"I hear that I am somewhat delightful," in the tasting, let alone the knowing, "...hopefully I will suffice," Ian stands, sauntering towards the keep's antechamber, but looking over his shoulder to make sure the guest of honor follows.

     ...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.

     It has been a long two evenings. Edward's hand tightens, nodding at the notion of being alright. His disposition's improved, but the situation has not really been solved yet.

     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.

It's not What you thought When you first began it

     "I have a job for you. I need you to drop whatever it is you are doing for this. It is something that must happen immediately... if it is to succeed..."

      "We embrace him," William murmurs. "We solve a multitude of wrongs, of problems, we halt a multitude of suffering. For everyone..."

     This is a William you haven't seen in a while. Not since he retired in fact. It has been a brutal two nights. For everyone. "Well... I'm not angry," he murmurs. "I don't know what I am..." he says suddenly. "...Afraid, I guess. Worried."

     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.

     "Tell him," Edward chimes, mostly together, "...I hope it works out like he wants." Have a nice life.

     William exhales, leaning to put the glass aside on the nightstand. Gathered there are Edward's things. The Browning. Cell phone. Silver case of gak. There is a glass, brandy snifter, quarter-filled with blood (his own). A bit of fresh...

     "Shite," A large hand hits the steering wheel and the phone is tossed into the empty passenger's side seat. "Why am I the only one making sense," and now I am talking to myself? Hockley. South? South... somewhere...

     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..."

     The woods shivered with a large wind (me) and we stood upon fertile ground of a different ... View of Wales, Cymru. The red-towered castle still there, still symbolic, flowers and green grass everywhere. And there he was, the Oak King himself, bending to kiss the slip of a girl....

     "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...

     "When I saw him, he promised me pay in exchange for trumpeting the end of his Exile. The Oak King's exile is at an end, Your Majesty, Your Highness; three years in Cymru, and at the end, he has emerged."

     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.

     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..."

     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."

     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 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.

     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.

     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.