As hands join from couple to couple, Gruffydd glances to his lover. It's perfect, actually. Just family. Just friends. We're all holding one another's hands. And the promise is a simple one. Love one another.

     "I wish that I could remain forever with you. Unfortunately... my time here is coming to an end, children."

     He exhales, and then he drinks, and if it weren't for the refilling, it'd be empty now. Ordinarily he might make some crack about Cuchulainn and the sea, but not today. There was a time when I was almost have welcomed this news, except for the pain it will cause my brother. And now? What do I do now?

     "I know they'll be devastated. I don't think they'll detonate," he qualifies. "Iowerth and Balthazar?" He gives you a look. "Do they make asbestos suits?" he asks it seriously. Wrapping you up in his arms, Davydd sighs. "There are ascensions and then... there are ascensions. It's hard not to treat it like a death..."

     "My flesh was meant to be sloughed off a few years back," he tells you. "I was not ready to go; my family was not ready to let me go. And so with the aid of healers and through Love, I remained. But there is work to be done, and ... I have outstayed my time."

     Tilting his head, Davydd looks to Fiona. "Sounds familiar doesn't it," he grins. "I'm getting misty with the memories."

     "You don't behave well enough to be a trained monkey," Davydd notes, "...now...shush... listen to your mother. She's onto something. Besides which, even if it's utter rubbish, you'll not get a word in edgewise against it so you might as well relax and pay attention."

     You're so good to know that there's always a Story.

     Every seat is filled in Shepherd's Bush Empire, apart from those taking a quick break between shows -- ten minutes -- to get refills on beer and visit the necessaries. The old BBC theater is packed and the murmur of the crowd, the babbling Babel of nearly three-thousand, puts on its own kind of show.

     "Tss," Davydd whispers, "..you're going to burn a hole in my fancy rugs with that temper. Go get some air. Fetch Ani," Davydd pats him on the shoulder. "Tell him it's time for supper."

     As big as it is, Powis Castle is becoming intimate once more. All that's left are a couple of cousins, and your husbands two and children three.

     They helped him finish what he started. They helped him kill Mithras completely, each one of them, with Blois giving the hardest blow and with Plantagenet giving last rites. Without the Queens, Davydd wouldn't have survived the battle with Mithras. Without the Kings, Davydd wouldn't have survived the battle with himself.

     "When do you get started? Right after Yule? Father Christmas Strikes Back?" Davydd cackles at that and reaches for his whisky. That was so good, he has to drink to it.

     A hand comes up, tugs lightly at your hair, and she sighs, going quiet. Love is a son of a bitch. Remind me, if I ever run into that fat diapered freak that's Cupid, to kick him in the balls...

     "...I can't go on pretending to be Saint Peter to make all of you love me, or forgive me, or need me. I'm collapsing under the strain of it..."

     "...I was High King there for a while, but all things must pass, yeah? Besides, the real work's back in the Other-Other-World."

     Hope you allow yourself the odd bit of happiness, even though it's scary. That's all I want for anybody. I just want everyone to be happy. I must be the biggest masochist of all.

     You made me order it, watch it, regret it. You made me kill you. And I can't forgive you.

     In the quiet space of one's soul, there is no place for hammering. Though the London nightscape glitters past the windows and walls of a small apartment, and an Indian kitchen cooks up delights whose flavors permeate even concrete, in this small bedroom, in this quiet space of his soul, Davydd lingers with only one.

     The earth is in a constant state of reincarnation. Everything but me is changing. The bud becomes the flower becomes the leaf. I am the same width, the same weight, the same density as I was eight-hundred and twenty-eight years ago. Even an English Oak would have grown, would have changed in all that time.

     The green eyes judge the face that holds them, and the morning's ritual shave is ignored, the 12th Century beard left to stand as a mark, a raise of a flag to his internal, remnant humanity. His mea culpa.

     Here stand two kindred spirits, bound by family, blood, bad habits and emotion. But though they speak the same language, and though they stand not ten feet apart, there's a chasm between them, these men, neither of them a bridge-builder.

     "Consider this your invitation," he says after a moment. "When you're ready to join me out here," his gaze trails across to the wide horizon of Infinity, "...you will. When you are meant to. It will be good... not to walk the shadows alone."

     "My phone rang all night. Fairies, vampires, wolves, shivering nuns -- you name it, they rang me."

     "Oes," he grunts softly. "I feel like I've been in a wine press. Run through the wringer like an old rag."

     It was good that they removed themselves. The energy was stifling between them, despite their good intentions. What they needed, what they always need to clear the air, was a battle.

     "So...does he still want to kill me?"
     "He doesn't want to bake you a cake," William chuckles.

     "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..."

     Though my head is bowed, I look to my son. I find his eyes are already on me, those strange periwinkle eyes. I smile at him, and it takes everything in me not to scoop the new king in my arms and hold him till he chokes.

     The sun rises, the sun sets. Rhodri is with you during your days; Davydd, your nights. With the trading off, it is beginning to seem as if each husband were simply different aspects of the same Man. Never existing at the same place, at the same time.

     "In these heels? The bull'd catch up with me and then where'd I be?" Fiona angles her face up to kiss you emphatically, a hand going up to your cheek.

     "Hmm? Oh... no... we're not just about sex." Course not, baby. I love you for your mind. "I like watching telly with you as well as shagging." He says it so seriously, it must be true!

     Will the taste of your blood spring to mind? The immediate kiss might be recalled, but what of the piercing shock of the suckled lip as it was taken, tasted? A match to oil, will what started the fire be remembered?

     Suits him fine. You see him look at you with that easy, canary-shit-eating way of his and he smiles, the corners of his mouth ticking upward. "Truth be told?"

     "The last time, I ended up tied to the bed with my own necktie, you six months pregnant and ... wait a minute," he chuckles, "...that was a fan-fucking-tastic night. Alright, you drive a hard bargain. I'll sleep with you...but I want to be respected in the morning..."

     "I want an old fashioned car, a cerise Cadillac, long enough to put a bowling alley in the back. I want an old fashioned house, with an old fashioned fence and an old fashioned millionaire..."

     "Before you answer, you do know that happiness is not guaranteed just because you want him to be happy. I want him to be happy, and my other boys. You, of course. But while we can all sit around wanting everyone else to be happy, Life has its own rhythm. Things will come and go, including joy."

     He sighs, and then he's dancing like a town fool away from the fired shots of the local gunslinger to avoid your ankles. "God damn it, Fiona. Eventually. Do you know that word -- eventually? Not next fucking week, Christ. Calm down and listen. Shite!"

     My head is swimming. I have navigated the worst seas imaginable and have kept my head while doing it. Only to lose my head on land.

     "Iowerth should be married in a year," dark green eyes find their way to you past the steam. "No more than two. If he wishes to carry on with his homosexual relationship beyond that, it'll be his wife's burden to bear..."

     Taking his pack off the table and shoving cigarettes back into his jacket, Davydd narrows his eyes. "Llew, good on ya lad. I'll see you. Ah... and if you see the boys..." a pointed look, that, "... tell them..." Davydd pauses a moment. "...they should come up for air."

     After the call, brief as it was, came to an end, your captain showed himself again. Lift that pillow, tote that blanket! What had been efficient tidying before, following several hours of complete and utterly decadent dismantling, now had to be the very spic of the span.

     "It's not about being nice," he grumbles, "...it's about honesty...and about discretion. And knowingly allowing a potential corruption. That'll look nice, right next to all of my other wise decisions in the last few hundred years."

     That's the look on his face as you come at him with a sword. He can disarm you -- he's not worried about that -- but he doesn't want you to hurt yourself. "Now, sweetheart... put the sword away and let's talk about this rationally..."

     Davydd rolls back, landing on his back with a mighty groan. He looks at you then at the ceiling. "I used to be a wretched thing," he murmurs. "Just between you and me," he murmurs. "I used to be quite wild and wretched. An untamed creature. Strong, mighty, full of confidence..."

     Drink ... I need a drink. My head aches, and my mouth is dry - a hangover of the soul. I am restless. I hope someone attacks me tonight; I could use a good fight.

     "Why can't you just take something, for once in your life, at face fucking value?" Davydd remarks, amused and exasperated all at once. "I mean, how often do I," he's grinning now, "...apologize for anything?"

     Davydd barks a laugh again, "Me? Nervous about kissing the bride at the altar as she announces she's taking me as well? Nah. Besides, it's my ruddy house," he wears a look of mock-indignance. "To hell with what they think. They don't like it, they can leave. Just means more food for me."

     He may go incandescent if he continues to redden. But perhaps that is a sign he's well-fed for a change. "You think I'm overreacting." A question as well as a statement. "It didn't strike you as... a bit odd? I mean, take out the part that he's from my own loins, which makes this whole thing strange enough for me... but I was just...on him. You don't find that peculiar?"

     At your mention of calling someone, the door flies open, steam pouring out and green eyes sparkle in the hot fog. "Fucking hell, no. I don't want to talk to anyone right now. I just want to finish my shower, fucking go shoot someone or start a war or sommat manly activity."

     I love the rebel in you. I should kiss you now, my rebel queen. But before Lord Arundel can think that Davydd is forgoing his dinner to eat his daughter with his eyes (if nothing else), Davydd looks to Fiona's father and takes a bit of the salmon and asparagus. "That is one of the many reasons we love your daughter. It's never a dull day with Fiona Arundel. Another scotch?" he offers.

     "You know, it's one thing to have doubt in your children and the world they face," Davydd looks to his hands, and then to you. Your looks are sharp; his are blunt as Welsh oaks. "It's another to wish ill on what they do. Who they love. She's marrying well. She seems happy. He's a good man. What else could you possibly ever want for her? Your job is done, it was done well. Mostly, that happens despite our best efforts."

     Those'll stick with him for a while. Every imagined contortion, every fantastical arrangement of bodies he could have imagined were on display, made just by two. Hanging from a special silk sling, a cocoon from the ceiling on hooks. All that was missing in that... fucking circus was a trained dog, a clown and a couple of musically inclined monkeys!

     "How's the wedding coming along? Is your mother still alive?" He snickers at that as he takes a seat on the sofa. His thighs spread out and he slumps back against the stuffed leather. Davydd spreads out his arms along the back of the sofa. He grins and pats the leather. Come to papa.

     The rare few plan to be a harpy or become The Harpy because they know the true path - poise first, influence second, power follows. Only then will the crowd point and say - That is the one you need to talk to. That is the one you should impress.

     Now, the corgi is rigged to the contraption just like a horse would be, and he trots as proudly as if he were the queen's own prized arabian, decked out in Christmas (alright, Yule bells) and grinning madly.

     It'll be a long journey, ap Owain, but you've made those before. You can't protest your feelings and expect things to change. Well, they'll change sure enough but in time. In time.

     Davydd lowers his head, red hair vibrant against your ivory skin as he bends down, kisses travling southward. "It doesn't matter where," he breathes between your breasts. You feel a sudden unhooking as his fingers make the fabric give way. "Here is good," he chuckles.

     It's been a long time since there was a king. Not a king of mere kingdom - someone who could merge with the land, and more than the land. Someone with the power to command souls. Too long, mayhap. I don't know that we're still what we were, when we were, then.

     And below, an ocean of water transforms to an ocean of sky as starpocked below as it is above. It parts, shimmering as the ship cuts through it. This is where the ocean has yet to dream itself into being. Here, on the frontier of Forever. It is where the End and the Beginning meet.

     It is the kingdoms of fairy and dreams dotting the Imaginary Landscape, with the dark oceans of future dreams dotted with heavenly stars and creatures. There, the plains of chaos, roiling midnight blue clouds of Unknown Possibilities -- both Good and Evil -- both unformed and waiting for God... or the dreams of Man... to shape them.

     The air moves behind and around him as he cuts through it. There is such power in his wake, that stride of Mars always madcap before is straight with purpose. And backed by something tremendous.

     "I fought my demons literally. My selfishness, my fear, the nine-headed beast of Chaos. I even burned in the sun once. Unpleasant, but you know... I needed it. I needed to just be... reborn. So... I was. Again... and again...and again...sacrificing myself over and over, only to rise again the next evening and assess my state." Dark eyes lift to you. "It was my bridge, I guess."

     "Across the ocean, there is an island that bathes in moonlight, continual twilight where all days and all nights come to rest. It is full of silver watered rivers and moonlit pools. It is the kingdom of Iowerth Rhudd Ddraig, the heir of High King Davydd." Edward the Red Dragon.

     "...I broke a friendship of lifetimes because I thought someone else was going to do some... thing. When... yeah, yeah... I'm a regular Dorothy. I had the power all along."

     The dreams of places, do they not also dream? Each universe is a multitude of parallels and What Ifs. What if -- two magic words to me. What if I had looked within myself just once instead of foisting all my cares on those around me?

     I coughed my way onshore like an asthmatic seal, gorging up sand and gagging on sea water. The sun baked the liquid off my shoulders. I could feel it igniting each strand of my hair. I have become the roman candle I always seemed.

     His body drifted downward as it shifted weightless in the water, buoyed by the salt-stuffed molecules of the ocean. Until he started trading air for water...

     The sun will rise... there in the distance it is promised, the paling line against the otherwise dark. All things must come to an end, every end is another beginning. The sun rises, and it sets, but it always rises again, a daily resurrection.

     He plucks a grape with a gloved hand, the grape is purple and full of juice. In even the lightest grasp, some of its juice leaks out. "Are you here to tell me you love me again so I won't cry when you are walking down to the shore with the Oak King?"

     She sighs, going silent, tipping her head back to look up at the sky. "I once told you," Fiona says finally, "that there would be a war coming. You didn't believe me, then. But there will always be wars, Davy. Right now, your war is with yourself. I can't win that war for you..."

     We are the death and the birth of every year.

     Davydd both chuckles and sobs to hear that. Turning his head to his friend, he gives a vipered grin, his eyes creasing in the corners. "Now that's the William I know and love," comes the croak of his voice. "On my ass to the end of time."

     Fiona smiles, then rises to her feet upon the shallow dais of the throne. "It is my very great pleasure to become acquainted with all of you," she says gravely. "I thank you for the introductions; and now, if all is quite prepared, I will walk the line and then make my address. Lord General, if all is in readiness?"

     There's a giggle for the simile, and she cradles the phone to her as if cuddling you by proxy. "I am so to be found! Bloody man. I am right here. It isn't my fault that you aren't." Ah, the games that lovers play.

     "Ah, sensibility," Davydd croons. "Such language," comes the mock scold. As you look him up and down, your gaze raking over him much as he'd imagine you'd rake your fingers though the devil's own coals, he stands there, open to your look, unabashedly himself, drinking his scotch.

     "You will have a son, Davy... and Rhodri will also. You two don't know your own strength..."

     Oh well, you say, sitting in the comfy environs of your room, reading over the fucked up details of my life, you are fucking mental Davydd -- everyone knows that. Everyone knows that but you. Only I know it. I've always known it. But then, no one's immune...

     "What the fuck did you do to your hair, boyo?" Davydd rattles out, standing and heading for the stew. He shakes his head at his son. "What was wrong with the color I gave you, by virtue of my stunning genes..."

     Blood rolls from his eyes, in his tears that come, the grunting sobs of a man in desperate pain, the grief pulled from his soul through his eyes and his throat.

     "You're talkin',' Edward notes, his voice lacking humor, "...cos I'm not. And I'm not cos..." and Edward looks sadly to you, "...cos I've got nothing to say to you, Davy. I've known you through a million lifetimes and we've done a million things. And I got nothing to say," Edward laments, shaking his head.

     Are you on crack?
     Davydd peers at you, saying nothing amid your... cascade of words, as many as there are raindrops and about as random.

     You were walking, and it put me in mind of the old song - nursery rhyme - about walking to Galilee. I don't know why, exactly. But you were walking, as if very tired - walking straight, but as if you'd been walking for a very long time and you just - were so focused, so fixed on your destination that you couldn't see anything at all. And the road had been crooked, but now it was straight, ending at the edge of a field."

     She shifts, making a quiet sound as your mouth finds her earlobe. The colour pink travels along her skin in a trail along the side of her throat, behind her ear, rendering her almost incapable of speech - soluble in that touch as if to dissolve in water, becoming disparate nothingness within the greater body and volume. "...There is something I must give to you as well."

     As he stared into the distance past his own window, to the accompaniment of his queen's own pleasured sighs and moans, his visions stretched as a vista before him. Those god-given visions, and others more faint, just the impressions of things to come, things taking shape. Coins borne forward by cresting waves now become the ships that come in, loaded with rich and promising cargo.

     Oddly enough, numbness worked. What to do with fire in the head? Dunk your head in ice. Brilliant! But you know what works better than a tub of pure ice water? Pure fairy whiskey...

     It hurts to talk. It hurts worse to think. A bloodied hand moves from his hair and braces the bowl. But there's no twisting toward it, no groan, no muttered Welsh curse or wracking of his body in nauseated discomfort. Davydd opens his eyes to the sound of water. "My head is on fire..."

     "I think of my friends. And of the wrong I have done them when I bolted from my position...and how they will feel when I have to leave them. That's my one regret," Davydd nods to himself, and he looks to you and to the departing sun. Even that much of it burns his eyes. Even in dreams.

     "...Tonight...for the Holly King... it was a night of sacrifice. Giving up the present," his dark green eyes settle on you, and he is sad. "... for the promises of the future."

     Rhodri does not hear him, not from where he lies upon the bed, stretched out and equally glorious now in nothing, his changed tattoos a wonder against his skin. Opposite to his father again, he is nothing but energy. It hums around him, buzzing like bees around nectar.

     From the moment I brought him into the material realm, my hands guiding him from the safety of his mother's womb to a wild world, I have loved him. He is my best work, my best mark upon the earth, the best thing I have ever made or accomplished.

     "...I have unfinished business with Rosamund. And... I am going to see her to close the book on it. I want you to hear that from me, not her. I won't be fucking her."

     "...Ron? Don't tell me - you didn't." Hermione Granger has put two plus two together and come up with eighteen. Exasperated, the wand is lowered the rest of the way. "Honestly! Did you really think that those stores wouldn't protect themselves legally one way or another?"

     "...And I started to - hear things. See things. It was - as if I'd been taken outside of myself while still being inside of myself. I saw ... people."

     "Oh, cheat. You want me to cheat..." Rhodri grins, as if to say: moi? Cheat? The knee comes up with a great grunt and a wicked slant to his grin. "How's that?"

     "You will have to...go soon?" To become one girl again. Davydd brushes your hair back with a gentle hand. He wears it so readily on his face. His emotion is at the surface tonight. Perhaps it is what you said in the car... knowing... that you know. That there are pieces you have, even of him that he himself lost...

     But then you keep rolling on and it's a good thing she swallowed her wine because when you get to the two men-open marriage-thing, she's stunned. "What?" she hisses in a whisper to you, leaning in.

     Do old piers dream? Do they stand in murky water pondering the past days, of clippers and caravels and boxes, ropes and men? With feet at the edge of the pier, Davydd ap Owain reaches into the darkness with his left hand, sinister fingers plucking at the air, and it pulls elastic in his grasp like the skin of a balloon.

     There is no greater rejuvenating power than that of blood. And yours, so magical, moves though him as powerfully as the act of taking it affects you.

     The white fringe lowers as she looks down to begin picking loose the plastic seal on the bottle. "Open it and find out. Or maybe Miss White," her, "will kill Captain Crimson," you, "with a bottle in the living room..."

     And it is alive. Though Yew trees and Blackthorns are there, reminders of Death, Life is everywhere. For without Death there is no understanding of Life; and no Life without Death.

     And then, almost as an afterthought, there is a thought to Huw... Heard much of my valor? What did you tell him, about my trying to break Davydd's nose?

     "There are many different beings on the earth, in all its incarnations. More universes than one. There are those who are more like I am now than as I was. And, yes, largely they should be avoided. You've... managed less well than you know, but fared better than I would have imagined."

     "Now... it feels right and complete." His hand strokes the side of your face. "We love you. You love us. We need not keep this," the love in triplicate, "...for special occasions. We are married. It is as simple as that."

     "What we enter into, no man may put asunder," Davydd whispers. His mouth finds yours again. Another mouth brushes against the side of your neck. "You will have us both," he speaks in a hush. "Tonight, and to the end of Time."

     "I think my one husband can wait to have his turn right now," Fiona murmurs, "while I'm with my other husband. And right now, you're the husband that's with me..."

     "And not all lingerie. Though," his eyes crack open again, "I will need you to have a separate wardrobe for that, too." No, he really doesn't want to see you in something that Rhodri sees you in. It would be strange. It would likely make that famous Welsh temper erupt.

     You seem to have something to say and he's waiting to hear it, the sound of the other shoe dropping. "I don't want you to wait a hundred years in solitude," Davydd shakes his head slightly, tapping away the ash again.

     "I thought for certain I'd fuck it up as usual, go on like a bit of a prat and then pull my amazing swallowing foot technique. But it wasn't half bad now, was it?"

     "...It is time for Avalon to return to those who need it most. This body is theirs, I give it to them. With it my soul. With it, my being. For this land and I are indivisible. I am Avalon..."

     "Hindsight is clear-sighted," Davydd exhales, cigarette crushed and the fire is out. "And all the things I have done, there's not a single one I'd repeat but one, and that was lodging the king's sword in Mithras' chest."

     Davydd ap Owain moves within the white void. What has he to fear? If the floor falls away, he will become a bird. If it rains water, he'll become a fish. If it turns to fire. Well, if it turns to fire he's fucked, but at least it will be quick.

     It is a plate of crow, son, that's what's on the plate, the fork's in your hands, and you're the one eating it, Llywelyn.

     From crescent to quarter to full, the moon will show its variable face, donning one mask after the other. So, too, myself, but in terms opposite.

     "I love you both equally," Davydd drawls out with a grin straight from the Devil.

     "Drop your robe," the Welsh is deep, earthy, sensual and soft. "When the Maiden stood before Death," his mouth threatens a smile, "...she begged for her life..."

     "I'm not lazy," Davydd contends. "You were right the first time, Fiona. I am afraid..."

     "...Without Life, Death has no meaning. Without Death, Life has no lure..."

     "...I've learned a lot about my own choices recently. They haven't been the best. The trick is not to repeat them. There's only the potential of forever. Forever... really only exists if you're God. And I'm many things, but I'm not God."

     Before, where proficiency of centuries collaborated openly with musical passion there is now virtuosity. And he is the music that he plucks, and he is the notes he plays, solidified.

     Davydd stands upon the third terrace down, the Aviary Terrace, the flowers blossoming behind him, the birds flying in and out, calling to the evening, calling to their mates, and he is the stillness amid the blossoming, orgasmic world, standing beneath the flowering vines, his hands upon the red stone of the terrace's railing.

     Hazel fruit fall from the pregnant trees to the swollen, running river. A land that sings of Death and Harvest, but everywhere there is Life. Life not in its beginning but in the fullness of its power, in the wealth of it, a land in bounty, limitless.

     A single starling lifts from his rest, a single starling takes to the wing, a single starling flies to an open window. The herald, the totem of the Holly King...

     Davydd follows the path made by stags long before him, by the passing of the breeze knowing the depth of the wood and the location of the brooks that cut within it. You have only to listen.

     He isn't dead.
     He isn't dead, and he hasn't left...

     One such green and silver wonder lands beside you, skitters along the stone and slaps against a rampart, leaving behind a paler, but no less charismatic and balls-to-the-wall Welshman, hair disheveled and clothing rumpled.

     Beauteous the crowned head that tilts to the voice of the salmon. The water sloshes as he walks within it, becoming in mere moments, a salmon himself. Trying to prove? What makes you say so, Gwydion the Blessed?

     ...Where once there were oak trees, holly trees sprout suddenly upon the earth both wide and tall. Branches spring with taloned, evergreen leaves, and the forms of living dragons surround the roots and trunks, etched even into the skin of the trees. Same as he.

     Ian nods, then looks in the mirror again. Hand lifts to adjust his collar, but then he sighs, lowering his hands. It'd be the fifth time he's made corrections.

     Davydd pauses in the public sitting room downstairs. A glance in reveals no one. Frown yet in place, he heads to the sofa and table, looking for something to write on perhaps. He checks his pants pockets for anything handy, finding only a tenner.

     William looks from the sky to his friend again, this time his gaze remains there. "If you cannot remain in Our World, and we ... cannot go to yours... shall there be a middle country? Will Earth do, Davydd?"

     "I'm not a vampire, Edward... Mithras cursed me, for certes, but he never killed me..."

     The Oak King doesn't so much as blush. The look is more bland. Hey, once you find out Edward Meurelle, Vicomte of Blois and all around man's man is taking it up the back nine, nothing is shocking.

     He smiles, but you don't have to miss it. It presses at you, making itself known beneath the surface of your skin, felt in the five senses as the picture of it comes into view behind your eyes. I'm looking a little Oxford Professorish tonight...

     "It did take me longer than it should to realize that though I have been consigned to darkness I do not need to remain in it. In the end, the curse is only as good as the belief one puts in it. Same as faith..."

     "Quit stonin' me," Davydd mock-protests, "...it's not as if I danced around saying 'Jehovah', 'Jehovah'," he can barely get through that without laughing.

     That voice is rich as it is earthy is capped off with a grin, and the fingers that finished the song on the twelve-string start another in the in between. For those who can See, he's a wonder in gold. A loitering fairy king on a chair of oak. Everyone is mesmerized, like the legends of old Tam Lin...

     "Bah, revenge," Davydd rolls out, earthy and low, the sound lingering in his chest, "... you wouldn't," he teases, he challenges, he grins.

     Davydd's voice drifts slightly as he stares openly, feeling the rush and want, the magic, the need that you inspire and the apples that will forever taste of you, your skin, your mouth, your thighs. "... I like the idea of you dripping in the jewels I stole... "

     Be my Queen...
     Bear my children...
     Grow apple trees in my instruments and make music on my pots and pans...

     It was some time after nightfall when the heavens opened wide and all of God's little fat angels -- sort of like Bwci and Rhyddid with wings -- stood at the edges of the firmament and dropped buckets over Wales, with the valleys of Powys catching the lion's share, or cherub's share, of the deluge.

     His words are sing-song power, and here that power is everywhere. As the myths say: the land is the king, the king is the land. Red-blushed and golden apples grow, dip delicately from blossom and fruit-heavy branches as you sail by.

     She falls silent again, blushing as if she's about to burst blood vessels, eyes still tightly closed, so tightly that she must be seeing sparks behind her eyelids. After a few moments, she very cautiously opens her eyes to slits - as if expecting to see something she doesn't like, with her lower lip caught hard between her teeth.

     The dog's come into sight, two rolling cannonballs of fur and tongues and ears and wide grins, and just two moments behind them is a man reminiscent of Davydd, where he not a bit more golden-haired and an inch shorter and a bit broader. If Davydd's a welsh mountain, then Kelly Morgan's a boulder...

     Mentioning Valdemort is rather like screaming Macbeth! in a theater. Some names are curses of their own.

     "As for the curse - at its heart, what it means is you can't go out during the day. That's fine, I never was much of a one for a tan myself - how is it, really, any different from finding out you're a vegan, or allergic to penicillin? It's magic, not science - but it's you."

     Her thoughts have flavour to them - soft, like yoghurt with just a hint of vanilla essence and a fash of frangipani, then rich and sweet with just a hint of bite - chocolate truffle with a dash of pepper to it. But now they turn tart and crisp - cranberry flavoured thoughts, perhaps...

     He crowned you and you crown him, a mutual coronation, and two kingdoms fall to a hush for it, like a awed crowd.

Davydd smiles and his mouth lands on your skin, a brush against your forehead and he murmurs there: "Dw i'n ti caru," he says there.

"They love all night and with the dawn,
the lady wakes and her Davy is gone
What a fool she's been to have tagged along
And be known as the Black Jack's Lady..."

     "I don't think I gave you permission to be in my country," comes the rush of amused Welsh, the low and long vowels, the tripping of a lilting consonant, the trill of 'Rs', "... on national Welsh TV no less, high and mighty we are, speaking the language of the Blessed on the Island of the Mighty..."

     Open your eyes, and you will see it is no dream. Where you and he have lain has become flowered, purples and blues and pinks. Wild flowers of wild summer. And if you looked at him now, where he lies, he would shine, golden as sunrise in July, his tattoos vibrant as the day they were first made.

     It's an echo that quivers, but an echo - caught in the stones, as it were, as if a shell being lifted to one's ear, miles and miles from the shore.

I'm a breather... a receiver and I don't know where I stand not since someone informed me that my house was built on sand... And its not the earth beneath me, just some concept of the land...

     "The past must be examined," Sabine remarks, and a gradual progression to lead to the present and future. Under the circumstances - only the Celtic Cross will do."

     The world is topsy-turvy tonight. Lust out of whack, Love out of season, arrows off the mark, and faerie men rebuffed.
     What's the world coming to?

     It's like a fireplace throwing off sparks, in some ways, isn't it? The magic in the song is as real as the song itself, rolling through the room, even if most of the room can't sense it.

     And even in his Holly Winter, when the Oak King himself is most prone to Banality, to the disillusionment that can come so easily from so modern a world, he is radiant.

     "Fear'll do that," Davydd smiles and the sun comes with it for those who can see it. For all others, it merely warms and brightens his face.

      And now there is no doubt in her mind that she is not safe with either group of men. "Shite," she curses on a breath, then spins on her heel to run, jabbing frantically at her cellphone's faceplate.

     The image is alive. Flowers bloom in the subtle turns of the colours, glowing as a translucent layer over the surface. The castle glows, imbued with life and magic.

     Davydd ap Owain, the Oak King himself, is for all intents and purposes as regular as the next man in Wales wandering through his yards in rubberboots, a slicker, with a shovel, followed by two very fat and very happy Welsh corgis.

     "That's all there was, was the ending," he snorts. "And then I have to see her while waiting on Sandrine to close the shop. A city of millions. What's that line: of all the gin joints in all the world, she has to walk into mine." He smirks. Then he frowns, "Bah, to hell with her and Mortimer."

     And there he is, an Old Man with Coffee. Her Old Flame. The man she couldn't live with or without for fifty years, or was it a century? Sommat like that. It's probably too late to leave. Setting his cup down, he gives his paper a snap and smoothes it out from the wind.
     Yeah, that's the reason...

     He skips, almost, happy in this atmosphere. There is a glamour to the air, a scent of wonder that draws people like this man. Tibalt. Never ask him his full titles, he'll lie for hours.

     An old-fashioned Bacchanal. With attendance by Athens, no less. Under the watchful eyes of Athens, Gaul gives its own tribute to the vine and wine god. Yes, with all the furor of a truly Gallic happening...

     In each vineyard, there are feet crushing grapes, juice that is tasted, wine that will be made from the old-fashioned labor of feet. This wine will be used next year, in hopes for a better harvest than some have seen due to the strange late summer weather.

     The ville itself is full of its inhabitants and those of the smaller, neighboring villages. There is music, laughter, even a little tango in the cobblestone streets nearest the castle walls. Every restaurant is packed -- Orangerie, Trente Ans, Dame Lombarde's -- and the air smells of wine, bread, cheese, and the incense of burning grape leaves.

     "A fortunate man indeed." Idly it draws a hand up, regarding it stark light of the street, turning rings and bracelets in the streetlamp's glare. "There are many who yearn for such a life. Many who dream of dreamless lives."

     The snakebite (or Black and Tan) arrives and Davydd hails its entrance. "Gods be praised! A drink! In a pub! Who'd have thought of such a thing."

     And then from shadows, Davydd comes, popping air punctuated by the march of the Cymri. His aura could light half of Welshpool. If you view it, ever, but certainly now, it'd fill the aviary full of bright white light. And in it, swimming, dragons of blue light in nine locations.

     "Pakistani?" Edward suddenly says to himself. Assamites. Setites. He looks at himself again in the mirror, the exhale this time deflates his chest.

     There is the sound of a child's laugh like the tinkling of keys on the piano. These are not ghosts of fat Welsh babies past but the laughter of a fat Welsh baby present somewhere on the old, hallowed grounds.

     "I've seen your flag on the marble arch
     love is not a victory march
     Its a cold and its a broken hallelujah..."

     "I don't know, Marta. I don't know what it is." Davydd stares forward, actually thinking of it. "Maybe... it's just that she came. She was ...brave enough," he suddenly thinks, "... to show up unannounced on my borrowed doorstep. She found me, she reached out. She's ... brave," he notes again. "And frightened."

     "When you talk like that, Davy," Edward murmurs, turning his eyes back to the punching bag, "...it happens like that. Is that what you want?"

     "Y' do me best if you sing well of us here, an' th' man from over th' sea." He is rather serious about this, and moves around the flames to go.

     "I don't know," Sandrine smiles, her blue eyes glinting dampness. It's not sadness; her demeanor says otherwise. Perhaps its the cool evenings and crisp air. "I think...everyone looked happy. Are we happy, Davydd?"

     There is a chuckle as you mention Sandrine pruning your plants. "Well, it could have been worse." Glancing to you, she murmurs quietly, "How will you tell her? How do you think she will take it..." ...take us?

     It was 1942 and it had been two months since I had seen him. Him. That would be Ian Dunross.

     I should not have been surprised, perhaps. This is an extraordinary event. A revelation, a gathering, an exclusive. A social remembering, as we see who is not with us.

     Of course, underneath the tweeds and silks, she's a lot less comfortable.... Was this a good idea? I feel like a circus sideshow freak. Maybe I should've worn the leather instead.

     A bigger concern was how I would make the week's journey and avoid the sun. That it was autumn was only partially consoling; for though the sun may wane early, it made for rocky Channel waters and more treacherous seas.

     The Cymri's mouth purses in thought. Magic. "I believe it came from her... her trauma. The breakdown upon the sudden end of the Bond. What it must feel like with the Line suddenly goes... slack."

     I did not even know how much I cared until I was slain. Now I am staring at you, Anaia, watching you from below our castle window, reflected in the umber light of the fire. I am so cold. So tired, my countess.

     The change was subtle, perhaps. Could you discern when she had finally crossed that line between lucidity and her current state? Even when she awoke, she was quiet, reluctant to speak much. But at least she was calm and without incident.

But that's changed.

     William opens his eyes. Slowly. You have stopped? Indigo eyes are a shock of violet and blue -- after so much opium, absinthe, tainted blood -- the colors have separated into separate flames, each roiling, color wavering to create the wave-lengths of Indigo.

          Creepy eyes. That can't be a good sign. Fuck. We may have to kill her. Like when Old Yeller came down with rabies.

     What should we do, my love. Next, I mean. Well, I know I must call William, but we can't keep her here. We're not a sanitarium...

     Open the window
     It is close, that voice. Closer than before. More powerful than before. Issuing from your blood, springing up in your mind like a sudden flower.

No more will the Wolfe howl.
I am half of a whole.

     If a raven can really look like a drowned rat, then this raven achieves it, royal girth or no. He's as big as a hawk, really. A true rook. As you speak, he tilts his head at you, rocks back and forth on his taloned -- quite formidable at that -- and then he hops down...

     Arms go wide, green eyes -- Cymru green -- go wide as well. And so too the smile. A triad reaction, how fitting. "Mad Peter!" he exclaims, the whiskey, brandy, scotch and mead -- yes, mead -- getting the best of him for a moment. "Boyos, look there... my old soothsayer, messenger of The Lady...go greet a friend..."

     "Holy shit," Davydd thinks to say, and his hand comes up and rubs his unbearded chin. "I see what you mean. Not saying you look bad, you're just very..... puckish. Huh."

     Shite. You immortal fuck, I forget you can't move. The light is so bright. I can feel it. I can see it with my eyes closed. Now I can't tell if they're opened or closed. There's nothing but light. Shite. And heat. Oh shit, this is what it feels like. I'm going to be a pile of ash on the carpet. The fucking cat's probably going to use me as a sandbox. Fucking cat. Fucking exploding in sunlight vampire curse bullshit.

     So this is goodbye, then. And hello. And all I may do is wait... wait and see... I thought my destiny was done eight hundred years ago. Thwarted by the Roman, I thought. But maybe that was all just a long preparation...

     Sometimes I don't know if the music I'm hearing is actually playing softly in the background, or maybe in the neighbor's bedroom, or if it's something ringing in my ears. It starts when I speak your name around your tongue and it rolls like the sea. Right over me.

     Standing at the edge of the awning as the water billows around him and soaks his heavy cloak is a tall figure that seems to have stepped right out of European folk lore, or an American pulp serial.

     She's been crying, and her eyes have that slight hint of puffiness - but the most recent tears were enough ago that maybe it could just pass as exhaustion. Maybe.

     Somewhere not too far away, wandering about in the inclement season, is a well-dressed man, vestments suited for the weather, with a long overcoat of heavy wool, beneath this a white turtleneck of handwoven knit, wool taken from the backs of Welsh sheep and made specifically for him.

     The song, well - it grants insight, in part, perhaps, but there's hesitation paired with it. No jumping to hasty conclusions, here. When the song morphs, she smiles faintly, though a troubled expression still holds on her face. Maybe, maybe tonight, she'll tell him.

     "So...we're straight, I think. As straight as two hopelessly crooked things can be," he rumbles, then laughs.

     What else is a Celt to do when heartbroken and brooding but sing? Hell, we invented the lament. No one sorrows like a Welshman. Not even an Irishman...

     "M..maybe...maybe...I am not the type of person you need," she whispers, not sure what to say. Maybe I am not like others. Maybe I have failed. Maybe there is something wrong with me.

     And a glass that was sitting on the coffee table explodes. Green eyes lift to you. And with a whisper of something Welsh, something old, the glass is whole again. As if nothing had happened.

     He laughs. Rich, the sound and warm. And amused. And delighted. And Knowing. "You should not bait the hook, if you do not want to catch a fish, ne c'est pas?"

     "Mary," Davydd sings out, staring through the lights to his favorite waitress. "Mary had a little beer, it's head was white as snow..." The crowd roars and the band behind him, chuckling, begins plucking out the children's tune. "...and everywhere that Mary went, the Guinness was sure to go..."

     "I'm no different than you," Davydd murmurs, chin lifting in the tipping of his head. An inclination of strength, and in those green eyes there is little mirth.

     My universe. My carefully crafted universe, the architecture of nearly a thousand years is crumbling at my feet. All I can seem to do is stare. Evenly. Blankly. I do not know what to do now. Maybe none of it matters at all. None of the secrets. The mysteries. I am unravelled.

     Will he still want to speak to me? Do I really want to speak to him, knowing it might not have been him? I don't know what I want...
     Worse than a child in a candy store, and with less reason, isn't she.

     "I love you," Sandrine murmurs, closing her eyes to enjoy your lips at her skin.

     Isabel strokes her fingers through the long hair, so familiar and yet not. "My being here is a riddle for someone else's education, you might say," she replies, clearly amused and pleased with herself. "You will learn of it later, if you remember... but remembering is a hard thing, at times, and I doubt you will. I am not she, and she is not me, but we are kin, and you..."

     It is settling into Almost dawn. Who the fuck could be calling me at this hour? Someone'd better be dead or dyin...
     There's an exhale, a clearing of his throat, a rough but soft, a warm and not-entirely-awake voice that greets you. "Mmm... no one I know would call at this hour," the earthy voice is edged by a thick and drawling accent, flicked with a lilting tongue.

     Mutter... damn it. I don't know what to ask him. I know weird shite is going on. I don't know what to do about it. People just... keep popping up out of nowhere. I want answers, but I don't even know what to ask... don't even know what good questions are to ask...

     "I...I don't understand what has happened to you, alright?" her brows arching. "You are...different. Everything about you is different. And it has only been a few months..." since we got together.

     "However dark your paths, Davydd... think you not that our own paths contain no darkness. Wherever she goes, she is a flame, and shadows will approach. We cannot take her from this waking world o'erlong - for a span of time, and no more, any the more can we you. Her spark will continue to burn, Davy-bach. And where a fire burns, there will be those that seek to warm themselves."

     For over an hour, he'd accepted greetings and congratulations, a crowd of beautiful women shielding him from the undesirables. Dressed in violet velvet hip-huggers and violet suede boots, Julian finally emerged from his perch, causing the world to open before him.

     Consistency is great, if you realize it's being consistent. In Drancy's case, she has no such assurance, and being tossed over a shoulder to make the world go topsy-turvy, well, her world's already gone topsy-turvy - this just makes her anger flare up again. "Put - me - DOWN!" She beats ineffectually on your shoulder, squirming and struggling.

     "Tybed, Davydd, ai ti gwneud a gorfoledd cystal fel tristwch er myn hon enaid." The voice is ancient, ageless, trickling out of her from years ago, and oh so familiar, and not just because it's a recognizable voice, of I've heard this before. The words are familiar, personal and informal. I wonder, Davydd, if you have to do with joy as well as sorrow for the sake of this soul.

     Pulling her hands away from her hair, Drancy speaks slowly, in a low tone, still leaning up out of her seat. "Way I see it, there's only one way to deal with things like this, and that's to push on through to the other side. Maybe I'm going mad, and maybe I'm not - you say it's magic. Right, then." Her hands shoot out, intent on grabbing your wrists, bare skin to bare skin. "Let's break on through."

     Davydd pauses, green eyes turned to darkness, a moment before crossing into Picadilly to head to parts southwest. Just a glance for traffic, but then it lingers. A rush of pricking skin, like a shiver up the spine. Something on the wind...

     With every muscle's motion, no matter how slight, they seem to shift. Celtic, the patterns of interlocking, eternal lines that become the interlocking forms of Celtic dragons. Cobalt. Blue royal. Deep and brilliant. Bright. Brighter than they should be...

     "Mmm... oui. You are a perfect specimen, are you not? A work of art, perhaps. I would love to meet your creator to thank them personally for gifting the world with one so... magnificent. But, alas, I have not introduced myself," the woman says with a cat-like grin. Her moves are also very feline in nature.

     Falling water. It chimes to the senses. He can hear the voices in the water. Soft and lilting, like the sound of his own singing. He can feel the water by the coolness of the air as he passes. He can taste it, as scent captures flavor and spills it upon his tongue.

     "You think," Edward's brow furrows, "...this is all related?" Ah, yes. DeRancey. Palmer's.

     Fiery brows knit together and he looks like the old veteran now. Hardy. Welsh mountain with eyes. "When I knew I loved you," his expression softens as he looks to you, and this is how he's telling you, "... I couldn't get it out of my mind. The fear... "

     A pause and turn, though. Something else he wants to say. "Take care, Davydd," Sebastian says evently. "Two weeks is a long time. Two years, is an eternity. It is best, we all do those two years on the same page." Not a chastisement to you, but a reminder to you all. "Just watch yourself, because others are doing it for you."

     It is not long after the sun decides to slip out of the sky for its nightly rest that the one known to some as the Goth Diva slips out of her hotel room for a night on the town. Still staying at the hotel, as though she is still unsure as to whether or not she will make London her home once more. It has been so long.

     "Death and Taxes," the laughter's returned. He visiting you is now as certain... if not more certain... than those two fates...

     "Can't a man wear a green shirt without being called a raving poofter or tree hugging bender?" The red brows fly up and Davydd grins. Fuck ya, Meurelle.

     She turns about in your arms, the nervousness upon her again. "I..." she acknowledging what is happening between you, "I...am...a little nervous," Sandrine laughs softly, timidly. It is been ages, since I was so close to someone.

     I have to remember how to handle a dove. Slow hands, Llewelyn. Slow hands and slow movements. Soft voice and a soothing warmth. And then you'll have your bird in the hand, boyo. You used to catch them, remember... when you were young...

     She knows the name of every flower, every plant. She even knew what sort of gardner tends it, what he's attempting to do with the space. She was pruning a little, even..." Scandanavian women. Quiet, like glaciers. But what is it about them that just sets a fire in men's souls?

     Peer about the corner, and you shall see. A waft of perfume. One that you do not know. A topcoat of grey wool with a cream lining rests upon a chair. It was once a living being. Bending the corner will yield a foot tapping, grey shoe visible. Then legs, long and firm. And the rest. A young woman with shocking strawberry blonde hair. Certainly not red. It glows around her face, a veritable copper halo.

     A hint of humor. Sakir watches the interplay of the three as an outsider would, an interested outsider.

     Wrists turn down instinctively as Sakir notes Edward's gaze. A touch of alarm on his features. "I --" He faulters for a second with the language "-- would enjoy that yes." He then slowly begins to stand, at least to make introductions, while one hand remains on his glass. "Sakir Akalay." Left hand offered to shake. "And I thank you for your offer, though I already have a drink." Strange how fast he changes from faultering over a language to seeming perfect fluency. It must have been surprise.

     "It was a key," comes soft Latin, "... it had my name scratched into its surface... it had a note 'Those That Lead Us Forth'... it's like looking at death and greatness in the mirror, you look away, you close the box, you don't dare stare at Fate too long. Or it will freeze you..."

     "Well... I'm not sure what else to do, Edward," he murmurs. "She chucked my belongings out the window and onto the lawn and is fucking another man on my prized leather chair. It's not like we argued over finances. She wants something I can't give her..." his hands are animated again. "I mean obviously. Or she wouldn't have done it. She was a good confidante... I don't hate her..."

     His smile is also wistful. A year? Certainly not. But indeed, it has been unusually long, and he has been preoccupied. Edward's gaze is momentarily downcast as he inhales, brows arching in acknowledgement. "I know, Davydd," almost seeming sorrowful, his gaze turning sidelong, "...I'll...haveta explain it to ya. Mebbe, over a few? Something decent, huh? On me."

     I find that I could do this for a hundred years. If I had a hundred more. I will never look at the world in the same way. I will smoke cigarettes with a difference. Remember something with every sip of brandy. And smile inanely at passing crowds. Yes, I know something you do not. I know there is something else besides Television and discussions on the weather. I know there is something between the folds of cigarette smoke that you are missing. This is what my smile will say. The children will say, Valan Montague... he is mad. And I will laugh and agree with them. What are you to do once you have tasted meaning in this life?

     To your right, Edward. There... shadows and the dim light of the bar play against a tall, lean figure. He is shorter than William ... shorter than you. Perhaps six even? And he carries himself ...confident. Approaching, but in a meandering fashion. He is not making a direct approach to you. Rather, he has turned, navigating around a table nearby. A survey around him... as if looking for someone. Looking at you.

     Blancheflor. White Flower of Blois. In her day, it was said there was not a more beautiful woman in all of France. She was the Medieval ideal. The high-forehead, the small nose, the cherry lips, the apple breasts. Her grey eyes. After the Schism, she took the name of a Saint.

     Her skin is so pale. She moves past you but her eyes are caught by something else. A feeling? Copper hair glistens and the bob flips with the turn of her head. Just as a yellow light passes by in a stream. She sees the back of a head familiar. A strong arm circles around her small waist, and she turns. Can you hear them, Edward?

     "I want to apologize," Davydd's voice, quick in its intonation of your Gaelic with his Welsh phrasing, lingers upon that word. Yes... you heard it. "I... owe you an apology, and... I want to make good on it..."

     "Oh!" Marta's finger lifts, "That's it...in yer time, men dinna love men," she's quivering with the sarcasm, "...that's it. That ne'er happen'd! So, yeah, lads," those accusing eyes, "...childer ne'er been with sires before, men ne'er touch'd men before, Will's oft daft an' confus'd..."