The weather has largely held for the duration of the trip so far. The sun's out, though there's a tracing of clouds scattered across the sky to suggest later rain (potentially); there's a breeze but it's not so cool that anyone's likely to get chilled. Preston West III has been taking advantage of the weather, and of his restored leg, to walk in the garden for a bit before lunch.
     His expression is set into a seemingly permanent frown. It isn't so black as to be (or become) a scowl; it's more the expression of someone trying to figure out where the fifty bucks he thought he hadn't spend from his account went and failing. He can still pay the rent - he just wants to know where it's gone.

     At some point during his stay, Loki has worked out how to acquire virtually bottomless cups of coffee through entirely prosaic means. He just needs to go to the right place, and talk to the right people, and there it is. Coffee! It's almost as good as magic, and far less likely to make him nervous. It's with one of these cups in hand and a book in the other that he's gone wandering out to the gardens to find a quiet spot to read, or possibly check all of his forums via his phone.

     Pres spots Loki coming and lifts one arm in an offhanded wave. "Hey." He drops onto an ornamental bench that nonetheless seems willing to hold his weight, sprawling out and looking up at the sky. "How's it going?"

     Loki gives that thought, helped along by a swallow of coffee, while coming to a halt next to the bench. "Not nearly as badly as it could be," he says, which might count as optimism, coming from him. "You?"

     "I think I'm taking the job I've been offered." Pres smiles faintly, shrugging his shoulders and gesturing that Loki should help himself to some of the bench. "It's ... different, yeah? But I think maybe I need something different. I've been so fucked up in the head because of my leg that I don't have a clue as to what I should do with the rest of my life."
     He shrugs again, looking at Loki steadily. "This beats getting drunk every night while sleepwalking through classes. There are some other bonuses to it too, but we don't have to talk about that if you don't want to. What about you?"

     Once settled on the bench beside his friend, Loki gives Pres a thoughtful look. The decision already having been made, he's not going to weigh in with further opinions on what the decision should be. Even if there is a trace of Are you really sure? to that look. "About the same as before. Have you worked out what the agreed on story to wave at your parents will be?"

     "Not a clue. But time works differently between there and here, right?" Pres shrugs. "I figure I can take until the end of the summer when I'd be due back at college to decide on that. I don't know exactly how long that'll be over there - long enough to figure out if I can hack it or not, anyway. I'm fucking terrified, if you want the truth. But if I don't take the chance, what am I going to do, sit and twiddle my thumbs and wonder what it would've been like? Way I see it, I lost a third of my leg to a shark. Nothing's going to hurt worse than what I've already dealt with, so no point in living in fear. Especially since mumsie and dad don't have to know."

     Loki quirks a fractional smile. "What they don't know won't hurt them. Maybe I should've told my dad I was working for some company and doing the band thing as a hobby. How would he know the difference?" He pulls one foot up onto the bench, draping his arm over the knee. "I'm the last person to tell anyone they should stick to college if they want to get somewhere in life. Your approach looks sound to me."

     "You could still do that if you wanted to." Pres shrugs, spreading his arms along the back of the bench. "Tell him you found a job and you're cutting back on the band thing. Or whatever. You didn't answer my question, though. What about you? What are you doing with yourself, and," he waves vaguely, "all this?"

     "That was the about the same as before. Fuck if I've come up with any better approaches." Loki balances the coffee cup on his knee with one hand to steady it. "I've had a few interesting conversations about how to think about my approach to my job, but it's not like anything's really changed on that end."

     "I, uh, don't know what that means. Same as before? Well, what was it before?" Pres frowns, looking puzzled. "What have people been saying, what do you want to do? Do you want it? I know you said you weren't going to quit and that you weren't actively unhappy - or didn't think you were - but other than that, you were kind of in a holding pattern and didn't really know how to do the job. Which doesn't seem like a good position to me."

     "I didn't know what the fuck I was doing before. I still don't," Loki says, fractionally testy. "It's sort of beside the point. I'll figure something out." He shrugs twitchily, focusing on his coffee. "As best as I can figure from what people have told me, the only way I'm going to learn what to do is by doing it, so--it's not like sitting around here or talking about it will help anyway."
     He takes a deep breath, and lets it out. "Sorry," he says, more quietly. "It's just getting old. Half the people I talk to say I should ask more questions, and the other half, once asked questions, tell me something I can't understand, or that they can't tell me because I need to work it out myself. Actually, sometimes it's the same people doing both. So at this point, I figure I'll take their advice and just try to make it work."

     "I was just trying to help." There's a flash of hurt on Pres' face and he shrugs. "I'd ask what they said to see if I can add anything to it, but sounds like I'd be better off just dropping it. So apparently Gillian's here too, huh. They say she's engaged to one of the family." He slouches down on the bench, looking up at the sky between the branches. "Think she knows?"

     Loki coughs on a sip. "She's--wait, which member of the family?"

     "Uh. Began with a B. Wasn't Balthazar, obviously." Pres shrugs, continuing to look up at the sky. "I don't know. Does it fucking matter?" His mood's shifted. He folds his arms loosely over his chest. "Whatever."

     "If she knows, she didn't mention it to me," Loki says. "Not that I'd expect her to, anyway." He looks sideways at Pres. "Are you planning on talking to her about it? Or are we all going to continue the fine old tradition of not talking about any of this?"

     "I dunno," Pres mumbles. He lets his chin tip down onto his chest. "I don't know how much she knows. I guess we'll see, right?" He exhales, looking off down the path. "I just hope she's not getting married because Maddie snagged Balthazar, y'know? Or because of mumsie."

     "No," Loki says slowly. "I don't think that's why. Knowing Gillian, I'm pretty sure she has good reasons for what she's doing. She things long-term."
     He sets his coffee aside on the bench, and shifts about to look at Pres directly. "Hey. I didn't mean to shut you down when you were trying to help, okay? I'm just...not great at talking about this stuff. None of it seems to have any easy answers. Fuck, any comprehensible answers. I'd be fine with difficult if it felt like I at least had some kind of instructions."

     "She does, but - well, I guess I think it's weird. But she's only engaged, or something. If she's engaged - I'm betting this family has a grapevine, same as any other." Pres shifts upwards again, propping his forearms on his thighs as he leans forward. "So what did they tell you? We can compare notes, maybe, and figure some shit out."

     "Apparently there's no employee handbook for what I'm supposed to do because it varies too much by person. It's shaped by who takes the job." Loki picks up his coffee again now that he needs something to occupy his hands. "Which is good, because it means there aren't unwritten rules I'm failing to follow, but bad, because it means there aren't any unwritten rules people can just tell me how to follow. And I'm a little too old for that 'Follow your heart' Disney bullshit." He shrugs, with a small frown. "I don't think anyone's trying to jerk me around. They just don't have any good answers for my questions, and I can't think of any better questions to ask."

     "So let's go over what you need to know." Pres sits up, hands loosely together. "If there's anything I learned from my dad, it's scientific method, right? Come up with a list of stuff you want to know, and whatever you already know. Hold on, lemme find a pen." He rummages in his jacket, coming up with a small memo pad and a ballpoint. "Okay. Shoot."

     Loki looks at the memo pad. He does not say anything impolite about catching up with the 21st century already. "Question the first: what am I supposed to be doing?" He stops, and thinks. "Which sort of encompasses 'how' as question one point one at the most, so, yeah, that's pretty much it on the big questions. I keep getting answers, in the sense that people say stuff when I ask the question, but I still don't understand most of that. Something to do with energy transfer--or management--or focus--or--"
     He hisses out a sigh, and looks away. "Yeah. I don't know. There are a lot of fuzzy words in there about hope or something, but fuck if I follow any of it. Next time I ask Gwilym about this I'm going to write down what he says so that I can show it off verbatim to you, and maybe you'll have better luck deciphering it."

     "Okay, so what have they said as for what you're supposed to be doing? They have to have said something. Vague or otherwise - hell, vague's good because it means you can come up with an answer and they can't tell you you're doing it wrong." Pres scribbles down something that's probably related to what he's just been told, frowning at the pad. "Energy transfer. Like - a battery or something?"

     "I don't know. Maybe it's more like an extension cord." The irritation in Loki's voice is not at all directed at Pres. "I'm supposed to use some of this nebulous I-don't-know-what, and the abilities Gwi gave me, to help people, but I don't know towards what. Helping someone the way one of my dads would suggest is probably exactly the opposite of how the other would, and I'm pretty sure this is not one of those situations where it's the thought that counts."
     He gulps down coffee, and continues more calmly, "In one of those little creepy touches, the job title is apparently priest, though I'm really hoping that can get changed. Maybe someone from a religious background would be able to figure it out from that."

     "Well, the job title was what - priest, right. So going by my weird-ass childhood, I'd guess fulfilling some sort of spiritual or emotional potential." Pres mulls this over, frowning again, not in anger but in thought. "I'll say this much for them, they seem generous, so probably if you need help or resources, they can give you whatever. They have money, that's for damn sure. And I thought my family was well-off."
     He uses the blunt end of his pen to scratch his head for a moment, leaving the strawberry blond locks in mild disarray. "I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that how things work is not in line with your Hollywood dad. Which is just as well, you don't want to live according to his rules anyway. They eat meat, so probably not what your London dad would say to do - probably something somewhere in the middle, right? So probably something like being a counselor or a therapist, right? Figuring out people's problems and what's in the way of them reaching their potential. You took psych in college, didn't you?"

     "I flunked a psych class in college. Does that count?" Loki essays a sharp smile to go with that. "But that does sound about like something that came up in conversation once. Except at the time I was told that having training psychology would actually be a hinderance, so--I don't know."

     He scrubs a hand across his face. "You know me. I've never been good at the touchy-feely stuff. And people are so complicated. I'm all for fixing people's problems, or showing them how to fix their problems themselves, if I weren't usually convinced I'd make things worse by interfering."

     "Well, they do say that shrinks tend to be kind of crazy themselves. Maybe that's why they said that. They don't exactly seem the type to believe in it." Pres shrugs, settling back and folding his hands behind his head, notebook and pen balanced on his lap. "We're Americans, it's different for us. As for thinking you're going to make things worse, yeah, you're going to have to get over that. Even if you're not gonna be a priest for this guy, you're going to have to get over that, because it pretty much means you put yourself in handcuffs for ever doing anything. I know you don't want to live in a pristine perfect bubble for the rest of your life, even if you sometimes think you do."

     He peers over at Loki, frowning again. "When did you get like that, anyway? I could swear you didn't use to be like that about life. Is it something to do with your Hollywood dad? Are you - y'know. Okay?"

     "I fucked things up really badly. For someone else." Loki looks away, to the grass and his shoes. "I'm not in a bad enough mood to talk about that right now. Maybe when I'm drunk." He scuffs a foot along the ground reflectively. "I'm pretty comfortable with throwing money at other people's problems. Money's got all that great distancing effect. But this job isn't something I can do by contributing to carefully vetted charities."

     "No, sounds like it has to be up close and in person. Which doesn't preclude throwing money at problems, but it means yeah, you have to deal with the entire concept of personal risk," Pres agrees with a shrug. "If you can't or won't, you might as well tell them screw it, I'm not going and you can't make me." He doesn't press on the other issue. "Have you considered maybe taking on a practice case? Asking them for some kind of training wheels, where they step in if it looks like you're going to fuck it up too badly? On the job training, basically."

     "Been there. Didn't do so well on that." Loki slants a look back at Pres, unreadable for the moment. "It was suggested I start by helping you."

     Pres looks blank. "Uh. Help me with what?" He doesn't look shocked so much as confused.

     Loki shrugs. "Dealing with your leg. Figuring out what you wanted to do next. Handling your parents. I don't know. Whatever you needed helping with, which is back to the issue of not knowing what kind of help I'm supposed to be giving people. It was a few months back. It's not like I did a great job, obviously."

     "...Okay. Well, uh, you helped me steal money from my mom, but yeah, I don't know. I guess that doesn't really fall under it." Pres stiffens a little. "Wait a sec. You didn't - let me - do stuff because of that. Did you?" His eyes narrow.

     "No, I 'did stuff' with you because you're hot, a good friend, not going to take it to mean anything romantic, and I hadn't gotten laid in over a year," Loki says. "Though I wouldn't have if I thought it would make things worse. I may be an idiot sometimes, but I try not to be a jerk."

     "Okay. Just making sure." Pres reddens a bit, looking mollified at the same time. "Anyway," he adds gruffly, "that doesn't count. I think it's probably a bit of column a and a bit of column b. Stealing money from mumsie didn't really get my life out of the rut I was in. I can figure it out now that it was - well. A stupid thing to do." He shrugs. "If we'd gotten caught, it wouldn't have gotten me better or out of the rut. And it was just digging me into that deeper. 'Course, it's a lot easier to see that now. Now that the fucking shark hasn't got a third of my leg."

     "Yeah." Loki leans back on one hand, giving Pres a thoughtful look. "I had been thinking about the fact that one person in this family could do more for you in two days here than I could even figure out a decent plan for over months. While it doesn't say much for my ability to handle the job, it does suggest I should get more proactive about utilizing available resources. As my dad would put it."

     "We're American, we're supposed to be the aggressive ones." Pres' smile is a bit more lopsided, this time. "But... yeah. At the very least, what's being passive done for you lately?"

     "Prevented me from fucking up in all the ways I would have if I'd been active?" Loki does sound as if he's joking. Mostly.

     "If they're going to think you've fucked up by doing nothing - you might as well see if you fuck up by doing something." Pres pats Loki on the shoulder. "So what're you gonna do first? - Oh, hell. Here comes Maddie."

     And here, indeed, does come Maddie, looking entirely too much like Cinderella's little sister, or maybe Snow White's, ready to commune with nature and burst into song. Her unruly hair's pulled back into a ponytail and she's got on a lime green sundress with a pattern of pink watermelon slices with black seeds all over it and a floppy wide-brimmed straw hat. When she spots the boys, she claps one hand to her hat and waves vigorously with the other. "Hi! Isn't it a great day?"

     "Nice weather," Loki agrees, without much in the way of conviction, and drinks his coffee. "Morning, Maddie."

     It's hard to be thrilled in the face of so much sheer good mood, at least from his sister. Pres grumbles something, then shrugs. "Hey, Mads. So how are you and angel boy doing? Planning on going to stay on some cloud?"

     Maddie calmly takes off her hat and whips it against Pres' shoulder. "Look who got up on the wrong side of the bed. What's with you two? Did somebody die?"

     "Statistically speaking, yes," Loki says. "But probably not anyone we know personally. Bright side to everything, right?"

     "Ow," Pres complains, rubbing his shoulder. "No, we were just talking about Gillian's engagement or whatever it is. Does she even know we're here yet? How much does she know? That's assuming you know, Maddie. It'd help to have a clue as to how much we should say."

     "Piffle," Maddie tells Loki, wrinkling her nose at him. "The day you see the bright side is the day I turn into a horse and canter away. Gilly? I - don't know, actually." She looks surprised, then doubtful. "I heard about the engagement - to one of Baz's uncles, I think. Bran, I think the name was. I haven't met him yet, though I met some of the others. I don't know how much she knows. How much should we say, then? Do you two have any ideas?"

     "I'm in favor of full disclosure at the first convenient moment for a private chat," Loki says. "But you two know her better. The news might work better coming from a sibling or something."

     "Well, whatever we're going to say, we better think fast," Pres mutters, slouching down again. "Here she comes." Maddie turns, eyes and lips rounding as she spots their sister.

     As well she might - Gillian looks as if she's passed a sleepless night. Her strawberry blonde hair's been fixed up into a rather disheveled bun, and she wears a rather tidy primrose skirt with white blouse and matching primrose jacket, glasses perched on the tip of her nose. Her shoes are polished black patent leather and she looks like a distracted academic - oddly out of place among the trees and bushes and flowers. She is twisting a ring round and round on her finger absently, walking quickly without seeing anything.

     Loki calls out, "Morning, Gillian." He is, at the very least, not about to hide from her now that she's appeared.

     Gillian stops with a bit of a jerk, looking around and then spotting Loki. And Maddie. And Pres. "Oh. Er. Hello. Er." She blinks a few times, looking around as if she'd like to discreetly pinch herself. She frowns. "Er. Not to be rude, but how did you guys get here?"

     "Baz brought me," Maddie immediately supplies, taking a seat at a small wrought-iron table not far from the bench. "And them, too. Loki's in the band, remember. So you got engaged! How's that work?"

     Pres looks as if he'd love for the earth to open up under him and swallow him. Or his sisters. He's not too picky. "Hi, Gill," he mutters, deadpan, slouching further. "How's it going? You look like hell, sis."

     Loki gives Pres a quick look before he says, "I think the three of us all followed Balthazar here, more or less."

     Gillian freezes like a deer in headlights at Maddie's question, and she does not immediately answer it. "Oh. I didn't know Balthazar was here, actually. I - didn't realize. I - well." She clears her throat, straightening a bit. "I didn't sleep terribly well, that's all. Are you enjoying your visit, then?" It's awkward, and stilted - much more like addressing visitors than friends and family. She seems somewhat shocked.

     Maddie opens her mouth to say something and Pres gives her a look, sliding in before Maddie can actually speak. "Yeah, it seems there's been a lot of failures to communicate." He shrugs at Loki. "You want the summary, sis? Before Maddie blows your mind again in her usual tactless way."

     Maddie looks indignant. "I am not tactless!" She pouts, folding her arms over her chest.

     "Bran's related to Balthazar. Thus, we're all at the same castle." As summaries go, it's leaving out a lot of details, but Loki has to start somewhere. "Nothing more sinister than that, even if the family's sort of strange." He pauses, and reconsiders his phrasing. "More than sort of..." Yeah, he's letting Maddie take this one.

     "Strange. That's one way of putting it," Pres mutters. He stands up, offering his seat to his older sister. "Look, Gilly, it's a long story and I bet you've got a lot to tell, too, even if right now you're wondering how much we know and how much you should say. Sit down. Does anybody want anything from the kitchen, maybe?"

     Maddie is sulking, very visibly. She stays mutinously silent now, fuming inside her own head. She humphs at Pres and looks away.

     Gillian looks between Loki and her two siblings. "No - well, I suppose - then, why didn't he - I don't know, really, I - Pres?" Her eyes widen as she takes in the sight of her brother standing unassisted. "Your leg? You're walking?"

     Pres pauses. He looks down at his leg, then back at his sisters. "...Ow? Oh, the agony, somebody get me a cane before I fall? Yeah, I guess that won't work, will it." He shrugs. "Sorry, sis. It's this family, you see. They're all crazy fucking magicians. If I had to guess, so's the guy you're apparently marrying. One of them fixed my leg." So much for tact.

     "While that's not exactly how I would have phrased it, Pres has covered the basics pretty thoroughly," Loki says, watching Gillian. "Personally, I find large quantities of caffeine help with the shock. I would've warned you sooner if I'd realized the guy was related. Have a seat?"

     Gillian sinks slowly into the offered seat, her expression a commingled shock and confusion and dismay. "I - magic? Magic?" She has to repeat it. It just doesn't make any sense. Absently, she twists the ring around again on her finger, staring at Pres - or more specifically, at his leg. He's walking. She twists the ring around once more, then closes her hand around it, biting her lower lip very hard.
     Oh...
     I am beginning to see...
     Aloud, she says only, "Tell me everything. Or I will find out."

     Pres looks uneasy with this ominous statement. He looks to Loki, then to Maddie.

     Maddie looks cheerful. She replaces her hat on her head. "I'm Baz's girlfriend. He's the Sun King, and his mother's an angel, and he has two fathers. He's from another world. Oh, and he's got lots of magic. I bet he even has more magic than this Bran guy you're marrying, so there!" She sticks her tongue out at her older sister.

     "Maddie," Loki says, in a dangerously sweet tone, "do you think you could get me more coffee? I'm trying to retain some sunny optimism here, and it's hard when I'm out of caffeine. I bet Gillian could use a cup too."
     Some days, I wonder about Balthazar's judgment.
     He looks back to Gillian, more seriously. "There's a lot of variation in unusual going around in the family. Supernatural, and so forth. Kings of various metaphysical concepts and at least one very physical location from another world, on top of that. If you want a complete answer, you're probably better off asking someone from the family, because they know the full story. All of us keep picking up different pieces from different people."

     Oh, fuck...
     Coo, coo... there's blood in the shoe. Only...we're not doves... and that's not blood, exactly. It's more like shit hitting the fan...
     Oh, you're a riot...
     Did I not tell you to avoid the castle this week...
     Actually...no...you didn't...
     Hmmm... I could have sworn I did. You'd be the last to know. You never listen to me...
     Oh here we go....
     In the potted yews above the scene sit two large rooks, their black talons grasping the branch.

     Looking sulky, Maddie nonetheless rises with a quiver to her lower lip. It is the pout of the youngest sibling, who is quite convinced that all the most interesting things will be talked about in her absence. "Fine. I'll go get you your precious caffeine," she mutters with a toss of her head that threatens to dislodge her hat. "Hmph." She stalks off in the direction of the castle, bristling with resentment.

     Gillian stares off into space, not really at her sister's back; her expression is as perfect and as expressionless as ice. "You're none of you gullible or stupid, and this is too elaborate - and too successful - to be a practical joke you're all playing on me. So I have to give your theory credence, that magic exists, that Balthazar and Bran are related - that ..." She snaps her mouth shut, chin lifting sharply and imperiously for a moment before she blinks. "Okay. I see. So who told you that I'm engaged?"

     "...Balthazar's brother told me," Pres answers a bit warily, watching Gillian the way he might a powerful predator at close range. "I'd guess Balthazar told Maddie. It'd make sense, anyway. I told Loki a few minutes ago. Problem?"

     "And until you walked by in a daze, I thought you knew we were here, since Pres knew you were here," Loki says. He pulls out his phone, because there's no way he's keeping names straight without checking the rough family tree he compiled in there. "So now everyone knows everyone's location, and we're through the big Yes magic works and this family is bizarre reveal..."
     Of course he has a checklist. At this point, he would be a fool not to have compiled one. "Do you want to cover whatever strange things Bran's been doing that you had previously dismissed as strange but plausible and are now realizing were actually supernatural, or should we skip that step?"

     "He hasn't done anything particularly strange, other than insist he's in love with me and giving me a ring. He's a visiting lecturer at Oxford," Gillian answers stonily. She continues staring off into space. "He said the ring was given to a queen by an emperor. Now I'm wondering if he was telling the truth."
     She looks as if she might throw the ring in his face, if he were to walk up now...

     Pres continues to regard Gillian as if she were some rare and dangerous beast, one best seen from the other side of a sheet of glass. Thick glass. "I - don't know. It's not impossible. They have this whole other world they go to, Gilly. I'll say this much for them. They've been mostly honest that I've seen. Mostly. And they seem sincere enough when it comes to their feelings. So if he says he loves you, he might. Do you want me to rough him up for you?"

     As if, Sonny Jim...
     One raven launches from the yew tree, circling to land on a nearby bench. It has the good graces not to soil it. The large black bird sits alert, attentive, its black eyes turning to the crowd, its head cocking this way and that. Left camera, right camera, left camera...

     Loki ticks a few points off the list, and gets down to Coffee. Yes, this is a situation that calls for it, and here they all are without anyone to magic it out of the air. Why doesn't anyone ever hand out a really practical gift like that one?
     "This castle's solid enough. So are passports and titles and bank accounts and cars, and all the other cruft of being in this world. There's not necessarily any contradiction between what he's told you and the full truth. Lying by omission, at most. The supernatural shit is kinda freaky when it's sprung on you all of a sudden, so I can't blame them for doing that." He glances towards the castle, in all its stony glory, and says more dryly, "Much."

     "The castle's not as solid as it looks," Gillian corrects, almost absentmindedly. "There are quite a few secret passageways. I've found most, if not all. Thanks for the offer, little brother, but I'll handle him myself." She opens her hand, turning it palm up so the boys can see the ring. It is a magnificent piece of work - Roman glass and gold and diamond, a work of antiquity and yet curiously solid. "Bran and I are going to have a few words."
     Her voice is taut and ominous. The air almost crackles around her.

     Pres does not look reassured. "Oh. You found secret passages, huh. Uh. Have you met any of the rest of the family yet?" He gives Loki a look of shit and do we head her off at the pass or let this Bran guy deal with it.

     There is no sign of Maddie yet. Maybe she's off sulking. Or maybe she ran into Balthazar. Or maybe she's ex-laxing the coffee.

     Loki's look back to Pres is pure They're the vastly powerful supernatural people, let them handle the Wrath of Gillian. And maybe just a tiny bit of satisfaction at seeing he's not the only one who reacts that way. He says to Gillian, "If you have any questions, the family here probably has the best answers. But you can ask one of us anyway if you'd prefer."

     The rook clicks at the group. Large black talons grip the iron of the bench at the revelation of the ring.
     "And but one word with one of us? couple it with something; make it a word and a blow." Prophetic words that issue forth in familiar, earthy tones. Sing-song, as birds would do, but with the voice of a man who knows the sharpness of a guillotine.
     Another raven clicks back overhead but remains roosted in the yew for now...
     His brother meanwhile materializes on the bench. His dark red hair and dark green eyes startling. He wears not the coat and sweater and tie of the professor but a plain black tee shirt, black jeans, black Docs, and black raven and shadow and vine tattoos cover the whole of his right arm, peeking even above the collar of his shirt at the right side of his neck.

     Pres shrugs at Loki. Point, his shrug seems to suggest - along with an earnest desire to back away from his sister as soon as possible. But any possible backing way is forestalled by the sudden appearances. What the fuck? His head swivels, and then his eyes narrow, shoulders showing their tension.
     Spying on us? Jesus fucking Christ, does anybody in this family have trustworthy instincts at all?

     Gillian turns to look at the man on the bench with that absolute icy impassivity. Her hand closes around the ring. It makes a fist. She rises, slowly, to her feet, with the aura of one who might be about to do battle.

     The lack of surprise Loki shows at sudden man-from-raven appearances could be sign of something to the Wests in the area, though with only one paying any attention to him at all by this point it's likely to pass unnoticed. He sips his coffee, and watches Gillian with as much sympathy as curiosity for just where that's going to go.
     The half shrug he gives to Pres only conveys, Yeah. They're like that.

     "It's not spying if you happen to be flying by and hear your name mentioned," he notes with a lilting drawl. He looks at Preston, then Loki, but only briefly. When Gillian rises, he rises too. And his emotional reaction is a dead giveaway that he is not his brother.
     This is not Aeron...
     This is not what he intended...
     Bran does not fold his arms, shove his hands in his pockets, nothing to hide or to deny. He does not ball his fists or make grand gestures. "Everything that I have told you is true, Gillian. Know that."
     Bran glances to the other two a moment.

     Pres may be suspicious - but he is not tactless. He stands up, giving Bran a narrow-eyed once-over. "I'm going to go look for Maddie," he tells Gillian and Loki carefully. He looks at Bran. "At best, it's still eavesdropping. Eavesdroppers rarely hear good things about themselves, the saying goes. I'm leaving you to my sister's tender mercies. If you're telling her the truth - good luck. If not..."
     He shrugs. If not, then Bran deserves everything that's coming to him. He looks to Loki, but begins to sidle towards the castle.

     Gillian remains standing, as motionless and expressionless as a statue. The air crackles around her.

     Loki does not expect Gillian to notice it, but the look he gives her is entirely admiring. It is not encouraging, because that would be redundant at this point. He gets up, taking his coffee cup with him, and follows Pres.

     Bran stands as still as she does. Here they are, two stones of Stonehenge, staring across at one another for eternity, it seems. "I was with you in the sewers and the underground," Bran tells her. "I was a rat in the shadows following you down the stone corridors. You found the ruins without my help. I only whispered the secrets of it to the surface, so it would reveal itself to you. Secrets, mysteries, lost things -- these are my domain, Gillian. How else do you think I came upon the love token given to Cleopatra that you hold in your hand? These things have been forgotten by history, covered over in layers of obscurity and oblivion as well as beneath cities and sand."
     He looks to your posture, your expressionless face, your fury, the ball of your fist around the ring. "Keep it," he says quietly. "History ...belongs with you. You are its champion and its voice." Bran does not turn to walk away, fly away or disappear. He stands quietly, his head slightly bowed in a kind of quiet deference. You are the Queen of Secrets after all.

     "They are your domain." Her voice is curiously flat and harsh, like sand on glass. "When were you going to tell me? After we were married?"
     Gillian looks at Bran over the rims of her glasses. There is anger there. It seethes, it roils like an impending storm, rendering grey eyes metallic with a hint of green, like a tornado sky. There is bitterness. There is despair.
     "You aren't real to me anymore. I don't know what to think. But right now, you aren't real to me; I don't want to talk to you. I don't even want to look at you."
     She twists the ring round on her finger, staring at Brand with narrowed, alienated eyes. Abruptly, Gillian turns away, so sharply that her hair half-falls out of its bun. She is rigid with it. "I'm nobody's champion. I trusted you."

     "I planned to tell you beforehand," he answers quietly. "I would not have married you in a guise. I did not, and do not, want to lie to you, even by omission. However, I wanted to ensure that you understood what you had discovered, that it was yours, that no one could or can take it from you before I did so."
     Bran remains standing where he is, as if rooted in that place. "The ruins wanted to be found by you. That is what initially intrigued me about you. It called me, and I saw you. I did not want you to think it had merely been given to you, that you had not earned it yourself. I was not initially even planning to reveal myself to you, but then things changed, and I did."
     The hair on the back of his neck stands up with the electrical charge, the ionized air. Lightning could strike at any moment, but he doesn't seek shelter. "I know you did. I worked hard for that, believe it or not. And your trust was the one thing I did not want to lose, knowing you are not quick to give it. And for that I am very sorry."

     "Magic."
     Gillian says the word as a curse, an epithet. It rolls off her tongue like falling lightning, and there is a flickering nimbus of light, there and gone. She could be laughing or weeping; her shoulders shake before she gets it under control. "I liked you."
     Her hands clench, fingernails digging into her palms, and she takes a couple of steps away. "Why?"

     He moves silently. Not even the grass seems to notice him as he passes. "Can you... not still like me?" he wonders quietly. "I have not lied. I have protected you and have encouraged you from the moment I saw you." Bran goes to his knees. It is as if he is offering his neck to the sword of your temper.
     "You ... are the key that turns me," he explains quietly. "Everything that was buried ... in me... is unearthed by you. I ... am the ruin, Gillian. You found me ... fair and square. And I believe that there is so much for you to uncover about the world. You are...uniquely positioned to remind us what we've lost to Time and Memory and History. You have the knowledge and the innate ability."
     It is the warrior's pose. Bran sits on his knees, his hands on his thighs. It is both supplication and strength in one simple act. "I didn't give you the ability. It's yours. I merely recognized it. I came to it when it called me. That's all."

     You speak of keys and of liking, and you go to your knees. And she turns, hair half-tumbling down, the slate grey of her eyes tinted by green. She looks at you, and she looks through you, and her chin lifts as proudly as any queen's.
     "Then get up and fight me properly. Don't you dare go to your knees as if you're expecting me to be some kind of ball and chain. What kind of a man are you?"
     Gillian yanks off her hairpins, letting her hair tumble the rest of the way down. and she tosses the hairpins down in front of where you kneel like an oracle casting the bones. The electricity has not diminished; it sparks, arcing from one point to another, and impatiently, she demands, "Don't you know that I am in love with you? Why would I be nearly this angry if I didn't?" Her lips tremble, and she cries out in intense fury and pain. "Don't you know I could have your heart out of your chest for this?"

     When he stands, he's a tower, the rook on the board, the castle of the queen. The air crackles, stinging his skin, singeing in a hiss past his ears. He would not be surprised to find that the hair on the back of his neck had been scorched from him by a bolt of your demand. He's not afraid of storms. He's not afraid of much of anything.
     A brave hand reaches to brush back your hair, to touch your cheek. Bran's blood-red eyebrows tick upwards. It is the birth of a smile, not quite cradled by his lips in its infancy. "You already have it," he whispers the secret to you, his dark green eyes fixed on yours of cloudy, stormy grey.
     His other hand lifts, your face cradled in a kiss, a sudden strike of lightning. He can almost smell the electric scent of burning air with the intake of a breath.

     You kiss her, and the electricity moves through her and through you, her mouth opening, lips parting under yours for a moment with the taste of ozone and blood and something sweeter underneath it. And as suddenly as you kissed her, she pulls her face away.
     "I have not forgiven you," Gillian tells you sharply, lifting one hand as if to slap you. She doesn't; but it's as if she could, or might, and she looks at you over the rims of her glasses as if from a thousand yards or a thousand years away.
     "You have so many secrets in your keeping? Fine. Then you'll answer my challenge, or you'll lose me forever, Bran Davies or whatever your name really is." Gillian steps back, and then turns away. "Find me. Find the truth, if you can. If you can't, then you'll never have me. Until then, I'm not yours to hold or to kiss or to claim." She yanks the ring off, holding it out to you without looking at you. "Win, and you can have whatever you ask for. Take it or leave it."

     Your hand retracted as if to slap, and he did not so much as flinch. His dark eyes were lit with green flames of enjoyment, even amusement as you held yourself from doing what more than a few women have enjoyed over the years...
     The ring is gone from your grasp before you even feel that it is gone. It is gone as if in thin air. You felt its weight and then its weight dissolved. "Given the choice between taking... and doing almost anything else, I always take, Gillian," he whispers to you, his mouth near your ear. "I take it... and I will take you..."
     You feel the cupping of his hand at your hip as he stands behind you. "And it's Bran ap Davydd," he corrects. "I never said it was Davies. But it's as good a nickname as any. I've had worse. And it's Duke Bran ap Davydd to be official about it..."
     Won't your mother be pleased...
     "I love you," he says at your ear. "And I will win you..."

     She pulls away from your grasp sharply, glaring at you over her shoulder. "And until such time as you live up to your words," Gillian tells you clearly and sharply, words crisp as apples plucked fresh from the tree, "I will not let you touch me. You want me so badly? I don't care if you're a duke. You have a lot to live up to."
     She stalks away, with as much dignity as she can muster. Her clothes are not really suited to stalking, but somehow, she manages. And she makes a beeline to go search for the one person she is the angriest with right now apart from you yourself.
     Balthazar.

Posted by rowan at July 03, 2009 05:19 PM