The feast left the audience impressed - as it was meant to. Fiona was dressed in glowing dark green velvet and dripping in rubies, tiny faceted stones woven into her hair to catch the light and reflect it back, dazzling blood drops and prisms to catch wandering eyes. She was quiet and gracious, smiling and glowing with intensity rather than gaiety. At the right hand of the Holly King, at the left of the Oak ...
     Now I've heard there was a secret chord
     That David played, and it pleased the Lord
     But you don't really care for music, do you?
     It goes like this
     The fourth, the fifth
     The minor fall, the major lift
     The baffled king composing Hallelujah
     Her thoughts were her own, not shared throughout the feast, not by lips nor magic. But the roseate lips smiled, the sapphire eyes held secrets behind their opaque, placid gaze. And when the time came and Rhodri lifted her hand, she rose with him, the barest glance cast back at the lingering throng before those eyes turned with that smile upon the leading form of the Oak King.
     Your faith was strong but you needed proof
     You saw her bathing on the roof
     Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
     She tied you
     To a kitchen chair
     She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
     And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
     And at the doorway of the Oak King's chamber, the youngest queen of faerie parted ways from the newest king. With the barest press of her hand to his, the softest kiss to his cheek, she turned from him and disappeared beyond a doorway - waiting only until out of his sight to neglect to conceal the eagerness in her gaze, that masque falling away with sudden rapidity. And the form of a woman subsides and becomes the form of a linnet, a small russet and white bird with black beak and black eyes, fragile and light enough to stand easily upon a lilypad. Warbling a few notes, the linnet rises into the air, circling three times overhead and then angling off to the Nameless Kingdom.
     You say I took the name in vain
     I don't even know the name
     But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
     There's a blaze of light
     In every word
     It doesn't matter which you heard
     The holy or the broken Hallelujah
     One small bird could so easily get lost in the darkness. Were it not that there is a light that only she can see - it calls to her, draws her onwards through a comforting darkness, like waking in midwinter in luxurious repose. And when she reaches the summit, the balcony that attaches to the Queen's chambers, she retakes her form...
     I did my best, it wasn't much
     I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
     I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
     And even though
     It all went wrong
     I'll stand before the Lord of Song
     With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
     It is a Queen in white that enters, leaving the balcony doors ajar with starlight filtering down through the drapes of the so largely unadorned bedroom. Her hair is down, the scent of appleblossoms forever and always entwined in her passing like a memory of Spring rather than Spring itself. The sapphire eyes are silvered now, the smile no less warm for its enigma; lace that covers but does not entirely conceal wrapping Fiona in thin warmth of snowflakes from the curve of her upper arms down to her ankles, leaving her throat and shoulders bare, her feet bare as well. She wears no crown, but does she need one here, in her own kingdom? And in one hand she holds a slender white waxen taper whose flame glows blue and yellow.
     "Ave, Imperator, te salutant..."

     Ave Imperator...
     The water chimes it back to you. Ave Imperator. The drops of water from cascades to the bathing ponds are the only sound in your immense chamber, they the only ones to speak in hushed and gossiping tones. When will he come? When will he be here?
     The moon is likewise silent tonight, her dark face turned away from all the versions of earth that exist in this sliver of a moment, this one time that is itself a multitude. Your candle becomes a beacon, a brightly shining star, dulling the wild swirls that appear in the sky past your opened window.
     Star-pocked, the sky seems to shift. But it is not the sky. Those are not stars. A small black starling seems to push from the fabric of night like a small hand parting dark curtains, its feathers speckled white. Sparkling, here, as with the residue of stars. It does not land on your arm, your shoulder, the top of your head, or anywhere near your bed. Instead, it circles, wings fluttering darkly as it lands near the bathing pools, nearest the waterfalls. Its beak dips in, drops landing on its speckled and black feathers, which it shakes as if loitering in a bird bath.
     And then he appears...
     His hands cupping the water, the Holly King brings it to his face, bathing for a moment, perhaps sobering in that moment, the water dropping to the pool in musical drops, like dwindling notes of a song interrupted. And then he stands...
     So different from his earlier opulence -- gone are the rubies, gone the emeralds, gone the embroidery of actual gold among the velvet and silk. He is clothed in black. The tunic is leather interwoven here and there with fairy platinum, padded as if it is armor, or the protective under garment beneath the armor. Black leather creaks as he turns to look at you, the leather fitting close to him, but gathered where room for comfort is needed. Black leather boots complete it. He is Night. In all its power. In all its promise. In all its mystery. And star-pocked he seems as he stands there.
     And then Davydd ap Owain, the Holly King, smiles. In that smile, the couched vipers are just visible. "Leather and lace..." he murmurs, his voice still sing-song, still melodic, but earthy deep. He moves to you, to where you stand with your candle. In the blue and yellow incandescence of the flames, he seems all the more Otherworldly. His copper hair catches the light. His high-borne cheekbones, the small Brythonic nose, the ruggedness becomes beautiful. And dangerous.
     "This shall be our last night together," he whispers, "...for a time." There is sadness, wistfulness for that. "Let's drag out time for a while... I...hope you won't mind..."

     "Time, here, is mine to command - it will obey me as I will it. And tonight, I will that the night will last as long as we need it to," Fiona says quietly. She has been watching you, taper held at the ready, the glow of it echoed and answered by the growing, steady flush that glows upon her cheeks. She closes her eyes for a moment, as if finding the sight of you too much for her - the knowledge of inevitable parting too painful to bear with opened lids. Then she reopens them again.
     She brings the candle up, and her lips purse; and with a flicker, the flame is blown out, extinguished with the will become the deed by the power of her breath leaving her body. As simple as that, Time may begin to slow...
     "I love you," the words come in the semi-darkness, though you can see her easily, glimmering white thing that she is, "Davydd. Ap Owain. Prince of Gwynedd. Holly King. Emperor. You are the darkness that coils around me when I am not looking. In you I have found everything I ever wanted in life - but behind bars, so often where I can't reach you. I would die for you. I dream of you, and I dream of our future...."
     The taper drops to the floor, evaporating in its descent, and Fiona steps forward to lift a hand to your cheek. "I know," she whispers, "that you won't believe me. You might be able to, for a moment, but later you'll doubt it - doubt yourself. You'll forget what I said, or think I said it under some moonless influence, under some momentary flight of emotion. Because that's your curse - to love and to be loved, and only in rare moments see that you are loved as much as you love. You said that my heart was a great wide country - but so is your own. You maintain those borders, you police them with great vigor - but I've caught glimpses of it, through the barbed wire. I want to be there with you. Even if it were a lonely prison cell, I could make something of it, if I had you there to sing beside me, to kiss and to struggle with and against. Do you believe me now, in this moment?"

     "I believe you," he speaks it low, kept between yourselves as if the room were crowded with revelers, as if you and he were standing in the center of the earlier feast. He lifts a hand, and it moves against the smoothness of your cheek, the softness of your skin. "And you understand me," a high compliment, paid to so few over all his time. "You shall be the reward for all my trials. I give my dreams to you, for you to hold in your safe-keeping."
     His other hand, large hands but gentle hands, lifts and he cups your face. His thumbs move against your skin, your mouth. A stroke, a press. "I give them to you," Davydd murmurs, "... I trust them to you, and you with them. Dream of our life together and we will be together. And your dreams will reach me. And they will remind me when I am foolish and forget. That you love me on your own terms, to be compared to no other. And that when I return you will still have me."
     He draws you to him, leading your face to his, and his mouth plucks against your own, covering it softly, then warmly, then widely. His tongue, bearing with it the flavors of mead and clove-wine swallowed, coils around yours, coils in the darkness that joins you.
     But you have all night, and nothing is rushed. The kiss parts, and in its parting there is a heated breath between you, shared air. Shared Fate. Shared future. "I give you my dreams to hold. But I have one last gift for you tonight," his mouth trails the line of your jaw to your neck, then back to your ear. "Something for you to remember me by, when you hold it... you will feel me in your arms. When we cannot be together, it will comfort you." Davydd smiles, the stroke of his mouth in motion against your ear. "And it will please you.... wherever you place it on your skin."
     His mouth closes around your earlobe, a pleasing sound in his throat is loud in his proximity. And you feel his hands land against your lace, feeling it nearly dissolve like sugar beneath his fingertips. "Do you want your present now... or later..." he chuckles.
     All this, and you have yet to pour him the drink...

     She is silent as you speak, sighing without sound as your hands touch her, lift her face up, as you kiss her. She leans in towards you even as you draw her close, a smile tugging at the edges of her mouth as it joins yours.
     "Another gift? Your generosity is almost perplexing, my lord," Fiona murmurs, her fingers drifting along your arm, following that broad expanse with a faint shiver. "I will need something to comfort me. I will miss you - I will be nearly shattered without you. But right now, I have you..."
     She shifts, making a quiet sound as your mouth finds her earlobe. The colour pink travels along her skin in a trail along the side of her throat, behind her ear, rendering her almost incapable of speech - soluble in that touch as if to dissolve in water, becoming disparate nothingness within the greater body and volume. "...There is something I must give to you as well."

     "It's like Christmas," he beams, Londonized accent flirting. His hands give your sides a tickle and squeeze, his grin going lopsided and madcap, youthening him in a flash, and showing off his sharp and sparkling pearly whites. "Show me yours and I'll show you mine? Is that how that goes?"
     He doesn't let you retort, at least not for the moment, as a quick and pressing kiss stops your mouth a moment. When it parts, his hands begin to withdraw, but one lingers, his fingers padding softly at the small of your back. "Shall we share a cuppa and distribute gifts? I think it best," he whispers. "We're going to have our hands full later."
     And then some, from the looks of it...
     "Up on the bed..." he nods toward it, and taking a look around the vast, but mostly unfurnished chamber, Davydd smirks. "What I ought to get you is furniture," he cracks. "At least a nice fuck-me chaise," he chuckles softly. His eyes rake you up and rake you down, lingering here and there where the lace loiters particularly well, and with a tilting smile, very pleased indeed, he heads to the bed himself, plopping down on it with a grateful exhale.
     "Alone at last," the Holly King croons out. But there's not the usual clothes throwing, kicking off the boots disrobing. He simple sits back on the many cushions and looks instantly comfortable while waiting for you to pour the drinks and come over to him.

     The kiss is met with a certain brief demand, and then Fiona smiles, leaning back against the press of your hand. "I'll get the drinks," she agrees, sliding away from your hands and moving to one of the few cabinets. The carved doors are opened, goblets of thin, thin silvered glass withdrawn. She draws a bottle out as well, pulling off the crystal top (in the shape of an apple, of course) and pouring the amber fluid in steady trickles into first one glass, then the other.
     "Alone," Fiona agrees, "except for ourselves and the audience we encompass. Would you like anything with your drink, King Davydd? Cheese? Bread? Chocolates? Fondue?" A pale eyebrow slants up; she's teasing now, and it shows in the pocket of the dimple that suddenly appears as she begins making her way to the bed.
     "Or would you prefer I cut to the chase - bring on the gifts? Or sing for you, perhaps," Fiona murmurs as she closes the distance, "with your head laid in my lap, my fingers drawing through your hair and down your face as I unveil for you feminine mysteries. So many things, and I will make you ache tonight, my king..."
     Her hand is extended out to you, and she arrives, the mischief lurking, glimmering in her eyes behind the silver, blue sheen. "But, of course," Fiona murmurs as she holds your glass steady, "we have a bargain to conclude as well."

     "Nah, love, I couldn't eat another bite, diolch." The boots come off at last, one by one dropping heavily to the floor. But that is all that is removed. The rest will be up to you to relieve him of. "I'll put my head in your lap by and by," comes the soft chuckle. "Let's get to the business straight away. I plan to savor my lap time tonight."
     His hand comes out and pats the surface of the bed beside him. With that, he sits up a bit, one leathered leg dangling off the bed's surface, the other outstretched. One bare foot skims the rugged floor, the other flexes, stretching and relaxing in its sudden unbooted state.
     Thick, leathered arms reach up and fold behind his bed. Green eyes watch you like the forest watches you as you wander slowly through it. He is the creature in the shadows, is he not? He is the hunter in the woods. The dragon coiling around the bodies of the trees. The look feeds on you, savors the sight of you. His mouth tugs upwards just slightly.
     "What bargain was this, now?" Davydd murmurs. "Did we shake on it or was it my usual promise spoken and meant to be broken?" The smile slants in a rogue's turn. "And I'm already aching, my queen. The leather's tight."

     "Business it is, then," Fiona agrees, sinking easily to sit on the bed next to where you lie, watching you with the wary comfort of a wild thing in a wild place. "And I don't think that it was the usual promise. After all," her lips twitch and curve, "it was made to me."
     And she is the exception to so many of your self-imposed rules, isn't she, with her golden hair and those presently knowing eyes...
     The goblets are held carefully, their contents not permitted to spill. One lace-covered leg lifts, thigh curled on the bed while the other leg dangles. "You asked to be my champion, Davydd," Fiona reminds you, still watching you with that preternatural alertness. "I've chosen to accept. But, of course, it isn't quite as simple as that, is it? You know it already - everything's got a little bit of ... ritual ... to go with it, to make it real and more-than-real. So." She cants her head towards you. "Are you still interested in the position, Holly King?"
     "Or ... must I find another candidate ..."

     He tries not to show his emotion, how the notion touches him, what it means to him. He lets you handle the drinks. He? He handles you. A hand comes to rest upon your curling thigh. "With you, I find most positions interesting," a soft, emotion-filled quip returns. "I hear no champion can be truly recognized if he hasn't got a token." He was never a knight. Never like William. He never had the crowds fawning or the women throwing themselves at him. All he knows of it is what he's seen in others. Or read.
     "I am not sure I asked," Davydd whispers, turning toward you, his mouth seeking you. "I think I begged, if I recall properly." Forests twinkle in starlight held in his eyes as he grins at himself. "If you would have me, my lady, I would be yours..."
     Business you speak, business to attend, but pleasure is everywhere abounding. He with a hand guides your face to his, cups your chin in a gentle grasp, and covers your mouth with his own. This kiss more passionate, less gentle than it is wanting.
     But like before, it is parted before too long, his hand stroking against your face again. "What shall you give me... that I may take with me... a token, a treasure...?"

     "You will be mine," Fiona promises, smiling at you, that glimmer of wildness showing in delight, the smile echoed in her eyes, in the tilt of her hands as they lift to touch you, to touch your hand, touch your face. The kiss does not remove that smile, only alters it, closes her eyes without taking her attention from you.
     "Tokens, yes - I have tokens that I have prepared for you. But you will need to release me long enough to go and get them for you," Fiona murmurs, eyes slanting open, looking up at you. "I think that you will find them ... useful ..."
     She begins to draw away, still watching you, the dangerous creature that she has in her bed. "Seven gifts," Fiona tells you softly, "and then I will anoint you and mark you as my champion. I will only have one champion, Davydd. And you will be him."

     "Seven?" He's genuinely surprised. What on earth am I going to do with seven gifts, he would seem to say. But he smiles anyway. Davydd is content to watch you slink away. He knows you will return. There's no danger of him losing you.
      "Perhaps I should give you mine first, as I just have the one." Well, the one here. He gifted you and Rhodri with a pair of fairy horses, pure white but for their blood-tipped ears. Their legs were resplendent, giving off white light. A mare and a stallion. Symbols of a kingdom beginning, and of fertility. A lofty gift. It raised quite the stir of questions.
     Questions that shall have their answer soon enough...
     But Davydd does not move. He does not reach into a pocket in his tunic or pants -- neither have such. So how shall the gift manifest and what will it be? He leans forward after another moment, lifting one of the glasses for the smallest of sips. A sound rumbles in his chest. "My favorite vintage... "

     "The vintage of your proposal to me," Fiona agrees, then smiles abruptly. "Well. Your proposal to marry me. I don't know of a better vintage, in my self-interested memory. And if you want to give me your gift, you may, of course - but if they're as large as the gifts I've got for you - some of them - the room's going to get quite crowded." She steps back, setting aside her goblet and looks at you with eyebrows raised.
     "Shall I begin? Or would you ... prefer to steal my thunder?"

     "No, I wouldn't dream of it," he chuckles, "...go ahead, my queen," Davydd bows his head. He will have more to drink in a while. And more to say. He contents himself with leaning against the pillows, arms folding at the expanse of his chest, his head tilted to look at you.
     A quizzical look. An intrigued look. A look that is trying to figure out just what you could have up your sleeves...

     Fiona smiles, moving to the open space of the room - no wonder she hasn't got furniture, it allows her to act as ringmistress. She looks intently at a pool of shadow where nothing is, and then ... she reaches ...
     From somewhere else she draws the first item, the first token. It is an almost flat package - at first. Fiona shakes it out, and it billows, becoming a long black leather trenchcoat. London Fog, perhaps - or some better, more exclusive label or tailor. She turns and tosses it in your direction, and it changes again...
      ...landing on the bed with a heavier thump. Still leather. Still black. But armour now, sinfully black and artfully crafted, black and black with the design of a cresting wave over the left wrist, picked out in blue and white diamonds.
     "A champion," Fiona remarks casually, "must have of his lady that which he needs to enact his role. We walk in two worlds, Davydd, not one. So the armour I've made for you exists in both worlds - as do my other gifts as well. I know you have your suits of armour, but I would be a poor patron if I failed to give you this, wouldn't I?"

     He leans forward, his hands taking up the crafted leather. The armor in his hands, the coat, both simultaneously. This will come in handy. "Very nice, my lady," Davydd's voice is pure appreciation as he lifts and inspects his first gift. "Good pockets for guns, for those nights when you... just never know..."
     Like every other fucking night in London...
     With care, he sets the leather at the foot of the bed, not bothering to put it on while he's already overdressed. At least in his humble opinion...

     "I wouldn't want you to be unprepared." That's almost Drancy in its sardonicism, though it's not insincere. Fiona smiles again, a broadening, widening pull at the edges of her mouth - cats around canaries. She turns, picking up something that isn't there and tossing it to you. A hunting horn...
     ...Which becomes a cellphone...
     "Don't you find roaming charges to be simply tedious? I know I do." Fiona leans up against the foot of the bed, hugging one of the posts and smiling slyly at you. "It works. Free long distance. You can call anyone you know on it, as long as you know them well enough that you could have their number. Even if they've changed it recently. And here, it will tell me that you are calling me - or if you need assistance, my men will come."

     You think of everything. Fiery eyebrows jolt up as he catches the horn. "So... now when I say I have someone on the horn, it'll be literal." The horn becomes a cellphone in his hand. Davydd slides the phone, activating it with a deep blue glow. He slides it closed again and sets it on the table beside the glasses of cider.
     "How I do love a woman who knows my twisted mind." Though he smiles, there is a serious look coupled with it. Very impressive, my love. With even greater curiosity, your dragoned darling looks to you, wondering what else you have up your sleeves...
     Your very lacy... appealing... sleeves...

     I but live to serve. Fiona smiles at you, pleased at your pleasure, smiling all the more for the jest. She brings her hand to her mouth, and then - whistles. And there is the quiet sound of hooves...
     "I'm sorry that Pistachio wasn't an appropriate gift," Fiona remarks casually, "but I thought that Freckles here might do better."
     It's a roan stallion, mane coming in black and with dark, expressive eyes. There's the faintest dusting of black in splotches along its neck - 'freckles'. She leans up against its neck, whispering in the horse's ear; it rolls its eyes at her, then shifts back a bit - and shimmers, becoming just solid black with russet trim - an Alfa Romeo GT 2.0 JTS by the look of it, with tinted - mirrored windows.
     "The seats," Fiona says easily, "fold all the way back. But there's no back seat. You'll have to settle for hand-jobs - oral sex is rather out, the gearshift will persist in getting in the way. But the windows will turn completely opaque if you want them to - so if you get stuck away from shelter, you've got an option."
     She leans over, opening the passenger-side door and withdrawing a silk-wrapped bundle. "Catch."

     Edward will say I'm copying him. But... fuck 'im. Davydd laughs, a pleased laugh, straight from the gut and coupled with a wide, Mercury smile. And despite his best efforts, he goes a bit pinkish at the mention of blow-jobs and hand-jobs, starting to grouse but in the end deciding silence is golden.
     His hand comes up again, catching the bundle easily. He looks at it, he looks at you. He looks at the car. "Can I get a vanity plate that says 'stud' on it? I'm sure Freckles would appreciate the sentiment... What's this, then?"
     Just like a child. Davydd goes to open or unwrap the bundle before you can tell him: why don't you open it and see for yourself?

     "You can get whatever vanity plate you like." Fiona's smile curls, and she folds her arms over her chest as she watches you. "It just, I think, fits - with the armour and the horn, I mean. If you're going to be a champion, it'd rather bloody be difficult if you had to walk to my defense. Not to mention nowhere near as poetic."
     The silk unwraps easily from a sword - fairy steel, this, blue and white as everything seems to be. But this is a deadlier blue and white; it might be fairy steel, but it was summoned into being by a modern young woman, with at least a knowledge of the existence of such things as carbon steel and molecularized edging. It is sharp enough to cut a glance, and surprisingly light.
     It ripples as well, changing to become - what else? An umbrella. Not a fancy plastic and aluminum job, though - solid wood haft, true steel rims and balancings and a sharp-tipped metal ferrule. "You don't seem the sort to carry a walking stick or a cane," Fiona murmurs, "but while an umbrella's slightly out of character for you, it's likely to be less - especially if you're planning on being seen in certain sections of Society."
     Showgirls and high-classed fashion models don't like being rained upon, after all. They might melt.

     "Smashin'," Davydd rattles out with a whistle of appreciation. "I'm James Bond. That makes you Miss Moneypenny. Or Ursula Andress." He looks at it again. Umbrella. Sword. Sword. Umbrella.
     Davydd wraps the sword back into a bundle and shifts on the bed, leaning over to place it on the floor, but under the bed for safety. For now. He doesn't expect to have to use it here, after all.
     "I could use a new cigarette lighter," Davydd says as he rises with a wink. "My zippo's about had it, love. I never knew you were this... inventive...with weaponry. I guess I can fire my blacksmith..."

     "Only for you. Not for anyone else." Fiona comes back to the bed, sitting near you and taking up from the air two packages, turning to place them on the bed and unwrapping them from cloth. "These are my grandmother's milk biscuits," she says serenely, indicating a small basket of the sweets. "I made them myself - without magic, I'll have you know. I realize that they're a bit dull in comparison to the rest, but it's symbolic. Food from my table, from my hands, and..."
     Now she indicates the other package - a bottle. "Drink. Wine - fortified with brandy, and with blood. More useful there, perhaps - I did use magic to blend the two and so the blood won't - well, curdle, or whatever it might otherwise do. I'm not a hematologist." The two packages are nudged towards you, and she curls up on the bed opposite you, watching your face with sudden seriousness.
     "One more token, Davydd. And then ... well. I've still got to induct you in as my champion then," Fiona murmurs, pulling a small jewelry box out and holding it out to you on her palm. "Assuming, of course, that you accept my last token as well."

     "Dull? Hardly," Davydd murmurs as he takes each, each in turn set upon the now crowded night table. "I'm sure I'll be reaching for those after the first... intermission," he decides the word should be, with a chuckle and a waggling of eyebrows.
     Induction? Will there be a secret handshake? Davydd's eyebrows quirk upward. If he were a cat, he'd be thrice dead at the hands of Curiosity. He looks to you as his hand slowly takes the jewelry box. He pauses before opening, as if you will tell him what it is before he sees it.
     "There's no turning back now, love," he assures you with a confident (if still curious) smile. "I wouldn't if I could...I couldn't if I tried..."

     The box opens easily, and inside there is a ring. Golden it is, and perfectly smooth save for a very faint wave design on either side of the stone : a single marquise-cut ruby, beneath which if one looks very closely there appears almost to be a flaw, a fine, slender waving line. Or a strand of hair...
     "It's the same no matter where you are," Fiona murmurs, glancing down and then back up again. "My last token. After all, armour might be worn, but it isn't a proper token that a knight receives from his lady, is it? The rest, it's just - tools of the trade. There has to be something useless for it to have proper meaning."

     "Did you measure my fat fingers as I slept, me with my ham hands?" He says it softly. His hands are big, but they're hardly hams. He reaches forward, his fingers quite capable of delicate motion. He plucks it from the box, then sets the box aside. He places it on his marrying hand, the pledge finger. Of course it is magic, so it's a perfect fit.
     "Diolch," Davydd says, looking to you. I appreciate it. Very sweet gifts from my lady to me." He leans forward, and he kisses you. The warm kiss of an admirer. Of a husband. "Now," he says, his voice easing in the shadows you create together, "...I have something for you, dear heart."
     The ring on his fingers catches the light of your taper, glimmering blood red with a streak of gold as he leans back, his hands going to the collar of his tunic. From around his neck he draws a pendant. It is a deep blue stone, not perfectly round, but perfectly smooth. Into its surface has been carved dragons in a multitude. You will recognize them as the ones that are drawn upon his skin. It is held by a platinum chain, the metal just one step from liquid.
     As he places this around your neck, the carvings begin to glow with a hint of royal blue. And you can feel his heart beating against your skin... as surely as you shall when you and he are in bed. "Even when I am not with you," Davydd remarks, "I shall be with you. If you are ever in trouble, all you will have to do is call me and I will hear you. And I shall find you. If you miss me when I am gone from you," he smiles a little, knowing you will, "...then it will be as if I were with you. You will feel my arms when you most need them..."
     Again he leans forward, and copper eyelashes veil his gaze, as he brushes a kiss against your mouth. The brush turns to a press, a parting of mouths, breaths slowly exchanged, and warmth, and want. A low sound rumbles in his throat, and the kiss deepens.

     She holds her ground as you open the box, as you put the ring on, as you lean forward; her lips parting with gentle grace as they are met by your own. "For me? You didn't need..."
     She falls silent, blinking as you lift the pendant, as you place it around her throat. There is the hint of danger, that element of something other than safety in moments like these...
     "I miss you when I even think of you being far from me." Fiona sighs, lifting a hand to touch the dragoned disc as it lies against her, over skin and lace. I couldn't ever live without you but that I would be incomplete.
     And you lean forward, and she looks up with the sudden shift of her gaze to alertness, awareness; your presence, your closeness, your kiss. Her hand lifts to touch your face, and the kiss is left unbroken save for a small sound in the back of her throat. Anticipation? Regret? Some amalgam of strong emotion, intoxication on the wing...
     I still must mark you as my champion, though...

     In a bit... in a bit... But there's something so ... girlish about your thoughts, maybe a frothiness with sprinkles, he's not sure, but the next moment finds the kiss broken. And Davydd laughing. "I'm trying to make love to you here, in case you haven't noticed. I mean, the booze, the low lighting, the clandestine meeting, the gifts." His green eyes sparkle even in this low light and widen. "Besides, aren't I marked enough? I think my arse is the only thing left untouched..."
     Chuckling, Davydd leans back a bit. "Why don't we have a drink, aye? I could do with one, myself. All that flying about makes a man parched. Besides... we should have a toast, shouldn't we?" Twisting, Davydd reaches for both glasses. "To tonight... a night without a morning..." He looks at you and winks. "...at least until we say so..."

     "As many drinks as you like, my dear." Fiona lifts a hand to lightly swat at your shoulder, settling back. "You make love very nicely, Davydd. You make me feel more feminine than I'm used to feeling." She pauses, then adds grudgingly, "I like it, though. I - well, does your ego need to be stroked?"
     She closes her eyes, licking her lips as if to taste you on them. Her lower lip scrapes free of her teeth, and she lifts her chin, lips parted as her eyes lazily open to peer in your direction as if to ask, what are you doing over there...
     When you should be here with me...
     "A toast," Fiona agrees slowly, reaching to accept a glass. "To us. And to all the nights we've had and will have together."

     "Nicely," he chuckles, "..hey hey, watch it....you're going to make me spill the drinks..." Davydd hands it over to you, laughter still echoing in his eyes, his mouth making a wicked tilt. He taps his glass to yours, once, twice, thrice. "To us. To you driving me batty and me driving you to distraction. Here's to a bright and never boring future of blanket stealing, vase throwing, over-the-shoulder hauling, baby making, kingdom building and occasional love making. Skoal!" He grins it and lifts the cider for a deep drink.
     But instead of throwing the cup aside and tossing you over his shoulder for other environs, Davydd leans back, leather creaking softly. And bed creaking too. "I ...really like that ...gown," he breathes it out, Welsh lilting off his tongue like a sonnet. "Is that what it is?" He lifts the cup again and sips. "...a ....gown?"

     The cup is sipped, those silvered blue eyes regarding you as you speak, as you lean back. "A gown," Fiona agrees, setting her cup aside and sitting up. "Not really for wearing out in public, though. Do you like it? I made it myself - with magic, of course, but I've come to really like magic." The dimple shows for a moment. "If you can believe that, after how I got my introduction to it."
     She shifts on the bed, stretching and then leaning forward, padding on hands and knees towards you with her hair sliding along one cheek. "I took a handful of snow and made the snowflakes show me how they were made. And then I spun them from ice into lace, directly upon my skin. They're still cool to the touch, see?" She reaches for your hand, lifting it to touch it to the lace. "But not frozen..."

     How different it is when there is no clock. When there is no sun to put an end to his enjoyment. This is what Forever is supposed to feel like. There is a smile for the stroll down memory lane. "Well, you came to like me well enough. I suppose it's not all that surprising that you like magic too. This..." is far more strange, he was about to say. But then his fingers run over the lace.
     Now, the leather is becoming uncomfortable...
     "Isn't it ...cold...?" Davydd quietly wonders, his fingers tracing lightly, knowing their way to a breast without having his eyes have to follow along. Though they do, taking their own time. "What keeps it from melting?" Magic is the answer, but it's entertaining to ask the questions anyway.
     "Too bad," his lips quirk upward suddenly, "... it wasn't made from spun sugar. I could eat it off of you." His fingers stray, brushing over the rise of a nipple, lingering there as his other hand lifts his drink back to his mouth, hiding his grin with the third swallow.
     "You could open your own line of magical knickers..." Davydd's grin appears at the rim of the glass, and his fiery eyebrows wiggle in a brief, jumping dance. Another swallow and he lowers the cup again. You can see it, how it affects him. In the warmth it brings to his skin. In the depth it brings to his eyes. In the thickening beneath the leather. The taste of you made liquid, turned alcoholic.

     It affects her as well - not the liquor, being too much of her own essence, but in your reaction to it. In your touch. "It's a little cold," Fiona agrees, voice strained for a moment as your hand follows its own map. "Not as cold as snow would be, but a little."
     It doesn't need to be very cold, for her to begin to react to you - more than just to your presence, though that reaction is remarkable enough. This ... is something else...
     "Too much sugar is bad for your teeth." With that, Fiona pulls back a little, a hand falling to a leatherclad thigh. "It doesn't melt because I sang to the snowflakes. They don't want to melt, now." Her hand tightens on your thigh, her eyes turbulent now, grey and blue like the roiling of the sea. "Davydd..."

     His hand slides between your skin and the enchanted snowflakes, sudden warmth and strength where before there had been only light coolness. His hand cups and rolls your breast, in no particular hurry mind you. "Why don't you remove it then?" Davydd suggests. "But... slowly sil vous plais," he grins. "I always fancied watching snow fall..."
     As he grins, the sharpened teeth have lowered, the additional canines euphemistically known as the 'thorns' of the Holly King. Snakes have them, too. And wolves. And other creatures that prefer the darkness.
     "They may not feel much like melting," he lilts, "...but you... on the other hand..." His hand switches breasts, he would hate one to feel neglected, fingers pinching and rolling, brushing and grasping. This, as he so casually lifts his other hand bearing the half-full glass of cider for another swallow.
     "So... you want to mark me... do you...perhaps you should while we're coherent. Mostly." Davydd gives his weight to the cushions, his voice rumbling in his throat and chest again at the squeeze of your hand. "A bit higher, love..."

     Those direct touches always have that effect on her. Alice, upon tumbling down into the rabbit hole, could be no more lost. "Impossible bloody man," Fiona mutters, cheeks pink. "I ... alright."
     She lowers her gaze away from where your hand is, away from the sight of those pinpoints. She has to subdue herself; reactions too often give way to sound, and she's trying to go slow.
     "How's this?" As her hand slides along your thigh, the lace begins to slowly unweave, individual snowflakes gradually becoming disjointed from one another until they fall apart, floating everywhere - caught on the breeze from the balcony, wafted into the air to leave her naked and leaning forward, her hand brushing your groin.
     Fiona smiles, closing her eyes for a moment. "What you had in mind, darling?" Her hand tightens slightly, and she lifts her chin.

     The leather is lambskin, soft beneath the touch, giving way beneath your fingers as they slide along his thigh. His thigh twitches. Only... it is not his thigh. "I don't want to take away all your fun, sweetheart. Surprise me," Davydd chuckles.
     Green isn't sure where to land, so it wanders from your breasts to your hand. Looking at the architecture of his leather garments, you might notice that there are snaps along the side of the tunic that at first seem like all the rest of the platinum metal weavings. You'll have to at least open the tunic to be able to get to where the pants are properly fastened.
     "I could use a little breathing room, as you can no doubt tell," comes the teasing lilt of your Cymri's voice, his eyes for a moment following the path of one of the last snowflakes to leave.
     Your hand tightens, his voice sounds. He makes no bones about it. While his motions are restrained, his reactions are not. "Hmm... better..."

     "I'm glad," Fiona coos, even as her other hand lifts to begin puzzling out the snaps and grommets, discovering how the leather is held fastened. She shifts, sliding forward to straddle your thighs where you lie back on the bed, one hand landing next to your ear as she leans forward to touch her lips to yours.
     "My champion," Fiona whispers, lingering there for a moment and then drawing away again, beginning to open the tunic. "My dragon-decorated warrior king. If I didn't know how you hog the shower, I'd think you couldn't be real, had to be a fantasy. Nothing this good could be real."
     She balances there, hovering with the scent of apple blossoms and honey, looking at you with a flash of challenge in her gaze. "My king and husband," Fiona murmurs. "It might still be a long way away, but I look forward to the day when you can get me with your child. It's strange and vulgar. I want you to knock me up. I want you to be able to possess me... even to the point of letting some future little terror take out a rental on my uterus. I love you that much."
     Her hand tightens at your groin again, then palms along it so that she can allow it to bear her weight, leatherclad though it is. Her mouth finds your ear, even as her hands concentrate on undoing the tunic. "My Davy," Fiona whispers. "Mine. Holly King, I love your thorns. I love your arrows. I love every bit of your painted carcass. And I love the spirit that animates it as well - you're a remarkable man. A hero for the ages. And now you're going to be my hero..."

     It's a heady mix...
     The feeling of you so close, straddling him. Your hands unsnapping, unfastening the leather...
     The apples... the honey...
     You speaking of your belly being full of his child....
     As often as you claim it of him, you have him spellbound at the moment. Putty (well, alright, not putty at the moment physically) in your hands. Davydd closes his eyes as your mouth moves against his. He seeks to kiss you, but you move away again, opening the tunic to lay that blue body bare.
     The Welsh drips from his lips, slides against his tongue, dots the air with little sparks as your mouth finds his ears. The chill that moves through him, the energy that courses from head to toe...to head...makes his groin twitch beneath your hand and strain against the leather.
     The sound that comes from him is low and long, earthy and dark. He even blushes at the neverending compliments a touch. But the blood and all its power is being drawn ...somewhere else besides his cheeks.
     His cheek is rough, the stubble of a beard he never wears anymore beginning to show through as he turns his head, his mouth seeking your own. Taking your mouth, possessing it with his own for a moment of wildness untempered before freeing it again.
     "As I made you mine, Queen Fiona," that night on the piano, "... make me yours..."

     "Drink," Fiona commands once her mouth is freed, lips darkened from wild kisses even as she lifts the tunic away, lets it slide to the floor. "Drink deeply, my king. You will need your strength for the ride you're about to take." She smiles knowingly, female secrets trapped in the tumult of her gaze, and then she slides back, and down a bit, hands and mouth going to your shoulders, to your chest.
     She has dragons to visit, and she begins with your chest, lips wandering over pectorals, tongue rasping daintily at your nipples, at scales and fruits and trees without question, without pause, without diffidence. Here and there she nips lightly, as if to remind you that though she hasn't got fangs, she hasn't become toothless yet...
     And her hand returns to between your thighs, kneading, massaging, feeling the length and breadth of you, but not freeing you yet from your leather there. Not yet; she is torturing you. Preparing you. Claiming you with her closeness, so teasingly near, so vanishingly naked...

     He drains his glass with a throat-held chuckle, and then he takes yours and drains it, too. Deeply. Quickly. So that his hands may return to you. Fingers disappear into gold, and the dragons of the hazel trees flick their tongues to yours as you go. His breathing is deep, held as your tongue moves over his nipples, grunted out as your hand returns to the darkness between you. The thick darkness that it is.
     The dragons that are hidden still, but making themselves very known, seek your hand, pressing back at your fingers. There is a growl that emanates from your king's gut. It is not hunger, just the low, low sound of a groan.
     You miss the look of impure delight upon his face, your hair veiling your way down his body. The parting of his lips reveals the fangs distended to their full and dangerous curves. Davydd gives his body to the cushions at his back, his hands pressing lightly (but insisting) in their grasp of golden hair.

     Fiona says nothing now, busy with her task, the enigma in her gaze when she glances at you - a knowing enigma, if such a thing can be said to exist. She smiles for a moment, then returns to what it is she does. Dragons are stroked, reached for and coaxed, Eve offering the apple to the serpent rather than the reverse.
     And her mouth travels lower, over the hard muscles of your abdomen, tongue swirling a slow trail around your navel even as her hands now seek the catches that keep the leather down there in place. She isn't done yet. She isn't even close to being done. But this is act one of an all-nighter...
     She slides down, leather loosening but not yet pulled away, and she apes what is to follow, lips pressed to the leather in soft kisses, cheek rubbing there and then she begins to roll the leather away. You couldn't hold still then, either...

     On his abdomen is a forest of ash. Beneath your mouth, the trees tremble, your breath creating the wind that moves through them. Dragons slither against your tongue and his words hiss from his mouth: "Duw... sychu fy pidyn..." Filthy commands sound somehow even more filthy in Welsh than even in English...
     Each kiss begets a bellow of breath, a leathered twitch complete with a creaking as the leather has given all that it has to give. As the leather is rolled away, his eyes roll up in his head and his fingers curl and uncurl against your scalp with none-too-subtle a motion, echoing his earlier imperative.
     You won't be able to hold still either... comes the inner promise (or is it warning?), fingering its way through you as your hands begin to work him free. It takes work now to do so. The leather clings, and when engorged your champion's cock is all too like a tree that does not bend.
     It seeks the warmth of your mouth, the dragons most brilliantly carved there, writhing there, threatening there, both on and under the foreskin and the crown it can no longer hide. The clumps of mistletoe berries, the provocative clusters of leaves, are as real as the dragons seem to be. Is this the 'dragon trick' Rose once spoke of? That... dragon .... thing?

     Fiona laughs a little, glancing up - as much as she can, with your fingers in her hair, in her present position. "Patience," she mocks, "try to have a little, hm? Don't worry, love. You'll like this..."
     She suits actions to words, fingertips playing arpeggios along the sides as she leans forward, breath warm against your lap. Daintily, her tongue comes out - but she's taking her own sweet time about it, isn't she? She laps at those dragons, like a cat lapping up milk, flickering strokes of her tongue that increase and decrease speed and rhythm, moving along the shaft.
     One hand comes down underneath to cup those tattooed berries, lifting and massaging. Remember me when you are away from me. No matter how many women you have had, there has never been another like me. Remember...
     Now the rosy lips part, and Fiona begins to take the head of your cock into her mouth, some inner thought making a smile tug at her face even so. But she doesn't pause, suckling by degrees, here and there rather than around, yet. And then, without warning, she goes down suddenly...

     His eyes fly open as you swallow him whole. He fills your mouth, far more thick than he is long. And in that heated grasp he twitches again. In your mouth, in your hands. He never says much during sex. It all dissolves into barbaric grunts and growls and groans. But tonight he calls your name. Fiona. His great voice putting the stress, of course, on the O and drawing out with a groan on the Ah.
     A hand on your head, he massages where he pressed before, then his hands do the polite and dutiful thing -- keeping your hair out of your way, and your mouth. Green eyes watch you, smoky as they are now between slitted curtains of copper. And beneath you, his stomach hardens, the muscles shifting, his hips curling to send him to the back of your throat.

     Good manners always are more likely to invite return custom. And Fiona has so very much hair to get in the way, hasn't she... She continues what she's doing, drawing away with a small, sly smile, then plunges down again, tongue slightly extended to slide all along the bottom of your shaft. And this time, when she reaches the bottom, she holds her position for a moment, suckling, then slowly easing off while maintaining suction, until her lips are just behind the head.
     Mine... my champion. My husband, my lover, my liege, my lord, my king... my Davy. All mine...
     And then she begins again, setting up a steady rhythm that gradually increases its pace, one hand lightly scraping fingernails against your thigh while her other hand massages holly berries and leaves. She is drawing your essence from you with her mouth as much as you ever drew her blood with your fangs, just waiting for the right moment...

     There are no words that trip across the ether and air, from his soul to yours to bubble on your blood. There's only the sympathetic motions meeting your own, the twist of his hips to press him in all pleasurable directions at once -- into the grasp of your hand, against the scrape of your nails, into the glove of your mouth, as if not sure where he should thrust first.
     Davydd's sound effects fill the otherwise empty room. Long and low, when you slowly drag your mouth along his length. Grunting loudly when you plunge down to the ends of him. Growling when you suckle him, your mouth mimicking the squeezing of your own orgasm around him.
     Blood and magic are on the move. He cannot be any thicker. He is at the fullest hardness allowed to him. But as your mouth slides over his skin, his skin sliding with it, as you pull at him, you can taste it, sense it, feel it, hear it.
     The taste of it is wild, a hint of the salty-sweetness yet to come. And with it, the humming of magic, causing your own tongue to twitch. It is full of Life's vitality. Invigorating. Stimulating. Strong, as the pulse of Life should be....

     The taste makes her sigh, deep in her throat (along with part of you). Her lips close more tightly around you, her pace picks up, tongue-tip rubbing firmly over the head there; and there is an answering hint of magic lurking, pulsing, swarming into being.
     And again, she repeats her act, again, her tongue presses, her lips suckle, her hands clutch and massage. Repetition. It is the way of Life, isn't it? Spring gives way to Autumn gives way to Winter gives way to Summer gives way to Spring. And the smell of apple blossoms perfumes the air, with the last of melting snow still forming puddles upon the floor...
     And then there is the moment of Truth, as it were. The point of climax - magic meeting magic. Muscles that tighten are met by hands that press, lips that suckle just behind the head of your cock ever more firmly. There is no hint of teeth; there needs not be any. Power flows in a conduit, a moebius strip - into her, from her into you, from you, into her and changing.
     The lilies of the field toil not, nor do they spin...

     What was that saying: the most dangerous man on the planet... for thirty minutes? The Thirtyminuter (King Thirtyminuter, to you) presses into the cushions, his hips lifting off the bed as the magic comes and goes in waves. Strong waves, crashing against blood, his blood crashing against his skin, his cock spasming in your mouth, the glans jerking with it.
     Strong waves of him, magic and liquid, land against your tongue, at the back of your throat, Vitality (with a capital V) surging through you with all of the strength that could make inanimate objects pregnant with sudden lifeforce. But you also are gifted with other powers: Sight, Knowledge of Life and Death, the twisting labyrinth of Otherworldly power, the ability to hear everything... the life in the bed, the birds outside, the conversations normally unheard -- the air speaking softly to the world as it passes.
     Twelve jets of his essence in your mouth. Twelve powers tasted in all their wildness and their strength (the sweetness, too, of Apple and its poetic thrust of hardened inspiration) make themselves known to you.
     And in the slow fading sound of white noise in your head, you may hear the rhythmic groans of a man climaxing and his breathing slowing soon after.
     Davydd closes his eyes tightly, his body starting to jerk away. Everything is sensitive, a final spasm tells you that, and with a mighty sound he rolls his hips back to pull them away, and his slackening length from your mouth.

     Some go in search of knowledge. Others... have knowledge thrust upon them...
     Magic and fertility drip from her, in her, her lips slow to release - though release she does, with that changing nature. Grey eyes glance down, and there is for a moment despite the overwhelming lostness of the wilderness of Other Things, a sly feminine smile upon your lover's glistening lips. Fiona settles back slowly upon her haunches, stretching her arms over her head and aching her back, head allowed to tip back as well as she flexes. Mmmm... my champion. You're mine now, Davy. Seven tokens and marked...
     It isn't fair, you know, she adds a moment later, 'voice' softening, how much I adore you. I'm trapped by you ...

     An eyebrow lifts in acknowledgment of hearing you, the eye that it belongs to cracking open the barest amount and looking at you. How vital you seem. How deflated he seems. Is. What once was thick and hard lies tender against his leathered thigh. The large and painted orbs that once lifted even as they were squeezed, tightening, lie slack as well, hanging out of his opened trousers like the too ripe fruit of a tree, pulling the branch down with it. It would make a good painting, the picture of a man after he has been sucked and drained...
     I know it isn't fair. Now I have to wait another half an hour to get the feeling back in my extremities, and you're just getting started. Davydd pops his other eye open, one eyebrow cocked higher than the other, and he smirks. I must be mental to think I can keep up with a twenty-three year old woman. I know I'm mental. He grins. And thirsty... care to... pour us another round?
     He's curious to see what you've done to him, how you've marked him (he's almost afraid to look, actually), but that would require moving, which he's now not so keen to do. And something to eat would be good...
     Davydd clears his throat and closes his eyes, his mouth slanting. "You know... you've... gotten really good at that." And he can't help the chuckle. Or the lazy tone to his voice.

     Poor dear. Don't worry, I'll take good care of you until you're - recovered. Fiona's only slightly mocking, rubbing her cheek against your thigh and then sitting up. She is nude, gloriously naked and framed by the halo of her impossibly long hair - and she smiles at you so that you could almost swear that there should be yellow feathers fluttering about.
     She goes to the side table, bringing the milk biscuits to you without comment, then goes and pours for you more of that special vintage of cider. As well, she pours for you the fortified wine into a separate glass, placing both within your reach. And then she moves to the bed, curling up against your side...
     "I've had a bit of practice by now," Fiona says just as lazily. "You called it 'kissing the dragon', remember? And I've always felt that I should be willing to please you in any way that you're willing to please me. So far, you've never asked me to do anything I've found repugnant. And," her smile grows, "I like the noises you make."

     "A girl after m' own heart," he rumbles low. "Willing and able." There's a pause as he rights himself, shifting to take a biscuit. "Did I really say that?" He twists a slight frown. "And you still did it after that lame euphemism?" The frown transforms into a fanged smile. "Hmmm... well...I won't ask you about the practicing," that would bring Rhodri into the bed on his night, so he won't be doing that. Or thinking about you doing that with his son.
     Well, he'll try not to think about it...
     "You look like Lady Godiva's better looking but just as naked sister," Davydd croons to you, grinning, as he looks at your impossibly long hair and your milk white skin. "I really do like it long," he whispers. "You're beautiful, you know. Pink nipples, soft white skin, blonde hair. Great hips," he rumbles. Yes, he really likes those.
     Davydd snorts after he inhales the first biscuit, looking over to you with a full mouth as he pauses in reach of a drink. You like all that ruckus?

     "I was barely no longer a virgin," Fiona points out with a grin, nuzzling up against you for a moment, then rolling over to lie on her side, watching you eat and drink. "And I think I was too distracted by your hands on my body, and what you were doing with your mouth, and talking in my head, and all the rest of it. I've been hopelessly in love with you for a long time now, anyway; we tend to forgive little imperfections like bad pickup lines as long as they're used on us."
     She pounds a fist against the pillow with a low chuckle, then looks at you with sudden seriousness. "I'm only beautiful because you think I am, you know," Fiona whispers. "If you didn't think so - I wouldn't be. I know, very Cinderella of me, but I suppose I can't help it."
     She turns so she's on her back, closing her eyes as she faces the ceiling. I like knowing that I get under your skin. I like you a little wild, Davydd - a little close to out of control. Even if it means I could get hurt - and I like it when you take me, and make me feel it. I like being your woman, what can I say? I'm a strange mix of a modern girl and something else. Maybe you'd understand that part of it, with your eight hundred plus years of experience; I don't. Do you know, I once tried to calculate how many women you must've had by now?

     "Did you get a headache?" he chuckles after he swallows. "Bloody hell, I would." He exhales after another drink of that liquid you. He holds it on his tongue a moment before swallowing, and then sets the drink aside. Let's see... comes the lazy tones beneath your skin as he twists out of his remaining clothing. I lost my virginity at 15... after winning my first battle...it was sort of like a bat mitzvah. I was a Man that day.
     Davydd looks down at you and grins. "I don't remember the rest... most of them didn't have names to me, you know. I've only had a handful of meaningful lovers. There was my Spanish wife, who was my lover of necessity and the mother of my children. There was Isabel, who I thought was a wet dream for most of the time I knew her. And then Rosamund, Sandrine and you. So that is ... what... five. Five women have been in my life. That is not so bad, is it?"
     Pants off, Davydd may now get comfortable, which he does by piling around you. His mouth nuzzles at your breast, his hand splaying widely against your hip, the hips he loves. "You are beautiful because you are beautiful," he murmurs there, his mouth tasting your skin, his tongue smoothening its way over aeriola and nipple. I am glad you are my woman. Feisty. Stubborn. Energetic. Loyal.
     He is playing with you, but he loves to play with you, his mouth teasing your flesh rather than devouring it. He has been known to spend hours doing this and no more until you cry out for him. "I don't understand it anymore than you do," Davydd smiles against your skin, lifting over you so his mouth can cover your other breast. "I don't understand the female brain..." But then, when has it ever been necessary for him, really?
     His mouth places a sweet and gentle kiss between your breasts, upon your lips and then in a line down the center of your body.
     "You have been the only woman who has ever loved me wild," he whispers. "I was too wild for them all. Too stubborn. Too magical for some, too logical for others. And while my... oral skills have won me admiration, most of the women in my life merely tolerated my thirty-minutes worth of sound effects and pummeling."
     Maybe that's why he thinks he's ever on the edge of replacement, inspiring boredom, and bad in the sack...
     His tongue traces a line from your navel to the delicate triangle of hair between your thighs, his tongue disappearing amid the gold, coiling and rolling over labia, then sliding between them to flicker against you.

     "Oh, five isn't bad at all," Fiona murmurs, eyes narrowed as her hands lift to your hair. There is already the flush to her skin where you touch her, the little sounds of settling in with you, settling in to you. "But I was calculating it as every woman you've had." One hand drifts down to your shoulder, squeezing and then releasing for emphasis.
     It doesn't matter how many you've had. Not anymore. But the math is amusing - I think I used up two sheets of paper. There's another small sound as you touch your tongue here, kiss there, her body opening to you as if you'd turned a key.
     "I love you wild. Stubborn - I'm stubborn, too. Sometimes we're in opposition - but we love each other, I hope, enough to see us past those clashes. And the clashes aren't something either of us would willingly do away with, anyway. Can't let it be too easy." Fiona draws lazy spirals and circles over your shoulders, along the nape of your neck. "Magical... I wouldn't have met you if it weren't for the magic, and as for logic - I like to be able to make things make sense on some level. Can't do it without logic - even if a twisted brand of it. I don't know why any woman would merely tolerate you, Davydd. The way you make me feel..."
     She trembles a little, and it's part answer, part happenstance. And as your mouth slides further down, there's a stifled cry from her, as if afraid of being overheard. Everything you do to me is magic. I love being yours - I love being spread under you, rising on top of you, being in your arms, in your bed. I love how you unlock me, Davydd, from behind my walls. You are my king. Tolerance? I have no bloody tolerance for you, any more than I do for heroin.

     He'll speak more about it later, after he hears his name shouted out for a while. This is why the apples are so powerful, my love. This... your skin, your taste, the sound of your voice making those little kitten cries. This is why when I taste it... I must have you. You are sweet and wild. You are strong and gentle. I am honored I was your first. The first to have tasted you. The first to have loved you. The first to make you want to spread beneath a man's weight and give yourself to him...
     His kiss is no less sweet than if it were at your mouth. Those lips that mark the passing of every mercurial smile suckle against your labia and clit. The tongue that lilts out poetry and put-downs with the same lyrical ease coils and slides against you, and within you, even slipping down to pay a little special tribute between the rounds of your rear before returning to feast all over again.
     His arms shift, surrounding your hips, then sliding so his hands can cup you to him, lifting your hips off the bed, bringing you with him as he sits up on his knees, never breaking contact between his mouth and your skin.
     It doesn't matter, no. Because you make me happy. He lowers you both to the bed again, bracing you as he rolls over onto his back, lifting you into a straddle over his face. With a purring growl, he buries his face between your thighs.

     It makes her weak, barely able to lie there, hardly able to do anything at all, the twisting in her belly that numbs her brain. She is fever-flushed, back arching slightly involuntarily as she tries to follow the movements of your tongue - like being led in the steps of a dance, except she can't keep up; she's always a measure behind, reacting instead of acting.
     And the guards on duty must surely know by now that their queen is at home and entertaining...
     I need you...
     It's whispered from within her to you, echoed by rising cries and passion-tossed sighs. The bedding is being rucked up in her fists, her body so thoroughly opened to you. There is no thought of turning away...
     Fiona sighs, moans, sobs, multiple sounds crowding her throat all at once, thighs trembling with it all as you roll over, carrying her like a leaf upon a wave so that she's straddled forward with her wrists crossed in front of her, forehead dropping onto her hands and then lifting as you claim her again.
     I can't live without you...
     Her chin lifts, lips parting in a high-pitched moan that becomes another cry, broken for lack of air as she gasps. "D-d-davydd... oh, god, please!" It is so strong, and so much. She doesn't need the apples, when she has you to provide her with that effect...

     The guards on duty might not mind it so much. A pleasant evening. Free porn. What's not to like? Fortunately, the commander of the guard doesn't go for loafing and goofing off on duty (or doing any other sort of 'offing' on duty), so at least whatever eavesdropping is occurring is happening quite by accident...
     His hands are strong, he bears you up, his fingers pressed against your skin at your hips. The bed's own squeaks and creaks are muffled by your louder cries, but make no mistake... it is shifting. Swirling, his tongue makes thrusting spirals, snaking and flicking like a serpent's tongue as it surfaces, sliding up to tickle your clit before thrusting inside you once more.
     So... this is the "dragon thing" Rose was talking about...
     Davydd stiffens his tongue, his hands lifting and lowering you upon it, his hands giving the occasional playful spank and sliding between the rounds of your rear. Teased double entry quickens as his mouth claims you, devours you, flicks you, drinks you.
     You won't have to, my love... I promise...

     Conscious thought gives way to dire need and electricity, the rocking of her hips echoed by the ululation in her cries. She should have made sure the outer and inner doors were both closed, no doubt, but at least the queen's quarters are far from others'. She is loud...
     She reverberates, her voice off marble, her body shuddering. Repeatedly...
     "Davydd, please..." She's reduced to begging, not for the first time with you, fingers grabbing for purchase and finding little that she can actually hold on to. "Davydd!" Vocalizing gives way to wordless cries again, fingernails skittering against cloth.
     She'll have to send Rose a thank you card...

     His tongue stills through the shudders and he groans between your thighs, the vibrations of his voice stroking you instead as his tongue is grasped and released. One last spiral of his tongue within you and it slowly draws its way to your clitoris once more. His mouth suckles there for a moment, gentle for all your quaking, and then he slowly guides you off his mouth, his nose the last thing to tease you.
     A kiss is placed upon each shivering inner thigh, and then your tummy, and then... as he slides upward...upon each hanging breast. "Hmm... I love doing that. You are by far the loudest woman I've ever been with." Davydd chuckles from beneath you, and soon you find yourself straddling his stomach, dragons coiling everywhere. His mouth finds your neck. "I love to taste you," he murmurs at your ear. "I could do this all night... listen to you..."
     I love you, Fiona...
     He tastes of you and apples as his mouth suckles your mouth. "Do you need to ... recover for a bit? Would you like something to eat... drink?" His thick arms surround you, holding you to him. Fingers lightly skim your back, teasingly tip between your thighs, grasp your little rear.

      "Mmm..." Fiona's eyes are closed, body still trembling as you draw her down, draw her to you, her muscles scarcely willing to obey any command they're given. She straddles you lazily, curling kittenishly close, sighing as you murmur to her.
     "I can't help being loud," Fiona murmurs, one hand lifts slightly and then dropping, skimming your side en route. "I just - it just happens, that's all. It happens, and - well, you happen." As if you just occur naturally, like primroses in spring.
     I love you, Davydd. I feel as if my heart might burst sometimes, thinking about you. She closes her eyes, snuggling into your embrace, shuddering as you touch her. She's highly sensitized now, every touch making her arch just a bit. "Yes... no. I don't know. You make me feel so - so ..."

     "Agitated?" he teases. "Annoyed? Discombobulated?" He seems content to hold you for now. You'll recover soon enough. By that point, he will have as well. Your shuddering causes a pleased smile. He knows the sensitivity. He shared it before, so he leaves you be for now.
     "How's it feel being a sex goddess? Having two men absolutely mental for you. I bet most days you don't even believe it. You and me... we're a lot a like sometimes. I'm glad you're loud," Davydd chuckles beneath you. "Hell, half the time with Rose I had to check for a pulse. Sandrine just....wasn't into it... my wife asked me when I was going to be finished and I think Isabel thought about the weather. It's... nice to have a woman sound like she's at least appreciating the effort..."
     His hands lightly skim along your back, making invisible circles. Invisible but interlocking. "Let's not get melancholy," he murmurs, grinning. "So... I guess I should look to see how you marked me, hmm?"

     "Not annoyed," Fiona murmurs with a sigh, turning her head to kiss your shoulder. "Agitated... discombobulated... out of my mind. I adore you. I love how you make me feel - I'm addicted to it. I could give up vodka forever, as long as I could have this instead."
     She stretches a little, sprawling against you like a cat flattening out for strokes. "You're right, I don't believe it. Sex goddess... feh. It's all I can do to keep up, and I feel sometimes like I should rap your knuckles with a ruler to get your attention." Fiona nips at your shoulder now, stinging and then soothing with another kiss. "I have a pulse. And I can't help being into it - into it? Bloody ... Davydd, look what you got started!"
     Her arms tighten against you in a sort of lying-down hug, then ease again. "You might want to look, yes," Fiona agrees demurely, moving to slide slowly off of you. "My champion ought to know what brand his queen has placed upon him."

     "Admit it, you are occasionally annoyed," Davydd chuckles. It's okay, his hand seems to say as it rubs against your back. "You always get my attention. Sometimes, I just can't see the forest for the trees. It's got nothing to do with you, darlin'. I'm moody. I'm a moody, moody man."
     That's for damn sure...
     Davydd rolls onto his side as you slide slowly off of him. One, to allow him the ability to look down the length of his own body, while remaining comfortable. Two, to allow you the ability to look down the length of his body while remaining comfortable.
     "Does it change according to rigidity?" he smirks. He takes his length in hand, quietly, slowly stroking himself while he looks at you, the look Innocent as a lamb as his head rests on the pillows. As he feels the blood flow return, the thickening beginning, Davydd bends, twisting to get a good look...

     "Oh, of course. But I'm not annoyed right now." Fiona lazes there, eyes half-closed in supine enjoyment. There's nothing like a mind-blowing, earth-shattering orgasm to relax muscles one didn't know one had. "And you are moody. I just - want to take care of you. Silly, I know. You're a grown man, more than eight hundred years older than me, you're capable of minding yourself..."
     She watches you, almost hungrily, with a flicker of her eyelashes signaling her interest, her attentiveness. "I suppose you might say that it does," Fiona murmurs. "I think you'll recognise my mark."
     One hand lifts, dragging through her hair and then falling again, waiting for your reaction to the sight awaiting you : that of the crest upon the dragon, now, which upon close inspection proves to be the form of a pair of full, feminine lips, brilliantly sapphire at the bottom, shading to purple and fading out to crimson. Fiona's lips, of course, captured as perfectly as with lipstick, only much more colorful and blended. And watching you, there is that return to feminine enigma, feminine mischief. She smiles.
     Mine ...

     Both eyebrows shoot skyward as he sees the brand, and rather than astonishment, his first outburst is laughter. Pure, rich, and quite genuine. "Nice," Davydd chuckles. "Quite the conversation piece, love. Thanks." He rolls forward, his hand at your hip, pulling you to him.
     His mouth covers yours with sudden, open-mouthed warmth. The kiss is pulling, parting, claiming. When it parts, Davydd's mouth remains brushing against yours, his breathing quickening. His hand still moving over his thickening length.
     "I am yours," Davydd murmurs there. "Mark or no." His hand leaves his cock be, both arms surrounding you in strength and warmth. "No matter what happens, you can believe that, my girl. Believe it." His mouth returns to yours. There is sudden intensity. I have never felt like this...before... never like this...

     She's pulled, arms opening to you willingly, wrapping around you as you kiss her, making a small sound of enjoyment. "Mmm, I love you," Fiona murmurs once your mouth relinquishes hers enough for speech. "I love you so much. I never thought I could love anyone, not after what happened at school - it seemed like too much of a mistake. And I thought falling in love with you was a mistake, it frightened me so much. The idea of opening myself in any way to another person, especially you. I didn't know you then..."
     Her hands go up to your hair, cradling your head as her mouth goes forward to yours again. I thought that falling in love with you - well, I thought you could never love someone like me. So gawky, so - so much of a hedgehog. That if you knew the truth about me, you'd laugh, and tell me to go away, or worse. And I felt you shattering all of my defenses, and you weren't even trying, and I didn't know what to do.

     Your hands in his hair make the kiss go wild. Pulling, clasping, suckling, biting. There is a sting to the kiss wherever pointed teeth scrape. His mouth opens at your chin, then finds its way along your neck as his hands cup your rear and pull you against him. You feel his pulse in the rigidity pinned against your stomach.
     "I was terrified," he breathes. "I still am." You feel one of his hands guiding your topmost thigh upward to hook over his hip, his fingers sliding against you suddenly. "I've never needed anyone before... never felt as obligated before. From the moment I scraped you off the concrete," his thick fingers slip inside you, "... I needed you with me... even when I didn't want you with me...I felt it..."
     His chest and your chest are pressed together. His mouth and your mouth tease one another. Davydd swirls his tongue in your mouth, then pulls yours into his, sucking it as his fingers slide in and out.

     Her breathing goes erratic at the feel of your teeth, at the wildness of the kiss, a little moan escaping her even as she squirms against that turgid length against her belly. You move her thigh, and she moves with you, another moan echoing as your fingers slide against her, turning into a low cry as they slip into her. "Please..."
     Please, what? Oh... you know...
     At least she's polite...
     Not that there is much polite about this. It was need; now it is consuming need. I didn't want to want you. I was afraid you'd hurt me - and that my heart would be so made of glass that if you touched it, it'd shatter. Because who wants broken things? And looking at who you were with - I felt small and grubby, and ... useless.
     The confession comes readily, distracted as she is, her eyes half-closed as you kiss her, tease her, as she moans against your mouth, her fingernails digging now into your shoulders. It scared me, to be so suddenly so dependent on you. It scared me how much I wanted it. How much I always want you...

     His fingers leave you, grasping himself and returning to you. The head of his cock replaces his fingers. He moves it back and forth, covering himself with you. "I was afraid of you, of what you meant. That... I would have to admit I had been lying to myself, Fiona. Playing charades. And there you were, with your reality, staring me in the face..."
     Davydd's mouth parts at the crook of your neck, his long teeth gently scraping your skin, but just teasing not drawing blood, as his rubbing stops and you feel the intense pressure of him, squeezing between your thighs and between the folds of you. "Duw....oes...oes..."
     That's why I ran from you...
     "Fiona..."
     His voice is shuddering and great as he thrusts deep inside you and holds, feeling you clasping him, adjusting to his girth. "I was desperate," he breathes against your mouth. "Caught in the trap of a lie... "

     As always, the touch of your cock rubbing against her makes her almost stop, makes her whimper, lips parting with a shuddering expulsion of breath as her eyes close a bit. She moans as you penetrate her, her fair skin flushing anew, whimpering again at that, as your fangs scrape against her neck.
     Even her thoughts are distracted now, disjointed for a moment as she adjusts, arms going slack as if her muscles don't have strength in them anymore. You're so thick ... I love how you feel in me ... god, it's - I always feel like - more than anything, I love it when you take me ...
     Her thighs tighten for a moment at your hips, her entire body trembling against you. "Davydd," Fiona murmurs, breathless, voice high and strained. "I, oh, I can't ... oh, god..."
     It's silly, isn't it? I lied to myself too, told myself I didn't like you, wasn't attracted, wasn't in love with anyone. It wasn't until after I jumped off the bridge that I started to even realize how important you were to me... how important you'd always been, that I'd call you when I wouldn't call my own friends. How inextricably you'd become woven into the fabric of my life, and how much I never, ever want that to change...

     He rolls you over, his shoulders, back, hips and legs all moving in concerted effort as he covers you. Rising up on his hands, his palms pressing into the bedding, Davydd looks at you, watches you from above. How you move beneath him. How your hands know to move to his rear, clasping him to you as your legs bend. His knees dig into the bedding, finding purchase...
     And leverage...
     Like this, my love? His strength is undeniable. So is his weight, as he brings it down to bear on you, the bed and you bounding beneath quick, deep thrusts. I am sorry we have to wait... I was so lost... alone... I did not tend to business as I should... I wish I could tell you more... I want to tell you more... I want to tell you everything. I don't want to hide anything from you...
     One night... I will tell you everything...
     Davydd pauses long enough to change positions. His arms scoop you into his hold, and he sits cross-legged on the bed, you in his lap, your thighs around his waist. The smallest of motions sends him deep inside you. His hands cup you, and spread you to take him in.
     "You are so... sweet... warm... living..." Davydd breathes against the crook of your neck once more. "Tight...oes... I love you... my sweet girl..."
     His thrusts punctuate the rise and fall of each and every syllable. I didn't realize ... I don't think... how much I needed you...until I couldn't have you with me every night... I don't think you'll ever know how much I really...love and need you...

     She can't help it; she's getting loud again, squirming and mewling, fingernails scraping even though she tries not to. She's shaking already - sensitized, over-sensitized, needy and wanton. Yes, oh, yes, please... I love how strong you, how big you are, I love it when you take me, claim me...
     Fiona shudders, taking a deep breath in through her mouth, eyes rolling back in her head for a moment as she struggles with herself not for dignity, but for a little self-control. Her hips arch towards you, even as you lift her, and she leans forward against the broad heat of your chest with her arms going around your neck. "Oh... Davydd..."
     I'll wait for you ... until you can tell me. I know your life is hard - it's filled with pretty things, but most of them aren't important to you, and so it doesn't matter how pretty they are ... like living in a hotel room... Her arms tighten as you cup her, spread her, she burrows in against you with another whimper. Please ... don't stop ... oh, god...
     She isn't usually quite this blasphemous ...
     Fiona nuzzles against the side of your neck, pelvic muscles tightening for a moment as if in answer to your thrusting, to your thoughts. I need you, she whispers, thought and voice together. I feel more like myself when I am with you ... without you, I'm always a little lost ... I can't entirely keep my eyes on the road, my mind on my job, for wondering where you are...

     You are bounced on his lap, his arms around you, his mouth at your neck, your mouth, your breasts... wherever he can reach. In this position, he seems even larger, the space between you non-existent, his strength more apparent. His hips crash forward and back, up and down, the force of it knocking you upward... gravity forcing you back down.
     With a long groan, Davydd rolls you forward, returning your back to the bed. He hovers over you once more, hands to the bedding, and his thrusts slow. Hips circle, his groin slapping against your rear and pelvis. "It will go quickly, I think," he half-groans. "Hmm... oes... " He rides you, his body sliding against yours, stroking your clit as he moves. "I will tell you soon, sweet... and then there will be nothing between us unspoken."
     You will learn to focus... it will come in time. Don't worry about me... I'll be alright. And never far, love...

     There is that yearning, heartfelt and immediate, nearly overwhelming her. As much as you are in her, she wants you even more. You are so ... "Davydd, oh, god, I ... oh ..."
     Words are moaned, left incomplete, voice achingly sweet even as you roll her onto the bed, her thighs spreading wide for you. Fiona wriggles up towards you for a moment, a low whimper caught in her throat as you slow things down, her flesh jumping with every thrust.
     I will try not to worry. That's all I can promise. But I will miss you. You don't know how much I long for you - how much I really want you to fill me, how much I want to grow round with your babies. I want to be yours...
     Fiona's hands lift, touching your skin, sliding down along the painted dragons and trees and falling back to the bed, against the cushions to either side of her head. Never until you could I picture that. And it turns me on so much. You make me feel this way. You - all you have to do is look at me, and I can feel it ...

     Though slower than before, the thrusts are harder, deeper. They come with a slap of his skin to your skin, and a groan at guttural. His arms, bearing his way, tremble. His hips tremble. His cock jerks, thickening and pressing against you from within. Try... it is all I can ask. I will try not to fume... thinking of you in his arms without me. Crying out for him...
     His jealousy is intense because his love is intense. Davydd cries out, his rhythm all over the place, spasmodic, as he climaxes again. It caught him by surprise. Suddenly, it was there, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. "Fuck," he groans, closing his eyes and giving his weight to you.
     Magic comes with each spill of him inside, a circuit completing between you. That lifeforce sweeps through you once more, bringing the ripples of his other powers forward to fill you. Davydd collapses against you, thrusting quickly, his groin slapping against yours, pressing against your clit. "Come with me, love... " he whispers.

     It strikes to the heart of her, her cries wordless now, her thoughts staticky and diffuse. Her hips lift, her thighs wrapping around you tightly as she squirms, as you thrust, as you drive into her.
     All I see here is you ... Fingernails bite against your shoulders, her whimpering moan in your ear even as it turns to a high-pitched keening wail. "Davydd!"
     Even in the middle of it, she is acutely aware of who she is with...
     Thighs tighten, and her back arches until there's the audible realignment of vertebrae. Not that Fiona is noticing. Mouth agape as she cries out, she is blind, sightless in response to the magic, the thrust, the everything. Oh, Davy ...

     Davydd holds still and deep within you as you spasm around him. Unconsciously, his body rolls you forward, your hips tilting for optimum fertility. He catches himself doing it, his seed inside you. It is too late. You will have to drink a purging tea... I am sorry... Davydd chuckles, lifting his head, his mouth moving against your own, his breaths coming quickly.
     You can feel the stirring of his magic in your gut. The vitality there. It could easily turn to fertility. To your motherhood. Davydd pulls out of you, thrusting his semi-hardness inside of you again, as if he could revive it by reminding it of how you feel. But he slackens still.
     Groaning, longing, Davydd sighs, rolling off of you to lie to the side, his hand cupping your breast, his thumb rolling over the nipple. "You are amazing," he whispers against your skin. His hand lifts from your breast, his fingers leading your face toward him. Davydd kisses you gently.
     He heard your comforting words. He does not talk about Rhodri tonight. But it is there. His knowing that you will be crying out just like this for someone else. And it touches him where he fears most. That he will be alone. "Thank you for the tokens, my lady. You have made your champion very happy..."

     "Mmmm..." There are a number of small sounds still from her, remnants of the passion that still has her trembling. Her hands stay on you, even as you roll off of her. "Don't be sorry," she whispers. "I'm not..."
     It is tempting, the thought occurs to her immediately behind closed eyes - not to drink any such tea. To have her wish - that her first child would be yours, as she's wanted for so long, to feel her body changing with pregnancy, that possession by you, of you...
     Fiona leans into your kiss, wraps her arms around your neck, lying alongside of you. "My champion," she whispers, "my first. My adored secret husband. My conqueror - the man who conquered my fears. You are a remarkable man, Davydd. You are - everything I could hope for. Everything I could dream of. And..."
     She doesn't finish the sentence, instead leaning forward to kiss you sweetly, the corners of your mouth and then directly, tongue running over your fangs with that glib innocence.
     Chosen of my heart...

Posted by rowan at April 28, 2005 08:41 PM