The message was brief - hello, I love you, care to come to dinner, I'd like to see you and we need to talk. For Fiona, that constitutes brief - even if it is the sort of message which strikes fear or at least trepidation into male hearts.
     The door is unlocked when you arrive, the apartment inside lit by candlelight. The table is set for two - this is a dinner invitation which has been extended to you and you alone. The living room window has been unshuttered and propped open for the cool breeze to enter - or for you to do so, if you are traveling by air instead, tonight - and the white curtains flutter lazily with every blow and gust and whisper. Fat tapers have been set up on tables, a genuine goddamned silver-plated candelabra on the dining table...
     She didn't know what time you'd be coming, so while she's provided dinner, she hasn't cooked. Takeout from Pashmina's - lamb curry and chicken kashmiri, three kinds of naan and plenty of herbed and seasoned rice, all still in their containers to retain heat the better. And then there's her, herself, curled up on the couch near the window, hair in one long ponytail, a book propped open on the couch's arm but ignored as she looks out the window.
     She's wearing pink cashmere and stonewashed denim tonight. Not the look you've raved over the most, but it's comfortable; marble shoulders revealed by the off the shoulder cut of the sweater, pink diamonds nestling in among the fuzz that's just as pink, almost disappearing. The cuffs of her jeans are folded up, and she's got on a pair of white and yellow striped socks. Almost collegiate, Fiona looks. Pink diamonds, gold earrings - what ever happened to that punk girl you scooped off the sidewalk?
     She isn't in evidence tonight...

     It was a message -- he didn't answer. He was too busy rattling off to a waitress at the Rose & Thistle, laughing over pints, and the pints were fucking plentiful. So were the chips, he's had a few. You can hear him coming up the steps (god, no fucking flying tonight), his heavy steps, the approach of a refinery, the smell of cigarettes...
     He knocks, and the door comes open. "Hallo? Bonjour? Nos dda?" he ventures, peeking in. Then he sees the candlelight and spectacle. "What's this then? I got your message... hoi, pink," he grins.
     He's drunk...
     He's walking in a straight line, but he's been deep in the pints tonight. Davydd closes the door behind him. He's an adorable mess. His short copper-fiery hair is mussed, bits of it spiking here and there. He's wearing black trousers with layered shirts -- a white tee beneath a button down green shirt, not emerald, softer, but enough to spark the dark green of his eyes.
     "So... what's the occasion..." he rolls out, approaching you and the table, the smell of food. Gah, it's pungent in here. Oh, well... it's curry ain' it. Davydd smiles, giving you a kiss. Yes. He's been drinking. Scotch. Whiskey. Guinness.
     "You look... all girlish. I like it," he murmurs. "Mind if I pinch from your bar. I've a nice thing going, I'd hate to lose it..."

     There's a kiss for a kiss, and the book is pushed away, ignored as Fiona turns to your entrance, her smile rapid and delighted. She is always so happy to see you. Isn't it touching? It's something. Her hands go to your cheeks to capture you, her lips to yours. She could lose herself like this - if she let herself.
     "Mm. Yes, of course. Most of what I've got is girlish too, though," she murmurs it as she pulls away again, her hand going up to ruffle your hair further. "Chambord, Bailey's, Kahlua, wine. I've still got some Guinness and there's vodka, but I don't keep as much in the house as I guess I should, with you coming around to drink me dry." And she doesn't even mean it as a pun. Legs unfold from their curl and she rises, wrinkling her nose. "Pew. You've been having one on, alright," Fiona says critically. "I haven't been clubbing enough, I'm losing my nose for it."
     The curry probably helps keep her nose nice and open, doesn't it? There's one last ruffling of your hair and then she steps past you, brushing past to move to the table, grabbing tumblers and moving to the kitchen cupboard where her bottles are currently living. "You're cuter than ever, you bastard. You've got to tell me your secret, how you manage to look so fucking adorable all the time," Fiona calls over her shoulder as she holds up bottles for your approval. "Now, tell me what you want, and I'll ... tell you what I want."
     Apparently, it's ... not the usual ...

     His arms came to hold you as your ruffle his hair. He's a touchy-feely drunk. "God made me cute... I have to be, you see.... so you'll take care of me," he grins a toothy grin, viper-edged. The kiss that follows is a great deal more voluptuous in nature. And then you wiggle away, leaving a pivoting Davydd behind you.
     Shirt unbuttoned, he rolls out of it, leaving just the white tee behind, clinging at large biceps, broad chest and falling slack at his sides and stomach. A hand comes up, ruffling through his own hair, making it more disheveled. "So...ah...oh, the vodka. I don't dare drink those sugary drinks after so much whiskey...I'll be sick. And that'd be grim as hell."
     Pivoting again, he goes to the table, pulling out a chair and taking a seat. "Is that like 'Show me yours and I'll show you mine'?" Davydd cracks, a rumbling laughter emitting from throat and chest. "Sorry, I'll bring reinforcements next visit... and what I want," he waxes long and low, "... is you over here with a drink... so ...what's on your mind, darlin'?"

     "Hold your horses, you great big Welsh bastard," Fiona retorts lazily, pouring vodka over ice and bringing the bottle along as she makes her way back out of the kitchen and over to you. The glass is held over to you, for the taking, the bottle set down in front of you with a firm hand. "Reinforcements next visit? I'm almost afraid to ask. I didn't realize your usual reinforcements were detachable - or at least, not without them not being able to then be reattached."
     Fiona moves away again, sliding a hand along your shoulder with a brief glimmer to her eyes. She pulls out a chair and sinks down onto it, hooking one socked foot on a rung as she leans forward on an elbow, her other forearm along the wooden edge. "You're not going to be hungry for days at this rate," she remarks. "You're too drunk to be hungry. Or horny. Or much of anything else. What's the occasion, anyway - you won a bet? Did Wales beat Scotland for the National..."
     For herself, she leans forward and pours herself a glassful of water - healthy and refreshing, even if it lacks that certain zing. The ponytail sways as she moves, and she settles back with the glass held in one hand, grey gaze canting in your direction. "Actually, as for what's on my mind, is ... well ... a little - unfinished business. Might just mean I was going nuts, might mean - something, I don't know, might mean nothing." Fiona sighs, mouth twisting wryly. "I have trouble focusing to tell you about it," she admits candidly. "Every time I've tried, one of us has sort of - tossed it out the window, and ... I seem never to get back to it. But it's been bothering me. And that's all I'll say until you've decided if you want to talk or fuck, you gigantic git of a tattooed blue boy."

     "Never too drunk not to be horny," he chuckles. "And I'll have you know I could eat a horse right about now, and eating horses is taboo to my people. No occasion," great shoulders roll, "... I needed to blow off a bit of steam. You know... I'm like a fireman. Two nights on, one night off..."
     Talk... fuck. Decisions, decisions. "Well," Davydd exhales, looking at the candlelight array. "I say we talk now while we can, and I care. We eat, then we fuck. It's been a week," he snorts. As if that's breaking some kind of record. "I'm not sure I'll remember how," comes the droll sound of his voice, earthy and warm, humorous and lilting. He chuckles and takes his drink. "Diolch," a murmur. A swallow.
     "So," dark green eyes are keen and glittering. He may be drunk, but he still has his wits about him. "...what's on your mind, sweetheart? Mind if I smoke?" He only smokes when he drinks. Patting his pockets, he finds his lighter. His cigarettes are a bit harder to find. Stretching in his seat, he reaches into his front pocket, wrestling out a cig. A bit bent, but then again...so's he.
     His features are incandescent in the nearby glow of controlled fire, a great roll of smoke leaving him as he release the first breath. "I mean... a candlelight dinner... food... drink. You're not pregnant already are you?" he seems momentarily concerned that he's about to get bad news...

     "To mine, too." Fiona grins a little bit, leaning forward to begin dishing up the food. "Cows are okay, horses aren't. Split hooves and whole hooves, that's all I remember about it. I don't know, maybe number of stomachs has something to do with it, too." She wasn't ever an observant Jew.
     She gives you rice, she gives you chicken and lamb both, rice in the middle with two slowly spreading 'Mickey Mouse ears' of the main dishes. Naan is arranged on a separate plate and the entire thing slid to in front of you, and then she curls up in her chair again, just as comfortable as she had been before, propped on one elbow. "You can eat it when you're done smoking and drinking, or smoking, anyway," Fiona retorts. And no, I'm not pregnant, though I admit the idea of you getting me knocked up still tempts me and turns me on. I'm such a little idiot in some ways. Don't know why, but it just gets to me."
     Maybe she's had a few drinks herself, or maybe it's a bit of Drancy, stirring with the topic impending. She shakes her head, looking down at the table with a faint, self-mocking smile. "No, it's got nothing to do with sex at all. It's ... something that happened before I met you, actually. Something which doesn't fit with the rest of all of this. Remember how I told you how I grabbed my punk name?"
     So it begins, with drinking and reminiscences. How very ... you, really.

     "Your fucking depressing moniker, aye," he exhales a plume of smoke, going wide-eyed at the sudden bounty of food set before him. He glances around, looking for an ashtray or something that could be used for an ashtray. In the meantime, he holds the cigarette out of his and takes the fork in his free hand.
     What on earth do you mean 'eat when you're done smoking'? Wait to eat? What?
     "Yeah, so there was something about France, I remember that. And ... something else..." Davydd breaks from eating, peering at the empty air for a moment and then at you. "I know there was something else...I've heard a bit of it... but... we always get distracted..."
     There's a twist of a smile for that. Yes, distracted is a word for it. Putting down his fork, he rises, heading for his ashtray -- the sign that he is here, that this place is another refuge. Taking the glass, he heads back for the table. "So... what's the issue...?"

     "Depressing, yeah." Fiona twists a wry grin at you, then glances down - it's almost as if her hair's gone all fuchsia on you, isn't it? The slight tension, the jerky nervousness, the twitch and suppression of energy behind the mask - all Drancy, really. She goes back there, in her memory even if not in the flesh. Maybe that will come next.
     "Something about it... yeah, we do seem to get distracted." Fiona tugs the cuffs of her sleeves down over her hands, jamming them into her armpits as if she's suddenly taken cold, not looking at you now. Her mind isn't on the distractions, the smile is automatic and turned off a moment later. "Well .. the issue .. will take a little explaining."
     She isn't procrastinating. She's decided that tonight will be the night she tells you, good or bad or indifferent. But she can't look at you, it seems, while she gathers the threads of her narrative for the spinning. "It was when I was, mm. Seventeen? Maybe eighteen. I was in with a bunch of other punks - had to've been eighteen, I took off right before my eighteenth and it was cold there, so ... yeah, eighteen. Anyway, we were driving all over the damn place - we took the Chunnel over to France and I was just determined to get the hell away, you know? From my memories, more than anything, even if I didn't know what I was running away from at the time. I wasn't letting myself know."
     Her voice changes a little - not a lot, but a little, slipping into that working class accent she'd tried so hard to perfect. Old habits. "So we were going all over, and we didn't have a lot of money. Dad was sending me money, putting it in an account, but I was trying to be just like the rest - wouldn't touch it. Not after the things she said." There's a faint remnant of her old antagonism for her mother, there. Fiona slides her chair back, standing up, pacing a little bit - still not looking at you.
     "So ... we ran out of money in this tiny, piss-pot town with lots of sullen people who just didn't want to talk to us. I was the only one who spoke French, but even to me, they just - well, they acted like if we were toilets, they wouldn't shite on us. Too good for the likes of us." She stops, the energy still suppressed but echoing through her - she isn't as she was then. But there's the echo, and it's taking hold, that thread of 'Drancy' turning hair short and punkish and too brightly coloured, sweater changed for a thin yellow tanktop and black leather jacket. The jeans and the socks stay. So does the necklace, though it seems the more out of place, doesn't it? "So, well, we had to crash somewhere, right? And there was this trainyard. Noone was using it, nothing there but abandoned ancient - and I do mean fucking ancient, well, alright, not so ancient by my standards NOW, but then, ancient train crates. Whatever you call 'em - cars. We found a few with enough of a roof and grabbed some cheap bottles, and settled in for the night..."

     He watches your transformation with a bit of a nonplussed look. He's used to your comings-and-goings at this point, and it's not so unusual for you to pop into an old look. There's a quirk of a smile at it, the hair, the clothes. Davydd tilts his head, giving you the once (and twice over).
     But green eyes flicker to you more seriously as you unfold your story. He's not really sure where it's going, you can see the perplexion. Smoke billowing out from his mouth and nose, Davydd exhales, stamps out his cigarette and gives his attention to the matter at hand.
     Food this good is just a pity to waste...
     "Right, this part I recall. So... you went to France... living the punk lifestyle." He says it like you were wife-swapping -- the lifestyle.
     As he scoops up the curry with the naan, Davydd's eyes lift to you. Go on...

     "Anyway." Fiona exhales, driving air out of her chest as if it burns to have it in. A hand lifts, dragging through the wildly coloured hair, a rub at an ear - only one hole in it, these days, she's let the others close up - and she sags against the wall, shoving a hand into her jeans pocket. "I can get moody when I've been drinking. Fucking surprise, eh? I wandered off and ... I got a little lost."
     She shrugs. Train cars all look alike, especially in the dark. "Found a car to hole up in anyway, figured I'd find them in the morning - I had the car keys, they weren't going anywhere without me. And I laid myself down under my jacket and figured I'd drift off to sleep. Except I couldn't. Kept hearing someone whispering - thought someone was calling me."
     Now she looks down at her feet, unwilling to look at you. This is where it gets tricky. "I ... don't know how to describe it," Fiona says slowly. "It was like being called, except not by my name - like something was moving in my blood, through me. Like the lights they use at Christmastime, wrapped in tinsel, seen through fog - that's what it would've looked like, that feeling. And I started to - hear things. See things. It was - as if I'd been taken outside of myself while still being inside of myself. I saw ... people."
     That's not very descriptive, and she knows it. She frowns. "I don't want you to think I'm mad, Davydd," Fiona mutters, turning to face the wall, a hand going up against it. "Or - not more than you already do. But ... I'm stuck on this. I feel like I need to talk about it, but I'm afraid to."

     Green eyes go sharp, focusing on you, narrowing as he hears you unfold this story. Hearing things. Seeing things. Then Davydd inclines his head. "You're saying you had an experience, then," he murmurs, fiery eyebrows knitting. "Is that what you're saying, love? I know you're not mad," a gentle smile.
     "Well... no more mad than we knew already, wot... but... no need to be afraid, right? You've seen a lot since then. I'm sure it was fucking horrific. That's not the place where you want to sense or touch the ethereal. There are battle fields all over England, I'm sure they cough up their dead as well. Just... well... you're not the first person who's had a crash course on ghosts or wraiths..."
     Davydd goes back to eating -- you can't just have one bite. "So... what happened then?"

     "...Yeah. I guess." Fiona's smile isn't too happy. This is something with which she hasn't come to terms, or even, really, addressed - in all the time you've known her, she's brought it up almost never and always, she's let it fall away as lightly as if it didn't matter at all. She isn't comfortable with it...
     "I don't know. I've not had it happen since - but I've also been ... careful, I guess you could say, not to go just anywhere. I've been any number of places, don't get me wrong, and nothing's really happened." There's a shrug, a roll of her shoulders and she paces back to the chair, putting her hands on the back of it and bending forward as if about to be sick. But there's no gagging, no retching - nothing to ruin your dinner. Just instead, more words - maybe that'll ruin your dinner, who knows?
     "I couldn't move, and ... I started to see things. Hear things. Taste, smell - everything." The words are only slightly muffled by her bent position, and the memories aren't muffled for anything, for her. "Every single fucking person who passed through that train yard to the camps, Davydd. I spent hours with them, seeing their lives from the time they got word to report to the detention centres or were otherwise taken into custody until they died. Didn't matter if they'd died there or not - most didn't, you know? But it didn't matter. I ... think I need to sit down."
     She does so, shuffling and sitting sideways, falling into the chair with her hands in her lap, head burrowed down into the collar of her jacket. One hand comes up to scrub at her cheek as she looks into her past, remembering. "I don't know how long it took. I - it was ... you were there, in that period in history." Fiona waves a hand, lets it fall again. "You know the sort of stuff that happened. I only had known about it from books, from the little my grandparents let slip, and that wasn't much. They didn't like to talk about it with us kids."
     Why give the children nightmares, after all?
     "So ... I saw them. I know where some of them were thrown off at way stations, because they died on the way. I know who prayed and who cursed God, who spent the entire time crying because their children were taken and put in a different train, I know ... well, I say I know, but it's not like I could tell you details, now. If you stuff fists of grain into a sack and keep stuffing, it's going to fall out, leak out." Fiona lets her head tip back now, a quiet, despairing sigh. "It was ... really bad. And it all just poured through me, and they kept asking me, why, why did this happen, why, what did we do, we did nothing to deserve this. And I didn't have any answer. I still don't. The only answer I could give was that people suck, and that's an awfully small answer for such a big question. I was sick all over the inside of that car so many times that I vomited up blood, and finally, I just ... passed out."
     She leans forward, sliding her arms along the table and pillowing her head on them. "Woke up and I knew it wasn't a dream. Didn't know if I was going nuts or what, Davydd. Just - I was so happy I'd woken up, I can't tell you. I was scared shitless I'd died in my sleep and I'd have to stay there with them. I tried to tell myself someone'd slipped me acid, and yelled at the others, they were all so hung over they agreed to anything just to get me to stop yelling. And I ... well, I guess I kept running. But I had to do something about it, didn't I?" Fiona shifts, turning her head so she can look at you without sitting up, eyes pale grey, like winter skies at dawn. "I've tried not to think about it. It scares the shite out of me. That's when I started drinking vodka the way I do..."

     "Yeah," a quiet exhale, "I was there. Mostly in Britain... flying over France with..." he starts to say 'Gwilym', his William, but he stops himself, so careful with that knowledge. His expression goes oddly reserved, strangely focused for a drunk Welshman. "...a few other pilots, doing night runs over London battling the Blitz. And over France," green eyes look to you, and he frowns.
     "It was.. fucking horrific, what they did. I threw up blood when I found out. I don't... talk about this stuff much...you know... I've been around," his hand gestures as he says it. "You know. I've seen a lot of horrible shite. I've done a lot of horrible shite. I've killed men... I've even killed my own brothers, fought in the civil wars of England, all the way through world war one, which... " he shakes his head, exhaling, "...fucking horrific. The 20th Century just... changed so much about warfare. I've never seen such carnage in all my life, and against women and children. So."
     Davydd stops talking about it. He has his own images. And, yes, he has his own ghosts. "Drink won't make it go away. But," the look that lifts to you as he sits forward is one of tender care, sympathy. And empathy. "... you're not that little girl anymore. You have... strength, you know you have it. You can call on it, if you see such things again. And... now that you know there are things that go bump in the night, and you're fucking one actually," a smirk directed to himself, "...and enjoying it," a flash of a grin, "... you know that you can handle such things, hmm? You should know it if you don't. I'm not going to say not to be afraid, but to draw on that fear and reach out with compassion should they show themselves to you again. Think of the healing... you could bring... to such things that walk the earth, lost."

     "Yeah." Fiona sighs, a long, slow sound, from the bottom of her, as if she were turning herself inside out with the effort. "Yeah, I don't - drink like that. Anymore. I try not to - think about it, try not to poison myself like that, anymore. Which is partly your doing, you know."
Both hands lift, and she scrubs at her face as if trying to take the skin off. "I think I told you once, I - don't ... like war. I know things happen and that sometimes that's the best you can do for, that it can't be avoided. That when you're not being a person but ... more ..."
     The lives of kings and queens are never simple, and other people will always pay that price...
     She shakes her head, leaning forward over the table, cheek on the wood, her arms spreading out like water flowing over tile. One arm ends up outstretched forward, the other hand on the inside of that elbow, punk hair sticking up and out in spikes and softening curls all over and threatening her line of vision. "It's not just the memory that bothers me about it, it's the calling. I feel - I should do something about it, but I don't know what. How do you answer something like that, Davydd? I understand your own hungers so much better. In and out of bed. But - you're right, of course."
     She sighs again, filling her lungs with air and sitting up. Drancy drags her hands back up over her face as if pulling off a mask, over her hair as her fingers drag and tug and rub, turning into Fiona as she moves. She leaves her eyes closed as she finishes, "That's - just, it's like with the boats, you know."

     "Maybe you should make your own boats, Fiona," his Welsh accent is so thick when he's been drinking. Lilting and rolling it goes, like a Welsh brook over Welsh stones. "Light your own candles, you know. Set them on the river and watch them go, not taking your cares away but... lighting for them. Or votives, something. You can reach out... you can go from earth to the dreaming horizons. What can't you do? Hmm?"
     Davydd reaches out, his hand on your hair for a moment, his fingers curling and uncurling at your scalp. "War... well, there's no cliche that captures what it is, nothing... I've... bathed in blood in my time. My way... has been a bloody way." His hand lifts as he exhales again. "Centuries don't matter, it's all the same."
     His mouth cants to the side. "Now I'm fucking sober," he cracks, lightening the mood. Or at least making the attempt. "Have any Guinness? I'm feeling a bit peckish..."

     "Guinness? Sure." She responds to the touch, smiling at you. It's a wistful smile but it reaches her eyes, patches of blue in the winter grey, and she pushes away from the table, out of her chair - but she doesn't go directly to the kitchen. Instead, she moves to behind you, behind your chair, draping her arms over your shoulders, wrapping around you loosely from behind, her lips going to the back of your head.
     "I know you've been there, done that," Fiona murmurs into your thick, soft hair, voice softened by the night's touch. "That you're not ... new to this, that you've got your own ghosts and goblins, your own horrible memories, love." She almost never uses that endearment, either. "I ... don't ... want you to bury it all inside where it rubs its way out of you with sharp angles and edges. You've got your own ways of coping, I know, but ... if I can help with it ... I'm here. Okay?"
     She releases with another kiss, fingers brushing through your hair, heart back where it belongs on her sleeve as she glances at you over her shoulder, smile on lips and in eyes as she looks at you. She disappears into the kitchen, rustling in cabinets and all that before coming back with glass and bottle.
     "Your way might be a bloody way, Davydd," Fiona remarks as she looks at you seriously, "but everyone's way has some blood. It's how we come out of the womb, and we live with blood in our veins and seeing our own blood at least a handful of times in our lives. Yours has been longer - and there's going to be more blood in the life of a king and hero, and even more in that of a king and hero who's almost nine hundred years on this earth. I understand that..."

     "Oh, we don't want to open that graveyard, darlin," he chuckles upon a quiet breath, "...and tonight's talk isn't about me. I just...well, I didn't mean to make it about me. And it doesn't matter if you're new to it or not, it's frightening all the same." His hand pats you wherever his paw of a hand can reach. "You're sweet to offer. I may take advantage of that some day..."
     As you head to the kitchen, Davydd heads to the sofa, stretching out with a great sound. He's there, half-reclining, half-sitting, his hand coming out with practiced ease to take the Guinness and glass. "Diolch...so... is there...anything else you want to tell me? I have a Guinness. That's the same as being a captive audience in Ireland..."
     Davydd smiles up at you, dark eyes glimmering. "Anything else going on with you? Any gossip?" He pours the Guinness into the glass and watches it foam, dipping a finger into the foam for a taste of it.

     "That's pretty much everything. It's just - I suppose it's been on my mind for a bit." Fiona pulls her chair closer to yours, not sitting immediately but offering you a faint twist of a smile. "I wanted it off my chest before I go see my grandparents again. I wish you could meet them sometime. Grandmum would love you, you know."
     She sits, her hand reaching over to touch your knee - not in slyness but just to be there, resting there as she looks to you. "Love you, Davy," she half-whispers, the light of it moving into her eyes like a break in clouds. "No, no gossip - nothing I can think of. My investments're doing well - I'm getting to be modestly rich already. Which is a good thing, I'm throwing a lot of money into what I'm trying to set up, business-wise."
     She straightens up, back in her pink and denim, legs crossed and ponytail forward over her shoulder, back to looking all girlish and collegiate. Fiona tugs her cuffs down over the edge of her palms, clasping her hands together in her lap. "I'm starting a creative consultancy and angel investment group. Sort of a cross between a business and a charity, I suppose you could say. I haven't wanted to talk about the details until things were a little more certain, but it's starting to look like I'll be up for a September launch. Very mundane, isn't it?"
     We, with our lives of blood and magic, our kingdoms not of steel but stone and earth and air and wood...
     "What about you, my Davy-boy?" Fiona leans forward again, elbows on the table, chin on her clasped hands. "How about your own work? And your kingdom... is there," she wonders, "anything I can do to help? Other than laying myself across your altar..."
     Not that she objects to that...

     There's a chuckle at the rim of the glass, a sip of the Guinness once it settles. Yes, the altar. It makes being a holy man... or is that holly man?... a worthwhile enterprise. "It's alright," Davydd rolls out low and long, a hand coming up and rubbing the back of his neck and then through his hair. "Tiring, but alright. I've done with the first round... now ... the real work begins..."
     Not that I even know what it is most nights. It shows itself to me. I have to sort it out as I go along. I know how the story ends, just not how I'll get there...
     "Sounds interesting. Best of luck to you, though doesn't sound like you need luck," a quick smile. "You're making a good way, that's all I'd ever care about." He takes a long drink of the Guinness. That's fucking more like it. "Nah, nothing you can help with, just keep doing what you're doing, Fiona..."
     He looks up at you as he finishes another swallow of beer. "Grandmums usually do love me, but I'll see them at the wedding, won't I? I can be your uncle Davydd, just like the rest of my family, aye? You can introduce me then..."

     "She'll insist on dancing with you. She's got a thing for redheads." Just like her granddaughter. Fiona sighs, leaning back and closing her eyes. "Talk to me, Davydd, won't you? Tell me a bedtime story or something. I'll keep your Guinness filled, I just - I don't know what's gotten into me. I miss you tonight."
     She misses you most nights, but doesn't mention that; she rises to her feet suddenly, as if to do otherwise would be to give something away. "I'm sorry," Fiona mutters, voice held low. "I'm not very good company tonight, am I? Nothing but ghost stories and impatience. It's nights like this that I want to go back to being a punk, to running away. Can't let myself, of course, but it'd feel good right now to break someone's nose, even if it meant getting mine bent a bit. Where's Paul when I actually need him, right?"
     She glances to you from the side, then grins despite herself. "How do you ever put up with me, Davydd? How did you put up with me swinging a fist at your nose? Calling you at all hours of the night, driving you crazy, not even knowing what I wanted."
     he takes a wide-legged swagger in your direction, both hands clomping down onto the edge of your chair as she leans in. "I'll keep on doing what I'm doing. But you still owe me a duet."

     "Mostly, I ignored you," he chuckles, joking as he sits back with his Guinness in hand. "Well, I tried to ignore you," the grin quickly follows. He shrugs a bit and takes another healthy swallow, reaching with a sigh to set the glass down. A cigarette comes out after, he can't drink and not smoke, and he lights it with a breath of smoke.
     "I'm not really in the mood for stories tonight. I'm a bit tired. And you're probably just ... anxious about all this, memories and such." Davydd glances around, then his eyes fixate on you. He smiles. "Eh, you trying to punch me was nothing new. I've had more shite thrown at me than you could even imagine, and you can imagine a lot."
     He's quiet for a bit. "I know you miss me. And I miss you too when I'm not here. I like to hear you laugh. I like to watch you be brave." He looks at the burning end of the cigarette. "And I'm going to watch you marry another man," he looks up at you. "And try not to cry at your wedding." Green sparkles with a wink. He exhales a plume of smoke. "I'm starting to get melancholy...let's not talk for a while. Let's... watch a movie..." he suggests. "We shouldn't think tonight. We've had enough of that. What do you say..."

     There's silence from Fiona for a moment, and the golden eyelashes come down, shuttering off her gaze, shuttering off her thoughts. Shuttering off words she could speak but ... which for one reason or another ... she doesn't want to open her throat to ...
     "Sure," she says lightly, rising to her feet. "We can put in a movie. I don't mind." If only it were as easy as words suggest, to stop thinking, turn off the thoughts like a clock being unplugged, letting all the million and one springs wind down and away like water circling round a drain as the basin is emptied. But she smiles, turning away.
     You said you liked to watch her be brave, didn't you?
     The food's ignored; whatever you don't eat will find a home, in her or in her fridge or given to strays, stray cats or stray people. You can hear her ease down on the corduroy-like fabric covering her couch, hear the remote being picked up, the click followed by the flare of brightness as an artificially human voice comes on the television. "Comedy?", calls Fiona, "Or are you in the mood for something a bit more classic..."

Posted by rowan at February 02, 2005 01:19 AM