Taxis are useful things. There's no way Fiona's even remotely capable of walking the distance from Betty's Boobs in her current state, or even her current shoes. She took her farewell of everyone with all the drunken cheer of a sorority girl on uppers, showering fluttering kisses against cheeks of even random employees and mock-genuflecting before Betty Herself without any mockery in truth made. "Lovely drinks. Lovely people. Lovely costumes, too. Mmm - leather. But I've got to go, tragically - terribly tragic. Ooh, alliteration!"
     It isn't quite fair, it isn't quite right that Rhodri had been - even if only temporarily - evicted from his own apartment so that his father could use the time to break up with Fiona. The woman they both love, the woman who adores them both, insanely, disgustedly, angrily, unabashedly, ashamedly and adamantly and entirely too much. The world isn't fair - and right now, she is taking very personal and outraged exception to that fact. Dot was hugged goodbye and cried on just a little - not enough to ruin makeup. God forbid she should lose her face. And she's stumbled into and then out of the taxi, first in at the club and then out in front of Black Jack Davy's. She's not sobering up quite fast enough to be intelligent, is she? But at least she looks fabulous. Didn't everyone say so? Didn't everyone look, so...
     Into Davy's, then! "Once more into the breach, once more, scarlet seas incarnadine and all that rot," Fiona says conversationally to the taxi driver, tipping him lavishly and then swaying her hips as she turns to stride into Black Jack Davy's. There's a toss of her head - it's a weekend, it'll be crowded. She knows it, she doesn't care. She's higher than all of the kites of the Chinese emperor, and that's some considerable height indeed. She walks in as if expecting the music to stop and the crowd to turn and stare - celebrity in their midst, in fame or infamy alike - and she comes to a halt just inside the doorway as proudly as any peacock might as she casts her attention round the room. Of course, there's only one person she's looking for. Where the hell is he, anyway?

     It is a weekend night and it is, in fact, completely crammed. There's a band playing -- live music always pulls them in Thursday, Friday and Saturday -- but it's neither Davydd nor Rhodri. It's a younger Welsh band, fully modern without a violin to be found. Alright, there's one violin, but it's not being constantly played...
     The tables are full, the bar is pressed full, the waitresses are squeezing past the bodies and the litter of dead Irish and Welsh soldiers (beer bottles, not the men!) on every table and in every hand. The music is loud, but the crowd doesn't care. They're leaning in close, laughing, talking, it adds to the cacophony of a weekend night.
     As for the Master of Ceremonies?
     He's out from behind the bar tonight, the bar being "manned" by Llew and a woman named Cari, a bartender in training in the seventh pit of hell called a Friday night in Davy's. Kelly's doing the meet-and-greet with folks, dressed in his typical bar getup of jeans and a t-shirt he barely fits into with a stretched Black Jack Davy's logo on it, bruiser that he is. His whistle goes up as the door opens again. "Make way for entry and exit, folks, or I'll have the warden so far up my arse that I'll be smelling brill creme," to steal a line.
     The crowd doesn't turn and stare, the crowd takes no notice of you at all. The music keeps playing, the lyrics in Welsh about love (what else). But there's one in the bar who does stop what he's doing. He blinks as you enter. He double-takes at the outfit. And then Kelly Morgan, Rhodri ap Davydd, smiles.
     "Have a good night folks," he says to the table he paused at, and gives a nod to others as he heads to the front door. "Bit of chaos tonight," he says in opening. "You couldn't have picked a better night for free drinks..." Kelly doesn't ask for permission. You are swallowed up in a hold and then lifted, carried like a princess over a puddle of mud... past the now wondering and curious patrons as you pass them by, borne by the mountain, to the bar.

     Can the scent of bluebells make their way past all the alcohol she's consumed tonight? If so, then she smells like a flowery distillery and that's no lie. Fiona ignores the music, watching you with a challenging, half-mad gleam in the grey and blue and green of her eyes. "I've been having free drinks." Quite a few of them, obviously. "You know, I should try to break your nose, too, but that would be cliche."
     You pick her up, and she blinks, comically surprised. Outrage considers making a showing; you can see her muddling over the idea of being angry, then shrugging it away with magnificent unconcern for the moment. "What," Fiona asks carefully, struggling to put the sentence into words in a row, "makes tonight such a good night for free drinks? Other than my outfit, of course. You should have seen Dot's tits. They're not real, of course."
     One hand slaps against your shoulder, and now she remembers her outrage. With tremendous dignity, Lady Fiona declares, "Put me down. After all, it's your fault I couldn't go upstairs. I'm not talking to you." She turns her face away with a hint of a pout and a definite sniff, trying to fold her arms over her chest as the bar approaches.

     It wasn't until he lifted you that he caught onto your already thorough inebriation. The bluebells are one thing, but you blasted to the nine winds (not only nine sheets to the wind but to winds from all directions real and imaginary) is quite another. "Ah, I'll pass on Dot, diolch," he notes as he sets you down. Well, you managed to get here under your own power so you can probably stand.
     But his hand is there to balance you just in case...
     "I'm sure it's all my fault," Kelly rolls out humorously, a hand to the ready, his other resting on the bar. "I'm a man, it's part of what I do." Take the blame. He smirks a bit. "I won't waste my stores on you, you're already pickled," he continues in Welsh. "But maybe you'd join me for a coffee, and you can regale me with the story of what I've done, then I'll nod and agree and we can have more coffee..."
     "And the outfit is nice," he says near your ear so you can hear him. "Perhaps my favorite... that you can wear in public..." He leans back, grinning. "So... coffee? Yes? Or at least let me catch up. Llew there's working with Cari," a nod to the bartending team. "It's her first night without training wheels..."

     She manages to stand in one place without the world turning too quickly for her to remain upright, arms both folded over her chest as she tips her head back to look up at you. "You don't know what you're missing. Of course, she stayed behind. SHE went upSTAIRS." There's almost a nursery rhyme lilt to her voice as she draws out the sentence, purple pout aimed at you accusingly.
     Fiona looks away again, swaying slightly on her feet like a reed in a wind. "No coffee, thank you," she says with exaggerated politeness. She's in Welsh as well, tit for tat, even if the pout's gone away. "I don't want coffee. I'd like - hmmm. A vodka stinger, please. You're a bartender, after all. Or at least, you look like one."
     A shiver runs through her at the murmur to her ear, and she turns around, bumping against you with her hip. If she were more sober, it might be flirting. Right now, it's fifty-fifty. "Oh, Cari, is it? Caaaaari. What's that short for?" Welcome to short attention span theatre, with your host, Lady Fiona Rachel Arundel. "A vodka stinger, on the rocks, please!" It's still in Welsh, and she leans forward, both hands splayed out on the bar, fingers devoid of rings, nails polished purple to match her lips.

     "A vodka stinger, Cari," Kelly says, leaning in against the bar. "Honey bee," a light stinger. Yes, he's cutting you off. "And tell her what Cari's short for why don't you, so I can have a peaceful night," he's laughing a little.
     "It's short for Caridwenia," she smirks, finishing a tap and reaching for a bottle of vodka. She's Welsh. She's a brunette. She looks about your age, probably a year or two older. "Vodka stinger," she says, drink up, quick as a whip.
     His arms fold against his chest as he peers at you. "She... oh Dot," he notes, picking up one of your many tangents. "Went ...upstairs? Where?" He glances around in a bit of horror to think she might have gone upstairs to his own place.
     It takes him a minute or two (or three) to see the fingers devoid of rings, not a bauble to be found. "Shite," he murmurs. "And an Irish whiskey to go," Kelly says to Cari. "The booze is better upstairs. Come on. And... remember... I'll carry you kicking and screaming if I have to. Makes no difference to me. I like a woman what wiggles..."

     Fiona scowls at you. She's just aware enough, dim though the light over the porch is right now, that you're cutting her off. "If you don't appreciate my custom," she says majestically, "I can go drink somewhere else. I'm not drunk!" Says the woman who has by now probably imbibed a quarter of her body-weight in booze.
     The bartender's words cut through her ire, however, and the piled-high blonde tresses sway as she swings her head around to face her. "Caridwenia. I can see why you shorten it - it'd take too long. 'Caridwenia, look out for that car!' You'd be under the front wheels and the back by the time they finished. I'm Fiona. Fee-oh-na. Except I used to be Drancy, but I changed. Fiona's a friendlier name, don't you think?" She takes hold of the drink with a satisfied nod, taking a swallow thirstily and not even noticing if there's alcohol in the glass at all or not.
     "Upstairs. Jane Austen. The leather was nice, I liked it. He had a voice like yours, except he was French. You weren't there, even though I looked for you." Fiona sounds slightly cross as she has to make explanations. Isn't it perfectly obvious? Didn't she say where she was? She finishes the drink in long, thirsty swallows, tipping her head back with her eyes closed as she does so, then sets the glass down with an air of finality. "Fine, we can go upstairs. But after we go upstairs, I'm going home. My feet are killing me." She turns with sudden savageness, prodding a finger into your chest as she glowers at the area around your collarbone. "I can WALK on my OWN." She uses your chest to push off from, stumbling at first and then regaining her balance, stalking towards the stairs in the back. If she were a cat, her tail would be thrashing from side to side...

     Kelly exchanges a look with his bartenders. A look that consists of widened eyes, a great exhalation and a shake of his head. "I'll be out for the night. But if you need me, call me as always. Night, Petey," he says to a neighboring patron.
     "You'll have your hands full with that one I can tell you, Kelly," the older man rolls out in his south-end accent, a cab driver by trade, voice rough with so many cigarettes. "Good luck, my son..."
     "Diolch, Petey..." Kelly chuckles, heading out with a clap of his hand on the man's back.
     He's a few minutes after you out the back, his eyes going up to find whether you've made it up the stairs in one piece. Or not. "I appreciate you," he says, his guise unchanged -- at least until he gets into his own space, "...and I insist on you having a drink with me, even if it's gingerale instead of Guinness, girl..." Talk about alliteration.
     "Now," he comes up behind you on the stair, "... it's a pity I decided to work tonight, innit. I could have been upstairs at Betty's, waiting for you to come up for me. But look at this happenstance, for you're going upstairs now, aren't you. And you're going upstairs with me."
     Maybe Fate has her own way of seeing to things...

     She's only about a third of the way up the stairs, clinging to the railing and leaning over it with a forlorn expression. Maybe this is why she couldn't go with the masked Parisian; masks aren't for sustaining. She has the look of a broken doll, going hand over hand as she pulls herself along the rungs. "It doesn't matter if you appreciate me or not."
     Fiona pulls herself upright, standing there slightly on tiptoe and turning her head to look down to you as you approach, both her hands resting on top of the railing now, perched there as she turns just her face. "Doesn't matter that you weren't there. I didn't go upstairs. Couldn't. I'm not put together like that."
     She turns her face away again, looking up to the top of the stairs as if expecting to see someone approaching from that direction as well. "I wanted to. But everything reminded me of you or of him and I couldn't. And if you were up there I didn't want to see you." If you were up there, after all, it wouldn't be because you were waiting for her...
     She starts pulling her way along the steps again, shaking her head a little bit. "You said you wanted to have a drink with me. Fine, we can go upstairs and have a drink," Fiona says softly, "but that's it. You weren't - you don't know what I kept seeing." How does one argue with someone this drunk? She's as stubborn as ever, for all the drinking. She isn't even looking at you...

     "I know you're not," he says it quietly. No, tonight's not the night to pester, steal, take, tease, tempt, trick or anything else starting with a 't' apparently. "And you're right, darlin'... I don't know what you're seeing. Though I'll take a wild stab and say it's at least double of whatever it is," a mutter as he comes to your side, an arm given in assistance. The top of the stairs straight ahead. Good thing they're not bendy, wot? A person could get dizzy on a bendy staircase.
     "Well, it might not matter to you, but it matters to me. But you know that," he softly chides himself and you both. And soon enough you're at the top of the stair and he's with you, unlocking the door. "After you," he says, throwing the door back with a sigh. "I'll make us a couple of martinis then," drinks to be sipped. You could use the time to sober up. Every minute he can spare you.
     He waits at the door, holding it open for you to enter. As he's in his doorway, the 'Kelly' aspect dissolves, and it's Rhodri there with his scarlet-auburn hair and his youthful face. He's man enough to let his affection and concern show, as well as a smirk for your state. "When you tie one on, you don't skimp on the ropes." Course you know he likes that...

     She sighs and leans in against you, allowing you to help her the rest of the way up the stairs. At the rate she's going, she might get to the top third and then give up, sleeping on the stairs - this is faster. "I had Dot meet me," Fiona mutters into your shoulder, eyes half-closing against the blur of honey and liqueur and everything else besides. "Told her to call you if I did anything really stupid. I'm not brave enough to do anything that stupid, though. She's still back there," a hand flies outwards, indicating somewhere out in the wilds of London, "probably in Sense and Sensibility, getting shagged rotten."
     You unlock the door, you hold it open for her, and changeable as she is, she changes her mind. You knew she would be contrary even when it wasn't convenient, didn't you? "Something mild. I don't want to sick up all over your lovely leather furniture." Fiona weaves her way into the flat and straight towards the living room. "My rump needs to be on leather right now, before I fall down, down, down," she chants, planting herself on the cushion and sliding about so that her legs are along the back of it, shoulders wedged in against the arm and the back of her head on the armrest. "That's maybe my problem. I like leather."
     You change, and she's turned towards you just in time to watch, eyes widening in obvious appreciation. She liked you fine as Kelly, but oh, as Rhodri, she likes you too much. Just like her liking leather - too much. "One of them, he had a whip," Fiona explains unnecessarily and perhaps incoherently. "And he made me think of hounds, and that made me think of you. I never did figure out if he was more the sort to use the whip or if it was there for other people to use. I'm not good with weapons - if it isn't me, it's not something I like. I can bite and kick and scratch, but that's all. And the other - he had leather. And a mask. And I thought he might be you, until he talked. I'm talking too much, aren't I? But he didn't have what I was looking for behind his mask. Anyway, noone offered to show me Crime and Punishment. I think I was disappointed, but maybe I was relieved. Can you be both at the same time?"
     She lets the words spill out, watching you through that crystalline clarity that is inebriation, where things may be said with truth and without consequences. "Come here," Fiona orders, still sprawled on your couch. "Talk to me, Rhodri. Tell me things..."

     "It is possible to be both relieved and disappointed," Rhodri says, closing and locking the door, his head craning to see that you've made it to his leather sofa in one piece. And that goes for the coffee table as well. He listens to your ramblings. Hounds and whips and leather. He sits upon the edge of the sofa.
     The drink can wait a while...
     Or at least until you demand it...
     "I can tell you all manners of things," his hand moves softly against the side of your face and your hair. "What sort of things are you most wanting to hear, hmm?" No ring on your finger, no reason not to kiss you. It's the surest way to getting drunk, at any rate. He bends and kisses you gently. "I'll start by saying that I'm ...happy to see you, even if you are sauced," his mouth twists. "You do look beautiful. I'm sure you were a hit at Betty's. I don't think you should go there without a proper escort," meaning him, naturally. "Dot doesn't sound like much of a guardian..."
     He doesn't mention the reason for your inebriation. Your finger's missing a ring. Question is: was it your choice or his? Not that it matters. But what does it mean? "How about a light ale," he suggests softly. "That's about as mild as I've got apart from water. And I'm not worried about my leather sofa. I can buy another one if you soil it beyond repair or reckoning," a short chuckle. "You lie there, hmm?" Another bend and a kiss. "I will get you a drink..."

     The coffee table was missed by miracle more than meaning, for she's finally hit the point where her head's spinning so much it may as well fly off to land at your feet with a bounce and a roll. You come over and you touch her face, and there's a sigh for the touch; her hand comes up to cover yours, fingers as ringless as they were downstairs.
     "Beast," Fiona mutters. "Brute. Happy to see me. You're Welsh, not English - none of that ridiculous understatement. If you're only happy to see me, I may as well leave and find someone who'll be more." As a tree falls and doesn't get up, neither does she. She isn't sleepy - but oh, she's gloriously drunk. Kisses do nothing to stop that, though her mouth is soft under yours, soft and pliant without bite or fight.
     "Why shouldn't I go there by myself if I don't want to? If I want to, I mean - or. I forget." Now she struggles to sit up, but she's intercepted by another kiss; she falls back against the leather, dangling with stockings showing and now the frilly edges of her knickers as the velvet rolls up with her squirming. Her gesture to tug the velvet back down is purely habitual, no real thought given to the movement at all.
     "Fine, just bring me whatever," Fiona capitulates, rolling her eyes and looking up. "Your ceiling still needs more stars, Rhodri. Rrrrrhodrrrri - I bet you love Spanish women. They'd roll your r's, wouldn't they? Especially if you got as drunk as I am now, they would. You'd be lucky to have anything left. I feel poetry coming on."

     "I like them meadowsweet," he mentions, as if in reminder, "...with nettles at the edges, smelling of wildflowers and prone to emotional extremes," he chuckles. "I was never into spanish women, though Welsh women can trill their R's as well. I bet you can. I remember how your tongue can move."
     His eyes catch sight of frilliness and he can't help it, he looks. "I said happy. You can insert other words that begin with 'h'..." Rhodri mutters. A look at you, the warmth of his hand to your thigh, he is rising after a moment and heading to the nearby kitchen to get the ale in question. He smiles at the notion of poetry. "I have that effect on women, I hear." The refrigerator opens and he takes out two cans of Boddingtons. A touch of honey.
     "Hmm... a ceiling should have a mural. Why don't you make one while you're lying there," he suggests, cans popping open. "You're the magician." Then he laughs and goes wide-eyed. "On second thought, don't. I want to keep my roof...it'd be a bitch to explain it to my insurance agent."

     "Horrified?" Fiona smiles sweetly at you as your hand slides to her thigh, then struggles to sit up as you walk away. "My head hurts. It's too heavy." No - not her brain, but her hair. She draws the combs out, letting the long locks tumble free down about her shoulders in a wilting cascade of pale heart of oak silk. "Mmm... magic."
     That can't be a good sign. There's a sound as of porridge boiling, a faint glow of light that then dims. She sits upright on the couch, leaning forward with something cupped between her hands - something small, tiny even, but intense and radiant. She touches a fingertip to it, then looks up to your ceiling - is your insurance agent about to have cardiac arrest? "Stars," Fiona declares, "are what's called for. Not suns or moons. Neither of you really need that much light. You wouldn't want it. You're a thief and a highwayman and you're not wearing /nearly/ enough leather and you haven't got handcuffs or anything, but it's stars for you." She gestures, and the speck of light flies upwards to hover a few inches below the ceiling, then trembles and explodes with a briefly brilliant light.
     It diminishes almost immediately. The roof is still on. You got lucky...
     However, the paintjob's changed. You now have a ceiling which is dark purple, almost midnight-coloured. Everywhere there hover tiny brilliant speckles, not actually on the paint but hovering against it. Stars...
     "I'm not sure if I like it," Fiona says with a thoughtful, puzzled frown, eyebrows knitting together. "It's not really right for London. I ... dear god, I am drunk. Maybe you're right about that coffee." She leans forward over her knees, peering at the laces of her boots. "How did I get into this mess?"

     He sets the ale down in front of you. "Well, I wasn't expecting to entertain this evening. Kelly isn't really the leather type," Rhodri drolls out, taking a swallow of his own beer and then sets the can on the table (on the coaster even). He takes a seat next to you on the sofa and exhales, leaning against you -- not enough to knock you over (even though you're drunk) -- but you can certainly feel him. He's everywhere.
     Rhodri glances up to the painted skyscape. "Hmmms... it is a bit violet. How about ... something like this..." Leaning back on the sofa, he looks up to the ceiling as it turns to actual night sky, though the roof is still intact. The starlight pocks the otherwise dark room, lit only by the cabinet lights in the kitchen. "I like the evening," he notes. "Midnight is my favorite hour. It's the perfect hour. Apart from the hour when the king's carriages would ferry in the taxes from the countryside."
     Turning his head against the cushion, Rhodri looks to you, his hand moving over your hair, twirling strands of it around his fingers. He tugs on the strands of your hair, tugging you toward him, to lie back upon him. "I'll make coffee in a few minutes," he murmurs. "But...first things first..." You in my arms.

     "I like Kelly." Fiona admits it easily enough, drunk as she is. She ignores the ale, leaning into your lean. You're heavier and warmer and just overall more solid, and she has a draw to that solidity. "I always did. He was just always behind the bar and out of the way, and of course ancient." To a twenty year old, anyway.
     She looks up as the light changes, looks to the suddenly visible sky with an echoing sigh. "I've never been much of a morning person. I got into the music scene young," as if she's old, so old now, "and it just ... it fit. Daylight's alright, but it's night when I really feel like I can be at all comfortable in my skin." Fiona looks down at her hands in her lap, and at the bareness of them. It hurts to think, so she looks at you instead, lips framing a question that never gets vocalized.
     You pull her close and she sighs again, looking for a moment at how her hair is wound around your fingers. For now she doesn't struggle, though there's an element of her which feels she should - for form's sake, you know. Must obey the formalities. But instead, she lies back, letting darkened eyelids close as you wound around her. "What are you doing," Fiona murmurs, half to you, half to herself. "What's going through your mind, Rhodri? Why am I here? Why did you come up here with me..."

     An arm goes around you. His other twines the hair around his finger, winding and unwinding, enjoying the tangle, the golden snare of it. A snare that he does not wish to escape. "I'm being the man who loves you," he murmurs. His mouth presses at your oaken hair. "What's going through my mind is that you are here... that you are very drunk," his hand brushes your hair back, "... that you are missing a bauble. But that's not why I brought you here. I brought you here to give you shelter, so you could sleep it off, give you a shoulder if you wanted to cry, whatever else you wanted..."
     His hand cups your face and chin, tilting it up to meet his mouth. "I'm also kissing you," Rhodri says at your mouth. "Even though you're drunk." He grins in a slant. "Because I'm a thief and it's what we do. We take things we shouldn't and kiss girls when they're drunk. Preferably when we get them drunk," he teases.
     "Seriously," Rhodri whispers, "... I brought you here to... sober up and to... well... if you were sober I would have encouraged you to talk about the Thing We're Not Discussing, but under the circumstances, it's probably better that we don't just now."
     He's noticed the ring...

     "I'm drunker than I've ever been since after France," Fiona admits, eyes staying closed as she leans up against you. "I'm starting to sober up a little. I think doing that - whatever I did - to your ceiling burned off some of the alcohol. Which makes no logical sense, so it has to be magic." She gives in to another sigh, opening her eyes as you kiss her, looking up at you.
     "You're very sweet, you know." Her voice wobbles a little bit, and she turns around in your arms, winding herself up against you. "I'm not that sober yet. And I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to cry about it - I've done loads of crying already, and it hurts, but crying isn't going to make it stop hurting. So what's the use of tears? The mathematical sum of hurt plus tears does not equal to diminished hurt, and besides, it gets into all sorts of tricky questions. My life isn't ever going to get any simpler than it is right now, Rhodri."
     Carefully, she frees her hair from your fingers, not to pull away but so as not to inadvertently scalp herself as she sits up to press her lips gently to your cheek. She's being so very gentle - it's almost unnatural, isn't it? What does this signify, what portent is this? "Let's talk about things... but not about that Thing. Talk to me," Fiona commands. "You're here, I'm here... you can think of something to say which isn't about that - missing thing, can't you? Ask me anything, just not that, not right now..."

     He doesn't think of portents now, though it is peculiar, but like you he is choosing not to give thought to that which he might not want to consider. "I'm not sweet," Rhodri counters. "Not at all, but I have my compassionate moments," many in fact. "Along with my ulterior motives. I am never one to discourage what Fate seems to drop in my lap." Pause. "Literally."
     His hand untangles from your hair as you wish it, both arms surrounding you, squeezing. Turning, his mouth finds your neck and ear. "You fit well," he notes. "Like you belong here. I like the feel of you here, Fiona." Rhodri closes his eyes and takes a breath.
     "A simple life. I'm not sure ...one...that I know what that would be... or, two, that it would be worth knowing. Simple is boring. I would rather our complexity than anyone else's simplicity." Another squeeze of thick arms. "Why don't we ask one another questions, it will be easier that way. Ask me one thing about me you would most like to know...and then... I will ask you something about you that I want to know."

     "...Okay." Two and two keeps adding up to three, tonight. Fiona shifts position in your lap, rearranging one booted thigh. It's a picture out of a porn shoot right now, isn't it? The way she is on your lap. The size and colour of you. The way she's dressed. The chemistry is all there, even if put on hold, waiting for the click and whirr of the cameras to roll.
     "Simple isn't very interesting." Fiona shrugs, lowering a hand to pick absently at the knots that hold her boot-laces tied closed. "I have to admit it. I don't want things to be interesting. I enjoy fighting too much. Why? I don't know why, it's just the way it is, the way I am." The knot comes undone slowly, the cord pulling through its loop and then falling emptily to a crooked line.
     "I've just got to think of something to ask." She laughs a little at that. Carte blanche you give her, and now she has no idea what to do with it. She loosens the lacing, peeling the leather portions away bit by bit, wiggling her toes until she can feel them start to have some give. "I suppose - are you content, just tending bar and going to the clubs? It seems pretty tame, after your wild youth spent as the Black Jack. Not very dangerous..."

     Yes, the chemistry is there. It pops on the air. It makes magic where there was once only ordinary space. And whatever space there was between you is gone. Not even clothes separate. Skin knows skin; magic knows magic. And there is a reaction.
     "I like to travel without being chased," he tilts his head to look at you, to watch you unlace your boots. Head still tilted, he looks at you, at your clothing, his hands landing on the bodice, at your waist. "It's a nice change from my ...wild youth, as you put it. But... in many ways... I have been waiting, I think. It has been hard to ...find my niche after the second world war. I opened the pub, and I use it to stage my various inspirations. But you know, with a long lifetime, sometimes there are decades when you are not ravaging the countryside."
     "And I no longer visit the clubs," he says against your ear. "That ended with the night I told you I loved you. You wouldn't have found me in Betty's Boobs...I would not have been there without you. To answer your question, I think I am content to wait, patient to wait, for the next Opportune Moment. Perhaps it will be magical, perhaps not. Time will bear it out..."
     "Now... my turn for you..." Fingers move over the laces of the bodice. Those could be gone in three tugs if he wanted them to. "You were working for the Magazine, then the television show. You have talked about music. What is your greatest passion? What turns you on... philosophically...I know about the other. Or are we both in a ...wandering way? Our steps joined," the magic crackles again, "...but not upon a definite path. It is okay if you have no answer to this question. Maybe that is what you need to discover..."
     The stars twinkle over head, and he hums a song near your ear, spontaneous music that as of yet has no lyric...

     One set of toes rests against the opposite heel, working the boot further loose, hands rolling at the top of the leather until she can slide her leg free of it. The cloched stockings are still there, shimmering and glittering as if in echo to the starlit sky overhead. "Pity you weren't there," Fiona murmurs as she picks at the knot of the other boot. "But you shouldn't have been there, so - it worked out. I'm not making much sense, I know."
     She glances down, watching your fingers move over the bodice, half holding her breath as she waits to see what you will do. "I don't have an answer," Fiona admits, giving a little shiver for the question and for the song. "I've always felt drawn to music, but I don't have any real aim. It frustrates me, because it makes me feel so - passionless. I take aim at things and I get a running start and I hope my momentum will see me through, but it doesn't. It never does. I just keep looking for answers and I never seem to find the ones I'm looking for."
     She wiggles her way free of the other boot, both of them now lying empty and fallen into crumpled heaps on the floor next to the couch. "Tonight was educational, in a way. I just hope I let myself remember things openly tomorrow. I don't usually remember these sorts of things. So ... I guess it's my turn again." Fiona alters position again, moving so that she's not quite astride your lap anymore, curling forward with knees bent so that she can put a palm over your heart, as if to feel for the beat of it. "I'll ask you an easy one, since I don't really know what to ask. What's in Crime and Punishment? We didn't go through there, I don't think - or if we did, it was a pretty brief tour. The name is ... suggestive," warmth rushes into her face, "but seeing as Sense and Sensibility doesn't really convey what's in there..."

     "It's the bondage room for inquiring minds and bodies. Easy answer." He smiles as you reposition. His arms still around you but one more so than the other. Rhodri bends his head, brushing a kiss against your forehead. "It's what Phantasmagoria used to be before the revamp a few years back, but not as hardcore as the real leather bars and dungeons and the like. It's all gloss, high-end. Though Betty would hate to hear me say it..."
     Apparently he was once a regular...
     "You'll find your aim and so will I," he assures. "My turn again, since you lobbed a slow ball at me..." a hand gives a tickle to your waist. "Your favorite poet...and how he or she makes you feel, what poem is your favorite. Perhaps you think it a strange question but it not only tells me more about what and how you think, but what and how you feel... which is as, if not more, important..."
     His finger taps your temple. "And a follow up question: Would you rather be tied with leather or with silk?"

     "No fair, two questions," Fiona mutters, but the colour has gone high in her face again. She settles in against you again, a sigh given for a kiss. "Betty seems nice. She notices me more than I expect to be noticed - she liked the pink number and recognized me under my current getup. I was a little surprised by that. Oh, and she gave me free drinks."
     There's a logical explanation for it, of course - pretty boys and girls help bring in more paying customers. But Fiona either doesn't believe that's the answer, or isn't thinking along those lines. "Poetry... there's a hard question to answer. I don't have any one single favourite. Some poems work better for aloud, some better for just reading. There's some poems which aren't worth much, in my opinion, but you'll find lines which have such images, I can't resist - it's like eating takeaway curry instead of at Pashmina's, but every now and again - you get lucky."
     She rests a hand carelessly along your cheek, gaze introspective, picking at samples to present to you from her memory. "Pushkin's a bit stilted, maybe if I knew Russian I'd like him in total more - but as it is, even in translation, there's these pieces, fragments which are like coloured glass on the beach. Just because you find out they're glass and not gems doesn't make them less beautiful. 'A flower - shriveled, bare of fragrance, Forgotten on a page - I see, And instantly my soul awakens, Filled with an aimless reverie'; T.S. Eliot can be much the same way. You can't read too much of their stuff at once. 'When the familiar is suddenly strange Or the well known is what we have yet to learn, And two worlds meet, and intersect, and change'..."
     She smiles, suddenly self-conscious, tilting her face down to look at the space between you and her, small as it is. "Tennyson's Lady of Shalott is a favourite," Fiona admits. "If I listen, out loud or silently, to the cadence of it - it's the sound as much as the images. I never much cared for the ending, though - I don't think I relate very well to just quietly giving up and dying, giving in to a curse or whatever. I like Emily Dickinson too, though I try not to read her too often. Too depressing, too girly. But she had some definite insights. 'Delight becomes pictorial When viewed through pain, -- More fair because impossible That any gain.' And now I'm running on at the mouth too much."
     The caress of your cheek shifts away, her hand falling to your shoulder as she squirms a little. She's postponed answering the second question by concentrating on the first. "I don't know. I've only been tied up with silk. I..." It's only all of the alcohol, all of the events of the night, her current open state combining to give you honest answer at all, and even so Fiona's struggling with it, turning her head away with a jerk. "I like the idea of both. I like a lot of ideas. I just never thought about them all that much before. And since," she hastens to add, "you asked me two, it's most definitely my turn now. What instrument do you like to play the most, more than any other - and why?"

     "We have some experimentation to do, it seems," he bends his head, he leaves a kiss behind. He plucks it from you, plucks it and toys with it. "I have all manners of ideas when it comes to that." And the face erupts with a smile, a smile that conquers the whole of his expression, claims it for its own, but then gives it to you. "Now those will be fun questions to answer..."
     He considers your answers to his question and gives you his answer for it in reply. "I like unnamed ballads. Those that can be attributed to no one but belong to the world at large. They are free things, such lyrics." His eyes drift to the magical sky. "It's midnight," he whispers. "You can tell it by the station of the stars. I will show you how sometime..."
     But you have asked him a question. You should really get to ask him another question for the two or three answers he's given. "I play the guitar most frequently. I have played the harp, the viola. But my favorite instrument to play is the violin. It was the first instrument I ever learned. I tucked it beneath my chin and made horrible sounds with it. But then, one night it sang for me. I would play it at night beneath the moon, at thief campfires, out in the wilderness. It's how Black Jack Davy became Gypsy Davy. For the song that would come from the forest at the rising of the moon. It brings me the most solace of any instrument. It can ring with great passion, it can sound with great sorrow. It can give sound to human emotion more than any other..."
     His hand traces over your side, your arm, through your hair and back down, wandering in haphazard motions, lightly. "I like the musicality of Shallott, but I've always found it difficult to read. I think it is too personal. Things of Avalon and Camelot tend to be too personal for me to handle. You have very modern taste in poetry. I suppose I should not be surprised. I enjoy Eliot, even sometimes in spite of myself. But it is a very interesting selection."
     Rhodri takes a moment to kick off his own shoes, prying each one off, heel-toe, and letting it drop on the floor. "You should really ask me another question, as I got an extra one in," he smiles to you, tipping his head to look at you. "But I will sneak another one in, because I am like that. Are you going to stay in London?"

     Experimentation. She shivers slightly, sitting still under your kiss and blinks at your smile, dazzled by it a bit. "You haven't asked me anything terribly pressing so far," she retorts with a slight toss of her head. "So much for the relentless hunter." But she can appreciate your answer as well, nodding slowly, thinking to songs she's heard, poems she's read.
     "Did you expect me to really be anything other than modern?" Fiona's smile is almost whimsical for a moment, though with an underlying sadness to it, and she turns her face upwards, looking at the sky, at the wandering stars. "There's a lot of distance between me and the past. I can appreciate it - but not in the same way that you do, I think. And I'd like you to show me. I can't pick out more than a couple of constellations at best."
     She falls silent, then turns almost suddenly to look at you, looking you up and down, her hand moving to catch at yours and squeeze it. "You need to play the violin for me sometime, then. Not just play it, but play it for me." It is a royal command. The chin lifts peremptorily, she looks down her nose, and her lips firm and she gives a little nod. Yes. You must. "There are other poems, other poets that I like. It's ... like picking out a single food. I like my food too much to limit myself."
     Still holding onto your hand, Fiona turns her head to look down at herself, at the almost random collection of garments, and she makes a small face. Not dissatisfied enough to change it, but the outfit seems suddenly wrong - she's in the wrong costume for the scene. "Yes," she says slowly, "I think I will be staying in London. I haven't figured out any details yet. I'm going to have to get rid of my stuff, at this rate - I had everything shipped out to Powis, and now I'm moving back, and it's really inconvenient. I should just start traveling light, get rid of all of the excess. I'm trying," she excuses herself, "to think of a question. Or ... to work up the nerve to ask a harder question. I'm not so drunk as I was, you know."
     Now she leans in and up against you to plant a kiss on your cheek - gentle again, like the stirring of a breeze. "Why is it so much easier for you - being able to step back, turn away from things? You're male, and I figure that's part of it, but..." Fiona shakes her head in frustration, her cheek whispering against yours as she sits back to look at you. One hand plucks at the shirt you wear, and she scowls. "Everything I feel right now, I feel so strongly. I'm afraid to ask you half of what I want to ask, because - I don't even know why because. I know you wouldn't mind. I know you wouldn't laugh at me. But I'm afraid anyway. And I don't understand it." She pounds a fist lightly against your chest, watching it bounce off. "Are you vulnerable at all? What should I ask you? If I... ask you..."
     Fear or shyness makes her hesitate, binding her tongue, and she sits there, folding her arms over her chest in order to scowl at you. For good measure, she kicks your ankle with one stockinged foot as if in defiance of her own hesitations.

     "There's nothing you need fear to ask me," his hand rests on your hair lightly. "I will answer anything you wish to know. Knowledge... is nothing to run from. And I am vulnerable, remember? It's when I told you that I had feelings for you, and that my vulnerability was my heart. Hmm?" Yes, you remember that conversation, surely. "Look at you, shielding yourself," his leg shifts beneath you, his own nudge returning in reply for your own. "You do not need to," he whispers. "I told you that I am your shield..."
     He is quiet for a time. When he speaks, though it is softly borne, his voice comes with a suddenness. "There's no need to press you, besides... I never take advantage of inebriated ladies." Rhodri has to grin at his own lie. "Not of their minds and spirits at any rate," he offers in soft counter. "And I am glad you are staying in London. I happen to have two rooms. One will be yours to do with as you please. I insist. And I will help you move." These things are spoken as if they are to be so, no argument, no debate brooked...
     He rests his head upon your own, closing his eyes for a moment. "I have a question for you: what do you most fear asking me?" He smiles a little in the darkness, his hand lowering from your hair. "Ask me, Fiona..." And his hand steals its way along your waist again.

     "If I'm living with you, you know it's only a matter of time before I'm in your room and there won't be any separation. Things will run together and that'll be that." Fiona makes the observation without any real starch to her voice; more as if she is pointing out that she knows full well the back door is unlocked. As she speaks, her hands lift together to your chest, fisted against your shirt.
     "It's hard for me to really believe that you're vulnerable to me. I don't know why." She closes her eyes in a blink, reopens them, closes them again and leaves them closed, expression demure without effort. "It isn't that I think you're lying; I think it's more that it's hard for me to believe that anything I could do could hurt you. You're such a casual rogue - you want what you want, but you shrug so easily. I'm back to not making sense, I think. And," one eye opens, "I'm not drunk anymore. Maybe you hadn't noticed?"
     Your hand skins down from her hair, you ask your question, and she sighs, breath catching a little as she glances up to your face as if measuring your features by eye - here is the nose, just so far below the eye sockets, and here is the mouth and how wide it spreads when you smile, and so forth. "I ... don't know. There's several things which move in me, and I don't know which is most powerful. I can't even put words to some of them, though you're right that I'm afraid." Fiona scowls for a moment, then turns in towards you, pressing her face in against the broad expanse of your chest. "I don't like being this way. But..."
     She's caught on the prongs of your question, squirming inside her own skin. She isn't fit to lie, and she can't not answer. "Sometimes," Fiona speaks slowly, quietly, words muffled by your shirt, "I think I do the things I do because I'm trying to - I'm not sure how to word this, but not hurt myself, exactly. In a way it is just that, though. Pay penance. I'm not Catholic. It isn't that. But - I can feel it, and you pull that part of me sometimes, and... I don't know how to phrase it as a question. I don't understand it well enough." The color's high in her face again as she pulls away, frame stiffened and going rigid in her awkwardness, and she twists to look away. "Am I making any sense at all?"

     "The shrug comes from years of practice trying not to be affected by everything," he admits it quietly, tilting his head to look at you. "It only looks easy. But ...yes... I am vulnerable to the people I love. I'm emotional. When I love, I love deeply. It is not that I expect you to do harm to me, nor would it be that you would hurt me irrevocably. It means that I... have opened the whole space of my heart to you. I have offered it up. For your part, you may take it or leave it in the end..."
     He grins, "Are you going to break my heart?" He chuckles a little. "That's not a fair question, I retract it. A loaded question like a notched bow, aye? Hmm... I think I know what you mean," his expression turns thoughtful, eyes narrowing. It is a sharp look suddenly, the sharp look of an archer taking aim, of a thief considering his mark. "Something of a martyr complex. It probably came from not feeling as if you were enough or doing enough... and now that you have power, you feel you must pay for it somehow. It is hard for you to be comfortable. That is why it is hard for you to be vulnerable." He pauses, cutting an emerald glance to you and a quick smile. "Let me know when I can stop..."
     "Fear is natural," Rhodri murmurs against your forehead, his hand in your hair tipping your head back for another kiss. "And now that you are not drunk..." The kiss is not polite, not gentle, not brief. It parts with a tug of his teeth at your lower lip, making it blush, causing a little sting, a sting that he suckles away. "Fear can be fun," he notes. "And great things can come from it. Bravery, for starters..."

     Despite her being turned away, she is listening; you can almost see her ears grow points and prick in your direction. For all her agonies of decision (and she is not undecided, even if afraid), she is attending to your words as closely as if she were in a lecture hall. Closer - no teacher ever received this sort of attentiveness.
     "I'm not comfortable," Fiona sighs, leaning back into you as if relenting. "I'm not good at it. I wish I knew how to relax, but - well, I don't, and while I enjoy relaxing sometimes, I think I must like being wound so tight or I wouldn't do it, would I?" Your look makes her blink again, but not draw away, and she mutters, "But I am vulnerable. Just ... not where anyone sees it."
     You tug her head back, and she looks at you, eyes murky with greys and blues. There's a sharp little gasp for the kiss, cut off by the pressure of your mouth, your teeth, pulse speeding with a jump. Her lips stay parted even after the kiss as she looks at you with eyes half-closed. "I want things to hurt, sometimes," Fiona says steadily, colour not only in her lips but in her cheeks and extending downwards. She tugs at your shirt again, drawing her fingernails down into it. "I'm afraid of it - but it doesn't stop me from wanting it. It's why I take some of the chances I do. I keep trying to lose control, but I can't ever actually let myself do so. Do you think I'm going to break your heart?"

     The smile erupts again, as sudden and comet-like as That Other, only with a smoothness that Davydd himself lacks. There is a darkness to it, or perhaps it is the quality of smoothness itself that makes it seem so. "Probably. But I love you for that as well. Maybe I also want things to hurt." Rhodri's smile turns to a smirk. "I know that's what it is. I like the nail and the bite. The slice and whirr of bullets and arrows. And loving you..."
     You are dangerous, too. Do you not see it?
     Rhodri leans back, allowing just enough separation to pull off the shirt. "Do it again," he says, the hounds bounding after stags and hare, lapwings and starlings and unicorns, over chest and shoulders and arms.

     She looks up at you as you smile, and something in your smile twists in her stomach, showing in her eyes as plainly as if she spoke of it. Plainer; her speech has a tendency to be verbose and at times incoherent. "I find myself wondering what would have happened, if I'd met you three hundred years ago," Fiona half-whispers, a reluctant smile tugging up the corners of her mouth. She lowers her attention from your face to your chest, watching the shirt come off, watching the pictures in motion across your chest.
     "You are ..." She shakes her head, at a loss for words for a moment, leaning in to touch a fingertip to a unicorn, watching it course against her and away. "Bastard," Fiona murmurs, and now she does drag her nails down along your skin again, lightly. "I don't want to break your heart, Rhodri." She sighs. "Even your name gets to me, a little. I have ideas of what I want. It's not polite, though. It's not ladylike - well, except that I suppose it could be. I don't know." She drags her palms up along your chest with a shiver, up to your shoulders. She braces herself there, then moves to rise to her feet.
     "Tell me what you're thinking - and then maybe I'll find words for you. I'm afraid of these moments," Fiona murmurs, leaning forward over you. "I'm afraid of what I might say, more than even of what you might do. Things seem too easy at moments like this."

     "Let's see... three-hundred years ago..." He looks skyward (and it really is skyward, with the starscape still sparkling above). "Where was I... 1714... " Green eyes return to you and he grins. "If you had been in one of the carriages... jewels sparkling around your throat," he leans in, "... a ruby too heavy for you but perfect for me resting precariously upon the rise of a corseted bosom... or maybe in an inn, a girl bearing me drinks as I sat in the back playing cards, and cheating better than the other cheats who sat at my table. The same waiting girl I would have had heels-up in the alley. If you have met me three-hundred years ago... I'd like to see you in those clothes..."
     Your hands on his shoulders, Rhodri turns to look at you as you start to rise, scarlet eyebrows quirking upward to accompany his wandering smile. "All of these words you are keeping secret, these questions you will not say, these words that frighten you... they are only words..." And he rises with you.
     "What you want... darling... is what you want. Lady, queen, scullery maid... it makes no difference. What you want... is what you want. Isn't that the point of Davy's ballad?" And soon you are in his arms again -- lifted off and stolen quite away -- and he swings you under the stars and out of the way of the coffee table.
     You know the destination... but do you know the purpose?
     "I am thinking that you need a change of scenery. To look at the world in a new way. To have these constraints to your speech removed... to speak freely and pour out your heart on the ground..."

     "Waiting girl. You know, of the various jobs I've had, I've never really done menial labour except voluntarily." Fiona snorts a little, though the images nonetheless sink beneath her skin, glimmering behind the surface of her eyes. "You have the most curious expressions, you know," she murmurs as you rise with her, one fingertip lifting to trace the corners of your mouth. "I don't know what to make of your smile. You and your father are the only people I've ever met to make me feel so much like this. It's such a strange feeling, this..."
     You swing her in your arms, and there is no fight for it for the moment. Instead, she rests her cheek on your shoulder, looking up at the stars with a moment of wistfulness paired with a faint smile. "Pity we'll never find out what would've happened. But time only goes in one direction - forward. Right? Though I suppose we could arrange for me to play dressup." Oh, twist her arm harder...
     You continue to move away, continue to speak, and she blinks at you with a hint of wariness, flavoured heavily with curiosity - she can't help it, it's the way she's made. "A change of scenery?", Fiona echos carefully. "How do you propose to unleash my tongue, then?"

     "By binding the rest of you..."
     He does not speak of his father, or of the smile they share. He may tell you the story of his name, he may even tell you more of Davydd, but not tonight, at least not immediately. This time is yours. And this time with you is his.
     The bedroom is as spotless as you recall, lived-in but tidy to a fault. He closes the door with a socked heel and continues not to the bed but to his closet. Balancing you in his arms, he looks to you and grins. "Open the door...I'll even let you pick your poison, so to speak..."
     When opened, the closet doors trip a light that illuminates his wardrobe on one side of the closet, colors to colors coordinated and shoes in a line on the floor, casual and dress. In the center of the closet, there is a black set of drawers, an antique desk now used for other purposes. "Top drawer," he murmurs.

     "You mean-" No, of course you mean that. Fiona goes as pink as a virgin at an orgy, not knowing which way to look. There is the usual urge to fight, to kick, bite and scratch, to claw her way free. Only...
     This time...
     She doesn't really have a reason to flee, does she?
     It creates a division within herself which formulates an indecision which holds her still in your arms. She glances round the bedroom as you carry her in, and she mutters, "Too much red." Too much, or not enough? Curiosity wins her over, and she does lean out to open the closet, glancing only briefly to your face. What an enigma you have proven yourself...
     "Clothes horse," Fiona accuses as she glances at the coordination of it all. Her gaze swings round though to the desk, as how could it not? Slowly, she reaches out a hand to slide open the drawer, as cautiously as if she expects to be bitten. Pandora, opening the box to see what lies inside. And she doesn't speak at all, now.

     The top drawer contains a selection of leathers, old and new, aged and unmarked alike. There is the slick patent leather, there is cowhide, staghide, doeskin, lambskin, calfskin. Leather so fine it melts against the skin. "I recommend lambskin or staghide," the first words he's spoken in as many minutes. "But the choice is yours," he smiles out.
     If you reach in, you will find that each strap has a different manner of buckling, various as the years they were collected are various. Some were once parts of saddle tack, bridles, stirrups stripped of their original purpose and put to new, and more exciting, use. The newer pieces were made for such purposes. They gain in functionality but always lose out in style.
     "That piece there," he nods toward a dark brown strip, "...was once a part of the Black Jack Davy's stirrup. It bore me up as I stood in the saddle to grab the branch of a tree in escape. It's grown soft with time," Rhodri whispers.

     She hides her face in your shoulder for a moment, then turns to look again, breathing grown quieter now, as if each breath is being held before being released. "You know me too well, don't you. Already. Even though it hasn't been that long." Oh, how she accuses you. She winds her arms around your neck for a moment, then releases, turning to the drawer again.
     One slim hand disappears into the drawer's confines as Fiona looks with not eyes alone but with touch, sensitive fingertips exploring the items but not lifting them - as if to lift one would be to make a choice which cannot be undone. "You've led an exciting life," she murmurs, whispering confidingly in answer to you - as if to speak up would be to risk discovery, to risk discovery to risk capture, to risk capture to risk losing all. "My life must seem pretty commonly dull in comparison."
     Lambskin tempts her; she brushes her palm against a piece of it several times, but ultimately she's drawn back to that dark brown strip of leather. "This holds the most connection to you," Fiona murmurs, glancing down at it, not looking at you at all now. "You know I can't pick anything else. It has to be this one..."

     "You'll need more than one," he notes. "Each one has a story. I'll even tell them to you tonight. Pick two for now. I may come back for more later." More? He takes the moment to kiss you. "I've only been paying attention, darling..." That's all it is, really. He has paid attention. "Maybe the dark there, that lambskin. It will be soft, and it's calling out to you..."
     "I suppose my life has some ring to it, it's easy to romanticize it. I'm guilty of it as well. But excitement is...what you make of it. From what I have heard from you and what I've gathered on my own, I wouldn't say your life's been dull. Biting trees, fairy kingdoms, a king, a prince, and a run-in with the Devil," he means William in that and not the actual devil you met.
     "Not bad, considering you're only twenty-three. Bit ahead of the curve, actually. When I was twenty-three, I was barely out of doing household chores and sleeping on the cold, hard ground."

     "You'll need more than one," he notes. "Each one has a story. I'll even tell them to you tonight. Pick two for now. I may come back for more later." More? He takes the moment to kiss you. "I've only been paying attention, darling..." That's all it is, really. He has paid attention. "Maybe the dark there, that lambskin. It will be soft, and it's calling out to you..."
     "I suppose my life has some ring to it, it's easy to romanticize it. I'm guilty of it as well. But excitement is...what you make of it. From what I have heard from you and what I've gathered on my own, I wouldn't say your life's been dull. Biting trees, fairy kingdoms, a king, a prince, and a run-in with the Devil," he means William in that and not the actual devil you met.
     "Not bad, considering you're only twenty-three. Bit ahead of the curve, actually. When I was twenty-three, I was barely out of doing household chores and sleeping on the cold, hard ground."

     More than one? Well, of course. She shivers, leaning in to your kiss, taking a moment out of her life to savour it. "I like it when you call me that," Fiona murmurs, she realizes, the words flavoured with a hint of surprise. "How conventional of me." To like being called by little endearments, to like being a girl. That you've paid so much attention to her is perhaps more astonishing to her than anything you've done or said so far. Well, almost anything...
     She leans out again, caressing the lambskin slowly, then picking it up and draping it against her wrist, looking at the contrast between her pale skin and the dark leather. "I suppose my life hasn't been dull. I just don't tend to concentrate on how out of step it is with what most people call reality anymore. No point, is there? It is what it is, and I chose to turn away from normal and to ... well ... this."
     Now she glances back up at you, tucking the leather into her bosom in order to have both hands free to touch either side of your face. "I don't know where the curve's even located, Rhodri. I don't want to know, right now. Help me..."
     That's probably the first time anyone's heard her use those two words...

     "I will," he places the meaning of those words in his eyes and he gives that look to you. "And you will help me..."
     You are whisked away from the closet, and from the treasure trove. There is more than one drawer to that chest. One night, you may work your way through them all. And then, he imagines, the questions shall flow...
     The leather flutters against your skin as he turns you in his arm, creating a breeze, and from that breeze the sweet blowing summer winds of the kingdom that borders your own, his inheritance of Avalon. The bed shifts beneath your joined weight. He sets you down, gently, and then he is over you, a straddle that holds you in place, his fingers plucking the two long leather straps from your bosom.
     "The lambskin once covered my thighs, part of Davy's midnight rides," he whispers in rhyme and punctuates it with a snap of the leather, his hands grasping either end. "Tell me when it is too tight..." The leather lays softly against your skin, is looped around your wrist. Gentle, supple and soft. It is looped in the steel ring at the headboard. Good so far, yes? And then he tugs, your wrist coming up...rough, but controlled. Another tug, and it meets the headboard. Ah, so now you know why it is really padded. "Okay? Too tight? Not tight enough?" Rhodri grins. "You can tell me if you want it rougher. For you, my darling, I am erring on the side of caution..."

     Right now, she isn't even capable of thinking of the rest of those drawers. She's far too distracted, flighty creature that she can be. You carry her away, and she closes her eyes to the world. It is so difficult for her to be weak, to be vulnerable at all; she's trembling violently, all nerves and response.
     Fiona looks up as you set her down, eyes widening as you straddle her, feeling herself confined. "I ... it's not too tight." She manages to get the words out, but those are almost the only words she finds herself capable of. She is suddenly acutely aware of your size, of your strength, of how she's dressed - and how she isn't dressed. Her thighs press tightly together as she glances involuntarily up at her wrist, then to your face and finally away again. "I can't believe I'm blushing." She can't believe she's doing this, either.

     "Don't stop on my account," he says quietly, and he gives the leather another tug before buckling. "If your hand goes numb, let me know," he stage whispers. As if there were anyone but you here to see it. He seems to take not note of your legs pressing together, any self-consciousness about what you are (or aren't) wearing. He merely shifts his weight to your other hand.
     "This piece was part of the stirrup, the strap that the metal bell would hang from. When I retired the saddle, I dismantled it, used the leather for other things," he smiles down to you. "And have oiled and cared for this piece in particular. It was from my last saddle as the scourge of the king's highways." And now it is around your wrist. With a tug, he pulls your other wrist up. It is sudden and it comes with a completing kiss, a punctuating kiss, wide and wild as his hand tightens it again, parting as he sits up to fasten the buckles.
     He remains straddling over you, sitting up, his weight borne off of you (thank god) by his knees. "So... you were saying, darling... there are things you want?" A scarlet-auburn eyebrow cocks upward as a question mark. "Things you were afraid to say. Now... you are tied to my bed. Saying these things is the least of your problems," emerald eyes sparkle in a wink. A method to his madness.

     She nods, biting her lip as you whisper to her, covertly glancing about as if expecting to see someone sneaking in, worriedly keeping an eye out for the unexpected. Then you shift to her other hand, and she's distracted from paranoia by explanations. And at least there is a slight easing of some tensions - a lack of fear that her heart will shatter like glass from some half-expected betrayal. She has not entirely relaxed that guardianship of her core, of her central self, but she is more relaxed with you than she had been.
     Her wrist slides up, and before she can look after it, your mouth is on her own, her attention torn between kiss and tug and given more to kiss. "Oh..." It escapes on its own, and Fiona goes quite red at that self-betrayal, mouth staying slightly open, lower lip protruding out before being sucked in by a gasp for breath, sucked in and caught and held between her teeth as she looks up at you.
     "You're a bloody bastard," Fiona murmurs, tugging at the restraints. She sees the method now - too late, as it usually tends to be, with you. Once the rabbit is in the trap, that is no time for the rabbit to look around for the hunter's wink and nod... "I'm not so sure I should tell you anything - and besides, I - I don't even know what to start with." Her chin comes up in belated defiance. Oh, too late, too late by far...

     Yes, it is too late...
     "Actually, technically, I am a bastard. My father was never married to my mother. She was selected and impregnated in a secret ritual. I wasn't Recognized as an heir until I was turned over to him at fifteen." Rhodri tips his head, looking at you tug at the restraints, twisting a little beneath him, defiant to the end. And he smiles.
     "I was named by my father. I hear he was present at my birth. I was given one of the family names of the House of Gwynedd, Rhodri, the name of his brother. One of his brothers."
     The bed shifts as he rises from it, moving back to the closet. His back turned to you, you may see the rose thorns and blossoms, red and white, moving up his spine, the hounds in frolic along the muscles of his back and against his shoulders and shoulder-blades. He turns, two other sashes in his hand, these of silk, both red -- one seems Eastern of origin, with golden embroidery. The muscular back is exchanged to the muscular front, his hands pulling at the silk.
     "Why don't you start with what you fear the most, then the rest will be easy. My life is here, hmm? Open for you to ask, open for me to answer. What you want," he smiles, "... well, it would be in your hands if your hands could grasp it just now. I will have to find another place to put it..."

     "See? Your life is more interesting than mine," Fiona mutters, squirming a little bit. "My parents met at some society event or other, mother's family had money and father's family had lost a lot of money over the years. He'd been building it back up, but there's no substitute for capital - so they got married, and in due course they had me." Perfectly straightforward. Not a single secret ritual in sight. She tugs at the leather again, but it's a futile gesture. Even she knows it is, but it's mandatory nonetheless.
     She watches you move to the closet, watches the tattoos in their endless movement. They don't always move, and it occurs to her to be curious about that - though she is a little bit distracted. "I have a lot of fears, Rhodri," Fiona answers slowly, watching you as you turn towards her. "I don't know which one I fear the most. They gain and lose density under different circumstances."
     But you've asked the question, and she's compelled to answer, as much as if there were some spell or geas laid upon her. She sinks down into the bedding, hair spilling in all directions, a riot of waving tendrils darkened with shadows from oak's heart to gold. Even her eyes are shadowed as she dwells among her fears, looking through them to try and select as honestly as she can. "I ... don't want to be alone, "Fiona whispers, as if her fears, given voice, lurk all around the bed and if she speaks too loudly, they'll hear her and home in on her in her defenselessness. "Ever since what happened with Paul, I decided it was better to be alone, because people couldn't hurt me then. And then that fell apart. I want to let myself be weak, vulnerable with someone. But I don't at the same time. It - I'm afraid you'll get tired of me, once you've been with me a few months."
     It shows in her eyes, that fear, the liquid hint of tears bearing testimony. "I'm afraid if I tell people what I want, I'll seem greedy, or - or unnatural, or ... something. And then I won't get any of what I want, and I'll be alone on top of it all." She blinks, moisture trickling away, and she twists around to hide her face. "It's just me being stupid," Fiona mutters. "I hate being so girly, sometimes."

     "I don't either," he admits it as he moves back to the bed, not missing a beat in the conversation as the silk is intricately wrapped around your right foot and ankle. Different from the leather, but just as binding, just as strong. The wrapping is quite elaborate, gently embracing the arch of the foot, but securing the ankle, the ankle secured to another ring (his bed is completely outfitted for any number of positions and bindings), this one at the edge of the bed. It pulls your leg in a relaxed position. There is no tugging now.
     "I have been alone for a while. I don't like it. I like having a woman to come home to, someone you can let into your confidence." He looks up your body as he rises, moving to the other side of the bed, to your other foot. "Ah now, I like you girly. So what's so unnatural about what you want? Can it truly be so strange?" He looks at your foot, tipping his head to regard it more closely. "You have nice arches, good toes for rings. I will have to remember that come your birthday." And he begins to wrap your second foot in another red silk sash, this one without the Eastern embroidery. It is, instead, embossed with script visible in the shifting light as he ties your other ankle to the bed. Wide-legged you lie, but with plenty of slack to move your legs a little, to be comfortable.
     Rhodri returns to the bed, this time sitting at the foot of the bed, upon his knees... and between your own. "I think you should have your feelings and not judge them. So... what's so unnatural about what you want, darling... it can't be more unnatural than what I want..." His mouth curves at that.

     "I don't like who I am by myself." It's when she's by herself, pushing people away that she turns into Drancy the most - unbalanced and angry and ready to lash out, to take the wounds of the world upon herself as proof of how hard she can be, how tough, so don't mess with her. It's difficult to admit, even after all this time, but easier perhaps than it was. A few more tears escape her, and she mutters something sulkily, under her breath, a swear word for her own weakness. She pulls her foot away, at first, then subsides, allowing the binding as if she had a choice.
     "What I want changes. Or - well, it doesn't change, exactly, except like my mood does. Sometimes I want chocolate cake. Sometimes I want caviar. I have," reluctantly, Fiona grins slightly, "expensive tastes. I am a luxury item." Not for everyday wear. She sighs a little, slowly allowing the muscles in her legs to relax, allowing a little of the tension to escape her. Only a little bit, though.
     "You seem to want me, so what you want is by definition unnatural." The retort is said lazily, without the heat of a real objection. "I've never worn toe rings, though. And ... I don't know. Maybe it's natural, maybe it's not. But I want to be - conquered," Fiona says finally, eyes closed under the weight of the word. "Hunted down to earth relentlessly. Seduced and made to like it. Ravished and ravaged, as violently or gently as the mood hits. I want to be marked. I want to be taken... consumed... I want to be the prize and the trophy. Joan of Arc, Helen of Troy, Boadicca - all of it. The schoolgirl in the classroom, the collar around the throat, the motorcycle leathers and - I don't know." She squirms and looks away again. "...Do you really need me to go into more detail than that?"

     "I see I'm going to have to open another bar," he teases out. The look he gives to chase that... as if. And he chuckles at that thought. "Hmm.... virgin martyr, object of desire, warrior queen. The champion, the prize, and the battle all in one body. And you wonder why I love you. Why I have you tied to my bed."
     He moves between the 'Y' your bound legs create, a path open wide for him, and he covers you, still hovering there but lowering to pluck at your mouth with his own. "You will never have to be alone," he whispers there, his mouth plying yours open no less than the bindings have opened your body to him. "Not now, not again."
     Up on his knees again, but closer, you are granted the expanse of his chest, the strength of shoulders and arms, the motion of hounds across the earth that is him. His hands move along your clothing, and they split and fall away, opened outward, the layers ripping in unison. Easily ripping in his hands as if the cloth was nothing more than a single sheet of paper.
     "We are going to do a lot of things you have not done. I am here to help you," he grins, "...remember?" Bending, Rhodri grins up at you, his mouth landing at the center of your chest. "Hmmm... see... all you have to do, darling, to get what you want... is to speak it..."
     Magic swirls in the confines of this bed, swirls against your skin, beneath it. Inspiration, poetic fervor, the ecstatic rush of enlightenment -- it is the opening of the universe, his mouth against your skin. As a mouth surrounds a breast, the enlightenment comes with visions...
     ... of this Black Jack Davy riding at midnight...
     ... of Rhodri in Avalon, the red-haired Prince of Summer, his smile coming with fire...
     ...the red-eared hounds of the Otherworld, companions to the God of the Hunt...

     "It's just words," Fiona whispers, as if by saying so negates the truth of all she's just revealed. Just words, and nothing more.
     You move over her, you kiss her, and there's a sigh of expelled air for the kiss, for your words. There's the urge to struggle rather than to surrender, there's an element of mute appeal in her eyes. By speaking it, she's laid herself open not only to you but to herself - more than just naked, now, and never mind the costuming. "I'd like to believe that," she murmurs, almost inaudibly. "Maybe eventually I will." Never to have to be alone...
     She does gasp and jumps slightly as you tear her clothing away. This has her surprised - she knows how strong you are, but this is stronger than even she knew. More powerful. But oh, she does like powerful men, doesn't she? She hardly spares a glance for men who have little or none, or whose power is wholly temporal...
     Hands move to touch your head, to cradle you to her breast as you kiss there, falling short as she is reminded acutely of the leather around her wrists, holding her fast. You kiss her breast, and she whimpers, just quietly, a small sound falling free of the prison of her lips, teeth immediately clamping down to prevent a second escape. And those visions, oh, they do call to her. You can feel her tense beneath you. Anticipation - or agitation - or perhaps just a bit of both combined.
     "Somehow I don't think I'm a virgin anymore," Fiona whispers to you, blinking again as she watches you, dazed and dazzled by visionary sight. "I'd like to see you ... more ..."
     An interesting time to suggest going steady, if that's what it is.

Posted by rowan at November 14, 2004 10:05 PM