"You know, you can't keep this up indefinitely." Fiona appears in the doorway of your office, bulging belly and all, with the cheeky impunity of being your grandmother, the king's mother, and pregnant. It is a triple threat nobody really wants to counter.

     "The day after tomorrow - no, tomorrow." Maddie blinks, and gulps, going ashen. "Oh god. I should be practicing right now. Time got away from me!" She begins scrambling to brush crumbs off of her lap. "Thank god it's not today. I'd never forgive myself if I'd missed my audition!" She is all sixes and sevens, now...

     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.

     "But... and I don't know, by the way... we haven't actually discussed it but... what if I become king and... she doesn't want to become a queen? What if it's more than she's bargained for? I don't want to force anything on her, Nainie..."

     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.

     Up above, a squat raven settles on the Crow's Nest (where else?). Ugh. Romance. I think I'm going to be ill.

     "The worst thing I've done all week is fall in love. Before this, I was boring prince Gruffydd. Gruffydd the Level Headed. Gruffydd, the Four Cornered Prince of the United Kingdoms..."

     I've found her. Not all I've found. I'll be right there - just hold your horses.

     Fresh off of the shower-inducing hug given by the squealing young girl -- that's going to keep him up for hours -- the shock of seeing is grandmother (and grand-aunt) as the offered chaperone is enough to send him reeling. "Nainie?" he proclaims in shock.

     He has been roosted on the news of this all night and well into today. Messages back and forth, hush-hush escorts into realms of shadows for quick-quick appearances. And all because of something Gruffydd was doing, or about to do, or at least was considering the doing of. Imagine the fun! O, Calamity!

     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.

     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..."

     "Now, I am an engineer. I have built many buildings, castles, cathedrals. But I do not know how to reconstruct this friendship. This family. It's broken. So... he has made a new one." Frowning, he shakes his head. "Maybe that is all we can do. Make new families, and leave the rubble where it lies."

     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.

     ...But I will be your escape when you need it. That's what Black Jacks do best...

     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.

     Rhodri clasps his son's arm and then draws him in for a hug. "It's good to see you, boyo," he murmurs. "You look ..." balanced, he finishes beneath your skin. Your father's smile hangs at the corners of his lips and in the emerald of his eyes.

     "The audience is over," Fiona says lightly. "And his Majesty must return to his duties. You will make a grand king, Iowerth. It is not much consolation, I know."

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

     "His family here has grown, but the family he has had for the last six centuries is struggling, Fiona. We are... I am," he counters, "... grappling with trying to understand why. Why .. in that moment... he sacrificed one for the other."

     "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..."

     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..."

     "With so much complexity, the more one struggles the worse it gets. I struggled, quietly and not so quietly. I'm sure I shall again. That's the nature of life."

     "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."

     Iowerth's eyebrows quirk up a little at the casual mention of his mother's nipples at the dinner table, but such is the conversation of new parents. "I'm starting to feel a little faint," he drolls. "Is this what I'm in for then?"

     "I was angry. I swam out to sea. I became ...the dragon I am and opened my mouth for a great roar. I swallowed the pirates whole and coughed up treasure for about four hours. My throat is still sore. But.... it is what it is."

     He hangs his head with a moment of exhaled resignation, then sits back. "Not the birds and the bees speech, I hope," he murmurs and he smiles a little. No, he knows what is coming. For weeks, he's been preparing himself.

     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!"

     I gave the command. I won my own battle, and I felt the life ebb from her. She was dead before my men ever reached her kingdom. There were losses, I'm sure - it was a battle, a minor war, even if won overnight. How many people are celebrating because of me, today? How many mourning?

     Sitting in the chair, Iowerth lingers in his unsilent quiet, his weary brain pulsing with conversations and consequences.

     "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..."

     "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."

     "... And he's cloaked himself in shadows. Shadows take a toll on him. Maybe," she sighs again, "maybe we were wrong to raise you two so much over there. It would have been different, here. But - I was selfish."

     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..."

     And a week into this three-week trip, you have seen such sides of him, facets you may not have known existed. His humor, unbound. His love, unrestrained. His tenderness of heart, freed. You had been tied, bound in a thousand different, orgiastic ways -- but the one who was really restrained was Rhodri himself.

     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 are feeling her... aren't you... her memories, the things she felt and saw. He looks to the plaque, to his words there. To the woman who is truly only memory now. He expects only the jewelry he buried with her remains. Perhaps, even those diamonds have let go of this earth...

     For all his droll humor and his reserve, even his stubbornness (and he's most stubborn about the topic of love and all you have had to say. It'll take a while to sink in. Like father, like son. Poor boy), he comes to you with a look and he bends to give you a hug and a kiss. "I'll keep my eyes on him," a nod back to Gwilym. "I am my brother's keeper..."

     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!

     The electric flamenco stops and Rhodri unjacks, slides the guitar around the back and comes over. "No one pays attention to the ramblings of the lead singer," the lilt and drag of the un-English displays itself. Not Irish. Not Scottish. Something Other.

     "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.

     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.

     In an inherited ap Owain motion, Rhodri saves the beer from the sudden motion of you on his lap, his one arm cradling you as his other spreads out to hold the Guinness at a safe distance. He chuckles, "Well, I guess it was a bit foolish to think he'd be right back."

     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.

     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.

     What you two have always told me finally sank in, I suppose. You need me. Both of you. You aren't just saying it - the three of us, we move together or not at all.

     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.

The shadows have been drawn closed, patrolled by slinking yellow-eyed cats and black-eyed mongooses. She is alone here, in a circle upon her topmost tower. And she beckons, and they come.

"If I put it anywhere obvious, he'll find it. If I put it anywhere devious, his mind will lead him to it by instinct."

     Folding his arms against his chest, Rhodri pushes off the door. It's like the start of a new adventure. Not just a new morning. Not even just as the first morning of his marriage. It's... well... it's the first day of the rest of his life, to be honest...

     You feel her lips spell your name, for there's no sound behind it. It is like the sign language of the deaf and blind, spelling it out from one touch to another. And the small hands clutch, fingers tightening, and she sighs. I surrender...

     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.

     "Always with you, the glass is half empty with a crack in it," it's as close to growling as the more thoughtful of the two Welshman is ever likely to get.

     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.

     Her hands go to your shoulders and she pulls herself up to be at eye level with you, the blue seas of her gaze dancing as her smile widens, pulls, opens. "My two husbands have given me two little boys," Fiona whispers.

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

     "Stop fighting it then, and call him would you. I'd rather you talk to him on the phone than take your frustration about not calling him on me." He grins suddenly. "Oooh, he's soooo smart, couldn't you just hate him," Rhodri teases in a whispered coo.

     "Both of your children are healthy. And growing." Both. Two. "As befits a queen with two husbands, you are having two children. Two boys. An heir, my lady, for each king. Because you cannot choose between them, your heart a matter of loving two equally, now you do not have to choose."

     "Oh my god," Hwyll finally says, "... that means we have less than nine months to plan a fairy wedding. I think I'm going to faint.

     Rhodri chuckles. "You are so uncomfortable with intimacy. Are you certain you're pregnant? It could just be a case of bad gas, you know."

     "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.

     "As for why it's you..." The smile begins to wander and the emerald eyes begin to glint. "Because you are unique... you are yourself... you weren't trying to impress anyone. Mostly, when I saw you, you wanted to be left the hell alone. You have a certain... fox-like quality... that I recognize in myself.

     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."

     "Behold, the coming of the answering of Dreams! That which is sought will be found; that for which you labour will be fulfilled! But every man and woman turn their eyes to the wayward West, and you will find Truth!"

     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..."

     "...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.

     "...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."

     "...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."

     "Living arrangements?" they both say at once, Rhodri looking intrigued and Davydd looking confused. "Don't we have enough houses? I'm going to be broke at this rate..." Such grousing. You'd think you asked him for his wallet or for alimony...

     "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.

     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.

     Think not of what cannot be done
     Think not of what cannot come to pass
     For none of those things exist
     On earth, in dreams, or in the highest heaven

     "I would ...respect her enmity and her power, but I would not as of yet worry about it. We will arm as any kingdom should, and prepare as any kingdom should."

     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."

     The kettle starts whistling again as he sets it on the burner, a wolf call of sorts, one that matches his suddenly sparkling look. He ignores it, patently, and moves to you. Just shy of your embrace, Rhodri pauses and he makes a courtly bow, 17th century for yours in return.

     "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..."

     I'm a better sailor than I am a pilot. You might want to give me a little room! There's a laughing, windy sound that comes with that, the sound that both is and isn't your lover's voice. Riotous -- oh, he gets that from his father! -- and merry and warm.

     "You know, it's not too late," Fiona mutters, fiddling with her cellphone in her lap. She opens it, closes it again, opens it and watches the glow of the screen. "We can still cancel. We can have a flat tire, we can run off to Mexico, I don't know..."

     I still love you. Fiona brings things round to what she suspects might be the best thing to say first, to get it out of the way. We're still getting married. And I don't think Davydd is going to try to kill you.

     "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 don't know. I have to consider his feelings in this." Davydd is the trickier one of the two pieces of news to be broken. "I think if we tell him together, he is going to feel confronted... betrayed..."

     "Oh, and one other thing," Fiona adds, leaning back so that she can see your face, read all the expressions written there, see your eyes and the worlds that lie behind them. "Yes..."

     "Fear searches, it is searching, it has searched and will continue until it finds the one who is trying to leave the Darkness behind. They have a ...traitor... and they are combing the lands invisible for any and all who may be hiding or helping him. It is taking our power and our concentration...our kingdoms on the fringes..."

     His fingers lace against his metaled stomach. "I am hearing in the air the subtle sounds of a Proposition..." The smile alights on his face. "You thought of me... I am flattered. How may I be of assistance to you?"

     "So, I think we're agreed. You get your own place, we love and all that entails," his voice lowers to a teasing growl, "...we find out what Davydd's up to and eventually tell him of our involvement, but not yet as there's no point in upsetting the apple cart..."

     Fiona scowls at you. She's just aware enough, dim though the light over the porch is right now, that you're cutting her off. "If you don't appreciate my custom," she says majestically, "I can go drink somewhere else. I'm not drunk!"

     "Hello, Dot? It's Fiona. Look, I'm going to be at Betty's Boobs tonight. I need you to meet me there. I - look, I know I don't ask this usually, but I need you to keep me from doing anything too stupid. I'll be there at eight."

     "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?"

     "This is sounding suspiciously like a goodbye," he murmurs, humor lacing the serious tone of his voice.

     "How could Davydd trust me - even if he wants me still? How could I trust myself?"

     "Eat of the fruit of the tree and I will learn something..."

     She is aware of you, with the nervous skittishness of a wild thing, but despite it, she accepts your hand with one of hers - it's as regal as if she were deigning to dance with you at a formal gala, right down to the uplifted chin.

     There's a smirk for your callousness and a roll of his eyes. "Don't hold your breath counting on it, dearie. I'm as like to steal what I want as to wait for it..." And he likely means that. And has likely done just that in his day.

     You give him license to ask and he goes quiet. He seems to mull over his question as he looks at his biscuit. He takes a bite of it and washes it down with cooler (though still very warm) cocoa. "Are you happy, Fiona?"

     There's more than one Black Jack Davy, but there's only one woman between them...

     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..."

     "...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...

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

Once upon a time, in a far-off kingdom (isn't that how all the best fairy tales are supposed to begin?) there lived a lord and his lady.

     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...

     "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...

     "Who is he? Or was he?" Her eyes go wide. "That Hugh fellow? Or the blonde? Or that bloke, the rich one... the one with the castle," she snaps her finger, "Mr. Big...."

     "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's almost like watching one of those nature films, except, of course, that it's not usually coming out of a piano, is it? The budded tips open and spread, the scent of apple blossoms rich and fragrant, the pale pink-and-white easily recognizable, the only part of the piano visible that of the keyboard and tray of it.

     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.

     Either she's just randomly telling people, or she seems to think that at least you'll maybe have some clue or sympathy or something as to what's going on. Being nearly as strange as the rest of the people she's met around here if nothing else, "I think he might be even more daft than me."

     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...

     "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..."

     In the drawing itself, there's a little shape. Not unlike a small hunchbacked man hiding behind the stone and peeking around with a little winsome grin. Though not so very defined. When the flashes of glamour come through, however, it's nearly blinding.

     "I was glad you could make it though. I wasn't sure if you'd want to or not." Again, honesty. What's gotten into Rose some might ask. Or, it could be that she's also at least a little curious to see if Davydd warned you off after the coffee encounter.

     The hand belongs to the slender arm that is attached to the slender figure of Albizzina Contato. The proprietress of Libri di Magia e di Mistero is reputed to be a true witch. There are many legends about the bookstore, some more fantastical than others. Some even say that she is hunting for the Doge's lost treasure of gold.

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...

     Oh, god, god, god - if there even is a god. Why are human hearts so fragile? Why do they hurt - why must they break? Why do I long continually for that which I cannot have - or that which will not have me? Lift this cup from my lips, for I'm damned by the taste of it, and so tired...

     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 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.

     Aloud, again, she recites a cellphone number, and she sits seiza, closing her eyes. Emotion rushes forth to fill a void, and then, Fiona Arundel, known to some as Drancy of no other name, watches candles burn out to blackness.

     "In less than a year and a day, you will find him. You will find Answers, though they won't be the ones you are expecting." His words filling the space of those crawling moments, before the coin falls the scant foot to the table.

     The white cotton suit. A suit tailored for warmer climes, its light colouring and weight making it almost entirely unsuitable for London. And yet this man seems comfortable in it, not noticing how out of place he seems.

     Yisun stands and smiles, her hand coming out. "Yisun Inkhe," she says, natural and native Mongolian accent on Mongolian syllables and then: "Pleasure to meet you," English accent having a war with something almost ...American.

     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.

     And he rises, arm slipping around her waist. "Maybe you can change my religion." And he grins at himself.

     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...

     "I don't mind being asked, but unless there is going to be some sort of action, I really must insist that you make up your mind. I was in the middle of a dinner party. Do you know how long it takes to have a white dragon actually answer an RSVP? No, I should think not.

     "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."

     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.

     She's been considering it for days, now. Weeks. Something like that - some sort of human time scale which is meaningless, and logically, she knows to be meaningless, to him

     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.

     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...

     William inclines his head again, his eyes drifting over you. "You wish to see. You fear what you may see. Tell me... is the price of seeing more costly than the price of being blind?"

     Ships passing in the night, I think they call it. Maybe you will signal with flare. Maybe ships will come together with cannons, broadside encounters, or maybe the captains will merely lift their hands and wave. We never know, we can only make the waves lift, the wind shift and hold the clouds for a moment at bay...

     The paper's folded a few times, shoved into a pocket, and she climbs onto the ledge, poised there for a moment with a quick glance around. And then ...

     Sandrine just frowns at you, shaking her head. "I have been patient, Davydd," she says, "...and have let you...go on with her about whatever..." hands wave, "...whatever you go on with her about. But, I will not have her thinking that I am...not normal."

     "And ... I'm in a lot of trouble, Dot. I'm just, I can't keep up this pace. It isn't working anymore, but I don't ... have anywhere else to go with it."

     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?"

     His eyes are almond shaped, slightly slanted, and dark. A shade deeper than night. And he stands some seven feet tall one's eyes may think. In vestments made of shadows and earth, fur. Fox, both grey and red. Wolf at the edges of his cloak. There are talismans of fairy metal, and of claw and tooth and bone.

     "Oh, there always is. For every good, there is an ill. The universe depends upon balance. But what's the downside you see? My only being able to be with you for nine days after you call me? I have a week left, by the way."

     I want to be with you, Huw the Hunter... even if it's frightened me, even if your strength is more than mine, or perhaps because of it. I want to be greedy, and know you with all my senses. I don't know if this is because of Chinon and its master, or something Dei started but didn't finish - demon or no - or an offshoot of having met Davydd. Or perhaps, what you said to me, yourself... 'To not love because of him, just lets him win...'

     Drancy swallows once, nervously, wrapping the cord of the charm around her fingers and letting the talisman itself drop into her palm, and then conscientiously banishes any sign of nervousness or unseemly emotion. "Huw... Huw... Huw...?"

     Another point of truth, laid down in a solitaire of them. She's no idea what she's in the middle of...

     A thrumming in the back of the head, fluttering, follows the clocks. A ripple in the floorboards, imperceptible to most. The sound of something rushing forward at incredible speed.

     "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.

     The West Wind can get a bit blustery too, you know...
     "Why are you so obstinant anyway? Were you a slave? Did you have to serve a master, shackled in chains?"

     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..."

     He eats bread and honey, beautiful creature that he is, and drinks honeymead. His eyes are sharp, exacting and there is a kind of hawkish quality to his demeanor. "My guess is that someone was watching you already. While we knew that Isabel had progeny still in England, had no idea it was you until that night. You have shadows all around you, you know." He plucks at the honeyed bread. "You need to learn how to defend yourself..."

     With the tuning note, in time with it, she slams her fist back, into the wall. If Huw needed another spike, well, he's got one in spades, now - that energy which had gone so deceptively quiescent rises, tearing out through her skin.

     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.

     "It's alright," he says, "...it'll be alright..." Such words, such famous words. But he doesn't stop, and a hand reaches out, lightly moving against a reddened cheek. And he kisses you anyway.

     "As for home," another shrug and Dei takes another swallow. "Who knows. Maybe that's not it at all. I guess it's the connection to the people I left behind," he says. He looks into his drink. "The feeling of separation. I guess I'm not cut out for touring..." And he makes a wry smile.

     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...

     "Alright, little missy," he mutters beneath his breath as he looks ahead, "... it's going to end tonight. You and me and the game makes three."

     There's no escape. In a thousand guises, I insinuate myself into a thousand copulations. Dawn into dusk, dusk into dawn. Bed to bed, nation to nation. I forget by not having time to remember. But what happens when the solace becomes so used that it's hollow. Even the solace becomes part of the act. The endless fucking act...

     "All the information's in that there card," she informs Erik, Jared, and Dei in a tone which for her, is amiable to the point of mellowness. "I'm a reporter, I can ask you set questions if you like, or I can make it up as we go, or you can tell me to go get stuffed." Her own accent is London punk, with a hint of something a bit better educated creeping through underneath. "I'm Drancy."

     "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."

     "So basically, wot you're saying is that you can't be bothered to commit, so you stick with people you can use and toss away without worrying they'll come after you with a shotgun." She turns to look over her shoulder, her smirk having more real warmth in it this time, even as her eyes are challenging. "Funny, that. I always thought that's what Kleenex got invented for..."

     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...

     According to various students of the topic, if one is to believe the legends and stories, there would be over six thousand varieties of faeries alone. As such, it should be no great surprise that one of the few trees, fenced in against the sidewalk as they are, left in London was both old enough and weakened enough to contain a lesser denizen of faerie.