The room has gone very quiet in the dimness, quiet in comparison to a time of frenzied motion and loud rising cries and sobs and general incoherent passion. The bedding has risen into little hills and hummocks, save for where it's pressed flat by the weight of bodies. It's funny, but somehow it hasn't felt like the nights are getting shorter, or at least not to the object of your pleasure, not to Fiona...
     At some point you cut the cord binding her wrists, allowing limp arms to be lowered; Fiona barely seems to have noticed, save that she's slightly able to move now. She has by now ended up on her side, curled slightly inwards with one arm fallen in a crooked positioning with her hand on the sheets, knees brought up towards her stomach but not too far towards. Her thighs are slack, pressing heavily against each other in quiescent exhaustion and a pulsing reminder of how thoroughly she's been conquered.
     The scent of her is heavy on the air, as if the apples of Avalon have been pressed here. Her hair has returned to its pale hue with only a couple of streaks of fuchsia here and there, lengthened slightly down past her shoulders but no further. And for a time she's slept like this, the weight of her sleepiness planting her on your bed as heavily as a rock, a tree, a river.
     But time passes, doesn't it? Slowly, sticky eyelashes peel away from her cheeks; she's wobbly as she rubs at first one eye and then the other, a long, still sleepily inquisitive sound escaping her. "Nnmmh?"

     He dozed as most men do, but Black Jack Davy is used to sleeping with his eyes open, or if he closes them, it's not for a sleep that's very deep. As you stir, you feel his mouth on your shoulder from behind you and an arm slide around you. Harmless for the moment, at least. He pulls you to him, a slight embrace seemingly conscious of what he's wrought, and the kiss is tender that is placed upon your neck and ear.
     "Hello, my apple," Rhodri whispers there, before he twists against you where he has spooned, turning to see the time on his clock. It was nine when you came up here with him. It's two now. Three hours of evening left. "Would you like some tea?" he asks as he rolls back over, his arm still around you, his strength seemingly on all sides.
     The rest is incoherent as he breathes a sound at your neck, his fingers taking the time to enjoy your nakedness and your presence in his bed. "Lady Arundel has deserved tea and biscuits I am thinking," his fingers trace the line of your curves from hip to the side of your breast, dipping just slightly to let his fingers roll over a nipple and then away.
     "Stay here," he says at your skin again, and with a kiss Rhodri begins to roll to his side of his bed. "I will get it going..." Lord, what a picture he makes. As he rises and moves to the foot of his bed, the soft light moves over him, the crimson hounds paused in place against his skin. Also on his back, you did not get to see those, the one appearance of flora in the fauna of his markings -- the apple blossoms of Avalon and interlocking forms of celtic hounds following the line of his spine and traversing the defined muscles of the archer's back and shoulder blades.

     Oh, yes. She remembers, now; no dream, this, but reality. She is in bed not with her husband-to-be but with his son, not with the king but with the thief. Her thoughts are still disjointed, fragments which litter the floor of her consciousness. It's the arm, the kiss, the voice, the endearment that remind her.
     You roll away, pulling her with you, and there's a quiet sound of her own. She is still weak from the force of your passion, from the unyielding assault with its unpredictability, with its continuity. "Tea...?" Fiona echos it, feeling warmth where your skin and hers connect, in her cheeks as well. Alien concept, this tea.
     Her defenses are down, still, the price of the passion still moving in her. Your touch causes little reminders, traces of tension to tug from her nipples down to a tangle in her belly and from there to the apex within her groin. It brings a gasp to her lips, and when you rise, she does not immediately follow, hardly able to move beyond sitting up a bit.
     The headboard is useful; supporting herself would be hard work right now. Apple blossoms and hounds draw her attention, and she blinks. But surely those hounds were moving before? Fiona takes a deep breath as if to ask, then lets it loose on the air again. Tea.

     Yes... tea. Little bags of herbs from China... we pour hot water on it and turn it into a drink... Even his internal voice is sarcastic. You are English, aren't you? There is the real sound of him laughing, a soft chuckle as he puts on the kettle.
     He's not gone for long. He appears in the doorway, pausing there, leaning against the easing in naked glory, his skin adorned. To see you in his bed. It moves him, and moves through him, and the celtic hounds begin to shift again.
     You are perfect there. I do not think you should ever move... Rhodri glances over his shoulder to the kettle, marking the minutes. In just a short moment, the water heated will begin to roil, in another minute or two, it'll begin to boil and whistle. Stirring, even as he and you are again. He pushes off the wall and moves back to the bed, but not to his side of it. Instead, he sits upon the corner of the side you occupy and, bending, he kisses you, his arm sliding against your side.
     When he touches you, the hounds begin their various mythic hunts all over again. The kiss is sweet but full, learning the way your mouth moves. You have a front row seat to what the kiss does for him. Rhodri leans back, glancing toward the kitchen as he hears the water boiling. "Won't be long now," he whispers to you as he tilts his head to look at you beneath him again. His finger taps the tip of your nose and he slants a grin. Going to make it?

     Bastard. One word at a time; Fiona's not up for complicated discussions yet, it's evident. You return to see her where she sits, one arm draped in over her stomach and with the scent and taste of her still strong in the room. She's aware of it still, even. Hard for her not to be.
     Eyes gone grey open to look at you lazily as you lean against the doorway. Slowly, very slowly she shifts a little further upwards, with a suggestion of a wince. Oh, she's gloriously aware of how thoroughly she's been used, even as she moves in direct pointed response to your thoughts. And then you're by her again.
     There's another sigh for the kiss, and one hand comes up to touch your cheek gently, a feather-light brushing of fingertips and then palm to the side of your jaw not in a slap but caress.
     Fiona lowers her hand as you tap her nose, and makes a grab for your finger with her own hand. "You," she says clearly, pronouncing each word not sharply but with care, "are a red-skinned bastard of the first water, Rhodri Llywelyn. You and every single one of those hounds of yours - and yes, the unicorn too."

     He grins as his finger is taken. "Yes, I know, Lady Arundel," he intones. "And you wouldn't want me any other way," he finishes in a whisper, another kiss and his hand entwines with yours. That is why you are here, after all. With the son, and not the father. Rhodri straightens again, tongue running against his lips to capture the taste of you. He makes a sound in his throat, and the grin broadens.
     And the tea whistles in the other room...
     He rises (all of him and not just the one part of him) with a wink and heads into the other room. You hear him get two cups, porcelain sounding against porcelain, and pour. And you, Lady Arundel, if I may be so bold... are as energetic and eager as you are beautiful... I like that in a woman... He is seen again, naked, glorious, risen, and bearing two cups of steaming tea completely without fear of burning himself or his nether regions should a scalding droplet escape. He bends, setting yours upon the nightstand to steep.
     "I'm glad you enjoyed," he says lightly, as if expressing pleasantries over lunch. He does have his own comedic touch. Rhodri heads to his side of the bed, setting his cup aside and rolling over to join you yet again. A sound, a breath, his mouth rolls over your skin. "I vote we stay in bed all day. Sod the bar." Yes, all day. "I am in the mood for apples for my breakfast..."

     Your reactions are so very different from Davydd's. She underestimated you - and paid the price for that, several times over. You kiss her, you rise, and she shivers despite herself as she watches you walk away.
     "You seem particularly enamored of my title," Fiona murmurs as you return, watching you carry the tea. She's impressed; not only with your body, which she can't help but admire, but with the ability to carry the tea without fear of the risk. If she tried it, she'd end up wearing it.
     There's the shift of the mattress as you join her again, and she draws one knee upwards slowly, head lolling to the side. "I ... but the time." There's a little frown as her eyebrows draw together, interrupted by the beginnings of crimson rising to her face again at the entendre. Oh, you tempt her. You can see that, can't you?
     In the texture of her skin, the faint purse of her mouth as if to beg another kiss, the slight unconscious shift and squirm; maybe it's partly that she has become so accustomed to having sexual attentions paid her so frequently, the frustration and pressure builds up again so readily. Maybe it's partly the need to feel wanted - the feeling which has not been as fulfilled of late, with your father. And maybe it's that she needs to know that now that you've had her, you won't reject her...
     "I think," Fiona murmurs, turning towards you, then stopping as your mouth moves over her body. "Stop that..." She doesn't mean it. Her fingers slide through your hair. "I think we s-should talk a bit, first."
     Talking is so highly overrated, isn't it? There is an echo of that earlier desire, that earlier need. If you look to her eyes, you can see it - if you look to her eyes, you will see the crowding questions, the wondering what you will do next. She does want to have answers to her questions, to know what you will say, what might come of this. To know all of it, to feel reassured.
     And, despite herself - to know what you might do to her this time...

     There's a chuckle from him at the mention of titles. "Do you know people buy and sell them these days? There's a couple in Illinois, never set foot in England, and they have an English title. I'm not enamored, I'm amused." His head rests on his hand, his elbow in the bedding and he looks at you with eyes that are clearly pleased with what they see. "I'm amused at my own, as far as that goes. Here we are, the Earl of Snowdon and the Lady Arundel, thick in bed," he grins, leaning in for a kiss.
     The kiss you want, he gives you. Sudden and wild again, full and pulling. His mouth suckles at your chin and then he sits back again, not surprised at your suggestion of talking. Twisting, he leans over onto his side of the bed and takes up the cup. Now, he's careful. It's harder to do when you're on your back.
     "Certainly," Rhodri says, glancing to you as he sits up against his headboard, his legs laying long and wide and his cup of tea cradled to his mouth. "Besides, we have the rest of the night and all day tomorrow. There's no rush... what's on your mind exactly..." The generalities he's aware of.

     "If you have enough money, you can buy anything, they say." There's a quietness to her voice brought on by sudden almost shyness. Davydd's eyes turned onto her nudity, that she can bear up under - most of the time. You are an unknown quantity - the more unknown for having so thoroughly upended her expectations of you. "I'm afraid mine came with the belly button. Mother and daddy didn't have any sons, so when they pop off, I'm it." Lady Fiona becoming Lady Arundel, and if she should die without issue, another antiquated line goes to dust.
     You lean in, you kiss her, and she is made breathless by it, a soft sound escaping her again. When you free her mouth, she pulls a fold of blanket over her primly, curling up and reaching for her own tea, reddened cheeks in evidence.
     "What's on my mind? Well ... you. This. Davydd." The absent dragon, spreading his shadow; Fiona winces slightly, turning her attention onto the surface of her cup. Her voice grows quieter. "I'm not going to lie and say I didn't ... enjoy this, Rhodri, even if it's not what I'd - predicted. But it's going to affect things."

     "Well, I'd certainly hope so," he notes, sipping at the tea, then setting it aside. He gives his body to the headboard, letting it bear his weight and he turns his head against it to look down where you lie. "So, what do you want to do about it... I know what I want you to do, and I know what I'm going to do, but what about you." His hand comes down, fingers moving through your hair. "Still going to let him decide about what the ring means..."
     He recalls the last conversation. He has a good memory. He takes in a breath and exhales it in the quiet that follows. "I am not going to let you go, you realize." Rhodri smiles a little. "Well, eventually tomorrow you'll get to leave this room, but... I mean in a greater sense..."

     "I made a promise to him," Fiona says quietly, her voice very serious. She goes on looking at her tea until she feels your fingers in her hair, and then she glances up, something stark and sad in her eyes. "I promised him everything. And no matter what's happened, I do still love him, Rhodri. Am I supposed to stop loving him because of you?" She sighs, looking back down at the cup and then lifting it to her lips for a thirsty swallow.
     Lowering the rim, she looks back up again. "He saw me and he saw through me, and he has meant everything to me since the night he claimed me. It's only since his last business trip that things started to go sour - and maybe he's got a mistress, and that's why. I don't know."
     Fiona goes quiet at the thought, but there are no tears, this time. "...Even if he has, I can't talk now, can I? I've gone and done what I threatened to him that he'd better not do. In a way, it makes me understand him a little better - but the fact of the matter is, here I am, Rhodri. He's somewhere else - but he won't be somewhere else forever. And I did promise. I know relationships aren't like Cinderella." Her lips quirk faintly. "They take work. I think I at least owe it to him to try to talk to him."
     There's a pause, and she huddles upwards, knees to her chest, moving cautiously so as not to spill tea everywhere. "It is up to him what the ring means, Rhodri," Fiona says softly. "He asked me to marry him. I said yes. He - we were getting gradually closer, and all of a sudden he started shutting doors. I don't know if he even knows he's doing it, but I need to know where I stand with him. And yes - I'll grant you that he's fucked up plenty of times, and that he's fucked up a bit with me. But what kind of a person would I be if I just - threw him away, walked out of his life just like that - like so many other people did?"
     She shivers, leaning over to set her tea down, then turns towards you to peer at your face earnestly. "I don't like having to choose between you. You've made it a thousand times harder for me to just go back to him and pretend nothing's happened, and I know that you're not sorry for it. I'm not angry with you. I ..." There's a silence, and one corner of her mouth curves upwards, echoed in the sweep of her gradually, steadily lengthening hair. She hikes the fold of blanket up over her hip, then leans over to touch a fingertip to the unicorn on your skin.
     "I want you," she admits. "Even though right now I'm too stiff, I desire you. I love you; and I'm conflicted. Part of me wants to be able to just - pretend nothing else exists. But it does, and I do love both of you and I don't want to hurt either of you. But it's not that easy, is it? And if I break my word, then I am not the person you want. If he doesn't want me anymore, I ... I don't know what will happen. But I don't want to be Rosamund."

     That was a mouthful. Davydd would have blanched, looked perplexed at the sudden crowd of words and then peer at you as he absorbed them all, but Rhodri takes them in as they come. His hand moving through your hair again and he bends, his mouth brushing over your own as he lifts your chin for it, as your finger traces the unicorn, and the unicorn runs and the hounds give chase. The kiss deepens momentarily, but only momentarily.
     "I would never ask you to leave him sight unseen. He deserves you to speak with him, the respect of that. And yes I can talk of being respectful while we lie naked in my bed," his own mouth quirks a smile. "I want you to show him the respect he deserves, and for your part... to not run from it or what we have done. You know how I feel," he murmurs. "You know what I think and what I want. If you doubt it," Rhodri's mouth makes a wider smile, "I'll repeat it..."
     He's not going to finish his tea. Rhodri is sliding down to the bed's surface, once more reclining with you, his arms surrounding you. "You will have me again," he says at your skin, "...it's the only way to work the stiffness out. And there's no worry for you being another Rosamund, love, trust me." You're alive, for starters.
     His fingers cannot help their wandering, skimming over the surface of your skin, from breasts to stomach. "Speak to him when he returns. Perhaps it will be easier to make a decision than you think." Rhodri bends his head, his mouth parting at your shoulder, then the crook of your neck. "You won't hurt me, unless you prevent me from seeing you. My heart is my own. I've chosen where I want it to go, who should hold it. That woman is a young woman," he lifts his head slightly, green eyes landing their attention on your own eyes. "...a beautiful woman. She has the most ...stirring cries, the sweetest moans. She melts on my mouth like sugar, she sets in my blood like flame."
     Rhodri bends, his mouth pressing at your temple and then he winks. "And gets me to spout poetry like a card in a chemist's... it's a little disgusting actually. But well..." a sigh, "... she deserves it, my love..."

     The kiss makes her sigh again as she listens to your response. She's troubled, and she will remain troubled - a heart divided is a heart that grieves - but she allows the kiss and does not pull away. "I don't blame your unicorn for running," Fiona whispers, gaze lowered to your chest. "I'm not exactly pure, even if they say the real reason unicorns like virgins is for lustful reasons."
     Guilt is a cloak she wears entirely too well, these days...
     "I know how you feel," she agrees. Your arms surround her, and hers twine around your neck; right now, she needs the comfort more than she needs to deny herself. "I intend to talk to him when he comes back. Maybe not right away - I know he's been feeling stress for some reason, and if his business has gone badly, the last thing I want to do is just - pile on more," she murmurs, her cheek to yours. "But he and I will talk. I'm going to point out what I promised him, and what he promised me in return - and ask if this is no longer what he wants. Or maybe no longer what he's willing to give. I don't know. I'll ... see what he says."
     You talk of her having you, and her face grows ruddy, the fair complexion revealing so readily what she thinks, what she feels. She is skeptical of not being Rosamund; maybe not in Davydd's favourite chair, but herself his fiancee and having it on with his son - it's hard for her to accept. And then your hands begin to roam.
     "I ... won't refuse to see you, Rhodri. I might refuse to see you alone, though." You are such a temptation to her. You can hear the wobble enter her voice as your mouth presses to her flesh. "But that's because I have to keep myself on a diet. And," her voice strengthens a bit, though remains soft, "you're a kinky bastard. I mean..." She lifts a hand to tug at a lock of your hair, then sighs, closing her eyes. "You scare me."

     Neither mouth nor hands stop their wandering ways, and just as when this episode began, there is no rhyme or reason to the rhythm. Such touches, such embraces land with the haphazard poetry of falling rain. "Don't be afraid, Lady Arundel," Rhodri murrs at your ear with a smile that pulls against your skin. "Though I may bind your hands, I don't have the desire to hurt you. Though I may tie you to the headboard of my bed, and though I may desire to possess you completely, I would never imprison you."
     His hand slips downward over your stomach to nestle between your thighs. "I was never partial to purity like some," Rhodri smiles again, and as he lies flush against you, you may feel him stir again. "You move so well beneath me, I would never have guessed you were a virgin for so long, that is... if you had not made it a point of telling everyone." He pauses, "So... you would not see me alone, my love? What if you tied my hands behind my back? Hmm? What then, Fiona?"
     His fingers tickle slightly where they lay and then lift to cup a breast before returning to their nestle between milk-white thighs. "You would hide this beauty from me? And you are one to call me thief..." he teases. Rhodri's eyes rest their attention on your face, to watch you, to see if you sigh, you blush, you whisper his name. To see the love for him there. "I know it is ... not what you expected, love. But that is why it is scary, why life is scary. It is never as we expect it to be..."

     "You're very distracting," Fiona says in a tone which tries hard to be cross but doesn't quite succeed. She sighs, shifting closer so that she presses against you for a moment, letting her hair whisper against your shoulder as she presses her mouth to the side of your throat, then releases again. "It isn't that which frightens me. It's ... strange, and yes, it does frighten me a little, but there's other than that to my fear."
     Her thighs squeeze closed for a moment around your hand, and she drops her gaze with a little shudder that runs through her like a current through water. "It isn't you that I don't trust. It's more that if I've proven this susceptible once, how can you trust me?" Fiona turns over, lying on her back against the bedding, lifting her hands to fall above her head on the pillows. "How could Davydd trust me - even if he wants me still? How could I trust myself?"
     For so long she's held herself to such strict standards, her asceticism and her fasting. And now...
     "I was a virgin," Fiona admits, voice lowered as if afraid of being overheard - passing notes in class. "I'd been hurt, and I couldn't get past that hurt. If I saw Paul tomorrow, I'd probably want to break his nose all over again, but not as much as I'd wanted to for the past ... how many years has it been? Well, I forget. Doesn't much matter." She turns her head on the pillow to look at you, a soft aspiration of breath escaping her.
     "You know how you affect me. Can you blame me for not trusting myself alone with you? It isn't fear that you'd hurt me - I mean, I have been ... well." Fiona almost smiles for a moment. "I've been with your father. Do you really think me so delicate? It isn't my body I'm worried about. I'm trying to figure out how pieces fit, Rhodri. And it's like taking apart a dishwasher and having pieces left over after. That can't be good."

     "No, not delicate physically. But no woman wants to think a man will so overpower her as to strip away her liberty. No modern woman, that is," he adds. "I don't think I've heard the story of this Paul person," his eyebrows quirk upward. "What did the shite do? Do you want me to look him up and turn him into sommat disgusting?" Rhodri seems excited about that prospect...
     Though, it's hard to tell. He's excited about a lot of things at the moment...
     Rhodri's mouth plucks at yours, playing lightly as you turn to him. "Well, I could say the same for me," he notes. "We'd have to be with one another, and trust would come. It's already there. I know that if it had been any man other than me you would not have been in a bed, naked and glorious as you are." And you are, says the kiss as it lingers longer this time. "I know by what you've said of Davydd here while you lay with me."
     "I've had my heart broken a time or two. It's not something that you can just drop on the ground and cover with leaves. But it does fade after a while. You learn from it and then you accept it and then you find someone new and try again. Love is resilient, if you let it be." There's a comment he wants to make about 'pieces fitting together'. You can see it as he turns his head, looking at how your bodies are fitting together where you lie. How they will fit together in a few minutes, perhaps.
     His fingers lightly move against your skin, curling and uncurling at the juncture of your thighs with absent thought. "Are you going to tell him, Fiona?" he wonders that now. "Do you think in the ...heat of your conversation with him that you would tell him? I don't mind him knowing but... you should be careful if this is what you're planning. If this is what your planning... I would rather tell him myself..."

     "I am not going to tell him," Fiona says simply. "It would hurt him more to know this, I think, than anything else I could do to him short of what Rose did. When I talk to him, it's going to be about him and me, Rhodri." She turns towards you again, rolling onto one hip and placing her hand on your forehead, smoothing back your hair delicately. "This ... no matter what I feel for you, no matter how I feel about you, it's outside of that. It has to be; if he and I are going to work out what's between, it has to be about the that before the this can be reached. That's what I believe, at any rate."
     It troubles her less than lying to Davydd would, you can see it in her eyes; it is not that the hiding of it does not bother her, but to go to him and pretend that there is nothing to be resolved would be a difficult thing. "It's all a bit soap opera-ish as it is. I'd like to ... minimize me being that stupid."
     She leans in, dropping a sudden kiss on your mouth, closing her eyes against a sudden surge of tears that she ignores; the kiss is a hungry, yearning one, and she pulls away after only a matter of heartbeats. Five, perhaps six, and then she's pulled away. ** He was the first person I ever fell for beyond schoolgirl crush. Rugby player, rather handsome, slightly crooked nose, from a well-to-do family in my own family's 'class'. **
     So she has an established pattern of going for large brutes, doesn't she?
     Fiona settles back, reaching down for your hand and lacing her fingers through yours, bringing the joined hands up towards her chin, rubbing her thumb slowly along the edge of your hand as she speaks, aloud, now, but quietly, as if glad of the lights being dimmed so that the play of emotions might similarly be diffused, given to shadows instead of out in the brightness of electric lamp or sunlight. "I had a bit of a crush on him. He encouraged it - asked me out shortly after he'd broken up with his long-term girlfriend; they'd been on again, off again for years. It was ... a secret little affair, because he'd always been a bit of a playboy, didn't want to hurt me with rumors, the rest. I should've known then, shouldn't I? But I was ... very different from anything you've ever seen me be. I was more than virginal; I was innocent, naive, and very, very sheltered."
     There's a pause, in which a wry smile twists her mouth. "I rode in gymkhanas, Rhodri. Went with my parents to the opening of Parliament, watched my father stand up, watched the doors be slammed in the Queen's emissary's face, all the little rituals. We went shopping in the Row, across the Channel to Paris for holidays to visit my aunt, to visit my mother's family in Belgium. I even rode to the hounds; mother's kept my membership in the hunt paid up all this time. I was, in short, a very thoroughly respectable member of the Establishment, and while mother and I had our differences, I was ... obedient."
     It's a difficult thing to imagine, isn't it?
     "Mother was delighted by my forming a friendship with Paul, kept urging me to get him as a boyfriend, didn't know of course that I had. We'd meet with each other - officially I was a study partner. A few stolen kisses, an awful lot of talking about the future." Fiona sighs, lifting her other hand from your forehead and propping herself up on her elbow. "We were going to go to Oxford together. He was very attentive - listened to me go on and on for ages about my end of year project. You can see where this is going, can't you?"

     He closes his eyes in the kiss you drop suddenly upon him. His mouth surrendered to your own hunger for once. When you part it, emerald eyes open slowly, gleaming between coppery lashes. "It is probably just as well he does not know. At least for now. And best of all that you not be the one to say it." He will take that load on himself, if it needs to be borne by any.
     Rhodri's other hand comes up, scooting beneath you to lift and play lightly in your hair. He can see the emotions move over you. Eyebrows shoot up at the vision of the Proper Young Miss that you describe and he smiles, a true smile and a warm smile. "You in gymkhanas. I have a hard time picturing this. But then, that is not the You that you first showed me." His finger taps the end of your nose and he shifts against you, a heavy thigh slipping between your own. "Ah, better..." he murrs, his arms going around you again, an embrace as you touch his forehead.
     "Hmmm... I can imagine he betrayed you, but I have not heard this story. He was not actually... split from his girlfriend, I take it. Was he using you to help him with the exams, the great shite?"

     There's a shiver for your look, for your touch, thighs tightening for a moment as yours moves against her skin, and she leans in against you. She allows her elbow to slide straight, then brushes her lips against your cheek with a whisper of syllables but no actual words. "I was all that. I attended services at the Anglican church with my father - Catholicism hasn't been a focus for my family for the past several hundred years - and I was bat mitzvahed. Never was baptized, though," Fiona adds with a small smile as you touch her nose.
     She shifts again, a little more restlessly, then rests her head on the pillow as if weary of images that play behind her gaze. "He betrayed me," Fiona agrees, voice slightly dulled for a moment. "We were both very active in various school events, including the yearly play. I traded shifts with a friend in order to spend more time with him, found him and his 'ex' cuddled up in the rafters. I'm just glad I heard them before I came into view, because they were talking about me." One shoulder lifts, then drops. "To pass exams? That was part of it. More than just that, they didn't like me because I was prissy and perfect and - well, other things. I was apparently a cow whose legs weren't worth spreading except in order to hurt me with his eventual betrayal - to that I owe my long-lasting virginity, you see, because I found out in time, and ... I couldn't really ever feel comfortable after that, much."
     She frowns, not a Drancy-scowl but a Fiona frown, forehead puckered in remembered bewilderment and a lack of comprehension of 'why' that still seems to sit with her. "They were going to steal my project," she says finally, quietly. "They had it all planned out - he was going to find out from me where I was storing it and sabotage it. After, of course, they'd copied it and turned it in with their own names on it. For almost six months, he'd pretended to be in love with me, so that they could get as good a grade as possible and so they could hurt me with my own feelings, my own efforts. And when I found out, I went a little mad, I think."

     He doesn't say much to it. He simply listens, his hand resting lightly on your head after a moment. "It's good you found out before you had more to lose," Rhodri notes after a few stretches of moments of silence. "Better to have been hurt before you gave all of yourself to him, as painful as I'm sure it was. And even is. First love is always the hardest, and when first love is like that, a fake. I can see why you were so protective of yourself that you would have bludgeoned the rest away."
     His mouth pulls at yours, coaxes it into a kiss. He lets that kiss go long, he makes it long. Tender and seeking, it moves, pauses, continues, transforms, and he breathes into it as he lets it slip away. "You sure you don't want to tell me where he is so I can turn him into a newt?" Rhodri smiles a little at you. "You know, there's a proverb I've always found helpful. The best revenge is a good life. That's a Sicilian saying, and they ought to know something about revenge..."
     "I'm sorry," he says after a moment, "...that your first crush, your first love ... left you with a memory like that. Everyone has to have their hearts broken, that's the nature of it. Maybe the bright side is you've gotten it out of the way...hmm?" He is quiet again after that, his thigh shifting between your legs just slightly.
     "If we were to ... be the ones who lasted," Rhodri wonders quietly, "...do you think your family would approve of an earl who tends bar rather than tending government? I find government a bit of a bore, to be honest...I could get religious but I'm not religious by nature. Unless you count cavorting, tattooed heathenism..."

     "I got some revenge. I moved my project and altered it, then ... worked on it night and day. Finished it before the deadline and handed it in, and left falsified notes that drew other conclusions in my work area," Fiona murmurs, lips pressed to your ear as if sharing a secret. "If he carried through, they'd be found out. If he didn't - well, it wouldn't make up for what he said, but at least then I'd only have lost my heart and not my future."
     She pauses for the kiss, her eyes slowly closing as if for the last time, holding the image of you behind the lens with her as she goes. When it finally comes to its end, eyelashes blink and tremble as she looks to you again. "They failed and almost had to repeat the year. He blamed me, of course. To my mother, who was furious that I'd lost his interest and the social connection of his parents." Fiona speaks steadily at this point, a hardness entering her voice; she has not yet forgiven her mother for this taking of sides. Perhaps she never will. "She thought it my rebellion, and she was furious. That's when I ... left. Cut off my hair, gave Dot a call, told her I was heading into London, did she want to go with. I can't say I never looked back, it's not my way - but I didn't go back. Not until after I jumped off the bridge in the quays and everything changed on me again."
     She leans in again, covering your mouth with a kiss and shifting to move with you, over you, thighs splayed out so that she balances lightly on her knees over your abdomen, looking down. "That kiss is for offering to turn him into a newt," she informs you lightly, eyes holding a silver-like sheen for a moment until she turns her head, chin tipping towards as if trying to puzzle out what strange creature you might be, with the hounds racing beneath her. "I broke his nose a year... two years ago. I forget when exactly. He turned up to try rubbing my nose in things. I've heard they set his nose, but it's always been a bit crooked since, and he tries to pass it off as a rugby accident."
     Hovering above you, Fiona glances up to the ceiling for a long twilight silence. "...I don't know how my family would react. My grandparents wouldn't care, though they'd probably not care for the tattoos much. But still - I think as long as I was happy, and they could see that I was, it wouldn't matter. My father... he's stood up in the House for as long as I can remember, Rhodri. I think he finds it a pleasantly easy duty, compared to riding the fence between my mother and me. He's hardly religious. Mother... Why would I care what my mother thinks?"

     "All you have to do is ask and point, darlin', and he's as good as reptilian." The emerald eyes flicker, widening slightly then half-lidding as he grins in absolute delight. You have a strong abdomen for a seat, a full view of the archer's strong chest and arms, shoulders, and with your change of view you can see the tattoos squirming against his skin. His large hands come up and grasp your hips, lifting you just slightly to readjust himself beneath you.
     Hounds run the course of his chest, his biceps, over his stomach and swirl at his groin, a part of which you rest upon. They charge, they leap, the hunt the unicorn, the hare, hero and heroine alike. Fingers press at your skin, massaging, grasping. "You are beautiful," he murmurs, head in the cushion, scarlet-auburn hair splayed there. Sitting up with you cradled in his lap, Rhodri covers one of your breasts with his mouth. "Have you ever been told, Fiona," his mouth lifts to your own, his hands lifting to cup your face to him. "Has anyone sung to it, sighed for it, before me?" The kiss erupts at your mouth, biting and clasping in gentle roughness. Just enough to sting before his mouth suckles and soothes it.
     There's a little chuckle as his head bends, attentions paid to the other breast. "Parliament is a refuge for many, I think. Just like any other job. You broke his nose? Impressive. Remind me to duck if you ever throw me a right hook..." Teeth nip sensitive skin and he lies back, grinning broad and free.

     "It'd raise questions," Fiona murmurs down at you, though with a small smile for the idea; of Paul, turned to a newt, crawling round helplessly and unable to escape. Perhaps in a glass aquarium. Oh, yes, it tempts her, the witchlight gleaming behind her eyes. She is not all gentleness...
     You lift her, and she smiles, lips parting in it as she alters position slightly, then staying parted in a small sound of pleasure as your hands move along her, watching the animals at play. Her hands go to your hair as you sit up with her, and any answer is cut off by your kiss. Blood rises into her cheeks for the kiss, for your words, breasts lifted by the arch of her shoulders as she lowers her hands to behind her, onto the backs of her calves, onto your knees.
     "I was in the punk scene for a few years, Rhodri," Fiona murmurs, tone sly for a moment, though defused by your mouth, your teeth, words broken into bits and startled little lifts. "Mmm... How does the song go ... my father won't slight you for your lack of kind..."

     "From the sound of it," Rhodri breathes against your skin, his mouth parting at your neck, your throat, "...no one would much miss him. You could keep him in a tank and name him 'Git'." The mouth pulls at your skin, lifts to your chin before it parts again, another nip left. "You could get him little outfits... think of the possibilities..."
     There's throaty laughter as covers your mouth again, it sounds there, vibrates there, given to the air only when he needs to breathe. "I think your father will slight me if he knew what I was about to do to his little girl...let alone what I've already done..." His hands lower. One rests squarely upon your hip, lifting you. The other moves against himself and moves himself against you.
     "I love that about you. You are a queen, a high-born lady... and a rebel, as much a creature of the king's highways as myself... you are the best of both of my worlds." There's a groan to feel you parted around him, as he teases you both with a slight entry. "And for you... I am a prince in one world, an earl in another, a thief on the roads between..."

     "Mmm..." It's a purr, a moan, a soft sound of acquiescence and enjoyment. She should be fighting you off, she knows this, but right now, she - doesn't want to. "I think if I have a pet, it'll be something warm-blooded and less likely to carry venereal diseases. That lets him out."
     You kiss her, and for a moment, she's lost in it, the corners of her mouth curving up, and then you speak and she blushes. She'd thought herself getting beyond blushing by now, but your words have an effect on her, the promise, the threat beguiling and lurking in her face as you move against her, with her.
     "Oh," Fiona breathes it as you press, her hands going to your shoulders. "I'm just ... me. What are you doing?" As if it weren't perfectly obvious. "I didn't know you were a prince," she adds, somewhat distracted all of a sudden.

     "Well," Rhodri begins in that droll, matter-of-fact way. "I believe that I'm about to hear you scream my name again. And... of course I'm a prince. I am one of the last sons of a twice king," that would be Davydd, former king of Wales, current king of faerie. "I could claim the crown of Wales... if they had such a thing..."
     There's no sense in stopping now. The 'sin' has been committed. It may as well be enjoyed. Fully. Repeatedly...
     "I'm many things, darling, including the man who loves you..." The tease of him within you is no tease at all with the next pull and release of breath.

Posted by rowan at October 27, 2004 09:44 PM