In the Center of All Things, the normal raucous ...goings-on are hushed. It seems as if it has gone back in time to the days before Romero and his harem (and yours), when the only ones who would dare to come here were you, Holly King, and your twin.
     Perhaps that is because Your Twin has returned...
     Seated in the middle of the Center of All Things, Iowerth waits and, just like old times, reads. The white clothing of the High Kingship is no longer on his person, the midnight blues of his ocean returned to him. But neither is he the Captain he was. He's more than that, though he looks as though he's just stepped off The Draigamor in age. He wears deep indigo denim, paired with a midnight blue pull-over (long-sleeved), over which he wears a midnight blazer, pinstriped with the barest hint of starlight. His copper and bronze hair is brash and blazing amid all that blue, and his Doc Martinized feet are propped up on an overstuffed ottoman, his body comfortably resting in the King's wingback chair.
     And although he is barging in, to borrow a nautical term, he has brought snacks. There is a selection of brandy, meat, cheese and bread.
     Periwinkle eyes glance over the words upon the pages of the book he holds, The Fantastic Voyage of Admiral Jack Ben Nevis, his hand lifting now and then to turn another page.

     He is attuned to that place; the hush, he feels it. He does not understand it, and it draws him in, slowly and reluctantly. I am tired...
     From furthest shadows he comes, with no great desire to return home. In my soul, I am sick and weary and tired again. Oes, well. So it is, so it comes, so it passes. Gwilym Gwyn Garu reluctantly smirks at himself. Oes, I am so full of shite.
     He cuts a hole in the shadow nearest, steps through to a nearer shadow. A spider the size of his fist crunches underfoot; he offhandedly puts his sword through its mother, and with dull firelight shining on his red-gold hair, makes he final cut and steps through. "Home again, home again, jiggedy-jig."
     What dramas await me? Has Romero decided to go get married, raise fat little babies...? He looks around, single visible eyebrow arched. And then he stops. In his armor, he stops. He goes still in comical surprise; it is not mummery, not aped to make you laugh, but in simple surprise. You are here and not somewhere else, and he has no idea what to make of it.
     "All's well, then?" Gwilym finally asks. He finishes pulling off a glove he'd begun, dropping it to the floor. "Good book?" I've no fucking clue what's going on. Is this the eye of the whirlpool?

     "Well, considering I was only ten when I wrote it, it's not completely awful," Iowerth says with a smile, looking up to you and snapping the book shut. He sets it aside and then rises with something of apology in his face. It has been there since before the first kiss, he imagines. "Just mostly awful. I suggested a nap to your court, and they took me up on it."
     As if they could really resist the somnolent sound of the sea. They slumber under his spell for now, at least.
     Iowerth walks up to you, his eyes full of the Past and the Present. "Your Majesty. It's good to see you," he murmurs. "It's been a long time, and too long by my count, since I've been here to see you. As the one who loves you....should. And, yes, Tiernan knows I am here. As ever, he is the harpoon to my tangle of seaweed."
     Standing before you, the stalwart Seadragon once more, Iowerth looks you over. "I've missed you, brawd. And I've done wrong by us both. How many times can I ask for forgiveness and have you grant it?" he wonders quietly, drolly with the hint of a smile. "One more time, I hope. Not crown, nor duty, not even the sea, shall part you from me."

     He stares at you without understanding, with a great and terrible confusion in his face. His now bare hand lifts to push his hair back; you are one of the only ones who these days gets to see his face unveiled. For his hair is a veil, of sorts, a barrier between those of this world or any other and the full and unbidden beauty of his countenance, the secrets he holds in those two eyes and in the fine skin pulled now tight around their edges.
     Do you see the weight upon him? He walks with it without noticing, and now it rocks him. He pinches the bridge of his nose, drawing his hand down over his mouth before licking his lips. "Brawd," Gwilym finally says, voice hushed. His face tightens again, just a little, as if with pain, reminded of an old wound he has tried to ignore. "You know you're always welcome here, oes?"
     The look he gives you is perhaps not familiar to you; it isn't something you're used to seeing, certainly. You've caught him at a low ebb, and in one of his moods on top of it, and what you say pierces him so his armor and his illusions are hardly useful at all. There are the traces of that old pain, its poison, self-inflicted though it might be, still leeched through his soul, there is the confusion; more than confusion, the bewilderment as he looks at you, as he listens to you. "I don't understand," Gwilym says finally. He holds up his hand, turning away in order to draw off the other glove, in order to begin peeling away his armored shadows to reveal the simple linen shift and trousers he wears underneath.
     Why is he in linen? Would it not have been silk, once upon a time? He isn't sure, himself, anymore, and he groans as he rubs his face. Does my madness now send visions to torture me? Duw, why? Gwilym fumbles with his bracings, finally kicking them off as he turns towards you again, a hand brushing the top of the table. "There's nothing to forgive. What should I be forgiving you of, Io?" The pain is there in his eyes again, unbidden, matching the pain he feels in his heart. The longing is still there; it's never left. But he's learned to live with it - mostly. Only mostly. "Don't call me by titles, please," and his voice breaks a little. "Y' know I've no titles where you're concerned, Io."

     "For my own stupidity. For not knowing how to navigate," his own face is the echo of your pain -- and his understanding that he is the poison and the wound. "I'm a poor Captain, and I fear a poorer brother, lover and friend. I did what I sat here, in this room I think, and told you I wouldn't do. I abandoned you. For reasons that are no longer clear to me, actually. I'm not sure what all the fuss was about. I guess... I saw rocks and hazards that weren't really there."
     He's not a phantasm of your pain, nor a figment of your own suffering or madness. Iowerth reaches up with his hand to touch his brother's shoulder. It's a solid touch, not a glance but something more meaningful than a clap. "I'm trying to navigate with a steadier hand now," he says quietly. "I ... " His own voice catches in emotion. "I've come to ask permission to sail in the waters of my brother's heart."
     Periwinkle eyes look to his twin's pained face, his own shadowing it. "I've missed you more than I can say. Know that. And I'm so sorry for the pain I've caused you. You still bear it. Everywhere," he says in a hush.

     I am tired, and confused by shadows...
     He looks at you, and he wants it to be true. Your hand is on his shoulder, and his hand goes to the back of your head, drawing you in, in response to your grief, to your pain, rather than his own. "Ass," Gwilym says quietly, pressing his forehead to yours. "Don't be a fool, brawd. I know that this ... isn't what y' want. What you've wanted. You've had what you want, oes?" He grins at you, tenderly and reluctantly, lifting his hand to cup your cheek. He wants to kiss you. He did kiss you, not long ago; he caught you by surprise then, and he gave in for one brief and glorious and selfish moment, capturing your mouth with his and pressing himself in against you, feeding on you with his desire so shortly unmasked.
     It was a kiss which he meant to have last a lifetime, after all.
     He rubs your cheek with his hand, now, and he looks at you with pain pushed back behind amusement and fond exasperation, putting his hands instead to your shoulders and giving you a little shake. "D'you think I'd want for a moment for you to do anything about this when it's not what you want? Brawd, what will I do with y'? Ass," he says again, and he sighs, a heavy exhale as he tips his head back to look at the ceiling. He doesn't deny how good it feels, to be with you; this slight contact is heaven, manna to a starving man after years of famine. But he pulls his hands away slowly, and he smiles at you with all the tenderness that only you have ever received from him in full. "You don't ever need t' apologize to me, Io. Tell me why you're really here."

     "Ass," your brother mutters back, moving as you shake him. He cuffs the back of your head as you so often do his. "Are you going deaf in your old age?" The old familiar banter. "I'm here.... because I want to be, brawd." Hand back behind your head, he draws you in for a hold. Like being slapped by the sea, only to be enfolded by a wave, his arms surround you. And he holds on with the serious might of a long-parted twin.
     "Look," Iowerth croaks, "...you and I, we're good at dancing around things that are horrifically painful, or that'll involve a lot of work." His fingers clench in your hair a moment. And before he can really finish that thought, he pulls your head by your hair to cover your mouth with a kiss. It comes with cannon fire and the hiss of a besieged sea. Iowerth loosens his grasp, his mouth parting from yours as his head bows. His lips remain in close quarters to your own, hinting that another shot might be levied.
     "I was arrogant," he gets it out, "... demanding that love take the forms most convenient." Periwinkle glimmers to you. "Who was I to demand such a thing? From you? From Tiernan? He understands what we've never managed to comprehend. And for what it's worth, he blesses it. We ...are who and what we are. We ... love who we love. I ....just wanted you to know that I understand. That I love you. And if you will have me... I can't go on with having half a body, brawd. Half a soul. I love you."
     There. The anchor of a lifetime's carrying is cast aside. Lighter for it, Iowerth takes a half-step backwards, reaching to steady himself with a chair. "I know you love Aeron. I have never begrudged you a moment's happiness. Not either of you. I just needed you to know..."

     His breath breaks in his chest as you pull him in, eyes closing. Oh, it feels good. It is home, it is so many things. He has missed you, being close to you, being with you. And then you are kissing him, and it so nearly undoes him that he almost breaks again.
     I love you...
     He looks at you with two eyes, not one, and it is only now, mayhap, he could look at the rest of the world with two as well. How could he be whole, with you far away? He sways in your wake, as in the rolling of the ocean, and he licks his lips, skin reddening as you put into words things that have been hidden. You make plain secrets, and sure enough, he weakens in the face of truth. He is a king of secrets and mysteries, and he holds truths close to his chest; what better way to conquer him than by attacking the base of his power, thus?
     "I can't live without you." Gwilym whispers it, says it so simply, so quietly, that it could almost be missed. You've stepped backwards, and he looks at you as if lost, rocked back half a step. He rubs his face, closing his eyes and reopening them. Aeron. "Duw. I don't know ... he's going to think I'm choosing you over him, you know." Abruptly, he sits down on the floor, laughing soundlessly with bitter mirth and sweet despair. "Duw. Only I would be in bed with two of my brothers and worrying about both their hearts over it, Io. Someone hit me."

     Iowerth turns as you plop down on the floor. He pours two large snifters full to the brim with brandy (that's not how one is supposed to drink it), and he returns to stand beside you, holding the drink out for you. "You won't have to," he answers as quietly.
     There is a mighty exhalation at the mention of Aeron. "Two possible ways it will go: self-annihilation or war," he smirks. And then, seriously, Iowerth shrugs. "I don't know where to begin with that. So, I suggest we have a drink." He takes a seat on the hard floor beside you. Taking a long swallow of brandy, burn notwithstanding, Iowerth stretches out, his head resting on your lap.
     Periwinkle eyes turn toward your face as he turns his head against your thigh and knee. "Tiernan and I have had an open arrangement with his lover, Agapios. As long as I am honest and open with him, I think we will be alright. He ... never had an issue with it. Only my keeping it from him."
     Iowerth snorts a laugh, sitting up only so far as to drink without spilling on himself. "Yes, only you. Well," he exhales as he swallows and lies back, "I wish I could advise you. My best guess is that Aeron will do what we all do: throw himself on his own sword and twist and turn..."

     He takes the glass, drinking deeply and long. He almost chokes as you rest your head in his lap, and he sets the goblet aside, looking down at you. Old fears still play about the corners of his gaze, his smile wry and for him, unusually gentle. His heart is tight in his chest whenever he looks at you.
     "He's a strange man, your husband," Gwilym says drolly. "He should keep y' under lock and key, especially from the terrible influence of the likes of me." His hand lifts to touch your hair, just for a moment. "I'll have to talk to him, brawd. There's been so many hurts in all of this..."
     He closes his eyes. He wants; but he wants an end to pain.

Posted by rowan at June 05, 2010 10:50 PM