The coronation itself was a short, solemn affair. Witnessed by the emissaries of all the kingdoms within the fairy marches, King Iowerth I (Rhudd Draig) was crowned and King Davydd II simply became Davydd ap Owain again. The inner ring around the former prince, now king, was made up of his family -- all present but for one exception, his youngest nephew Peter. His father, his mother, his two brothers, and Tiernan. All heads were bowed. It was like a family huddle before a rousing game of rugby.
     And then the sky exploded with fiery stars and comets, firecrackers that seared the air in vivid colors and painted the watery canvas of the sea. Politicking had already begun -- it started at sun-up and shall live now forever -- but the frolicking and revelry soon followed. There were games, chariot races (won by Hippolytus), mock sea battles, dancing. From island to island, from kingdom to kingdom there was celebration.
     Food and drink followed, the former king in attendance, seen on several occasions in quiet smiling conversation with Rhudd Draig and Gwyn Garu alike. Last seen with his son, the king, he hugged him, grinning and touched his face with the familiar hand of a loving father.
     The party went on without him. It is still going on, he has no doubt, as he sits heavily in a chair before a fire, his ears still ringing from the revelry. Powis Castle, though on the fringes of that fairyland, is quiet. Everyone is in bed. It is well after midnight, and three days until Yule. Davydd stares into the flames, though the light stings his eyes. In the dancing of the fire, he can almost see the future. It waves there, like the dancing girls.

     She slipped away after a time, needing to dry her face as much as anything. And it had not gone unnoticed by her that her husband (one of two, collect the entire set) had gone missing. Indeed, it's almost less surprising than if he hadn't.
     She spent time close to her sons, both of them, and with the younger of her two husbands; but when she made excuses, noone thought anything of it. Tears had been shed in copious profusion, with Fiona apologizing for them repeatedly; she's soaked through three handkerchiefs, and now both she and her husbands have run out.
     Now she slips in behind you, a hand going gentle onto your shoulder. She looks at you, where you sit staring into sparkling, glittering light, and then leans down. It's hard, isn't it.
     That's all she says, your wife of such a short/long time. Her lips move against your hair, then lift; but her hand, it stays where it is.

     He can't even speak, that is how hard it is, how joyous and how overwhelming. Davydd reaches up, first to touch your hand and then to light upon your hair. He nods and when he half turns his head to you, you can see the moisture that's trickled free. He goes lobster red in an instant when emotions run high and he swallows the lump in his throat to make room for a sigh.
     Oes. Very. I don't know why. It was supposed to be this way. Me handing it off to him, watching him take it up, knowing he's ready. But he's my boy for all that.
     And I'm going to miss him...
     Clearing his throat again, Davydd lowers his hand. "D' y' want a drink?" he rumbles. "I need one desperately. Duw, they were grand though, weren't they? Our boys? Course, when I was lookin' at the crowd we made, I was seeing Rhodri and Iowerth and Gwilym there all in a row, like ruddy Welsh models." He goes quiet again as he rises.
     The emotions sweep him up again and for a moment he stands, his hands going to your face, his thumbs lightly stroking your skin. "And you... you alright? You're going to set the cost of cotton and linen through the roof if you keep going through hankies like that." He smiles a touch, a tick of the corner of his mouth, but then he is moving to the bedroom bar to fetch a bottle.
     "I'm s' proud of my family. All of them. Did you see me and Gwi?" He barks a bit of a laugh. "I hugged him till he turned purple, the squirrelly little bastard." Sighing again, Davydd shakes his head. He has to stop mid-pouring and glance up at the ceiling, as if having a conference with god, to keep his eyes from leaking.

     It brings a few more tears to her eyes, just you talking about it. "They were grand," Fiona agrees quietly. She comes round closer to you. "And a drink would help, maybe. Or make me cry more; I don't know."
     She touches your hair, then lets her hand follow, face turned up to you as she gives you a wobbling sort of smile. "You did wonderfully, Davy. You're a good man and a good father. It's so hard - it's so hard, letting them go."
     Her eyes fill with tears yet again, and she snuffles into her sleeve. "Listen to me. I sound as if they've died, instead of just gone and grown up on me. So fast, too - too fast, Davy. Our boys..."

     "We need to talk about something else," his voice is rough and tugging, as he pours you a vodka and himself a bourbon. The lids are screwed tight, and he sets the bottles down. The drink all but materializes in front of you, held by your husband's large hand. "That's such shite," he chuckles. "How could we? I know," he murmurs into your hair, leaning to kiss you. "I was kneeling in front of Io, realizing that this man, this king, was not but a handful of years ago by London's clock sitting in a wagon with my pilot cap on being pulled around by corgies. Now the corgies are dead, he and his brother are grown men..."
     And he can't finish that sentence. Waving it off a moment, he stalks to the sofa, plopping himself down. His full weight makes the sofa complain (rightly so) and he takes a long swallow of the bourbon. It won't be enough.
     "He's going to be fine. I just realized that... I'm not going to see him for a while, for a long while. And it made me realize just how quickly it has passed. I hate that Time has passed so quickly," Davydd whispers. He reaches into his suit pocket to take out cigarettes and lighter. "You were radiant as usual," he murmurs, looking to you. "And I'm sure it's worse for you even than for me. Those boys were in your body after all, becoming these men right before your eyes. Come here," Davydd finishes in an even softer voice.

     Something else. Anything else, right? She sniffs again as you kiss her, and her arms wind around your waist for a quick squeeze. "I remember him - he was such a cute little boy. They both were. And he was always so calm in the face of trouble, Davy. His brother would get more like you - he'd go red and his eyes would sparkle, and that's how I always could tell when he was about to start trying to tell a story. Until he got too good at it."
     Fiona sighs, moving to the sofa and settling down next to you - half on you. She snuggles in against your chest, burying her face against you.
     It's so hard, Davy. They're older than I am now - older than I'll ever be, in some ways. I feel guilty; I should have been there for them more, I should be someone, something other than who, what I am. The perfect wife and mother. But I didn't do that badly, did I? Look at them - such brilliant, glowing things, I don't see how they possibly could be mine...

     "They are smart boys, charming, intelligent, loving. What mother could have done better? Could want more?" He says, arm going around you, his hand in your hair. He massages your scalp, a soothing rhythm not unlike the sea. He smells of cigarettes and bourbon, of leather and wool. Your lorded landed gentry of a man. "You can always point at it and say: I could have done this or that. But you'd have never been perfect, there's no such thing. So don't go beating yourself up over it. You did right by them. They knew you loved them. They know it."
     His lips curling in a smile that forms despite himself, Davydd casts a sidelong look at you. "If I didn't know better, I'd say the boys were switched at birth. Save, Rhodri's mine and Iowerth's cut of his cloth. I must have it buried deep below my seven layers of bullshit or sommat, oes? Gwilym's taken a cue from me. Maybe it skips a generation," he idly wonders, then smirks.     "Age doesn't much matter," Davydd murmurs, bending his head and kissing you gently. "If they'd have grown up here, they'd barely be five years old. Hard to believe. But that's not what they were meant for, is it. And even if it had taken longer, darlin'... the end result would have been the same. Little chicks all leave the next at some point."
     They are yours. They are so much like you. You were and are a good mother, Fiona-bach. Setting bourbon aside with another swallow, Davydd cradles your chin with his hand. He tips back your head for a gentle, liquor-flavored kiss. "I love you," he breathes at your mouth. "Queen of the kingdom of my heart, mother of my children. Mother of kings. You must be so proud, giddy a bit? You are so beautiful. You've such a loving heart. I'm glad it was you I ran into that night. With whom else could I have made something so grand as Iowerth Rhudd Draig?"

     "You must," Fiona sniffs once against your front, sighing as she settles in against you. "It wouldn't surprise me if somehow they'd switched places; Gwilym's sneaky enough to have managed it somehow, too. Maybe he didn't want the job, so he passed it to his brother."
     You receive a tight hug again as she settles in with you. I know they had to grow up. I just - feel as if there's something I should have done differently. Should be doing differently now. Putting on armour and strapping on a sword and riding off to charge at another windmill, maybe, I don't know. I feel as if I am watching them reach their potential and I'm proud, Davy - I really am! But ... am I reaching mine? How can I say I did well, when I didn't do anything at all? They did it; they get the credit for it. Not me.
     She sighs as you lift her lips to yours, leaning into your kiss. She nips at your lower lip with a darting movement, then pulls back, smiling at you despite the tears that still streak her face. "I'm glad it was you, too, Davy," Fiona whispers. "You make me happy, do you know that? I don't think I'd ever known how to care for someone outside my own skin properly until you came along. You helped me be able to love our boys; because I loved you first."

     "It must be a Christmas miracle," Davydd croons. "I think a woman just told me I made her happy." Now both arms are around you and you are held against him. "You can always choose to do things differently. That is what is so great about the present and future. They're malleable. You can change, if you wish, however you wish."
     His emotion, great as it is, finds another outlet for expression with his mouth against your neck. "Tilting at windmills," his muffled voice sounds in your nearest ear, "...is my job. You'll do what you are meant to do. It'll show itself to you in time. I think you are doing ... great work. You are taking care of your family, of your husbands, of yourself. You are a queen and a successful business woman."
     His hands cradling you, you are lifted to rest upon his lap properly. "I do know," Davydd says against your ear. "And I'm glad I make you happy. Make somebody happy for a change." Grinning, he leans back a touch to show you the smile. His eyes glitter, glassy with the intensity of the night and with the reflection of tears that are there at the surface.
     And there is a sudden electrical temptation. It runs from him to you, from his fingertips to your clothing with static shock. He does not vocalize the temptation. He merely looks at you as his fingers begin to tick down the zipper of your dress, a gown for such a regal occasion.

     "You make me happy lots, Davy," Fiona says softly, sighing. She closes her eyes, tilting her head so more of her neck is available, giving wench that she is. "Anyway, I was never much of a Sancho Panza; isn't there room for two of us to tilt at windmills? How can I be properly your Dulcinea if you expect me to sit at home instead of next to you on a horse?"
     She snuggles in closer, even as you lift her from next to you to onto your lap. "My Davy," she murmurs; coos the word, as your fingers begin finding her zippers and buttons, her laces and bows. She twists on your lap until she is straddling you, leaning in to touch her lips to yours.
     As long as the new high king doesn't come looking for us, we should be fine ...

     I shouldn't be thinking of this now. One son out of my hands and wishing for another. It wouldn't change the fact that Iowerth's grown and gone, that I have to leave that world for a time. No, a new fat, red-headed Welsh baby is not a cure all for what ails me.
     Dark green eyes are on yours as buttons and bows, zippers and clasps are undone to send the gown pooling down around your hips. The former Ardh Ri's eyes light up, and for a moment there is an echo of the earlier fireworks. Davydd doesn't say anything. His face does the work for him. Etched there is his love, quite clearly, his dazzlement. The lines at the corner of his eyes show the intense emotion that has held him in a tight grip all night. And at last he has found a proper outlet. You.
     Fabric is crumbled like autumn leaves between you as you come together. The kiss is fierce, and all of that energy stirred up during the hours of ceremony is ignited, quickened by the oil of parental nostalgia and longing.
     He doesn't say he needs you. He doesn't say why. It simply is. And you know it, you've experienced it before, these sudden outbursts, these passionate bonfires. They burn hot, and burn out quickly. But what does that matter? The moment is now.
     His hand rustles around in the taffeta, slipping between where you are straddled until fingers find lace. "Tilting is overrated," he breathes at your skin, your mouth, his eyes closing as fingers move the lace aside.

     No, not the time for it at all; and it does not cross her mind, that you are thinking such. You are here, and she is here, and the echo in her eyes is for you. Her hands move to your shoulders as you busy yourself with divesting her of all her finery, of all the effect she has put into that finery. And what it outside is also beneath. Satins and silks, laces and bows, feminine fripperies meant to be seen by boudoir-light.
     She offers up her mouth to you, eyes closed, moving in against you to kiss you as you kiss her; a sliding of her mouth against yours. There is no argument - no fear of being caught. (Really, what would Iowerth do, toss his parents in the dungeon for semi-public copulation? She'd tell him he's not too big to spank, high king or no high king, and everyone knows it, him included.) And her fingers slide into your shorter hair, gripping.
     Fiona exhales a sigh against your mouth. "My Davy," she murmurs, a satisfied-sounding whisper. "What, did you think I'd let you off the hook because you're not the king anymore? You're still king of an awful lot, and I won't let you go until I'm milked you dry, my love. Just like any woman." Her mouth forms an amused, kittenish pucker. "Kiss me again."

     It doesn't even occur to him that anyone might enter this room. If it did, it wouldn't bother him. In fact, he wouldn't even stop what he was doing. He'd simply tell them, him, whomever to come back in five minutes.
     Maybe ten...
     He grins as you talk of hooks and kings. "I'm king of this room," Davydd croons. "That's enough for me, sweetheart. I don't need for much more. You on my lap is a better thing than some coastal property or some golden bauble to wear on m' head."
     The tinkling of a belt is the chime of your destiny. He kisses, he bites, he suckles and nuzzles, from mouth to chin to neck to mouth as he frees himself of the fine black wool, his hand guiding him to you beneath the gauze and gleam of tulle and taffeta.
     "I'd gladly hang upon your hooks anytime, dearie," Davydd breathes against your cheek, breath taken and used only for words. The end of his words tug, the whisper become a soft groan as he sinks into warmth beneath the folds of expensive fabric.
     Is there ever a good time to welcome a child into the world, whichever world it happens to be? I miss my son, I will always miss him, no matter how many march from my loins to yours and out into the world. It is as it is supposed to be.
     "You in a milking mood?" Davydd cackles a laugh as he bounces you on his lap.

     "You should go back to being a pirate," Fiona teases at you. "Bring back treasures to me. Give me nice things. I don't give you nearly a hard enough time over that." She squirms on your lap, her mouth moving against your cheek, then to your ear, teeth tugging for a moment.
     It is a destiny she's never minded much, even as her lips round into a low moan, quavering on the air as you arrange her on your lap. She squirms there, even as you bounce her, her teeth grazing your ear as she releases you there to take firmer hold of you here. "Davy," she whispers. "My Davy..."
     As if saying it over and over again will somehow reassure her, remind her, when she is not with you...
     You laugh, and she squirms again, spreading her thighs and leaning forward against you. "Are you still my cash cow?" Fiona retorts, rolling her eyes and then joining you in a laugh. Her cheeks are flushed, now, and she makes a sound close to a purr. "Mmm... I miss your woods, Davy."

     I cleave to you. I cleave to what the future might bring for us. Hands buried in the taffeta, I pull you to me, on me, with me. I think of you smiling, beaming with your hands on an enlarged belly. And I want it, even though it is too soon. But I miss them being small, of teaching them how to fish and hunt and ride and even crawl. I want to do it again. I want it all over again.
     I need you. The feeling burbles up from the pit of his gut and against your own. The rest he doesn't vocalize -- he doesn't want to be slapped -- but it fuels his motions, adds sparks to the air between you, sharpens his motions that quick beneath and inside.
     It is perhaps your destiny to be the ever flowering tree. To take the sunlight of their love and affection and turn it into life. For can he be with you without wanting to fill you with it? And now the desire is at the surface, the sofa squeaking in the ruckus, the taffeta crumbling and rustling as he clasps you, moves you, fills you.
     "I know it is too soon," Davydd breathes against your ear. "But I want it, Fiona. I want another child. Tell me when," he puffs between you, his face going red. His grip tightens on the rounds of your rear and the curling forward and back of his hips sharpens again.
     "I miss them being small, I miss you being large," he grins and groans.

     She blushes for your words - the ones spoken out loud, the ones not spoken out loud, as you pull her against you, down onto you. "I need you, too," Fiona whispers, aloud to your silence. Her muscles tighten; she quivers where she is on top of you, colour racing along her skin, blood along her veins. "In all ways, Davy. Sex ... without it having been you, it would have just been sex, from the beginning."
     She squirms, making a soft mewling sound; then gasps and goes beet red as your words warm her ear. "I ... Davy!" You know that tone of voice. It is half-horrified, and half-aroused. Part of her leans towards the fulfillment of those words, even as part of her practically is ready to jump off your lap in some belated protestation of her modesty.
     She is of two minds; hesitating, shivering. Left to her own devices, she will undoubtedly pull away. But there is you to be considered, yes? And - "Not here," Fiona whispers to you, her arms going tight for a moment, around your neck. "Not like this."

     He bounces you hard, a slapping of his groin in so much taffeta, so much commotion in fact that you hop free and clear. By intent and design. Too bad your dress isn't so lucky. His hand goes around him, stroking through and steadying through the jetting. He shuts his eyes tight, his head thudding back against the back of the sofa with a loud exhale.
     It's just as well...
     Hands wipe themselves in the ruined dress -- it will never see a state occasion again -- and then rest upon your thighs, lightly patting. You're right, love. You're right.
     Sighing, Davydd lifts his head slightly, looking to you. "Some other time," he notes quietly. Taking your hand in his, he leads it to his mouth. He presses it there, his mouth to your skin, and closes his eyes again. "I'm really going to miss him. But... that's not a good reason to have another at this juncture." Disappointed? Certainly in the moment, but he knows, as well as you do, that the timing is not right. You see it in his eyes, his face.
     Davydd doesn't set your hand free. He holds it, thumbs and fingers rubbing. "I love you, girl," he murmurs.

     She squirms, even as you pull from her, and she stays close to you - so close, that if you needed to breathe, you might have trouble. "It's not that I'm not tempted," Fiona whispers. She is trembling, shaking, staying so close to you. "You know how I feel about it, Davy. You do know."
     You take her hand, and there is wetness on her cheeks again, tears in her eyes. "I'm going to insist they come home for Christmas," she whispers to you. "I don't care if he is High King; I'm their mother, and I can make certain kinds of unreasonable demands. You don't have to miss him as much as all that, you know."
     She understands, though. She stays close to you, closing her eyes, her head tipped onto your shoulder with the sudden renewed spill of tears. Things are changing again, Davy. I don't like it. Make it stop.

Posted by rowan at December 10, 2006 09:04 PM