.
     Fiona sighs, chin dropping downwards, face tilted towards her lap. "I care for you. I desire you. I may even be in love with you, a bit - but if I am, it's something I've either only just come to the conclusion of or I've hidden it from myself. And I do love Davydd... he isn't you," she admits it freely, "but I don't love him for those reasons. It might be you know me better than he does in some ways, but I fell in love with him entirely against my will. I can't change it, and I don't really want to. Even though," her voice wobbles slightly, "I suspect he wishes he could change it. But it doesn't matter. You're asking me to say that you mean nothing to me... that your kisses, your touch mean nothing to me. And you know I can't say that, Rhodri."
      Now she lifts her hand away; now the tears come, try though she might to deny them. "I can't say it," Fiona repeats, "because it isn't true. But that doesn't mean I can ... change who I love or what I've promised, or even want to. I wish I could have it all. But that only happens..." The voice fades out, as of someone twisting down the volume, letting you focus in on other things...
     On the tears, perhaps, escaping to make eyelashes sticky, to trickle down her cheeks...
     On the unsteadiness of her voice, the tightness of it as she forces her breathing to be less erratic, to get all her words out where you can hear them and plan or act or retreat...
     Perhaps it's the flush of her heated skin, the tremble of her shoulders, the tremor of her lips. It could be a thousand things...
     Fiona smiles, but there's tragedy in her eyes, as she wraps her arms around herself as if to shut out cold Truth. For though she lives by it, and she lives naked, Truth has a flame that can only burn cold; those who warm themselves by Truth seldom have much heat, save for heat they generate themselves. "...that only happens in fairy tales."

     "It's cruel of me to make you say it," Rhodri says in quiet tones. He stares at his hand a moment, then takes a drink. Finally with a breath exhaled he sets the bottle aside. "Even as much as I am glad to know it. This is what they call a bittersweet moment." Here, says the pat of his hand to your shoulder, you stay here.
     Rhodri rises and takes a seat in the chair nearby, putting some distance, perhaps comfortable by now, between you once more. "I'm sorry, and I'm not sorry. I'm a bastard and I'm a gallant gentleman. Forgive me, Fiona. If you can, for if I cannot at the least have your friendship, I am going to be a sorry excuse for a man."
     All that rhyming. It must be genetic...
     Truth is cold, but is the cold of the sighted. Only the blind are ever truly warm or comfitted. Rhodri wears his emotion in both obvious and in closeted ways. It is in his eyes, but not leaking from them. It is in the stance of his figure, but not revealed on his face. It is worn but not worn out and threadbare.
     "Look at it this way," he offers softly if suddenly after minutes of silence, "...we'll have something to sing about. This kind of love is the food and fortune of poets and troubadours, guitar men and rock stars." Emerald eyes look to you again, both emotional and relieved.
     Though he is in pain for a love that cannot be his (at least not yet) at least he's not alone.
     "I understand," he softly says a moment after. "I won't speak of it again. Though this night will always remain, and I would never want a moment of it blotted from my senses, I'll not mention it. It will be between us, something just between us. And... in a way... it allows us ...the opportunity to cherish one another. If I have to be frozen in a moment, well now... I've had my kiss." He smiles a little, and fondly. "That's more than most poets can brag..."

     "I'm not angry with you," Fiona says quietly. Her eyes close, and she slips back against the sofa, not wanting to see the world right now. The world is too complex for the likes of her. "You've said what you felt and what you wanted. I can't blame you for that, even if it is ... inconvenient ..."
     And that is a very tidy word for it : inconvenient. She lets her head tip back, then draws her legs up onto the couch, twisting until she's got her side up against the back of it, head tilted so her cheek presses against the cushions, hands folded over her stomach. "It isn't even that it's out of place. It's ... out of time." Whether too soon or too late...
     "Don't," she says suddenly, stirring to look up, fixing you with a suddenly sharpened grey gaze. "Don't make promises you can't keep, Rhodri. If you have to talk about it, then talk about it - to whoever you need. That's your business. And your heart is your business; I can't ask you to hold a secret of that sort. There's secrets enough that have to be kept, for your safety, for mine, for Davydd's - the entire world is crawling with secrets and I deal with them by ignoring them and leading my own life as best I can. I'm not going to expect you to hold it in just because I might be uncomfortable. Better discomfort than poison, I say."
     She rises to her feet all of a sudden, impatience in every line of her, stooping to sweep up the vodka bottle, twisting off the cap and swallowing from the neck as thirstily as if it were still no more than pure spring water, wiping her lips with the back of one wrist, then wiping her wrist along the line of her scalp. "I'm not perfect and I'm not pure, and I'm not worth this sort of devotion, Rhodri. You act like I'm something special, and ... I'm just some random person who someone in charge decided to hit with the fucked-up magic stick." Fiona glances to you, then paces away, towards the wall, stalking turned into shuffling by her slippers. She stops, glaring down at her own feet, and kicks at the air as if to hurl the slipper through a window. "And I hate bunny slippers," she mutters in resentment of the universe. "Nothing ever fucking gets easier, does it? I've complicated the life of everyone I've cared about. Now I've gone and made a mess in yours."

     "Life is meant to be complicated, even messy at times. If it were supposed to be easy, then life would be a fairy tale. People don't choose their attachments consciously most times. When they do, it usually ends in failure. Lightning strikes where it will, Fiona-bach. There's no blame to place on anyone."
     Leaning forward, Rhodri reaches for the vanil and cradles it back. He takes a long swallow as you do. He starts to feel the effects, as you are. And he laughs, suddenly, quietly, but richly. "You've no more made a mess of my life than I have yours. Come on," he rolls out slowly, "... you're not queen of the universe, wielding supreme executive power. You're just an attractive young woman, who's stronger than she gives herself credit for and who has several talents, not the least of which is making more of herself for those around her to love. Now, maybe you should give me one of your dopplegangers and we call it even," he chuckles at the notion suddenly, taking a swallow of the vodka. "No one is as ordinary as they think... or hope. Look, you're not going to dissuade me from loving you, from finding you attractive, from wanting to kiss you again, from wanting to convince you that you're making a mistake by not choosing me. There's nothing you can say, Fiona. There's nothing ordinary about you, love. You defy labels. You are timeless. Lovely. Ruthless. Fearless. Desirous. And even strange. Many things I'd call you before random or ordinary. So...what do you want? Do you want us both? Who says you can't have it that way..."
     "That's a rhetorical question," Rhodri interjects suddenly with a grin, the grin an echo of another one you know. "It's okay not to know what you want. Do you think Davydd knows what he wants? Not by the sound of what you've said. The only one who seems to have a clear idea is...well... me..."
     He tips the bottle of vodka, inspecting the remaining, pausing to consider his own inebriation. "I'm not looking for perfection or purity. And you're certainly neither. Neither am I, god knows. What I am is patient, what I am is a realist. I understand that you and I may never happen. It's certainly a possibility. But maybe we will one day. So I will love and hope and that's the way of it. I'm five centuries old. I can afford to wait, darlin'. I don't need to rush. I just need to be constant."
     Rhodri exhales after a long swallow completes the bottle and he settles back against the sofa, legs spreading long. "The only promise I'm going to make you then is that I'm going to love you, Fiona. And that promise I'm going to keep. It's only as late as we make it," he whispers. "But," another sigh, "... I guess I should let you get to bed. Who are we kidding, it's not as if we're going to be able to sleep..." Emerald eyes find you, his expression warm and even. "I'm drunk, how about you? What a lush I am. A bottle of vodka and I'm tipsy. You'd think I'd have a stronger constitution after the Napoleonic Wars."

     "Maybe I should be, though," Fiona retorts. "Maybe I should - I don't know. Go to Germany for a few weeks - Davydd's busy with his business anyway, he probably wouldn't even notice." Self-pity isn't something she indulges in often, but she allows it for a few moments, holding the bottle of vodka up and eyeing the level dubiously. "I could become a DJ, you know. It'd let me be in the music, and it'd be something I haven't already done. Punk's not the same..." Punk's not dead, it's just having a little lie-down...
     "And no," Fiona continues, glancing over her shoulder with a small shrug, "I'm not queen of the universe. Though," a wry smirk tugs at one corner of her mouth, "maybe I should put in an application for the position. I could hardly fuck things up much worse, could I?" Fatal last words; but she isn't really being serious. You continue talking, and she glances to you again, tilting back the bottle. She lowers it, a frown of concentration on her face. And then...
     Well, you can feel it, the rise of magic. It's a swell, a wave, a glow that emanates from her skin outwards. It doesn't come easily, either; it's forced out of her as if she were giving birth, pushed until the fragile skin of magic that's formed around her tears, and another one of her steps out of her shadow, unsteadily throwing out a hand and coming to a halt.
     "It'd be nice if it worked that way," the one on the left says, tone a bit unsteady for a moment; she clears her throat, then shakes her head, falling silent. The one on the right adds, "I can't sustain it indefinitely. A night, maybe - but even a full night's pushing it. And they're both me. I concentrate and control what my body does - what my bodies do. But they're both me - technically I can be in two places at once, but in practice? Not that easy."
     The one on the left flickers, turning into a shadow and then dissipating into nothing at all. Fiona looks down into her bottle with a small smile. "Wouldn't matter if I did know what I wanted, Rhodri. Davydd's the possessive sort - you've said so yourself. As much fun as the idea of coming between you and your father in the most literal sense in the world might be, I don't see that happening." You need to ask if she's drunk? She exudes a sort of drunken arrogance - all that vodka, on no more than part of a biscuit and a sip or two of cocoa. Sugar only fuels it further...
     "I'm not sleeping any time soon," she admits, wandering between the sofa and the wall and then sitting down loosely on the arm. "I might go through the rest of this bottle. I might even ask you to open up downstairs so I can get another bottle. I don't even have the Napoleonic Wars as an excuse. He's over eight hundred, you're over five hundred, I'm ... over twenty..." She swings her legs, then tilts the bottle back again, letting its contents flow past her lips and over her tongue and down her throat. She swallows, and then she flops back onto the sofa's body, legs still over the arm.
     "I'm drunk. I'm going to be drunker soon, I think. I wonder if I can get drunk enough that the walls turn around and I can't walk? How drunk do you have to get for things to make sense, Rhodri?"

     "I'm afraid you're going to have to pass out, dearie, for the world to make sense," he chuckles at that and rolls his head against the couch cushion to look at you. "I could age and die if I wanted. All I have to do is miss the ritual. But once a century I always seem to find some love, love of a woman or love of a cause that keeps me going... but... rewind a moment. How could it not matter what you wanted? It's your life, not Davydd's. If you're not sure about the relationship, if you are in love with someone else, you don't just blow that off because one of you is a possessive shite." Rhodri smirks a bit. "And you're right, he is. He berated Rose for going out on dates with other men, cried in his beer. Then do you know what he did? He fucked a waitress in the back room. So... I love him but you'll not find me wasting pity on him. He's a grown ass man. He knows what he's doing."
     Don't let's be naive...
     "Alright," Rhodri pushes up. "I'll get you another bottle. I think I'm going to move to Irish whiskey. Bit more predictable. Don't need to go so far as the bar though. Didn't you see my hamper of hooch?" He grins madcap and runs a hand through his crimson-auburn hair. "You sticking with vodka then?"
     He is moving to the kitchen. He's not stumbling or bobbing or weaving but he is walking very deliberately. "I admire your fidelity, though. I wouldn't expect less. I could hope for less," he grins over to you, "... but I wouldn't expect less of you. You have morals, after all. Me... I have a few. But I'm tempted right now to say to hell with Davydd for a night..."
     Without waiting for an answer to your question, he comes along with a bottle of vodka for you, he sets it down before you on the coffee table, and a bottle of Irish whiskey for himself. "If you know what you want, Fiona," he murmurs, "I think you should take it..."
     "Pity about the body magic. That would have been a magic bullet wouldn't it. You there with him. You here with me." Rhodri sits beside you, just about flush, and he turns his head to look at you. He touches his bottle against your own to make a chime in the room. His eyes are misty at the corners finally, but the drunken smile remains. "Here, do us a favor," he whispers, his arm stretching across the back of the sofa, opening himself up to you to lean in.

     "Wouldn't be the first time I drank til I passed out." It isn't something she's done often. But she's done it before. She does things to learn about them, and if she likes or needs them, she does them again. But she doesn't like to need...
     "You shouldn't die, Rhodri. I'm not going to. I can feel it - well, I might die, if I get in a car accident or somebody mugs me or whatever. But I won't die of old age. It," Fiona waves a hand indiscriminately, "stopped. In me. I can tell. It's like taking out a battery, only I guess it's not, since I don't stop, I just keep going."
     Vodka, she needs more vodka - she's opened right up, but she isn't making very much sense. She doesn't immediately sit up, staring again at the ceiling. "Your ceiling needs more stars, Davydd. Rhodri. Damn it, it really would be easier, I'd be able to keep track of who I'm talking to. No, I didn't see the hamper, but bring me something anyway. I like presents..."
     With a struggle, she sits up - it takes her a few tries, but she manages, and even remembers to push down the tails of her shirt where they've ridden up to her hips. "I can't have both," Fiona explains with a brief moment of lucidity, frowning at you with the serious indignation of the very young or the very drunk, "because it's not fair to you or Davydd. He didn't sign up for it. And even if he were alright with ... timesharing, I guess ... that's not the same as me being in the middle of two men." She suddenly smiles, reminiscently. "That's a girl thing," she explains, then goes on, "Anyway, it isn't what I signed up for either. Wouldn't you want more, sooner or later? I know I would. I'm possessive too. I can't ask him to give up everyone else and not keep to it, and besides..."
     Her besides goes wandering, and she sighs, winding down to a halt as she takes up the bottle of vanil. "I don't know, Rhodri," Fiona says in a sudden hush, not immediately looking up as you sit next to her. "I don't know what to tell you. I don't even know what to tell me, anymore. Yes, I care. But I love Davydd, and even if it didn't hurt him, it'd hurt me, and I'm so tired of hurting." She doesn't lean so much as fall against you, closing her eyes and bringing her bottle in against her chest, hiccuping as she suppresses a single sob. "Anyway. You wouldn't want to put up with it. Things 'splode."
     Fiona is drunk enough that it's a wonder nothing has exploded...

     "Well, it wouldn't be the first time we slept with the same woman, and likely not the last..." he says, taking a drink, looking at you, then smirking at nothing. "Things... well... let's just say that centuries have a way of making normalcy evaporate. Relationships change. Yes, Davydd is my father. But that stopped mattering about five-hundred years ago. We've been brothers, we've been father and son, we've been friends, we've been partners in crime," he whispers, leaning in, leaving a kiss upon the side of your head as you fall in against him, his arm surrounding you. It's a strong arm. His fingers find your scalp and he lightly massages. "We've shared robberies and women, whiskey and song. It's... strange, I don't expect you or anyone else to understand it. It is like he and I together fashion a single coin. I'm heads and he's tails."
     He can be an ass, so that makes sense...
     "Desires change, too. Love shifts, alters, stretches and snaps," he says, his voice resonating in the chest you lean against. He's solid, this man. The cotton gives way easily. "I understand not wanting to hurt. But you can't lock yourself in a tower, Rapunzel. There's always going to be some armored git to rescue you." He pauses to take another drink. "But what if it doesn't hurt. What if it ... what if we're happy? Would it have been worth a little pain in the beginning to know real joy? To make a life of it, Fiona? Christ, I'd rather limp a little after pulling out the splinter than limp with the splinter still in."
     "Quite frankly, the whole thing isn't fair. I loved you first," he smirks. "If I told him how I felt... if he agreed... would you?" Rhodri tips back his head, leaning back just slightly to look at you. He takes the moment to take another drink, his hand slipping from your scalp and the massaging there to circle your waist. "This is such a good fit. I know you know it, too. And I happen to like explosions. I like unpredictability. I like the wild rides at midnight, darlin'..." Dipping his head, he kisses the crown of your head and closes his eyes.
     "What if this is what is supposed to be," he breathes. "I just can't let you walk away just because it's too much trouble..."

     "Have I ever really stopped and said Wow, that's sick, that's abnormal, Rhodri?" Fiona makes a struggle to rescue coherency from the drowning tide of vodka. These're tough questions to be answering under the influence. "This isn't about you and him being related. You could just be very good friends who happen to look an awful lot alike and it wouldn't change things. I didn't find out you were related until... well... after..."
     After she'd made her choice, in a way...
     "I won't be passed between you like an old shirt," Fiona says stubbornly, not lifting her head, not opening her eyes. "I care for you. I care about you. I've said it and I'll go on saying it. But I made a promise, not just to Davydd - maybe things will change, but I don't know that they will, and I love him..." Her voice sinks as she speaks, lower and lower; there are no more tears. Instead, it is spoken with a voice almost of prophecy - not of what will be, but of what is. She loves him, and because she loves him, she's immersed herself, willingly, even joyfully in him. It isn't that Rhodri cannot move her, but it is Davydd she listens for, Davydd she thinks of, even whose thoughts she strains to catch.
     "I don't think I'd die if he left me tomorrow," Fiona whispers against your chest, from within the circle of your arm. "But part of me would, Rhodri. For you - well, you say your heart made its choice before Davydd lay siege to mine, so you've known what you wanted. But since I met him, he's run in my thoughts, even when I thought I hated him, even when I thought I could live without him. You're right, you two are the parts of a single coin. It's why I could love you as well as I love him. But there are parts which he has which you don't, and those parts draw me as well."
     With a heavy sigh, she looks up at you, expression serious. "You just aren't him. You're you. You tempt me because you're you and for some of the ... attributes you have which he doesn't, sure. And you're persistent," there's a ghost of a smile there, now, "and stubborn. You both have that, and I like that. But I like to challenge him, Rhodri. He challenges me back. I like the darkness and violence in him, and that he holds it in check for me - most of the time. I don't know about 'supposed to be'. You'd need to talk to your sister about that, wouldn't you?"
     The scalp massage you're giving her makes it hard for her to keep her eyes open, hard to stay active, and with another sigh, she lays her head against your chest again, eyelashes drifting down to her cheekbones. "I don't say no to you because I don't want you... but how can I have you both, really? You say you've shared women before, but was that really like what this is? I'm not just fucking him. I'm marrying him. The ring," she says quietly, "stays on. If he breaks me... then he won't have room for me anymore, will he? He'll be bringing someone else home, in his thoughts, at least. And I can't be with someone who thinks someone else's name when he touches me. Not again. Never that again."

     "You know, you're not making this very easy," he retorts in pure ap Owain style. They are related afterall. Then he laughs, at himself as much as to the challenge in his own tone. "I know you do. I know I do. I know he does. And for all I know he knows I do. We're a knowledgeable family." There's an exhale and now even Irish whiskey isn't enough. It won't be enough.
     "I said when we started this line of hypotheticals, begging and revelations that if you gave me your answer, I'd accept it." Rhodri tips back his head and smiles a little. "I accept it. There, done. You don't have to convince me. So, now... I'll stop trying to convince you..."
     For a while he says nothing at all. He holds you and in this moment he allows himself all of the purity and impurity he feels for it. There is the squeeze of his arm, a hugging hold, and in it an expression of his own emotion. And then it passes. He frees you. Sitting up, he helps you to lean against the sofa. "Need a lift to your room... I promise," he protests immediately, smiling, "...I'll leave you at the threshold. Unless you can make it on your own. I'm going to go to bed while I can still move... and have some of my dignity..."
     He pats your leg then pushes off to rise, rising somewhat unsteadily. "What a night, huh? But you've passed an existential gauntlet. If you doubted your feelings before, you certainly can't now, can you." Rhodri looks at you a while, then caps the whiskey. "I am glad you came to London. I don't want you to be a stranger, just because this matter has been aired..."
     He is concerned, you see it for a moment, that he will have driven you out of the city for good. "You must be tired. It'll be dawn soon," he notes. "I'll leave him a note, let him know which room you're in so he doesn't inadvertently bunk with me." He grins suddenly. "He's a wretched thief of blankets, god damn him..."

     "I can't make anything easy. It's my trademark." Fiona yawns despite herself; vodka and a surfeit of emotion have worn her out, even as she remains up against you. "As I told you. If he ... does what you and he both think he'll do ... if he breaks me, if he breaks away from me, then if you still want me then, you can have me. Poor bastard, you'd be making a horrible bargain of it."
     She's convinced that it's so, even as she hopes it'll never come to pass that you get such a bad bargain. Her eyes are closed, and she's quiet with you, cheek to your chest, breathing slowed now, in and out and even. There's a small, feline sound of indignation and complaint when you finally sit up, one eye open, and she mutters, "Why is it that all of my hot water bottles always get up and want to walk away? You got me drunk," Fiona may be projecting a little blame, here, "you can damn well carry me to bed and tuck me in. The hell with dignity, I've got none left at all. The only thing worse would be if I threw up on you."
     She closes her eyes, swaying in place and covering a yawn with one hand. "I'm not going to be a stranger, Rhodri. I can't promise I'll necessarily visit more than I've been visiting, but I won't visit any less. And," the eyes that glance at you have shaded to somewhere between grey and green, like an Irish poet's view of the sea, "I'm not letting you off the hook either, Rhodri. I won't make you ... do anything that would cause you pain, but try and do what's best for you. I really don't know what that'll be, but I won't ignore you or stop caring for you - as a friend, or ... well, anything else, just because you tried to argue me into changing horses in midstream. You're both wretched thieves, and I bet of more than just blankets."
     She yawns mightily, sprawling out on the sofa. "Actually," Fiona says sleepily, voice drifting up from the cushions, "just bring me a blanket here, if you want. I'm so tired..."

     Rhodri chuckles as he watches you sprawl on the sofa. "If you're going to ride with the Black Jack Davy, love, you're going to have to learn how to walk drunk. Alright," he breathes, bends and kisses you good night...
     It is a kiss rather like the first one only longer...
     Rather like the first one that might well be the last one that hopes it's not...
     It is warm and it is makes the brain sparkle and skin shimmer with wow. And just like that, it's parting ways with you.
     Rhodri leaves the bottles where they are, walks around the table, a saunter that carries him to his hall closet, the repository of all blankets. He says nothing now, nothing to follow that kiss or all the words you've said and he's said. He covers you with a blanket and tucks you in just as you request, slipping a feather pillow beneath your head.
     He lets his hand linger a moment longer on oak-blonde hair. Shaking his head at himself at you and at the man still missing, Rhodri quietly moves down the hall and to his own bed.

Posted by rowan at October 12, 2004 09:22 PM