The biting on the ear turned to a kiss in the hallway. Bite and bite back, it's all fair in love and war as they say. And you were a bit at his mercy, for there was no freeing you as he walked up the turret stairs, down lavish halls -- the places is friggin' huge -- and to a set of doors.
     Freedom came only when he crossed the threshold into a wide living room. The room -- and it's fairly vast in its own right -- is also very... un-Davydd like in many ways, and you can blame the Earl of Clives for that, but in a way the exotic flavors of the chamber suits the oddity known as ap Owain. It's a warm, breathing, living space. Despite all the artifacts, it's not like hanging about in a museum.
     "I had your bags sent to the other side of the turret. I'll have to go fetch them in a bit." Oh, so he was serious about you staying in here. "So, how about an after dinner drink, kick off your shoes and get comfy. I'll show you the upstairs whenever you want..." Back to breezy Davydd, it is. Closing the door behind you both, he approaches his wetbar with one clap and two rubbings of his hands one palm against the other. "I have vodka, but it's Belvedere vanil, I fear, and not the basic Stoli," he begins, hands taking the clear bottle and two short amber glasses.
     "I have a really bad habit, I'll warn you now, of ... immediacy and urgency, like everything has to be felt now, said now, done now," two drinks are poured. "Feel free to give me the flying elbow if I ramble on to much. I'm easily excited," he laughs at the notion. "Ah well... you know," he finishes in a rumble and soon there he is again, holding out a drink to you. Stoli vanil, straight up -- oh, and a dash of honey liqueur. "I've been waiting a long time," he murmurs, chiming his glass against yours, "... so ...forgive me if I jump ahead... I'll try not to do it too much...too far..."

     Freedom comes at its own price. She's by now so well off balance that the odd eclecticism of the living room barely fazes her at first; she takes a couple of steps forward and then halts herself with a swing of her hair against her hips until a moment after she's come to a stop. Then and only then does she look about - and seem to see the room, distracted though she might be.
     "So do I sleep on the divan with Rhyddid and Bwci to be my attendants and serpent-chasers?" The quip comes automatically - you could likely wake her out of a sound sleep with a three-days' hangover and she'd find something to say once she finished screaming bloody blue murder. Fiona walks very carefully between two chairs, then foregoes all normal seating in favour of sinking to the thick plush carpets. "I'll take whatever you give me. What're you drinking, anyway?"
     She's taking you at your word, somewhat dazedly tugging on shoelaces, working them loose, loosening the boots so that her feet can finally be set free of them. They're still on but dangling as she reaches up to collect the glass from you, surreptitiously rubbing her lips with her other hand as if feeling them to see if they're unchanged.
     "Waiting ...?" Fiona looks faintly confused for a moment, head still tipped backwards as she draws the glass inwards towards herself, the ends of her hair piling on the rug. "I'm not sure what you mean by that. I appreciate your trying to be careful, but you know... it's still me..."
     "How do you think I'm going to react to a statement like that?"

     "Actually," he tips his head back and peers at you, "...rather like that," he smirks, "...and no, no divan for you. The bed's upstairs. The sword in the middle. Very Arthurian, that. I can't believe you found it, but then it is you and...you have a...way of finding things. I'll have to remember that the next time I lose my keys to the Rover... Oh, and I'm drinking the same drink. It's a concoction Kelly dreamed up. He calls it Davy's Favor: a blend of vanilla vodka and honey liqueur. House specialty..."
     What is it with fairies and honey anyway...
     He takes his drink and he settles down on a side of the divan, letting the drink rest on a thigh as he in turn rests his head on his hand and looks to you. "Speaking of Davy, there ... is one last thing I have to tell you tonight, then we can dispense of serious matters for the night...but, if you're going to be with me, you have to know a thing or two about me that you don't currently..."

     "Ah, we're going with Arthur, not Cleopatra - kings instead of queens," Fiona murmurs, taking a miniscule sip of her drink, then setting it down in order to finish removing her boots.
     One boot's tugged off briskly; she narrowly avoids overturning her glass, and makes a grab for it. No harm done, and all that, but still. "Actually, most of me was tempted to tell you that I could handle anything you come up with so bring it on, but at the last moment, cooler and wiser heads prevailed. You're too full of surprises." The boot's set to one side, the thick woolen sock underneath a bright purple with yellow and green daisies on it.
     She begins drawing her other boot off more slowly, with more respect for the drink and the carpet in combination. "I quite like it," Fiona murmurs, as if leaving something unsaid - probably something about the sword, really. Or the keys. "One last thing? Well ... okay. This isn't where you reveal you're secretly Bluebeard and I'm never going to see my family unless I've got brothers to rescue me, is it?"
     One eyebrow cocks up, and she begins to peel off her socks. The question's not serious - but at the same time ... she wouldn't put it past you ...

     He smiles, fondness there -- and an appreciation of the humor. "No," he exhales, "...but that's a good one. This one's far more outlandish. Remember...earlier," he wonders, "...when I was discussing the song Black Jack's Lady, that there was one rendition that alluded to a curse on the land-pirate's head," land-pirate! He always did like that one. Davydd exhales again and he sits up, holding his drink in his hands, his arms on his thighs again. He turns his head to you, green eyes peering past red hair. "That part of the tale is unfortunately true. Like a chimera," he frowns a little, "... I am unable to see the light of a mortal day. That's why you've only ever see me at night. I sleep during the day -- a very deep sleep. Sort of like snow white in reverse. There's," he peers at you, trying to explain it as simply as possible, "...more to this world that that of faerie and men, witches and warlocks and all. And I ran into the reality of that a long time ago. Since then... I've been unable to stand in my own element, the clean, pure light of the sun..."
     Davydd sits back, downing the drink and breathing honey and vodka as he rises. He has to have another, you see. "I ...didn't want you waking up and freaking out when I didn't move. You'll notice though, that I am breathing," a corner of his mouth tilts up. "And I can hear you... I ...just can't move without great, great effort. If I were in danger, I think I could manage it. But it's not easy. Well, and since I've been up all night," he grins, "...I'm tired during the day..."
     Davydd crosses over to the bar, taking a bottle in each hand, pouring vanil and honey liqueur into the glass to swirl the one around the other, golden. "Since then, well, for most of my existence, I've been in a kind of ...exile. My kingdom dormant, trapped in a sort of winter state without my being there, giving it my Self, as it deserves. I'm ... ending that exile now. And... I hope to find a way to break the curse. It has eluded me thus far..."

     "...Oh."
     She doesn't know what else to say. In a way, it drives the outlandishness of it all home a little further - yes, Fiona, you're not only getting involved with an older man, he's eight HUNDRED years older. Oh, and by the way, he's under a curse. All she can do is blink as it sinks in...
     Absently, she stuffs the socks, balled up in one fist, into one of the boots while reaching for the drink with her other hand. She swallows down the liqueur hurriedly, remembering to exhale as she does so, then sets the glass aside. Then she stands, unhurriedly, stretching...
     "I'm glad you warned me. I'd probably freak out if you hadn't. So you're under a curse which you're going to try to break, and ..." Fiona frowns a little bit, fisting a hand on her hip, looking to you sidelong. "...Um. I just had a thought."

     Fiery eyebrows cock up and he looks over to you as he gives his glass a swirl. "A thought? About what..." he teases in a quip. About the fact that this is weirder than shit? "You're handling this very well, I might add," he notes. "But then, I guess that makes me your perfect man. Doesn't get more ...un-normal than this, does it? Want a refill while I'm here?" he offers suddenly, his expression open and warm. That's ap Owain -- he'll give the sun and the moon if he thinks you're even half pondering it.
     That's why his friends love him...
     "I'd like to break it. Doesn't do for a king of summer to be unable to go out during the day. Sunlight is a great power," he murmurs. "Though I get by...by the light of the moon alright. It took me a while to realize... a long while," he counters, "... to realize that the exile was in my power to end. It might also be possible to reverse the kiss of Mithras," wasn't that a Roman god? "Don't say his name three times in a row, by the way," Davydd drolls out, smirking and taking a swallow of the sweet mixture.
     "Sorry," he makes a wave, "...what was your thought...?"

     Fiona approaches, scooping up the glass and holding it out, then lifts a hand towards your shoulder - no, past it, to your hair. She tugs on it lightly, then lets go.
     "Davydd, I've had time to think about things. None of the men I've even been halfway attracted to were at all unmagical, and pretty much all of them were dangerous. You're included in that. Maybe it'll get me hurt, but ... so far I've been pretty lucky." She surrenders the glass, folding her arms over her chest. "Even if most times I count myself unlucky, I know I've had an odd sort of streaky luck - like bacon, a streak of lean and a streak of fat..."
     She leans one hip up against the bar, propping herself on an elbow, chin on hand. "Him and Hastur?" Ah, she reads Lovecraft. "Well, two things occur to me. One is, and this is going out on a limb, but isn't virgin's blood supposed to be a powerful remedy or something in magic?" She can't say it without a hint of colour in her cheeks, and her gaze drops for a moment before looking back up. "The other is, well, that luck..."
     "Maybe I'm supposed to be your luck, Davydd. in which case, well, god help you, but still." Fiona glances back up, reaching her free hand over to poke at you lightly. "I can try to help, at least. So who's this M-person I'm not supposed to say the name of?"

     "Maybe you are supposed to be... my good luck charm. Maybe that is why the world has gone topsy-turvy since you passed into my circle, or me into yours as far as that goes. I tend to take a sign when it's showed to me... eventually," he smirks at himself. It did take him two years after first meeting you to do anything about it.
     "He's ... gone, and he can't be woken to ask him to remove it, not that he would. It's ... better that he is where he is. And I am better cursed as I am than to ever free him or revive him. He was ... a bloody murderer and a black spot on the soul of creation." He realizes how harsh that sounded and while he does mean it gravely -- ha! riot! -- he softens it with a smile and a warm look as he sets his drink down and does a refill for you, honey and vanilla vodka rising on the air.
     His skin flushes as he grins. "Virgin blood is incredibly potent. But... I'm not a blood drinker...fortunately, the curse hasn't been passed on to my children, or their children, or theirs. It is mine alone to bear, it seems." He apparently can't say it without blushing either. "I could capture a vial of it now, just in case. And hold it until later." He chuckles softly. "Couldn't hurt, I suppose," he gruffs. "Maybe... you and I can sort this out. Maybe what I needed was your luck," he smiles, "...mine's shite, it seems...but that it brought me you, maybe my luck is turning..."

     Taking up the glass, Fiona murmurs, "I will say this, Davydd - hanging round you, one does meet the most interesting assortment of people..." She doesn't mean it in a bad way, really. For all that it's one of her quips...
     "You don't think the world went topsy-turvy for just you, do you? I was knocked flat, and I think my first words to you were something along the lines of 'stay back, I've got Mace'." Fiona grins ruefully, sliding the glass down to between her hands, looking down into the rippled surface.
     She pauses for a moment, contemplating as if scrying for something. "Mightn't be a bad idea to have on hand... just in case, you understand," she murmurs, voice hardly above a whisper. "I'm glad you don't think me a burden anymore, Davydd."

     "I'm sorry that it ever seemed so," Davydd replies. He takes another swallow of the unearthly, earthly drink. It's not all that unlike ambrosia, one might find. "The only burdens I had were of my own choosing, weighed down by my own will. Trust me. And I can be my own worst enemy, god help me..."
     He finishes the second drink and he is going to leave it at that for a moment, letting his hands be free for the moment. One touches to cornsilk hair, brushing it back. He laughs, and it streaks across his expression. "While you haven't been a burden, you have been a physical risk," Davydd quips. "If not my eyes from the threatened mace, then the punch in the nose, and your constant talk of castration..." Eyes twinkle at that. "But beneath all that," he murmurs, "...there's a sweet girl with a huge heart under there. A fighter. And one I'm happy is on my side. And I'm glad you could see me beneath my own, constant level of white noise..."
     Davydd exhales, a burden lifted you might notice. Truth spoken. He hasn't been this free in... ages. Ages of Men have come and gone since he's said so much as that. He smiles again, a hand on either side of your face, a kiss following with softness. And vodka and honey. "You can put away your mace," he murmurs there. "And... let's leave talk of castration aside as well. It's sort of a mood-breaker," laughing, he winks and draws away.
     "Would you like to see the accommodations upstairs?" a nod toward the staircase within the room. "I'd just as soon lie down and talk, myself. And I promise, no funny business. The sword is the law until ...you're ready to change the law," the smile slants. "And even then... I've news for you, lass, it's going to be a slow process. A lot of frank talk along the way... not to be matter-of-fact about it... but well, I'd rather have you knowing what you should know and learning what you like than me forcing my way in."

     "I've never castrated anyone. Punched someone in the balls, once. Kicked someone else. But it was a fight in the one case and a mosh pit in the other, and those're the rules of the game," Fiona answers sweetly, sipping her own drink, then setting the glass down unfinished. "But I think you're safe. I don't usually aim for the knackers, you know. Not physically, anyway..."
     Verbally, now, that's another matter, and she's not making any promises there. She smiles with a hint of wistfulness to her expression as she looks up at you. "You always seemed strong, to me - it never occurred to me at the time that I was a problem. I was paranoid and I was scared and I did lash out - but you didn't go away. You stayed."
     Then she steps back, stretching her arms over her head, twisting first this way, then that, with an audible ripple of popping sinews and vertebrae for a moment as she realigns her back. "Mmm... Davydd, I brought the sword along because I didn't know what was up with Sandrine - or between us."
     That, at least, has changed, on some level, to some degree...
     "I was afraid of giving in to my feelings for you - about you, because I didn't know how you felt," Fiona adds, honestly, blue gaze drawing upwards to your green eyes. "Even respecting me and caring about me - if it wasn't going to be two, just one plus one ... that'd hurt me. And I knew it. So I arranged for a ... a delay. But I don't mind going slow, and I don't mind talking. But ... I do trust you."
     A pause, then, and more quietly, "I trust you an awful lot, Davydd. Because I'm trusting you with more of myself than anyone else's seen since ... well, before my O levels."

     "Trust for trust," he answers. "We fortify it with secrets shared, like stones of a castle's foundation." An eyebrow lifts a tic. "Damn philosophic when he wants to be, isn't he," Davydd stage-whispers about himself. Inclining his head, he looks down to your upturned eyes. He holds out his hand then, an offer for you to take. The tour of the castle then shall end at his bed.
     What a long, strange trip it's been...
     To coin a phrase...
     "I can't promise you that you won't want to punch me in the nose at some point," the smile winds its way across his mouth, cutting a slant and he looks at you side long as he leads you slowly toward the ancient stairs, original to the structure, unlike so much of the interior. "But I'll try to keep the need for violent reactions to a minimum, but..." he continues with a grin, "...you are frightfully lovely when you're highly pissed off. I have to admit. I don't mind the ducking," he says. "As I said, I like the fight. And I'm sure we'll have our moments."
     At the foot of the stairs, Davydd pauses. "We'll worry about the sword and the bags later then," he murmurs. Whatever could he mean by that --well, other than he won't be leaving for a while. Maybe a servant will be called to fetch them instead. "Mind your step, the stairs like the owner's old... sometimes treacherous..." he drolls out.

     Sliding her fingers along your palm and then through your own to interlace, Fiona shivers for a moment as she allows you to lead her over. "Philosophy hasn't killed you so far, though if you offer too much of it before my coffee, I'll do worse than try to break your nose," she murmurs. 'Coffee' being a metaphor for 'before I've fully woken up'...
     Old and treacherous? Mmm. I don't know, Old Man," Fiona retorts lightly as she follows the way up, "I've got youth and energy on my side, and from what you're saying, you sleep more soundly than I do... I might have an edge on you after all, you know." She's silent, then, as she concentrates on her footing, and then her eyes widen a bit as she enters the bedroom.
     "Okay, Davydd," she says after a moment's open gawking. "I do have one question about all this ... National Trust ... if I'm here at all often, do I get to at least - leave my own mark somewhere? As long as it's not blacklight and Ramones posters, I mean." Ah, the retort had to come sooner or later, even if it covers how out of place she's feeling. Even with her family's country estate, posh as it is, it's ... not like Powis, that's for damn sure...

     He laughs, "You can have your own sock drawer," he rolls out, rolling likewise heel to toe like a fat Tory. He can't keep it up long, however, he's grinning a half moment later. "You'll not only get your own sock drawer, you'll get your own room. A whole series of apartments, if you want them, for your own uses. There are rooms in one of the other turrets that are far more... well, less stately. I like comfort, like all fairy men," he rolls out, "... and surprisingly I like lavish things. My castles were never this nice when I was a king of men. I was happy to have a pig in the barn and a roof over my head..."
     The shoes are coming off now. Heel-to-toe he removes them one by one and bends to take them with his free hand. As chaotic as he can be, he likes his things orderly. "Go on.. have a sit and a bounce..." he murmurs.
     The bed is a thing of wonder. Enormous, king-sized structure, it's of a solid oak base (naturally) with gossamer, white canopy drapes and peacock feathers. A bed fit for a queen -- or a queen's descendant. The closer you get to it, the more you smell summer wild flowers and the scent of sweet summer grass, feel the west moving air and smell the sea...

     Barefoot, she pads across the floor somewhat cautiously, murmuring, "Well, I am used to having my own space these days, though I don't think I'd need a whole series of apartments, as you put it. It's not that it's bad, it's just - not my space, is all. I feel like I should worry about breaking something."
     Fiona turns, one hand brushing the white canopy, gaze for a moment distant, far-seeing, searching for somewhere other than here. "That's ... odd," she murmurs distractedly, even as she somewhat automatically parts the drapes and moves to climb up, both palms to the bedclothes to assist herself.
     "I'm a fan of comfort, though I have this tendency to deny myself the things I want the most. I've been thinking about it lately, and I think I know why, but it's ... well ... it's stupid." One knee's up on the bed, now, and she's hauling herself up, then twisting to sprawl out against the blankets and pillows, gathering her hair from under herself, lying there a moment with eyes closed.
     "I feel as if, if I open my eyes, I'd be somewhere else. Is it always like this?"

     "Hmmm...oes, sometimes...when you open your eyes you might find that you are somewhere else," he murmurs. "It's..." he pauses, smiling at you as you settle there. "...an In Between place," he murmurs, "...half in the mortal, material realm, half in the magical. Open your eyes slowly," he suggests...
     When you do... if you do...you will see that the peacock feathers are boughs of flowers, whose purple, red, green and blue blossoms drift ethereal, some falling and dissolving midair. The boards and structure of the bed is a great oak tree, its twisting great limbs serving as shelter and support. There is sunshine there, though it doesn't hurt him it doesn't seem. Maybe the curse only affects the material or mortal realm, and not those of faerie. Stands to reason, if it isn't a faerie curse...
     There is even the sky above, past clouds of drifting, transparent linens. And the sound of smooth rolling water, a stream somewhere. No, that's Welsh, words dripping from Davydd's mouth, smooth and honeyed. "Don't be alarmed if sometime you wake to find yourself there... surrounded by flowers... I'll be beside you," he assures you.
     Socks are removed, but all else appears to be staying on. At least for now. The tattoos shall take an entire evening to explain, and he shall explain them. No doubt, he'll want them studied. The bed shifts a little as he sits beside you, back propped up on the many pillows, legs stretching out. Then out comes the arm, heavy as it is, behind you. The universal sign for: Come here.

     "Is it always day, here?" It's almost dreamy in tone, though not entirely. She shifts, rubbing one eye with her palm, then dragging her hand through a hank of her hair, reaching up lazily as if to catch the drifting blossoms as they float through the transcendent air.
     Slowly, she leverages herself up to look at you, a brief moue puckering her mouth before she laughs. "I'll try not to be alarmed - or to wander off too far," she teases. "It's not like London - I might not be safe, right?" She's joking, really. For once, that's not one of her real concerns, it seems. Or maybe it's the surroundings...
     Your arm descends, and she shifts, turning towards you, hair tangling in on itself a bit as she rolls over. No sword in the way to bite her, after all, right? "I'm here, Davydd," Fiona murmurs, even if it's unnecessary. She repeats it again, shifting from English to Welsh. "It's a nice bed..."

     "Not always," he murmurs, arm sinking into the bedding beneath you, hand in your hair as he looks to the canopy above that is also the sky of his kingdom. "But when I want it to rise, the sun will show itself. Time has little meaning There. And... as far as safety goes... other than in my arms, it is the safest place to be. It's my kingdom, and you may wander through it all you like. The trees, long sleeping, have begun to wake," he whispers. "I am sure that flowers will spring wherever you walk." He turns his head and looks to you, lifting it slightly. "And you'll find me there. If you venture during the day... I'll be there... awake when I am sleeping here. Say my name and you'll find me..."
     Davydd isn't tired, the air hums with him, a subtle vibration like the waves of light. In his bed and in his arms, that power can very much be felt. In the back and forth tidal motion of his fingers curling and uncurling against your scalp, there may be something of the sea found, full of summer storms. His body is not unlike the oak tree. It is solid, solid earth and solid, solid form most formidable.
     His eyes were closed. They open again, and you can see more of that kingdom reflected there again. Deep, ancient stretches of oak woods, twisting branches, twisting streams. And when he sings, as he does now, his deep voice smooth as it moves over Welsh vowels and Welsh consonants, the entire world brightens, magic increases -- and your ability to see it. The chamber in Powis Castle seems to dissolve completely.
     How long can you stay... you have to return to work? His voice sounds as if he's whispering in your ear, but it's coming from within your mind as well, easing beneath your skin.

     She's sinking into the bed, into the grass, as if to go through and end up somewhere else. It's not so much that she's tired, though her 'day' has been long already. It's almost narcotic, is all - the most faerie exposure she's had since she came back from her strange little trip with Huw and Hwyll...
     "What happens if I say your name three times, Davydd?" She's quiet, almost drowsy with the weight of it, like water loading down her garments, her hair, pulling her beneath the waves of your presence. She isn't overwhelmed, but she's subdued by her own trust - an implicit faith placed in you. It's the closest to relaxed you've ever seen her.
     She leans in against you, meeting your gaze for a moment, then sighing a little, she leans forward, touching her nose to yours, then her cheek to your cheek, then subsiding, almost purring as you massage her scalp. The weight of her own hair can drag at her, at times... "That's nice," she whispers, eyes drifting shut, then opening again, wide, at the whisper in her mind, making her shift against you.
     Having to drag her mind to mundane daily schedules is reason enough to be slightly grumpy. Fiona frowns a moment, then shakes her head minutely, refusing to move too much or too far. "I took time off from the job in London to do this in Wales," she murmurs. "They said they'd be in touch on ... Tuesday. So I guess that depends what today was, doesn't it. - What is that you're doing, anyway...?"

     Eyebrows cock up and Davydd lifts his head. "I'll just get annoyed," he chuckles. No, it's certainly not tiredness, though you have reason plenty. It's just an easy intimacy and the release of magic always comes with its own brand of... afterglow, for lack of a better term. "Huw and Hwyll have never been of this world, nor are they as strong as I am," he murmurs. "I don't need a charm to go where I want. I go where I want. And I stay as long as I want." Don't worry, I'm not going to disappear. Even when you want me to.
     "I didn't mean to interrupt the vibe," he grins largely, "... I just want to know how much time I have to...woo you before you have to go punch the clock again..." Flowers drift downward, brushing against your skin. Not unlike the nervous kisses of adolescents.
     His are far from nervous...
     And you thought the fairy magic was a narcotic...
     "You mean the finger thing or..."
     The talking in your head thing...

     "Oh, good, then I'll have to remember to do that when I want to annoy you." And she'll want to - it's a given. Just ... not right now, when she's busy curling in against you, as if reluctant to pass up the opportunity to familiarize herself fleetingly with your scent and touch and warmth...
     Fiona's eyes drift closed again, eyelashes flickering down to her cheeks. "I don't need a charm now," she murmurs. Her tone stays hushed, as if to speak more loudly would be to disturb the sanctity of the place or of the moment. "I'll chase you off with a broom or with the sharp edge of my tongue if I need to."
     As if it were possible...
     Trying to break your nose didn't run you off, after all...
     One hand comes up to touch your cheek, your ear, drifting fingertips running through your hair, experimentally, exploringly before settling light-fingered against your shoulder, drifting back down to half-curl on your chest, clad though it is.
     "Glad you're not wearing armour," Fiona mumbles. "Might be romantic, but if you can't cuddle without a tin-opener..." She shivers again, answering, "That... in my head. I ... don't know what to make of it, exactly."
     It's not unpleasant - far from it. Two years ago she'd have been ready to kill you. Hell, two weeks ago, it would've been fifty-fifty either way...
     Now, it's just intimate, almost arousing, and another strange new thing to get used to, at least as much as the smell of you, the lift of your chest, the feel of your bed.

     I never really sported much armor, I was an archer. It got in the way... some chain, mostly leather and lots of it, layers...padding...
     Davydd rolls over to lie partly upon his side, his arms around you, they swallow you up in a hold as sheltering as the boughs of the oak tree that form this bed. In the magical realm, the tree that birthed the planks of the bed yet lives and so the bed becomes the tree. A strong hand yet remains in your hair, the rhythm of the curling and uncurling fingers the same, slow, steady like the waves of the ocean on the shore. The other is allowed to explore on its own, drifting, meandering, from the soft side of your face and neck to folds of clothing to simply resting. There seems to be no pattern, no rhyme to it, no other intent than to Know you, Learn you.
     Nose to nose, he opens his eyes, a shock of dark green and he smiles a little, most noted in the crinkling corners of his eyes. There's nothing at all rushed or fevered or frantic about any of it. When one has all of Time, one may take one's time enjoying what one wishes, and savoring it all. Smell of skin and hair, clothing, the taste of honey and vodka on the lips. Beyond that, the quality of that mouth itself, where it is plump, how it blushes.
     I talk to the trees this way. When you were taken to Tir Na Nog, trees from London shrubs to Welsh birch were talking about it. The quality of his voice. It's not merely that you can hear it without 'hearing' it, but it touches you beneath your skin, like his fingerprints, reaching inside you. Not taking anything from you, just.... touching.
     Touches that are echoed by his hand as it lifts from your hip to your face again. Davydd laughs, the laughter softly, warmly audible. Throaty, held in that broad chest to vibrate. "Sharp edge of a tongue, hmm? There's better ways of employing it you know," he rumbles. He grins, unable to help it. Even if he wanted to.
     He smells of summer things: the cool earth in the shade...
     ...like the taste of cool water ...
     Sunlight...
     Honey and of flowers...
     Nothing mundane and everything of Summer...

     "Mmm..." It's not even acknowledgment so much as it is reaction. It's all a little shocking; last night she slept alone in her bed without any touches upon her skin as she had for every night of her life. And now ...
     All that's changed...
     Her fingers curve against your chest, then straighten, palm flattened against the front of your shirt. Her eyes are drifting, closed to half-mast, greys and blues coloring her pupils like drifting reflections on dim water. "It feels nice," Fiona murmurs, the colour rising in her face a bit. "I'm ... not used to it, but ... I could get there."
     Her lips part, hovering open as if to utter something unsaid and then leaving it there, paused in the air, invitation or statement, the heaviness of the air a caress to the senses as much as anything. Her hand slides down, then over to your side, twisting the material of your shirt absently and then smoothing it so that it lies still again.
     "It must've been an interesting conversation. For you, I mean." She feels almost as if she's losing herself, all the humid molecules pulling apart to drift in the feel of the voice in her head. "Mmm... keep that up and maybe I won't cut my hair..."
     Apparently, she approves of the massage; she shifts position, her hand on your side, matching herself to you. Chest to chest, hip to hip, thigh to thigh, cheek pillowed again on your arm as much as any cushion.
     "Better ways," Fiona retorts lazily, even though she reddens. "If I'm giving you the rough edge, there's a reason for it, Llewellyn ... Old man." Her voice is soft, affectionate, without the usual baiting barb to it, the antagonistic sting intended to keep you at bay. She purses her lips for a moment, though, mischief lighting up her face, waking her a bit.
     "Or, of course, I could shock you and offer to employ my tongue right here and now..." She pauses, watching your expression covertly, then offers a mirthful grin that turns up the corners of her mouth and crinkles her nose. "I love you, Davydd. Oak King or not... I've decided I want to be yours. But that means I expect the same, you know..."

     And suddenly your sky is less drifting, transparent canopies or drifting clouds across a fairy kingdom's sky and more solid damn Welshman. Like the world just overturned, down is up and up is down. Sky is earth and earth is now sky. "Dw i'n ti caru," he says again, saying it only in his tongue, the language of the northern mountains, where it may carry his full meaning.
     "You know what they say, a dragon in hand..." Worth two in a bush? Is that how it goes? A finger traces the outline of your mouth, then presses lightly, not quite a shh-ing motion, his other hand to the surface of the bed. He hovers over you a moment. "Tonight, we will employ our hands," he recommends. "...maybe tomorrow it will be our tongues. Yes, I think tomorrow. It's been a full enough day and night for you already, Fiona-bach."
     His hand leaves your mouth, and he takes one of your own hands, so much smaller than his own. Davydd lifts it to his mouth, leaving behind a kiss, a press of his mouth upon the center of your palm, and then beneath your fingers you feel solid earth of a most male form and the sudden absence of a sweater.
     Cloth drifts somewhere, tossed to the foot of the bed as he slowly lowers himself back to his place beside you. A Blue, swirled wonder. Vibrant, beaming. Dragons are poised and plants and the seeds of nine trees. Upon each broad shoulder, across his chest, surrounding each large bicep (definitely an archer), around each wrist (you've seen those before!), and peeking just above the waist of trousers, more blue. In this bed, they glow with a difference and the flowers and plants come each with their own scent, the heather is even purple, the leaves rustle, and the dragons ...one could swear they were real enough to move on their own.

     Shock compounds shock - the world's overturned again, and Fiona blinks dazedly through grey and green shadows of her pupils to you. You know her too well; of course she was about to speak, to question, to protest, to - something. Reaction almost always finds voice in her...
     Her hand comes up to your lips, even as she murmurs weakly, "I wasn't entirely ..." Serious? Offering? Complaining? Too much could go into that trail of ellipse, words ending in a little sigh at the feel of you, followed by another blink.
      ...Hang on, there was a sweater there, wasn't there?
     Blink is followed by blank, amazed stare, eyes grown wide with bemused wonder as she tilts her chin, cants her head to look at you. Her lips are parted again, and she sits up slowly, leaning towards you, the silken whisper of her hair languid along the blankets.
     "You're beautiful, you know," she murmurs, still staring, not at your face but at your body and the marks a part of it. Carefully, she lifts one hand, glancing to your face now as if for permission, fingertips moving to your left bicep.
     She strokes a finger along the line of the white dragon from tail to snout and across to its blue mate. "Duality," Fiona murmurs. "This is how you talk to the trees, isn't it? But there's more to you than just what shows."
     She glances up again, a smile blossoming slowly as she teases, "You're deep, Davydd, for all your simple pleasures..." Her fingers remain on your bicep, as if feeling the strength there, touch light enough to fly away.
     Fiona lifts her other hand, leisurely, moving it to your right wrist, straightening to her knees. "This one I've seen before," she comments. "I suppose you could say we've met ... even if not been properly introduced. That first night... electric sparks. We're lucky we didn't start a fire. Am I overdressed now, Davydd?"

     "Not at all, stay as you are if you like," he says. No, this isn't about pulling off all articles of clothing and squirming around until one passes out. It's not like that at all. This time is for you, yours to study, the terrain of your man, a kind of kingdom that it is. "There's more," he murmurs, "....but you don't have to see everything the first night." He grins at that notion, settling back to be studied.
     "Heather," he says of the right, "...Holly," he says of the left. "Life and Death, War and Peace, you might say. Destruction on the left; Restoration on the right. Each one has layers of meanings, I'll let you sort the rest of it out, I won't take away your fun. And behind each one is a separate power." Davydd chuckles at the notion of fire-starting. "It is good I am right handed. I fear what would have happened had I grabbed you with my left hand at that moment. Hmm... watch this," he whispers. Rolling up, he leans against you, then glances to the other side of the room. A precious heirloom shatters. At a whisper of something older than Welsh, the heirloom appears as it did before the ...outburst of energy. Good as new.
     Literally...
     Fiery eyebrows waggle again. Nifty, eh? "And...oes... the duality...communication. The mouths forever opened." He grins a wry grin. "See? It is ordained that I'm a loudmouth, I can't help it that I can talk to walls and mean it."
     Settling back down upon the bed, he leaves himself open to your inspection. A mountain of a man with a warrior's physique (but precious few scars), he's also lacking hair now on shoulders, chest, stomach and even on his arms wherever the tattoos grace him. "There's another one on my back and then... well... you'll see..." he mutters somewhat ominously. Turning his red head upon the pillow he looks up at you. "Diolch," he whispers, smiling broadly again. "Am I a beauty? Hmm? Well, if you find me so it's well enough for me," he rolls out in earthy tones. "You're a far lovelier sight, I assure you...that hair, the figure, the face, the eyes, the smell of your skin... I can go on, you know.."

     "The vest can come off in a minute," Fiona murmurs, less coyly than absently, still lost in regarding your skin. It's not even the absorption of someone regarding a painting by someone else - that's far too passive. It's more as if she were losing herself in a book, her hands gentle upon your pages, upon your skin, upon the colours that mark and make you.
     "Not Holly and Ivy, mm?" Fiona nods slowly, then glances down with a small smile, and up to watch you again. "It's a good thing I didn't know about all of this sooner... I might have - I'm not sure how I'd have reacted, but I suspect I'd have behaved badly."
     You lean up against her, and carefully, she rests a hand upon your hip, turning her cheek to watch, eyes widening as you first destroy, then remake an item. Her eyes go as blue as they've gone wide as she turns to look to your face.
     "Now I know why you like to be fed... it gives you something else to do with your mouth," Fiona mutters, then smiles as you settle down once again. She shifts to strip off the black suede of her vest, tossing it in the direction the sweater went, then leaning forward to pore over you again.
     "I like how you're put together," she confesses, as if admitting to a terrible sin. Her palms lift, then come down very lightly to hover against your chest, just skimming the surface. "I recognize some of these... Not from my own learning, but I do recognize it, just a little," she murmurs, dragging her palms down so that there are hazel leaves framed in the spaces between her fingers, dragon scales arcing from fingernail to fingernail.
     She looks up to your face, a rosy blush overcoming her again. "I'd have trouble believing you no matter what you said, you know," Fiona murmurs. "I'm not ugly, but I'm not like this, either." She lifts one hand drawing a fingertip down to your stomach, then across to your left shoulder. "I'm almost ordinary in comparison. Not even a tattoo left to my name..."

     Davydd grins -- that mouth makes its fiery, comet expression. It's not just a little suggestive, suddenly. Or maybe, with him half-clothed it couldn't help but be suggestive. "The tattoos... they are likely beneath the surface," he notes. "Elements of your own control. Not every 'mark' is as obvious, but are you marked? Yes, I would say so, Fiona Arundel..."
     He leans up, his hand sliding against your hair, and your scalp again, left hand Holly disappearing among the cornsilk. the suggestive vines at his stomach, the brief tangle of ... mistletoe... no, most of that tattoo is covered by the trousers. But what is there ripples with the folding of musculature upon itself.
     His mouth covers yours, and this is no simply pulling kiss but a claiming:
     You are mine.
     I am yours.
     And like that night in the pub, at the art gallery, there are layers to the sensation of it...
     Glamour dissolves like sugar on joined tongues...
     And when joined tongues coil a sudden serpentine, the mundane world melts away...
     Flowers sprout upon the linens where you and he have lain, spreading golden and roseate, pinks and magentas and all the colors of a summer sunrise.

Every kind of love -- or at least my kind of love
Must be an imaginary love to start with
Guess that can explain the rain -- waiting walking game
Schubert bust my brain to start with...
     You and he sink into the bed that is more than a bed, softer than grass but fragrant with marigold and the wild things of a fertile world, a living, breathing, vibrant world. Mouths suckled, the kiss explores itself, taking on its own existence. And your lover is golden, a warrior brushed with golden powder light, and in the kiss the dragons and blue trees swirl, vibrancy again.
     You feel his weight -- and it is great, though it is balanced -- briefly, an indication of what else his strength might bring to bear as he slides and sinks above you before lifting himself away, weight thereafter partly given to the bed to let you breathe. Green eyes are deeper still and they watch you, not closing, not missing a particle of this, or of you. The shirt loosens beneath his fingers -- not quite dissolving, but it does begin to fall away, fingers trailing against revealed skin so soft, laying out the path that his mouth will follow, scouts to this pleasure beginning.
     And in their wake, warmth like sunlight...
Every kind of love ... or at least my kind of love
Must be an imaginary love to start with
Guess that can explain the rain ...waiting walking game
Schubert bust my brain to start with...

     It's all new. Some people hop from relationship to relationship, from bed to bed, hoping to recreate that sort of newness - the 'new to you' instead of just 'new'. But for Fiona, it's all new, and brilliantly coloured beyond the palette of the past.
     She watches you, eyes open now, widening for a moment with the faint twitch of expanding pupils in changing light and shadow, almost the kitten you've named her; relaxed with that wire-thin tension to hold her together as your fingers slide into her hair again, as she watches you approach, only closing after your mouth makes free with hers.
     There is no resistance to that claiming. What you take and what you give, she goes to willingly, her hands coming up to either side of your face, touching gently along your cheeks, against your ears, along the nape of your neck and finally settling in on your shoulders.
     Magic has no choice but to answer magic. Whatever her wardrobe, she's gone through the world naked, and how much more naked is she now, with prickles or claws drawn? Fiona sighs to your mouth, eyes opening again, taking in what she sees in a dazed wonder-world.
     It is New...
     But that's not necessarily bad...
     Breathing again becomes an option; she isn't flattened, though she's breathless, blinking slowly as the vast shadow of You moves so that the sun no longer is eclipsed. Her shirt slides away, and there's a darkening flush which stains her skin, across the bridge of her nose, across her collarbone. It isn't the first time she's been naked...
     But it's the first time she's been nude with you...
     One hand lifts lazily, as if the air were thickened, pushing through resistance like water - no slice but a slow, languid push that ends with her fingers trailing along your chest before falling to cover one of your hands, pressing it to her skin. She is moongold and moonsilver, drenched in your sunlight...
     She glows with your touch, purple shadows in her hills and valleys of autumn crocus, apple blossoms to dust cheeks and skin where there lie mountain peaks. She is soft beneath your weight and touch - defined without angles, without the extremes of the Modern Age.
     There is no time but Now and no need for history to tell us the way. No need for any classification but the name which defines the You and the Me...
     A small gasp follows upon trails of thought and pleasure, her hand sliding from yours. Both arms stretch up to above her head, wrists lazily crossed as she looks to you; look at me, her glance invites. Is it what you hoped, Oak King? What you dreamed of? Not Isabel, not Rosamund, not even Sandrine... The kiss-darkened lips part, and from somewhere far off, Fiona finds her voice.
     "...Is it Spring yet, Davy-bach?"

     The eyebrows quirk up despite themselves -- a reflexive motion. It's how he registers thought. Matched with smoldering eyes, it's how he first registers delight, the moment before his eyes sharpen into arrows, glinting desire at the end of oak points. Oak points become point pricks at your skin, just a brush of Holly as his left hand lays a light touch down the center of your chest, eyes trailing downward to watch the fingers roll over the rise and fall of a breast that has known no touch but their own.
     No touch by our own...
     It is new...
     That must make it Spring...
     The lips tilt upward unconsciously, and his eyes leave the autumn-blush apples of your complexion. He may be the twitch of summer, but you are the quickening of that twitch, aren't you. Together, will you give birth to the world again. God and Goddess, man and woman, Adam and Eve with a difference?
     It is new...
     It is the Beginning...
     Again...
     "Here and now it is Spring," the Welsh lilts and rolls from him and over you, audible sound that sinks beneath your skin as his mouth finds the hollow heart of your throat. You feel him from the inside, outside in, as a heated mouth takes a breast, like the god of summer takes fruit from the tree. Plucked and roiling...
     It is past spring already...
     And well into summer...
     The suckle of mouth and the flick of tongue, even the light scrape of blunted teeth, from one blushing breast to the next in slow and all-consuming warmth...
     The buzz of bees...
     The drip of honey...
     Magic runs through you like a herd of deer, stamping the evidence of desire in reddening skin, rising flesh -- him and you both -- and his hands grasp your hips as his mouth trails downward still, the last evidence of your vestments in the process of removal. Soon it will all be stripped away, and virgin gardens will send their petals to color the ground. There is energy, cresting. Crackling in the air, and the soft whispers of music. Is he singing?
     Strong hands, strong arms pull clothing away, and a cant is whispered, somewhere -- maybe it's just the world singing but with his voice as his mouth dips between the juncture of your hips.

     Oh god. It is a little like death.
     She doesn't feel endangered, but that relaxation is fast fleeing until she is taut beneath you, taut with want, with need. The sinuous arch of her back is matched by the low sigh of her breath, the answer to your touch, to your claim.
     You speak, and it seeps into her, moving through her bones until they are quite hollow, a bird creature, all fluttering wings and discarded feathers, emerging from a fragile shell. And then your mouth is upon her breast, and all air is expelled from her lungs.
     Energy feeds upon energy, the soft cry that escapes her at the feel of you joining in the circling of that energy. That you move slowly feeds it more - it is a summer storm that is being built, no matter how sweet the taste.
     Her hands lift to the back of your head, cradling you to her breast and sliding slowly, without drowsiness, through the hair which is so red. You are fire and earth tonight, and how can she be anything but air and water, all sighs and moans and dissolution beneath you? How many women could bear the weight of the earth and the heat of the flame without being such?
     Breathing is habitual, but it has not been like this, with the skipping heartbeat and the needle-thin voice of breath high and low. Her hands slide from your hair to your back, fingers pressing in slowly as she drags them along your spine, feeling the muscles as if to call them out by name. And she is becoming nude, more than she ever has been - she has been painted without clothing and defense, but never has she been as defenseless as underneath you now.
     Your mouth descends, and hers opens, as if in shock, head pressing back to sweet rushes for pillows. "S-summer, Davydd? I - oh, I think there's more than a season's worth in this..." Fiona whispers it, words coming with more difficulty than mere difficulty alone. If you are the bowman, then she is the string of that bow that you pluck, quivering until stilled.

     There is the briefest breeze of coolness, like the comforting shade of an oak tree on a hot summer day. It wraps around you as the rest of your clothing is parted, lifted and sent to the end of the bed to lie in piles with the others. A brief moment where, with the disconnection of his mouth from your flesh, you felt the respite of the true season -- the ending gasp of winter, the first breath of spring...
     But then his mouth descends again, his arms coiling around your waist, his shoulders bracing beneath your thighs. It comes like dawn, opening the world, the cresting of his mouth against you. Rays move over, rays slip in and the circuit between you is renewed...
     Plucking...
     Dancing...
     Swirling...
     Coiling...
     Is this the 'dragon thing'?
      And now you know why he can ... play anything with strings...
     Guitar or harp...
     Violin or piano...
     Bow...
     Such strength in his arms, when he grasps you around your hips and waist, his arms surrounding and holding you firm to keep you with him no matter how your hips may swerve or squirm, the dragons on the great biceps peek past your thighs and show themselves. Willowbrace, the source of the constant whispering song -- the communication of the world with itself, you hear it as much as he, softly in the background, singing. Elder groves and elder leaves, transformation unending. One being becoming another... man that become bird that flies to your window that pecks against the glass and asks you to let him in... man that becomes a tree of the grove you walk through, the earth beneath your feet...
     The ring around your finger...
     Green eyes open to watch you -- a moment of Sight. You are gorgeous...amazing... beautiful, magical girl... He feels you vibrate beneath him like the string of a bow plucked by his tongue with every swirl...
     With every dip of his tongue...
     Within...
     Without...
     He's already inside you...that's it, the feeling of his voice...
     When his tongue is next, it makes the circuit complete... and the energy rifles through him and you both. He is pleased as much as he pleases. And between your thighs he sings your name.

     The coolness is welcomed as a brief respite to fevered heat. Oh no, she does not want this fever to break, but Time... all in due Time...
     Little touches have turned into large ones, and she is drowning in them, like the full moon drowning its reflection in a barrel of water, you have her held fast, even without touching her. She'd said that if she laid down a little in love with you, she'd get up large...
     This is bigger than she is, and where in the past she's fought it for its enormity, now she welcomes it, welcomes you, with her inexperience and virginity worn like a translucent veil to be parted.
     In the penthouse in London, her painting begins to glow, the mirror anchor of her made jealous by what she has and it has not...
     Normally such compliments would get scoffing from her, or perhaps even provoke her into retorts or some small dismissal. But you have her pinned, the warmth of your voice deep in her, holding her trembling beneath you, russet silhouettes against her vision as she looks down upon the crown of your head. What you do to her has her more helpless than she has ever been.
     And for the first time, she glories in it.
     Her fingers slide through your hair, twining and sliding free, lower lip caught between her teeth in mock-savagery, holding back a mewling soft cry that threatens to become full-throated. She cannot keep still, but you hold her, so that none of her shifting and squirming can free her of you.
     She said she was drawn to you for your strength, yes...
     "Davydd," the name is ragged and tattered, worn upon her lips as a banner and a summons. It's in answer to her own name, but there's Meaning packed into it. If she could speak to your mind as you do to yours... it says many things.
     I love you...
     I need you...
     It's too much, I can't handle it...
     If you stop I'm going to have to kill you...
     Tensed magic sheeting over her skin, dripping from her - your kingdom glows with Summer, and with heady scents of Spring. And the kingdom next door is beginning to chime and peal through all the meadows with the tolling of bluebells and snapdragons.

     It was bound to happen, cariad...
     Our lands border one another, did you know that? The bells that are pealing across the meadows of your kingdom resonate in my own. We are the vibration of corresponding notes that, when joined, are more powerful than three octaves. Your kingdom is hills and valleys, dales and meadows, flowers and new buds of a soft, sweet, wakening earth...
     As sweet as you are in my mouth...
     And where it joins mine, at the border, there is a certain copulation of rich soil. Trees spring upward -- how's that for a metaphor -- forests form, rivers flow and blossoms that were budding turn to full on tangles, dripping nectar at the persistent humming, throbbing and pollination of bees...
     There is no stopping now, far from it. Buds and flowers and honeyed petals are opened, spread, tasted, devoured with a quickening mouth, trilling tongue -- the same one that lilts over poetry and music in Welsh is lilting over you now, and your moans, your words, your twists and your turns are like extensions of the language he is speaking.
     I love you, too...
     Dw i'n ti caru...
     He did hear you. It does go both ways...
     The Oak King cups you, you feel the spread of his hands beneath you, he cups you to his mouth. Remember your books of magic, little witch? The goddess is the chalice of the god. And you have become his.
     Magic comes with the tension, it builds it, fills it, plucks it, makes it quiver in you both. For he's tightened as much as you have. Fingers grasp, pulling, lifting your hips now and again from the surface of the bed, held aloft to float beneath his mouth. He groans, throat-held, some sound of pleasure, some string of murmured delight that cannot be translated verbatim.
     The storm experiences its first crackling of lightning, rolling over the hills from your kingdom to his, snapping from forest to grove, from his tongue to your body and within it. His arms come round you again, bracing your thighs as he feels them trembling beneath him...
     At least to save him the inadvertent kick in the head...
     Davydd smiles against you and his mouth suckles. Queen Fiona... my little queen... mine... mine... mine...

     The rippling of muscles and of bedclothes is echoed in the rippling of rivers and streams. Lightning crackles, and rain falls, high upon the mountains, echoed by tears that escape her eyes to trickle down her cheeks unnoticed.
     The river will rise in its bed, and overflow its banks...
     It cannot be held, any more than can the storm...
     She is wordless, though not soundless, taking what you give her, amplifying it and giving it back without fear or anger, with a shuddering joy that encloses her with your arms - with your mouth. The wind and water drive over the land, grass shining as it ripples in steady continuous waves down from the highest peaks to where two kingdoms meet at that border.
     Two entwined become one...
     O god ... I am yours, more than I am anything, more than I am my own ...
     This thing that I am, it is yours...
     She is braced by your strength, and it subdues her violence. She is shadow of twilight and glimmer of dawn, the halfway and between places, and it pours from her to you with a high, keening note, a cry of surrender though you did not seek to conquer.
     Yes, yours... Fiona's hips lift from the bedded earth, coming down again, hands digging in against your shoulders, fingernails biting slightly for a moment before the small hands fall away to either side of her head.
     "There is nothing of mine which will not be yours," she whispers, shuddering. "Oh, Davydd..."
     It is too real to be a dream. And oddly fitting that you should be the one to crown her queen of her own realm, even while taking her in yours.

     And just think... this is only the Beginning...
     Soft mouth, wide, warm, but gentle landing lights upon and across a trembling stomach. Flesh was reddened where nails bit for a moment -- he likes the thorns, it's there in his eyes. He smiles as he lifts from you, the Oak King shadowing your spread form, sheltering, protecting. Davydd bends in the echoes, smiling...the great rock responsible for all your rippling... and suckles sweetly at each breast. Like he's going to start the process all over again...
     Oh, he wouldn't... would he?
     The taste of you is sweet on his lips, his tongue, the echoing hum and energy still there. Wordlessly, but with a greater building of energy, his left hand bears him over you as his right hand frees him from the remainder of the clothing. A twist of hips, a groan and a kick, and the wool trousers go flying.
     For that time, that energy-crammed handful of moments, he says nothing. He lets you look at him again. Know him before he knows you, like a kind of introduction.
     Rigid, thick, and completely covered in swirls of dragons, spiraling from root to crown, even the crown was not spared, no part of him there was spared. The rest are the depicted clumps of mistletoe, noble tree (though shrub) of fertility, virility, gathered, twisting all along his groin from the root of length, down to spiral in Celtic waves at the juncture of his own thighs.
     Smiling, heady, Davydd lowers himself a little, lets you feel his weight a little, to get used to it. His hands, his fingers brush at your flaxen hair, cornsilk, in color and in softness. "There will be some pain, I think you know," eyebrows quirk a little. "But I will go slowly," he breathes, mouth at your chin. You feel him throb against your stomach, and power emanates from it. It is the root of everything, yes. Kings carry scepters for a reason. And his...
     Davydd lifts again, hands sinking into the bedding. He watches you, his eyes are on your eyes, your face -- though your breasts are distracting, he'll note that in a while to be sure. And he holds for a moment, glancing down to his own length where it is pressed to your stomach still, his hips moving just slightly back and forth. Are you ready?

     There are no more words left in her, not now, not at this moment. Time will have to wait; for patient as Time is, she is taking this moment to watch, to look, still flushed with fever-motions, lips parted and thighs lazily spread, one knee crooked, both arms still splayed out at uneven angles as she looks.
     Her lips part as if in question as she looks at you, as she draws the sight of you in beneath her surfaces. Blue eyes trace and track where the needles worked across your chest and down, look to your thighs and then up - even in her current state, she can't entirely suppress the blush that rises.
     You are nude, and you are male...
     More male and more masculine than many, and that masculinity is upon display for her, not in your nudity alone but in the essential You. It is what makes you the Oak King, the rutting lord of Summer. And if she were not aware of her own femininity before, she is reminded by the sight of you, by the sight of the knowledge of you - and the lurking knowledge and intimation of What Is Yet To Come.
     "Oh..." Fiona sighs it as you lean to her, as you stroke her hair. There is an echoing pulse in her at the throb against her stomach, a rawness which forms a current in her blood. "Slow, slow is good," she manages, voice held to not above a murmur, barely above a whisper. "I..."
     It is in her eyes and her face, the vulnerability - the openness. She will not refuse you now...
     She is unprepared for it, but in knowing of her lack of preparation, she is prepared. There is acceptance in her gaze and in her expression, and Fiona tips her head back, arms moving slowly, hands drifting up to stroke gentle palms along your torso to your shoulders, pressing lightly downwards upon the strength in them. Then ...
     She lifts her hands away to over her head, crossing her wrists there, and slowly, cautiously, she eases the press of her thighs a little more apart. There is the lingering of where your mouth has been to remind her, to warn her.
     You are male... but she is welcoming. "Yours, Davydd," Fiona whispers, voice softened and blurred, but unmistakably hers. "I'm yours. I want this... I want you. My love, my heart, my only king..."

     He crowned you and you crown him, a mutual coronation, and two kingdoms fall to a hush for it, like an awed crowd. There is only the sound of This. Your words, your soft voice echoing, the bed shifting in the nearly imperceptible motion -- a bed on One Side, oak tree creaking softly in the Other. There is the sound of your skin against the fabric of the bed, his against yours, and the constant, steady drumbeat of his own pulse.
     Time in the In Between and between you seems to stop altogether....

Twelve king fisher birds shall you have
Dive and swim in the ripples of your laugh
O I dreamed you were a Jewel
Sitting on golden crown on my head...my head... my head
Look at the tiny oceans in my hand
Waves of liquid colours touch the sand
O I dreamed you were a jewel
Sitting on golden crown on my head...
my head...
my head...
     You feel him there, the world crystallizes between you and when he sinks within, slowly -- very slowly -- if your eyes are open you will see it ripple through him. I am yours... this is yours. His eyes do not leave you, even though in this sweetness they want to close, in the intensity they want to squeeze, but he forces them to remain on your eyes, on your face, and calm...
     Davydd half-closes his eyes, he can feel the clench and clasp, he can feel the maidenhead, and his entire body, from neck to shoulder, shoulder to arm to chest, and torso to thigh and calves tighten for a motion of slow concert.
     The ripple becomes the curling body thrust beginning at his left shoulder (oak) and ending at his toes. And he seems to swell within you -- as if he needed to be larger there. He murmurs your name as he pushes slowly through...
     ...and past...
     and until he can go no further...
     Davydd holds still for a moment, blinking with effort, watching your face and for the thousand, myriad cues it will give him. Slowly he lowers, his great form lying flush against your own, but the weight born cleverly off of you by the wide placement of knees to the bedding.

     Oak and ash and thorn...
     Isn't that one of those old, old sayings? Said as blessing or curse upon strangers - hoping for the best, fearing for the worst...
     Has the world ever been more topsy-turvy than this?
     Rivers swell, flowers burst into bloom. Berries ripen sweetly upon their branches, brambles and briar roses sending runners as in announcement...
     Was there anyone, of all the nodding sages and seers and prophets, who predicted this?
     She squeezes her eyes tightly closed against the prickle of tears. Gentleness alone cannot entirely overcome the pain of being stretched, of being broken - for all that she welcomes you, it is a New Thing, it is impossible not to squeeze down involuntarily at the alienness of it, before muscles are willed stubbornly into release, deep breaths taken to trickle out slowly from between clenched teeth.
     Her eyes do open, cheeks wet with tears, lower lip caught firmly between her teeth. It hurts, the blue eyes seem to say, oh, it does hurt...
     She could not take root where she is, for even as she lies there beneath you, she trembles, little ripples and shivers widening through her, until suddenly, she stops.
     Eyes grown large, she pauses on held breath, pent-up energy coiled as you move in her, make contact with that which has kept her a virgin for these long and seemingly endless years. There is pain, yes - the pain of being stretched, broken, torn - but there is magic in attendance...
     Over two kingdoms, the storm has lashed at the earth. Now the storm washes away, leaving brilliance in its wake, the sky scrubbed clean and new for warmth and sunlight...
     Around a tall tower, green vines spring up from the earth, climbing towards the sun, white flowers tinged with soft purple opening their faces upwards. The great gates swing open at long last, the chiming of the bells growing loud as they ring across the land...
     All along the BritRail route from Welshpool to London, lightbulbs glow silver, then brighter and brighter to golden hue before they alternately either dim or explode...
     Lifting her hands tremblingly, Fiona rests them on your shoulders, as if to push away, but she doesn't push; they just rest there as you slide the rest of the way into her, tears escaping her again. Her lips form your name with no sound, no air behind them, breath coming in shallow noiseless gasps.
     "Davydd..."
     There are lilies along the river now, rampant and proud, and wild beasts pause, hushed, at the echo of the name across two kingdoms of faerie, a whispered name which echos in certain places in the world some consider the only real one...

     With the consummation made and virginity rended, power tightly coiled is loosed against him, around him, and he answers it, the circuit you make between you humming alive, spilling...to quote Amergin, it is like the ninth wave of the sea...
     There is such love there, such tenderness and such care in his eyes and in his following motions. Davydd lowers against you. Curling and uncurling, his fingers slip in cornsilk hair, his arms on either side of your face. He cradles you. He kisses you, mouth pulling, suckling, and he looks at you, and at your tears. Davydd ap Owain closes his eyes only then, as if in reverence, and he drinks the tears as his mouth brushes across each eyelid and lash.
     And he moves in you again...
     The roll of his body is like the roll of the land, the roll of the sea. The second wave may be easier to bear than the first, the third better than the second, and so on. But it is slow, each slow roll and thrust within punctuated by a plucking, half-lingering kiss. Upon lips. Upon cheeks. Upon eyelids, forehead, chin and mouth again. His body is as hard as the soil beneath this castle, as the oak tree that forms the bough-lined bower of this bed -- but his touch is soft. Careful. Mindful.
     But unrelenting...
     In the kingdom of the Oak King, a field of Oak and Summer and fabled Avalon, a many-towered, red castle stands, Powis but an echo of its greater, actual self -- this material world not the 'real' world, this castle but a figment, like this bed. And the land that has been held in a seeming perpetual winter and fall is renewed. For there can be no king without the land, and no land without the king. But the trees have sprouted leaves, the grass is renewed, the rivers flow full, the meadows full of deer, the forests of ancient trees going green once more.
     "It will pass," Davydd says at your mouth, "I promise," he whispers again, and he lifts in a cool rush and a warm rush of air. Your hands upon his shoulders slide to his chest and arms, and his legs go wide, You are pinned, however gently it is still pinning. And he moves again...
     Now, not quite as slowly...
     It will be alright the assurances come with other sounds now, sounds of his own pleasure, deep sounds punctuating the slide of skin to skin, the sounds of the bed making a rhythm, the rhythm finding itself...
     And the castle gleams with it...
     While lightbulbs burst and dim from Wales to London, his energy remains contained -- within you, surrounding you both. Like the cresting of the sun, it moves over him, over you and through you. The air is thick -- as thick as he is -- lightning bursts popping against his skin, dragons swirling at his shoulders, wrists and arms. Summer storms and summer strength, summer power within you rising. He hardens, tightens, and now he is singing your name upon the end of punctuating moans.
     From Welshpool to London, it is an early spring...

     She holds onto you as you kiss her mouth, lips parted upon the naming of you still as she remains caught helplessly beneath you, nerves all in a tangle. The kiss soothes somewhat; the pain cannot be undone or taken away, but it eases the jangle and buzz of emotions attached.
     Oh, but it does still hurt...
     You move, and she gasps sharply, as much out of expectation, anticipation of hurt as any pain it might actually cause. Tremblingly, she forces some notion of release of that pent-up tension into her muscles, reluctant though they are to cooperate. It makes little enough sense to struggle...
     A small sigh escapes her at the feel of you, not just in her but over her. There is something in her which cries for that hardness of the earth which is you...
     "I'll hold you to that," Fiona breathes out, her lips to yours, and then you lift, and subside over her, and into her, her eyes going wide again, even as daisies grow wild and colorful along meadows and rivers' edges in sudden merry celebration. "Oh..."
     Pennants unfurl along the tower walls, the stones gleaming, washed clean of their lingering grey. The feel of your voice in her is a steadying thing, the warmth burnishing a path through her chest to the pit of her stomach, occupying her much as you do now. Her hands ball in the bedclothes in one world, in spring grass and flowers in another as she takes comfort in your shelter and shade, even as she gives herself to you.
     She lets out a soft cry, inarticulate and high-pitched, watching you with half-dazed eyes, taking your pleasure into herself, giving of herself. The heaviness of your flesh against her is welcomed; it is real, it is you, it owes nothing to anyone or anything, least of all to some reckless figment...
      What can one do, even a queen of spring, when confronted by the full weight and breadth of Summer? There is a question, a riddle in all of this, which Fiona answers the only way she knows, by sheer instinct rather than learning...
     With a lingering scent of apples and sweet rushes, she looks to you, watching your expressions, very slightly shifting under your weight, within the prison of your hard form and movements, spreading her thighs. Oh, it still hurts... it will not stop hurting just yet... What she has given will not be so quickly forgotten by her, after all...
     But this she can do, and she does, tilting her pelvis up just slightly towards you, whispering in your storms, calling to your dragons, calling to you...
     "Oak King, Summer Lord," Fiona whispers, trying to capture your green eyes, "I am yours... yours by right and by love, by strength and by conquest. You have me... Davydd..."
     "Dw i'n ti caru..."

     Dw i'n ti caru...
     Dw i'n ti caru
     Pennants snap in the wind from one kingdom to another, his standards... long swaths of red cloth edged in sunlight gold, streaming out in the persistence of summer heat, in high August, his birth month, when there is no escaping it, not beneath shady bower or grove. It is the season of quick storms, quivering earth beneath the shock of lightning and thunder, of rainbursts, and bursts of life. Mating in fields, quickening seeds, blossoms becoming leaves, bearing the promise of fruit and nuts. It is fire, the bel-fire.
     The meeting of his body to yours beats out the measure of the season, quickening percussion of skin meeting skin, of bed meeting wall in Powis. The creaking of hardwood boughs at the gust of strong, summer wind.
     The tilting of your pelvis is like the tilting of the earth, Midsummer Day and Midsummer Night. You call him by his name, and his eyes find you. And the eyes of nine dragons times nine. He is the sun, though he cannot look upon it with mortal eyes. He fills you with light. Thrusting deeply, quickly ... each time it feels as if he will strike against your heart...
     Isn't that what he is doing, precisely...
     Eyes half-lidded, but you can see the wide open spaces of his kingdom in them again. Green fields now flush with pink primrose and the yellow broom, unending. Davydd ap Owain, the Oak King, grins, a comet streaking across his mouth again, a dragon's tail smile, radiant...
     As he is...
     As you are...
     From Welshpool to Amesbury, from Amesbury to the Salisbury Plain, golden flowers spread over the valleys...
     And then his mouth is claiming yours again, as widely, heatedly as it did in the beginning. A double-helix you create -- writhing dragons sliding in and out of you, coiling tongues of serpentine, Celtic beasts above. Magic explodes....
     And love...
     And Life...
     Through you, a rush, like the licking of flames beneath your skin, all rhythm lost in groans and slaps, your mouth freed with a loud and guttural sound, his mouth closing over a breast.
     "Dw i'n ti caru," Davydd murmurs there, tongue rolling over the rise of a nipple. A line of summer fire is what it makes as his body rights itself, holding still within you.
     It's like the sun is rising...
      ... beneath your skin...
     You are the world beneath the light of it, just as you are beneath him...
     Strong thighs lie wide, but sliding, and his weight is on you again, but a little heavier with the cease of motion.
     It moves through you...
     Life...
     Radiance...
     Magic...
     And you can hear the whispers of the trees...
     Hail to the Queen of the Seven Towers...
     Hail to the King of Summer...

     It feels as though she should shatter under the ceaseless pace of you, even as she gives herself to you, even as you claim her. There is that helplessness, even as she turns to claim you, take you into herself, accepting the thrust and conquest which marks your claiming of her.
     She was born under a darker sky than yours, in the fullness of mid-autumn, leaves gold and red and green and brown upon the trees as they drift down from a sky most often gone grey and crisp. She is as much of Autumn as she is of Spring... Water to your earth, air to your fire, the pennants which fly are brilliant deep blue edged with moonlight silver, even as the Spring has come, become Summer, become one...
     Ten pairs of eyes are upon her, and all she is, is revealed, held open, a look of love and of passion upon her face, the fever bright gaze, the dark flush turning back to you, looking through you, with all the warmth reflected back to you, the ambient moon to your radiant sun. Each thrust gains a soft, rising cry, and your grin does nothing to keep her from rising beneath you in her limited course.
     Your mouth descends to hers, and she answers with her own mouth, the soft cupid's bow pressed up to your comet, needful of you, heedless of anything but that it is You. The magic floods through her, freed out through you into her and out again...
     The ability to breathe is something she has to relearn, now, the blue eyes drifting to halfmast, one hand lifting with difficulty to touch your cheek tenderly, a slow motion as if through resistance, fingertips sliding slickly to your shoulder and resting as she listens to the trees, bears your weight.
     "Welcome home, my heart," Fiona whispers. "Your kingdom... your woman... yours. Oh, I had no idea how much I would come to love you.."

     Energy passes from him... it becomes yours. Glamour, quickening, a burst of energy for you, perhaps, not so for him. He will get it back, however, do not worry. Even mortal men suffer such ebbing as the Immediacy of Now and Everything, the world held, all of existence borne by the male length, flows away...
     ... Rivers cut through the vibrant, fertile earth, silver flowing, full of salmon of shiny scales and green eyes. Wise from the swallowing of hazel nuts, like in the tales of Gwydion and Taliesin. There are waterfalls, rapids, where the rivers tumble over Brythonic stones worn smooth with a thousand years of such streams...
     Strong arms slip beneath you again, as his mouth lifts from your breasts, moving and brushing over your mouth, teasing in remembrance the fuller kisses that came before it, such playing. Davydd slants a drowsy smile, green eyes opening, widening a touch as if willing himself awake. And then the world tilts for you, as well, as you are lifted and rolled in his arms, positions shifted so that he becomes a second sort of bed for you, his length still lodged within you, his heartbeat reverberating there.
     His hand slips into cornsilk hair, fingers curling and uncurling again, the rhythm unconsciously matching that of his own pulse. Davydd turns his head slightly, lifting just a little, to brush a kiss against your forehead. "Welcome home, my queen," comes his answer in a throaty whisper, the earthy sound resonating in his chest. "... to my arms and to your own kingdom...your kingdom.... your man... yours..."
     A large hand claims a section of your hip, holding you to him. He will remain as he is, within you... but slackening slowly, naturally. No abrupt ending made to something so powerful. Hands softly knead and rub, as if that should be the answer to the discomfort. My beautiful, little queen... The nickname seems to be sticking.
     Fiery eyebrows cock up, and the mouth of Davydd ap Owain slants. I like that. Little queen. His fingers explore gently, just brushes now where he grasped before.

     Slowly, her toes uncurl from where they've dug into the loam and bedclothes to brace herself against the wave of you and of pleasure. Slowly, breathing becomes a natural thing once more, even with the still rapid flood of her pulse in her veins echoing in her ears, your pulse felt vivid against her skin wherever you and she overlap. She accepts you, the Glamour which fills her, suppurating through tangled limbs and slick skin.
     She curls against you, mouth puckering as you kiss her, watching your kingdom in your eyes, expression dreaming and empty of any trace of despair or fretfulness; she is in the Now, with you, and it is enough. It is good.
     You turn her, carrying her with you, and Fiona murmurs something in faint protest, a small groan escaping her. Oh, she's a bit sore, still... but reluctant to free herself from you or from that soreness...
     "Mine," she murmurs against the hollow of your shoulder for a moment, eyes closing as she presses her face in, sheltering in the Oak and earth of you. "I know what I was waiting for, now..."
     Her arms lift, sprawling over your shoulders, hands loose and languid as they brush against your hair and fall away, as she curls slightly on top of you. She makes no effort to dislodge you from inside of her, your hand making her sigh. She is still trembling very slightly, the bowstring of her well and truly plucked by the archer. Blue eyes dream faintly to clouded grey as they close, her lips brushing your chin, your cheek. "My blue warrior," she murmurs. "My leather-clad archer. My king... my lord."
     She finds new things to say, the soft roll of her voice matched by your fingers' exploration. The corners of her mouth curve upwards in almost feline satisfaction, and she shivers, nuzzling your ear. "Kitten or queen, Llewellyn... make up your mind, or I'll think you can't come to decisions and need a young woman like me to tend you in your dotage..."
     Oh, but it's still Fiona, after all, in all the poetry and the magic, and her eyes close, soft curves pressed and fitted to your hard muscles, the gradual yield of you still within her. She is not moving very much. She will be cursing you more on the morrow, when she discovers her stiffness and the soreness which attends it... "I should've jumped you years ago," she murmurs contentedly. "...Should've found you when I was still in school and lured you out of hiding. But this - this is good too. Mine. My love. You've marked me now, even if not where anyone can see..."

     "Bah," Davydd rumbles, the voice of the old Davydd you know so well -- now, and how, "...dotage," he says, mouth cutting a slant and eyebrows drifting upward even as his eyelids drift downward. The rest is just low noises for a time, murmured sounds of affection and agreement, throat-held half-groans.
     "Remember," index finger touches the end of your nose, lightly tapping, "... when you wake, if you wake before me... I have to sleep until sunset..." The curse. "...and leave the windows closed to the gardens until evening..." Davydd turns his head, his mouth finding your mouth again. "And... have some tea in the morning..." already bossing you around? "... herbal tea. Have Marti make you the... morning after special."
     He's radiant when he grins, teasing in the curve of it...
     We've marked one another, for certes. His hands slowly and lightly meander against your back and a thigh. I wanted to have you the first night we met. I had to leave the other night... at the gallery... or we would have marked one another on one of William's cafe tables... He grins again.
     Rolling slightly again, he deposits you upon your side, as gently as he can, sighing, closed eyes squeezing shut as he slips out of you. His mouth makes soft touches, then nuzzles at your neck, your throat. "I want you here," he murmurs. Not in London. Not even in Cardiff. "In my bed, my arms... waiting is over," Davydd rolls out. "I am tired of waiting. It's time, now, to have..."
     And, not surprisingly, you feel him stirring again...

     "Dotage," Fiona reiterates, smugly, cuddling close to you with you still in her, eyes closed now. She makes a contented sound, deep in the back of her throat, basking in your warmth. "Old Man ... just ask anybody, you'd have to be senile to be with me anyway..."
     For once, she doesn't even mean it, the self-deprecation fully in jest. She crosses her eyes as you tap her nose, blinking lazily at you. "If I wake before you, love, it will be something close to a miracle. I worked all day, remember, and I feel as if you've put me through my paces in preparation for a steeplechase." An apt metaphor... ridden hard and put away wet... "Morning after special?", Fiona adds curiously. "Will it help?"
     Some times, that bossiness will be met with a spat, but for the moment, everything is still all lovely pink clouds. Heart-shaped ones, no doubt. She grins slowly, leaning in to steal a kiss at the corner of your mouth, then subsides, sinking down against you as you stroke her, flattening herself out like a cat to be petted.
     "The first night... I'd probably have let you, if you talked me into going privately alone with you... Better this way, but still, we've waited two years for this," she breathes out, then gasps as you pull from her, a small, almost fretful sound. The first time, there is always adjustment, and the feeling is almost of loss as she tries to regain her bearings. "William owns the cafe? I didn't know that. I'll have to demand free drinks from him or something."
     That might amuse William, but she isn't really interested in talking about William, lying there on your side as you kiss and touch her. "Mmm... London would be too lonely without you," she whispers. "I don't think I could do this, going away, even if it meant coming back. I've had enough of a weekend existence... but I do have my work, still. I'll see what I can do. There's got to be some compromise or solution..."
     And if there isn't, one will be arranged, no doubt, through fight or lovemaking or magic. You stir, then, and her eyes widen, lifting to yours. "Is that what I think it is? Old man," Fiona murmurs, drawing the words out lazily, "I surrender... but."
     Her hand comes down to grasp the root of you, the mischief tugging up at the corners of her mouth, glimmering in the grey and blue of her eyes. "Not without a fight." The night isn't over yet, after all.
     Meanwhile, from Welshpool to London and all in between, there is confusion in flowers and electricity alike, and in some few corners of the world, puzzlement over the hearing of your name - revelations to be discovered when the representative rulers of two kingdoms have finished their ... summit.

Posted by rowan at March 07, 2004 12:33 AM