Fame...
     This must be a taste of what fame is. To stand before a maddeningly large and varied crowd, to know that every eye is trained upon you - what you do here today, others will speak of. What you say, how you react, your every movement analyzed beneath the glass endlessly, mercilessly, perhaps even viciously.
     Fame - reflected back in the glare of the whites of others' eyes. So very many people present - and ultimately, none of them of any consequence whatsoever. How could they be? Of what importance are they? They do not know. They cannot guess. The effort which has gone into all of this, which you and she make look so effortless.
     She was hidden from your sight, concealed until the last. The others all came - few sent regrets. Who could afford to miss this wedding? The youngest king and the youngest queen of all the kings and queens of this plane, the Oak King and his chosen lady. The one controls Avalon and the other controls ... the sea, perhaps? Things have risen so quickly. Few would dare avoid a showing.
     They came, they filled the fields - kings and queens, warriors and magicians, merchants and farmers, in that order. But they came. They came to witness.
     And then she appeared. She was surrounded by nymphs, all dressed in floral colours. They flocked around her, escorted her on the long walk from the palace to the cliff. Some offered her their arms, or cool drinks, but she eschewed all aid, crossing the plain dressed in snow-white silks. Her sleeves were long and loose; her hair, long and bound back in part with a series of elaborate little braids of great delicateness. Gold glittered from her hems, and against the hollow of her throat pressed a round blue disk.
     Her face remained hidden by floating layers of lacy veils that hung suspended, as a curtain, from the circlet she wore atop her head. You knew her nonetheless. By her light and careful step, her weight thrown behind each as if hurling herself against an invisible wall. By the cupid's bow of her mouth, the full lower lip. By the slight tensing and relaxing of her shoulders with every motion and every breath. You knew her by her approach. And she stood opposite you, and allowed you to take her hand. And you felt the tremble there that none could see, the flutter to her pulse that none could feel. You knew her.
     The ceremony was done; there was no intrusion, no denials. The veil, parted by your hands as her lips by your own. Your ring upon her finger; her heart upon her sleeve. The blue of her eyes, echoed in the sky above and the ocean below, brooked no competition for their depth and turbulence. The cheer that went up was unfeigned...
     Weddings lead to feasts. Feasts lead to dancing. And somewhere in all the dancing, in the nth rounds of drinks, you held your bride by her dainty little hand, and the two of you slipped away. Those hidden tunnels that your little queen put in place are proving their usefulness yet again, aren't they? And she leaned up against you, eyes closed, trembling for a moment before righting herself again. Such strong emotion. Such strong fears. Such strong love, to confront those fears. And small hands lift to your shoulders, dainty arms wrap around your neck.
     "This," Fiona admits, "is as far as I've got planned, Rhodri." You are curled against. "I don't know what to do from here. I don't know. Where do we go from here? Your palace or mine? I rather dread what they may have done to my chambers for the occasion..."

     When he met you upon the cliffside, he was preceded by a procession of white stags, twelve for the twelve powers of the Oak King, their antlers painted with brushed gold and their hides, both long-haired and short, painted with the red swirls that mimicked his own tattoos. Six of these sacred stags were granted to your Queendom, living symbols of Inspiration -- and as a gift of love from his Kingdom to your own newborn land.
     The Oak King himself wore a crown of golden antlers and bronze oak leaves, and as a symbol of the fortitude of the oak, he was enarmored. All but for his face and hands. Those, he kept bare, so you could feel his skin, and he could feel yours.
     During the ceremony, in all ways stately and refined, he shared a secret smile (or two) with you. His eyes held in their corners a hint of wetness held at bay, even through the thieving grins that slipped from him to you right under the nose of the presiding priestesses three.
     Though he wished to whisk you away so much the sooner, first there had to be dancing, breaking bread, toasting kings and queens and others. But thieves will as thieves will, and they do what they please in the end. The two of you gave them all the slip, for which the bards will sing and jest with come the morning.
     "This is my favorite part," Rhodri says, pressing you and he into the shadows of a corner. He grins and casts a sly eye down the hall before turning to you again. The kiss you receive is far less polite than what was given at the ceremony's end and in the halls containing the revelry (such as could be contained, that is).
     "The unwritten future," he whispers with a great grin at your mouth. "Let's stay here tonight. I don't want to walk far, wanting you this much," and in the darkness, his mouth finds the crook of your neck and shoulder. "Maybe we should stay here," comes the chuckled tease at your skin.
     "I love you...so much," Rhodri whispers, the sound bouncing just lightly off of the stone that surrounds you. "So much," he breathes at your mouth as his kisses his way from one side of your neck, back to your mouth, then to the other side, his hands pulling you to him.
     I didn't know... it could be stronger than yesterday, he thinks between you, before he, grinning, groans at your ear. "Okay... I have to get out of this armor. It's no place for a hard-on. There's no give." He laughs, pulling away from your neck to kiss your mouth, your face.

     There is that tremor to her, almost as if she is afraid of what might happen next. The uncertainty of it all - but you know that she isn't afraid of you. Is she?
     Your kiss is met with a sigh and a sudden fervor, Fiona holding herself to you so tightly. "Stupid armour," she mumbles. "I didn't pack a tin opener. We can't stay /here/, Rhodri. There's no here to here." But you don't mean directly here, do you? Rather, the queen's chambers...
     You kiss, you tug, and she is helpless to resist you. It is as if something about you, antlered and armored as you are, it has turned her into a kitten. She snuggles into your embrace. What could be stronger? I don't know what you mean, comes the answer, half as if drugged. Fiona's hands paw at your front for a moment, and she turns her face up towards you. "Oak King," she whispers. "Avalon's host. Poetry, and music, and dance. Why is my head whirling so much? I can't think..."

     Why... my feelings for you... of course. I thought I knew so much ... he teases himself, showing the wry grin at the end of those unvoiced words. I didn't know that I could possibly love you any more today than I had the day before.
     He kisses you gently, but behind that is the tug of his teeth upon your lower lip. "Queen of the Queendom That Shall Be Named," Rhodri grins, "... let's go to your chamber and ... get real. I'm no more a knight than you are a lady..." He chuckles at that and with a wild kiss to stop your mouth, swings you up in his grasp.
     You'll not only be carried over the threshold, but down the hall, up the stairs, past the doors and straight into bed...
     "Aren't you going to praise me?" he murmurs, his mouth finding your neck again, suckling at your ear as he carries you. "I didn't sneak a peek all day. I didn't send spies. You were... are... dazzling. I've been uncomfortable in this can since I first saw you. And you are my wife, and the prize I get to unwrap..."
     The way he says it, it is as if he has never seen you unwrapped before...
     "I am properly and happily wived," his smooth voice, deep as it is, intonates this down the hallway as he comes to the private corridors of the queen. He does not care who hears, or who sees. He will fling the bedroom windows wide open, most likely, so that all may hear his joy and pleasure.
     "And what of you, Queen of the Gilded Ocean," Rhodri smiles at you, his arms holding you easily without the slightest trouble. He kisses you and nibbles at your chin. "Such a long day of not seeing me... how did you manage?"

     "I thought that you were real. Except when I think that you're not." Fiona frowns at you, with something of child-like solemnity in her expression. Her eyes widen as your arms descend, as you sweep her up in your firm grip. "Rhodri!"
     She shivers, but she doesn't struggle - mindful of her delicate state, maybe. But no; she curls up in your arms with a dwindling little sigh of something like surrender. "I knew you wouldn't send spies," Fiona whispers, her lips rustling against the curve of your ear. "You wouldn't have fallen in love with me if you were wary enough to need surprises. You're - too confident in yourself. You ... know too well that you don't need spies; you knew that all you needed to do was sit back and wait for me to make my appearance, and you'd reap the rewards."
     There is almost a hint of regret in her voice at that. Almost a note of sadness, as if this finality is too heavy for her. But Fiona's lips brush against your ear again, before you slide her down in your arms. "I don't know if it's something worth praising or lamenting. I - feel very emotional right now, Rhodri."
     You kiss her, and her lips seek to meet yours, the blue of her eyes suddenly veiled by those framing lashes. Colour enters her cheeks, and her hands curl against your shoulders. "I managed without seeing you the way I have always managed - by finding other things to fill my thoughts, for as long as possible, until they couldn't be crowded out into the cold any longer. I made Pistachio act as my dressmaker's dummy, and I considered standing you up at the altar to take you down a few pegs," Fiona tells you with a brief tartness. It softens. "But I couldn't do that. Even if maybe I should."

     Unmolested by servants, enveloped in the privacy of the hallway, queen and king are able to enjoy private conversation, whispers to be shared between the two of them alone. He smiles, lip curling as it takes a sideways detour. "You will find other ways of kicking the bar stool out from under me," Rhodri notes in a sudden, Kelly tone. "I don't doubt that for a second. You already got the best of me, whether you know it or not."
     His eyes half mast to the attentions on his ear, and kisses are traded in the crowded silence. Emotion, and a lot of it, makes the air vibrate between you. Your king's eyes, the same emerald as your ring, focus on your face, and on all the parts of it that comprise it.
     "I couldn't get you off my mind," Rhodri admits softly. "So how's that for having the upper hand, sweetheart?" He grins at you, he kisses you and you and he are at your door.
     His hands not relinquishing you, Rhodri looks to the wood that marks the boundary from here to there. "Open," he whispers. And so it does...

     Her nostrils flare at your sudden words, at your shift in tone. Do you see how the colour of her eyes suddenly shifts for a moment, ripples in a mirror? "You shouldn't use that tone of voice," Fiona half-whispers it, curling for a moment in your arms. "You don't know how I might react."
     Don't you know? You first had her attention as Kelly, didn't you. In the pub, laughing at his father, being beset upon by a mere slip of a punkish girl; on the stage, amid music and veiled warnings and equally veiled glances; in the castle, carrying a painting for that slip of a girl, cleaned up so nice and tidy...
     You kiss her, and you get that little flutter of a sigh. "Rock star," Fiona accuses you, even as you bid the door to open. "You should be one. Except that means I'd have to be your groupie, you know. But that's stuff for fantasies for when I'm not pregnant. Bastard." How dare you...
     How dare you make me want you so much. How dare you get under my skin, creeping and crawling until I can't do anything but squirm. How dare you make me love you...
     And the door swings open. The room is - different from what it had been. There is the bed, large and postered still, but hung with fragrant blossoms and vines. The floor is strewn with rosepetals and the fire burns blue on the hearth. The mirrors have all been turned to face the wall - all save the one opposite the side of the bed. The balcony doors have been closed, the room dimmed save for the light of candles in their sconces, settling a pale golden glow. Through the doors to the bath, lights glitter and bob upon the water - floating candles and petals which will slowly sink and disappear. The bed has been made - the covers turned back, and there is a single box placed neatly on the bed, with a ribboned bow upon its lid.
     Fiona sees the box, and her cheeks colour vividly. "You should put me down," she suggests as lightly as possible. "I'll - tidy things up a little, and then we can..." You know.

     "Not before I do this..."
     And by this he means carry you over the threshold as his bride. A foot taps the heavy door to a close behind you both. Then, and only then, does he set you gently onto your feet upon your rose petaled floor.
     But it's not as though he's letting you go that easily. No sooner do you have command of your own feet again than you lose control of your mouth. Amid your vivid cheeks and flashing eyes, your husband leans in, kissing you with all the teasing roughness and soothing wildness that had been previously tamed (at least tempered) with news of the pregnancy.
     "Take your time," Rhodri smiles, parting from the kiss and looking down at himself. He makes a wincing face and limps to a mirror. "It's going to take a while to get out of this contraption...they did this on purpose," he grumbles to himself.
     But despite his grumbling, the thief is able to pluck the locks and fastenings of his own armor. Soon he will have the comfort and the breathing room he requires.

     You close the door, you set her free - but no, not free. You kiss her, and there is the return of that tremor for a moment. "Bastard," Fiona whispers. And then she pulls away, with trembling hands carrying the box away from the bed. There is a minute pause - a moment where she almost tosses the box onto the fire. Instead, she moves to the wardrobe, and it's tossed into the bottom, the veil pulled up off her hair and allowed to float down on top.
     Then she turns back to you, eyelashes lowered. She is still in the heavy silk gown, the sleeves that drip from her, the long hem, the long hair. "Would my lord and master care for refreshment? A drink, perhaps," Fiona murmurs it, almost whispers it. "Or perhaps something to eat. I know it has been a trying day."

     "There's no lord and lady here, sweetheart, just you and me," he says, twisting where he is setting aside the crown, removing the golden mantle of authority, and beginning to undo the buckles of the shoulder plates. He smiles a little. "If you're pouring, however, I'll take a drink. I haven't had a thing all day."
     There's no anachronism here. He is who he is. Though he may wear the trappings of a medieval fairytale king, he's thoroughly modern, absorbing the age he's in as easily as oxygen.
     He watches your reflection in the mirror. "Save the rest of the clothes for me," he murmurs, smiling there for you. "I want to have the honor of disheveling my blushing bride." He pauses, leaning over and letting the heavy metal drip off of him.
     Beneath the metal, more ceremonial gear. He was bathed in a ritual, his skin oiled in a ritual, and decorated in a ritual. At his biceps are two golden bracers, twisting Celtic knotwork of the stags and the hounds. A similar torq of gold is around his neck. These golden symbols accentuate the musculature of his form, a form now revealed with all of the twisting and moving artwork of living spells upon a living king.
     "What is in the box? A gift?" he wonders. You set it away awfully quickly.

     "I'm pouring," Fiona agrees, taking up the pitcher - hammered copper, it is - and pouring slowly and delicately a stream of the pale pink liquid. Though it's pale in colour, it is heavy, heavier than wine, almost syrupy. The goblets are hand-blown glass, streaked through with fiery red and soothing blue. Made for the occasion, most probably. "So you don't want me to offer you some small token of honour and obedience?"
     The goblets are lifted in dainty hands, and she turns, slowly and carefully, treading to you with one foot placed in front of the other with the precision of a tightrope. And then she pauses. "You look..." Why is it she can never finish her sentences when they begin with those two words? Blue eyes widen, then regard you for a moment as if in thought. "How many women were involved in your preparations for today?" Is she jealous?
     "The box." Fiona's cheeks rapidly grow ruddy, and it breaks the spell of you for the moment, allowing her to look away. "It's not a gift, no. Well - it is. Something I gave you, once. I suppose someone thought I needed to be reminded."

     The oil does not make his skin shiny, but it does leave behind a fragrance. Woody almond, something perhaps of honey to go with it. Half armored, his essential difficulty remains, but there's no rush. And comfort is overrated. Taking the offered glass, he sips at it, his mouth quirking at the corners. Jealous, my queen?
     Another sip of the liquid -- potent from the look on his face -- and Rhodri sets the glass aside to attend to the remainder of the armor, his eyes on the mirror, and on your reflection. "There were several," he notes. "The priestesses of Avalon. From the time I went to bed last night to the wedding, I was in a constant state of ritual. I had to be blessed, bathed, sacrificed, dressed... it was endless," he chuckles suddenly. "They spend less time on popes."
     Rhodri twists, leaning to kiss your mouth again, tasting of the liquor in the glass. "Normally, these rituals are to... envigor a nervous husband." He grins. "But you know I don't need the help when it comes to you."
     With a groan he lowers slowly to the floor to get out of the boots and then out of the chain that binds him. Emerald eyes flash up at you as you redden and turn away. He grins. "With a blush like that," Rhodri murmurs, "...I think I would like to be reminded, too..." He nods at you to go get it. "Let's have a look..."

     Her fingers slide for a moment against the back of your wrist as you take the glass. Why is she so uneasy? She doesn't know - and, perhaps, not knowing has her more nervous than anything else. "I suppose I should consider myself fortunate that I have no priests nor priestesses here."
     It is true. It is perhaps the one oversight that Fiona has made. There are no temples in her city - not to any god, nor any goddess. There is everything else. And there are groves and shrines - but they are nameless, faceless, as without identity as the city itself. Perhaps the two are linked.
     You kiss her, and she sighs. "I shouldn't drink this, should I," Fiona murmurs, her fingers lifting to trace your cheek. "It might be bad for the boys. - I slept last night," she continues, turning away suddenly, as if the weight of your regard is too much for her, "as if someone had drugged me."
     Slept... "I had strange dreams. I only remember them dimly - I kept looking for something, and - every time I'd found it, something would happen. It would slip away from me again. Like swimming in a salmon pool." Fiona reopens the wardrobe slowly, standing there with her back to you for a moment, unmoving. "In the morning, when the first light of the sun struck the tallest tower, I awakened, and I greeted the sun with my body. I revealed myself to the sun, and examined my burdens, and what burdens I could put down, I did."
     She lifts the box now, turning back towards you with the box in her hands. She approaches you again, by degrees. "I returned from that, and bathed, and I was assisted in my bathing, by my escort. They groomed me, with my supervision, they painted me with scent and with colour, and then the scent and colour were allowed to dry upon my skin. And then I was bedecked in this finery. During this, I ate oranges and cherries and crystallized mint. And then we departed from the palace on foot."
     The box is set down on the bed, the lid removed in silence. She tips her chin downwards, looking into the box but not really looking; it's a convenient way of not meeting your eyes. Inside, there is the leather collar and small padlock, the leather lead with which she first told you Yes. In a different world, in a different place...

     The fall of his armored boots to the floor are like gongs in a temple, reverberating after your words to act as musical echoes to them. He crosses the distance between you to arrive at the bed for the unveiling. There is a knowing tilt to his smile, understanding what has happened between you since you first wore this and first said 'Yes'. But there is tenderness, too, in his look, one that understands the depth of things between you, not just their superficial length.
     Rhodri reaches in and lifts the leather, feeling the weight of it. "Like Pwyll's queen," he murmurs, "... the famed ...white lady who could never be caught... you gave yourself to me. The only way she can be held is if she trusts you enough..." Rhodri looks at you then, emerald eyes full of flash...and emotion. "... to give herself to you. My queen handed me the reins that night," his voice lowers to a hush and he touches your hair with his free hand, his hand guiding your face to him.
     Your mouth to his...
     "I know what it means," your king murmurs at and against your mouth, syllables whose sounds are lost are known and understood in the press and tug of the kiss. The leather brushes against your cheek as his other hand lifts to cradle your face to him, as his mouth widely parts your own.
     Honey and fire, these are the Oak King's hallmarks. And the sound of bees that buzz in the ears, the white noise of desire in the kiss.

     Her colour rises like the sun, and her eyes lower, back towards the box's contents from where she had lifted them slightly as you began to speak. She is speechless. What words can be found for this? Fiona gives her head a little shake, as if to say 'no, it wasn't me, I'm not that way' - but there are no words to accompany that.
     "You had the reins before I gave them to you."
     That thought is spoken, her voice almost inaudibly soft. You and she stand there, in the big room, speaking so quietly, in such a hush as if afraid of being caught at something. As if in a church. Even with her lips touching yours, she is still so quiet, almost soundless. "I wonder if you did pity me, then... or earlier... when you saw me as I really am."
     And the box is allowed to slip, forgotten, from fingers that have better things to do than maintain a tenuous grip upon felted board. Her lips have better occupations to employ than speech. Those tiny hands, so delicate, they lift to your shoulders as she shivers in your wholehearted embrace; shivers violently, mouth open and yearning and caught on the beginnings of a gasping sob. "Rhodri..."
     You feel her lips spell your name, for there's no sound behind it. It is like the sign language of the deaf and blind, spelling it out from one touch to another. And the small hands clutch, fingers tightening, and she sighs. I surrender...

     A smile interrupts the kiss in ways that words could not. His face still near your own, so little air between you, Rhodri grins. In his eyes, the reflection of a changing Avalon. Rain forest lushness, cascades, wide frond ferns and flowering trees, with swings for lovers dangling from their boughs. A place of art... dalliance...inspiration...whose swelling presence spills over into your own lands, where such inspiration finds a thousand expressions, all by your design.
     "Shall I say: Stand and Deliver?" he murmurs there, teasing, even through magic, even through visions, even through air made hazy by his own want and love for you. "Show your body to the sun," he whispers, his lips brushing your own and his eyes half-masting. "He has waited all day just to see it."
     The collar is not placed around your throat -- though perhaps in a while he shall toy with it and you. But he doesn't need the leather, it's just a prop for the energy and the decadence that is already there. I need you... more than I have ever needed you... my wife...
     He tilts his head, his mouth feeling its way along your neck as his hands lower, his fingers padding at your hips, pressing at the cloth. "No need to pity you," The breath of his words brush against your ear, as does his smile. "Not when I can love you..." The echoes of his mouth linger as heat against your skin, from ear to neck to the line of your jaw.
     Breath stealer. The thief kisses you in quick tangles once more, his nimble fingers searching to find the laces of this elaborate gown. It took you an army to get it on, he imagines, and only hopes it shan't take an army to get it off...

     Fingers curve against your cheek, and she leans in against you for a moment, as if she couldn't dare trust the strength in her legs. After that kiss, maybe she doesn't. "I thought the sun would be going down by now," Fiona retorts, eyes drifting closed as she straightens beneath your attentive gaze, your questing mouth and fingers.
     The gown is an enigma. It has every appearance of lacing up the back - but when you feel, the laces are sewn into place. Ornamental. It is as if, instead of merely being dressed by her maids, she was sewn into the gown - as if it were a shroud instead of a wedding dress. You receive a knowing look for your troubles. "Is my lord husband finding himself in difficulties?", Fiona inquires sweetly. "Maybe we ought to start with you instead."
     Then your kisses begin again, and she hasn't got the breath nor concentration to make further retort. Instead, her fingers lift to thread through your hair, all in her attempt to bring your mouth down on hers again - and again, for every time you lift away, there she is again, pleading with pursed lips in an attempt to persuade you. Why do you stop? What is this silly 'breathing' thing, anyway? Have you got a knife?

     He knows his way around a gown, for certes, but the design of this one is a bit baffling. They did this on purpose! He was pulling away when your fingers in his hair pull him back to your mouth. In the tangle of another, and longer, kiss, the sudden stirring of magic pops all around you.
     Magic... or stitches?
     At every major intersection of stitching, your dress falls suddenly slack, the pieces of the gown dissembling as the gown is picked like a series of locks, the tumblers all falling away. Pressing your pretty little mouth with his own, his teeth tugging a swelling blush to stain them, Rhodri parts the kiss to get his first glimpse.
     "Who needs a knife," he chuckles, "... with fingers like these..." A wink and he leads you out of the pile of gown. "I'll put it back together later," he promises in a whisper.
     Much later...
     A hand moves the curtain of your hair back to reveal your breasts made heavy in preparation for nursing princes. Your hips, your belly both show a new fullness. You're like a spring berry -- far from ripe but summer's warmth shall make you plump with life.
     The king's green eyes sharpen in their delight, glimmering there as they look from face to form and back. For a moment, it is as if you and he are both virgins, coming to your marriage bed in the sparkling whiteness of purity and promise. It is a first, in its way. The first time you shall truly lay as man and wife.
     Fingertips to yours, your king leads you to the bed. "Lie down," Rhodri murmurs, and he twists, the tattoos shifting, tales turning, as he moves. His hands open the drawer of the bedside table, removing long silken veils of transparent crimson and cardinal.

     Silk falls in sheets to drop to the floor. Fiona notices - she'd be hard-pressed not to - but does she care? You have your answer with the sudden tightening of her arms around your neck for a moment, then she draws back, cheeks pink and lips darkened. "The dress was for you," she points out with a low glance in your direction. "Ask me if I care what you do with it. You aren't one to save wrapping-paper either, are you?"
     And then you draw her hair away from her, and she is struck suddenly shy. Where her glance had been bold, now it is demure, dropping with uncertainty to the silk where it lays. You take her hand, and she follows after a moment's pause that leads her arm to be extended. And then she sits.
     She does not hurl herself onto the bed, the way she might if she were not with child. She eases herself down, then slides back along the cool sheets, finding their temperature a bit of a blessing. How has her skin gotten so warm? You are entirely to blame. "Is this ritual, too?"
     Fiona watches you, now, then averts her gaze suddenly - as if it were sinful to know what it is you're about. "Tell me stories," she half-whispers it. "Say something. I can stand anything but silence, right now."

     He chimes in music, the bursting of chords, as he joins you on the bed. He straddles above you, his hands leading yours above your head. "Once upon a bed, there was a beautiful, naked queen," Rhodri grins as he leans over you, gently wrapping the silken veil around your left wrist and leading it back.
     "Her breasts peeking out from her golden hair, her body made a meadow for her king to run through. How's the story so far?" Rhodri wonders in a hush against your mouth. Your right hand is gently lifted, but securely tied, to the headboard behind you. It is not as elaborate as he would do were you not pregnant, but delightful nonetheless.
     "She is about to blush wild strawberries," your king grins against your mouth, straightening in his straddle to look over the landscape of your body. "They will pop up in clusters against her skin as her king bends to kiss her golden grove." Wild, the grin that claims his mouth, that flashes in his eyes, that warms the throaty chuckle as his hands come to rest on the mattress and he slides back.
     He is out of your reach, but not hidden to your gaze. Your head and body are comfortably propped up on soft pillows and airy cushions. You will have a front row view to all that follows. Rhodri smiles. Such secrets there, but you know the truth behind them. The clasps of the armor are loosened but just between his thighs, giving him relief as the golden armor spills downward and the painted length swells free of constraint.

     "Bastard," Fiona accuses softly. There is no struggle - tempted though she is to put on a show of it, make you use your strength to wrestle on the bed - but not now. Not with her belly so full. "Why do I love you so much, Rhodri? Why do I just - find it so difficult to tell you no?"
     She sighs, turning her head away and closing her eyes. True to your story, her blush is beginning - spreading from over her cheekbones, down her nose, along the tops of her breasts, wherever you can see her. And she peeks at you, so shyly - as if she were indeed entitled to wear white. As if this were entirely new to her, and you, between you.
     "I don't know what to say... I don't know what to do..."

Posted by rowan at September 05, 2005 12:00 AM