It was like having your orgasm taped reel to reel and played back in stereo. One room, with Rhodri... the other, with Davydd. But it can't last forever. They're in separate beds tonight. Tonight, you're going to have to choose. But there really isn't much of a choice to make, is there?
     One will wake when you do in the morning, the other will like perfectly still like a statue. One will miss you if he wakes and you're not there. The other one? The other one won't remember missing you, or not missing you, breathing or not breathing...
     How could you possibly choose? Get out your balancing scales and weigh the matter carefully...
     Dark green eyes are the mirrors to a world. It's a forest you know, now, you've wandered some of its secret paths. You've been a little lost in it. When he blinks, the view shifts, like a viewmaster, showing a different stand of trees. So many thickets. It's like the forest without an end.
     Davydd lies on his side and he stares at you. Amazingly enough, he's not thinking of comparisons. Who yelled longer, whether you were more vocal across the hall or here with him. It was as if the sound of you in there with your other husband was just a track playing on the stereo. He had you to himself. But he's looking at you, like he's expecting you to dissolve.
     His finger reaches out and taps the end of your nose, gently, then upon your mouth. "I do ... really love you," he says quietly. "Even when you're drunk and biting holes in my Todd Oldham shirts." His large hands cup your face and draw it to him for a kiss.
     "You will have to...go soon?" To become one girl again. Davydd brushes your hair back with a gentle hand. He wears it so readily on his face. His emotion is at the surface tonight. Perhaps it is what you said in the car... knowing... that you know. That there are pieces you have, even of him that he himself lost...

     She's lying there, snuggled close, eyes slitted contentedly, one hand against your chest gently, cheeks still flushed, hair back in a wild tangle.
     She'll have to choose - which she regrets, even now. She hates to choose between you. And she knows what choice she will have to make, and at times, it hurts her to make such choices...
     "I love your eyes," Fiona murmurs lazily, though she blinks when her nose is tapped. "And I love you, too. Drunk or sober. Solemn or laughing. In every way and every time and every place, Davydd..." She leans in, nose touched to nose. "Look. You ... mm, I drank too much, I'm not any good at my usual sort of eloquence, which is pretty sad."
     She reaches for your hand with her own, bringing it to her chest and looking down at it. Her thumb brushes your own, then over your fingers, so large in comparison to her own. "Soon. Not right away. I can wait a bit. I'm ... stronger than I used to be." As her kingdom strengthens, perhaps, or perhaps it's entirely a personal thing. "You are a king. You're strong enough to fight for what must be fought for, but you've never learned how to stop fighting. That's why you love me so much. I ... give you a fight, but I also give you someplace that you can finally stop fighting. Any woman could for a little while have been your Avalon, Davydd, on this earth. But not every woman could remain that."
     Her fingers tighten around your index finger, and blue eyes look up suddenly. "We don't fight anymore, have you noticed? We talk. We argue, but that isn't the same as fighting. I'm in your skin as much as you are in mine, and ... we love each other. Don't you know that you have me? My blood is in you. My magic moves through you. With that, more than anything, you fulfilled things, locked me to you and you to me. Isabel put her magic into you and onto you, and now..."

     This will be a tough one. Why so tough tonight? He can't explain it. Davydd's eyes downsweep to the joined hands. For once you seem to have struck him speechless. There's nothing he can say for a while. So he doesn't bother to fill the silence with the sound of his voice for that sound's sake. There is the lifting of your hand to his mouth. The closing of his eyes, hiding those worlds from you for a moment.
     But when they open, you see the woods again, and where the forest breaks for the red stone palace and its red marble temple with the bronze doors, doors that threw themselves open even as you did upon his altar. "I don't get the two of you confused, but... I'm glad there's a part of her that remains," Davydd says after a time. He doesn't argue with anything you've said. Maybe you've finally hit the mark all around. "And... if you want to argue," Davydd smirks, "... I'm sure we can come up with something... about the time you disappear."
     No, he's not looking forward to that...
     "Maybe I should go to the loft," his new pad, he exhales at that. "What time is it?" He has that whole daylight issue again. "If I leave beforehand, you see, it won't be as bad," Davydd whispers. "I ... just ... I don't want to let you go tonight. I can't explain it. I just don't..."

     "My heart." It's whispered, your hand brought to press to her chest. She wants to ask : why tonight, what is it, but you don't know, and this, neither does she. She leans in, closing her eyes. "I don't like letting go of you, Davydd. Every time that I do, I - I don't know. Letting go of you, I worry that something will happen. That I'll never see you again. I know that you can take care of yourself. But ... I guess that's what queens get to do..."
     Wait for their kings to come home from their wars, marching or carried in corpse or emblem. Her forehead puckers, she looks down at your body where it touches hers. "I always want you. I always need you. I ... know you know this logically, and it's ... not that I'm trying to convince you. Trying to understand it, maybe - I understand your needs in this perhaps more than I do my own. Because while Isabel might still be around, en petite - she isn't why I love you, you know."
     She had a hand in leading things to their current conclusion, perhaps - but the initial reactions were all Fiona's...
     "Not sure on the time. Look," Fiona says suddenly, pressing her thigh to your thigh in an effort to sit up, turning to look at you. "If you want ... I'll - stay with you tonight. There is a way that I can ... keep both, but ... I have to see if I've got enough energy. I haven't tried it before. But I'm willing to try, at least. I don't - want to let you go, either," she finishes in a hush, smile wistful and small. "Do you know, I didn't worry about you with Dot? Not at all. I worried about Dot ... with you ..."

     "No, no... don't do that," he murmurs. "No, you belong in there with that man," a jerk of his chin toward the wall. On the other side of that wall, you and the Oak King are resting, perhaps even talking. Perhaps he is smart enough not to speak and just to love and be content in it.
     But as you have so succinctly pointed out, Davydd doesn't understand contentment. It is a fight, it is a struggle, because that's what he knows.
     "It won't be long. I will see you and we'll have dinner. We'll watch an old movie under the blankets on the sofa. We'll make love and you'll be mine. Tonight...you go with him, hmm? And don't spend your worry on me. You've a wedding to plan. Too much to do, love, too much to do."
     I'm no good at saying what I mean. Tonight... I guess sometimes it just hits me. And I don't know what to do with it, that emotion. Well, normally I'd drink it off, but I don't want to drink it away tonight. I'm just being a possessive shite. His eyes leave your own, looking to where bodies brush against one another. Davydd tries to blink it away, but he can't.
     You are rolled and he's above you, his weight settling on you again. "I know she's not why you love me." He chuckles a little. "The last thing she'd do is love me through you. I had many things of hers, but I'm not sure anyone had her heart. She was a wild thing, like I became. But a part of me fancied that she fancied me more than the others. That I was the father of her line, as she teased me once. I'll never know whether I was or not, or whether it was Hwyll or ... any number of other dukes and favorites. She never gave me an answer. I suppose it doesn't matter. I'm just a rotter when it comes to sharing. But... a year passes swiftly. We'll look up soon, and find a decade gone. And then another and then another." Davydd kisses you gently. "It'll go faster than it seems now..."
     He looks at the clock on the nightstand. Four in the morning. Almost two more hours of darkness. "Why don't you close your eyes, try to get some rest, Fiona. And... I'm glad you weren't worried about me and Dot," he chuckles suddenly, his laughter moving against you, even as he had within you before. "She's not my type. Lovely creature, to be sure. But... my girl can raise magic with me...and what's she got that can match with that..."

     "I'm not offering just for you, you know," Fiona answers, tone low and confiding. "I don't like letting go of you. I never do. I hate it when you go. The only time it's alright is when it's just because the day's stolen you into sleep, because then I know ... you're there for me to lean up against ... even if you can't feel it."
     Not long. Everything feels so long. There is that wistfulness in her eyes as she looks at you. I feel like a six year old. Is it tomorrow yet? No? How about now? Ninety-nine years won't pass fast enough, even if I know that we'll probably appreciate it the more for having to wait. I'm not good at waiting. Not when I know what it is I'm waiting for. Maybe not ever.
     She lies back underneath you, exhaling . "Maybe she did. I ... remember her talking to you once. She was talking to you as you slept, and you were dreaming; you rode a horse, and that horse's hooves tore the ground behind you so that it was all awash in blood. And she was talking to you about me, but you didn't know it, you were caught in a dream of your past, or maybe it really was your past. But she was telling you about me, and you were telling her there was no room for me on your path. And ... I don't know what she wanted, exactly, but she wanted me to be with you, Davydd. She didn't seem too worried about how, but she knew how I felt about you before I did. She even hinted it to you, once."
     The blue eyes close, a hand lifting to caress your cheek, fingers sliding and trickling down along the back of your neck. "She cared for you. But she didn't seek to possess you. She was confident in what she had of you and she didn't need more - not like me. Maybe it was just that she knew she wouldn't get more. I don't know. Why are we talking about Isabel? Or Dot. My darling, I love feeling you with me." Her voice is fainter now. "I'm sorry..."

     "Don't be sorry," he whispers, shifting upon you. Soon, you will become the bed he lies on, literally, while the physical you remains with his son, your first husband, though not your first fiance. His mouth finds your skin, trailing from your mouth to your chin to your neck.
     Davydd breathes there, his eyes closing. "I'll stay here," he murmurs. "When you wake up, peek in on me. You'll find me here." His mouth wanders over you again. Don't apologize. It is as it should be. It is as it has to be. One day, it will be different. Until then, do not apologize for it. Go on, girl.... go on to sleep.
     His breathing is slow and even, slowing as each passing moment arrives with a flourish and leaves with a whisper of the Past. Soon, he will not breathe. Then, he will not move.

     There is a slight shifting from underneath. One rarely goes to sleep in the position in which one has initially laid down (or been laid). "I'll peek in on you," Fiona murmurs, "and make sure that you're all tucked in. Even if you can't feel it, I don't like the thought of you being uncomfortable. You've slept on enough hard cold grounds in your life..."
     She doesn't even end it with an Old Man. She's all but asleep, the fevered flush fading from her skin slowly, eyelashes drifting down against her cheeks. All that alcohol, all that imagination, all that sex. It has been a long night.
     Love you, Davy. It's a sleepy echo of girlish murmuring, and owes nothing to Isabel. When, after all, did she ever call you by such nicknames? Magic it might be, but ... it is soft, tender, and almost asleep. There is still that trust, now, more than ever, perhaps...
     In due course, this form will fade from under you with a trail of dissipating glitter and a few tangled strands of oak-blonde hair. But for now, she is there - warm, soft and slowly breathing. For now...

Posted by rowan at January 15, 2005 06:29 PM