The sun may be over the yardarm always somewhere in the British empire, but Fiona is not feeling very shiny. She's dragged herself out of bed, wrapped in a sheet as she huddles over the toilet for what is rapidly becoming a morning ritual : the ritual of emptying her stomach of its contents. It's the sort of sound which could almost wake the dead, disgusting as it is.
Once that's done with, she shudderingly rinses her mouth and the shower runs. She needs to rinse off the detritus, emotional as well as physical; the roughened sensation of being sick, the unpleasantry of discomfort. She doesn't like discomfort...
When the water turns off, she's dry almost immediately, magic used to sluice water off of herself as if she were suddenly waterproofed, long hair worn back in elaborately woven and intricate little braids to hold the main mass back in a glide and slide of tinkling tiny crystals. She weaves humming song about herself, pale purple to form a silken gown that clings to her gently without binding her. And then, after examining her expression pallidly in the mirror, she exits the bathroom to return to the boudoir. Nothing else for it, is there?
Fiona sighs, speaking aloud for the first time since making her dash for the bathroom. "I'm up. I don't want to be, but I'm up."
There is a great form left in the bed. Motionless, unhearing, it rests like a great stone. He rests still where he last lay...
But there is another figure who woke just before you did. Who put on breakfast before he put on his shirt. He is pulling on his shirt as you come into the room. His body is young, but the eyes are centuries old in their sympathy.
There's no fear of waking up the lump in the carpets. Rhodri comes toward you, in his t-shirt and leather, his tangerine and champagne hair in artful disarray. "I have some gingerale for you," he says, his arms going around your shoulder, his mouth parting at your forehead. "It'll help settle your stomach." He doesn't cup it, trying to feel the first stirrings of roundness there. It is too early. Besides, you're not a fishbowl vessel for his progeny, no matter how it feels. You're his woman first, the mother of his children after.
Rhodri brushes back your hair a bit, causing the tiny crystals to bump and chime into one another. "I guess you and I have a lot to do," he smiles a little. He spares a glance for his father. "We should probably head to your place or my place at least. Somewhere you can be more comfortable, feel more human." There's a glint in emerald eyes for that.
Human being a stretch for both of you...
Eyes gone pale grey with a tiredness borne of the changes taking place in her body, Fiona glances to the figure in the bed. "I don't know. I don't much feel like swallowing anything right now, to be honest." She closes her eyes, leaning in against you with a heavy sigh. "You look like you're about to go on telly, you know. Like you belong in a club somewhere - not here, with a girl who's about to be going all fat and pudgy and thick in the ankles."
There has been no thought to not going through with the pregnancy. That isn't even an option...
"We've a lot to do," Fiona agrees, with another sigh, sounding almost forlorn. She straightens up, pulling away slightly and tugging with a sort of vague irritability at her gown. "I've got to go to my kingdom. Really, though I hate to admit it, there's nothing here that I can't take care of from there. And I've got to tell Huw and Hwyll so that they can start making preparations, anyway." Her gaze strays. To you, then to Davydd. "Only, I rather hate to leave."
"You'll have to eat something. If you do not, you really will be sick. But... perhaps in a bit." He'll let it go for now, but by the look on his face you know he'll get his way eventually. Rhodri grins, shaking his head. "My clubbing days are over. I'm practicing on being a rockstar. By the time you're ready, we'll have two or three albums worth of songs. Don't think of it as convalescence. Think of it as a writing sabbatical. With food cravings."
Yes, we do have a lot to do. And to talk about, you and I. As you glance to Davydd and then speak of hating to leave, Rhodri glances down and then to you. You're pulling away. You're as bad as he is. "Try not to think only of the negatives, Fiona. It will... give us a chance to spend more time together. You and I." He looks at you. "I need that. I need... I want to know more about you. It's ...all happened at lightning speed since I tied you to my bed. I... don't want us to ...lose our way before we even get a chance to enjoy it fully..."
"I'm going to be staying with you. All the way," Rhodri continues. "Not because I'm protecting my heir," his mouth twists in a smirk. "But because my place is with my wife. The child's just a... bonus...you know?" Do you know? Do you understand?
Fiona smiles faintly at the nagging, despite herself. "I'll eat. Just - not right now. Not until the taste is off the back of my tonsils." She looks away, twisting her necklace back and forth before letting it slip back into the neckline of her gown. "And yeah. Yeah, I do have some song ideas, just - I don't know, I need to get over being so distracted, first."
Being pregnant is apparently distracting...
She turns back towards you, expression almost startled, her hands going up to her hair. "I ... I'm not thinking of just the negatives," she denies. It isn't entirely true. She thought of the positives - until the test came back positive. And now she doesn't know what to think. "I ... I didn't think there was anything about me you didn't already know, though. I mean - you already knew all about me when you decided to..."
Court her. Woo her. Win her. Whatever you want to call it. Whatever you regard it as. Fate. Destiny. Kismet...
Or just a lucky throw of the dice...
"I didn't figure you would go away." Fiona looks away again, chin tipping downwards, hands going together to lace fingers together into a folding fan over her belly. "As long as I occasionally get a little time to myself, at least. I didn't think you'd be around me just for the sake of my pregnancy..."
"I want to know you better," Rhodri says simply. "But we have time. I think we should make time." He chuckles suddenly, softly, as if Davydd were in any danger of waking. "You'll have your space. I'll need mine. Don't worry. But... I won't be sleeping in a bed by myself at any rate."
Emerald eyes sparkle in a wink and he leans in, stealing a kiss (it is his trademark) and he turns to head to the living room. "So, shall we get going? Or do you need more time to wake up before we part the curtains and head to never-never-land?"
Rhodri will defer to you on this. You are the one who is pregnant after all...
"We shouldn't part the curtains. But ... I'll be right out. Give me a minute." Fiona evades the rest, shaking her head as she turns her face up to lean into the kiss; she can't entirely help herself. "I do love you, Rhodri. Even if ... sometimes, I don't understand it." She does not understand it; there is no sometimes about it. But she isn't going to say that.
She waits until you have headed into the living room, and then she sits on the bed, leaning over the unconscious form of her other husband, tears suddenly dripping from her eyes, unbidden and unwanted. "Bloody man," Fiona whispers. "Nothing can ever be easy, can it? I miss you so much. I'm going to miss you so much more. Please... don't lose me..."
She rests her cheek on the broad and unresponsive covered chest, rocking back and forth for a moment before she pulls away again, wiping at her eyes with her palms. Deep breaths, Fee. Deep breaths. She shakes her head, trying to get her composure back. After a moment, she gives her head another little shake, moving out to the living room. "Ready when you are?"
"I meant the metaphorical curtains," Rhodri smiles. There's a look he gives his father. He's so still. Sometimes it seems like he will not wake. But he will. Just as I know the sun will rise and he will set like the moon. "I wouldn't want him to get all ashy on us," his smile is both full of humor and full of affection. It is a real smile, that. A young man's smile. With only the hint of the fox that lingers beneath it.
He missed your parting soliloquy to the Old Man. He is there in his leather and his gear, looking like the fox he is. "I figure... we might as well take the Triumph. Besides... I'd be pissed if it got stolen. My lady gave me it," he grins. "There'd be hell t' pay..."
He holds out his hand for you. Come to me, dear. "Give me your fingers. I promise to give them all back..." Hand to your hand, he leans in for a kiss, not upon your mouth but one given to your neck. "I like that perfume...what is that...?"
The conversations shall ebb and flow, no doubt, as the ninth wave of the sea...
She rises, however reluctantly, turning from the elder of her husbands, from your father to you. "He isn't allowed to die yet." Fiona is stubborn about it. "I won't let him."
There have been stories about women such as she, women whose bellies either swollen or un have gone forth upon adventures to reclaim their men from the clutches of death. East of the sun and west of the moon, over mountains of glass and rivers of darkness, through wild and perilous woods and across expansive and dangerous plains. Let there be no doubt about it; there is the ring of vow to her woods, to the set to her lips. She will not let either of you easily slip away from her, or even easily turn, or forget her...
"If you want to take the Triumph," Fiona concedes, "I suppose that we could, though we'll seem out of place, what with where we're going." Her hand lingers at her own stomach for a moment, protective, introspective in the space of a breath, in the space of a moment. It's lifted away to your hand then, and she looks up, then away.
Eyes closed for the kiss, then, a lingering sigh to fill the room even as she is leaving with you, the passing of her presence. "Waterlilies. I've made it my signature scent - for the moment, at least." Her lips move almost soundlessly, only enough breath given to carry her words to your ears. "I drop it on my skin and then I walk away and what's left, well, that's what's left. Are we going or not, Fox-boy?"
"Out of place?" He grins that grin, the one that says he's up to something. The one that is yet filled with mystery, and perhaps shall always be. "Hmm... I would not count on that."
As for your vow? He shall ask about it soon enough. But for now, you are led out of the apartment, the door locked behind him and secured -- checked again just to be doubly sure -- and down the elevator, from penthouse to ground floor...
...He led you to the bike you bought him, Lucifer Orange and gleaming like the chariot of the sun. What better entrance for the sun god's own kin than a chariot of the sun? Placing you in front, he balanced and steered from behind you, his mouth to your neck and smelling the Queen's signature notes. "Waterlillies," he whispered...
...Somewhere, down one of the gleaming, busy streets of London, things went a bit... mad. At the borders of This Reality and The Next, the worlds seemed to blend, creating a veritable magical platypus effect. Somewhere, somehow, the oddities ceased to be odd and the Triumph's motor ceased to roar.
It had, in fact, ceased to be a motorcycle at all...
You and he were flying in a chariot of the sun, pulled by two orange and gold wyverns harnessed by fire and light, their wings creating a gentle gliding motion, no matter how swift.
Behind you, your king newly crowned and making his own spectacle, his tangerine and cream hair kept in place by the sudden appearance of a sunburst coronet. His leather ... well, it is leather still, though seeming more that of the dragons that pull his chariot than of the cows that fill the fields of the earth...
"Now, this is what I call triumphant," Rhodri speaks against your ear...
She watched you as you led her, eyes narrowing in suspicion; suspicious of diversion, that this might be competition in its own way, something intended to distract her from her feelings for her Other; but she suffered herself to be led, suffered herself to be taken away, brought down the stairs to the motorcycle and placed upon it with another small sigh given for the glistening golden touch of your lips to the sensitive skin upon her neck.
"You like it?" It wasn't a question, no matter how her voice lilted it as if it were a question; Welsh habits, perhaps, your queen picking them up from verifiable, authentic sources. Fiona settled herself in the curve of you, against the crook of you (notorious crooked thief that you are) and closed her eyes halfway, like a cat being brushed, as if she were all but saturated with the world. She almost did not notice when things began to change.
Almost...
She pressed back against you at the sudden change, almost as if afraid - what with her pregnancy, she is suddenly paranoid, protective and overprotective of her suddenly seemingly fragile shell. "Dragons? I thought..."
Fiona shakes her head, turning her head sharply to look up at you, startled, then taking deep breaths to calm herself, to try and regain some semblance of equilibrium. It's been lost - shattered, really, with the wave of a wand with a single pink line upon it. A hand lifted to the hollow of her throat; her other hand reaches back to grasp at your leather coverings. "You are greedy."
"Yes," he answers, but he does not have to explain it, least of all to you. Right? You understand that. It's something we share. Our need to have it all. However we define all to be. Rhodri looks at you, his hands guiding without his eyes, and his mouth softly covers your own.
The earth, even magical earth, announces itself. But the jostle of the chariot is minimal as it lands, the dragons landing gently as well. Their roars are musical as they move forward, slowly transforming back to the Triumph you know so well as your husband rolls it to your courtyard.
Your centaur centurions were quite alarmed -- dragons are no small matter -- but upon seeing the king and you, and then the transformation of those beasts, they slow their gallops to welcoming trots.
"I do like it," Rhodri lilts in your own ear, dismounting the motorbike and holding it for you. "Do you wear it all over or just on your neck? Ah, don't tell me," he grins, "...I'll find out for myself. In the meantime, we should get settled... retire to your chamber. Are you hungry? I will have your maidens bring you something to eat..."
I'm greedy, Fiona concedes to you, peeking at you almost slyly over her shoulder, up aslant at an angle. I can't help it. I've always had a big appetite. Even when I was starving. I was just ... angry about it all, then. As you know. Even if you didn't give in to temptation, then.
You will never hear the end of it; you know that. The thief who passed up the chance, a missed opportunity. Even though you have her now, she will dig, and dig, and dig...
The centaurs arrive, and are greeted with a small, gracious smile, the smile of a queen. Even if it is a slightly diffuse queen. She begins to answer you, even as she moves to climb off the bike, cut off by your denial - don't tell you, don't, the fun is in the finding out. "I need to talk to Huw and Hwyll right away, actually. They can meet with us though in my chamber, I imagine. I'm not hungry yet. Give me a bit - we've just been flying over a great height and considering how I spent the morning..."
You receive a meaningful, almost dark look from Fiona. Motion sickness? Not quite, but there is the lingering memory of how she did, indeed, spend her morning.
The jewel was so hot, it burned my fingers. He grins at that, then laughs as he takes you by the hand. Pitiful excuse. I was too patient. And too respectful of my elders. By that, he may only mean Davydd.
"If it's...quite alright with you, my Queen, I should like some time alone with you... before we're descended upon by the politicians. It's... been an eventful day..."
And you're not the only one who has to...soak it all in, love. I ... really want some time alone with you. We...have not had so much of that.
No, there is always Davydd. Even when he is not here, he is here. I need ... to be alone with you for a bit. It comes as a soft admittance, a lilting echo between your ears as he twines his arm with yours to lead you past your centaur centurions and their standing at guard, presenting themselves to you as if for inspection.
I think you could use a bit more time, too... before you start working. We can lie in bed, rest, speak with one another. Or even in the bath...I'll rub your back and shoulders...
It is difficult for her; she tenses slightly, then nods. To be alone with you - truly, deeply alone with you - will mean being vulnerable to you. And though she has been vulnerable to you before, it is as you believe - always, there has been Davydd, save in moments of sexual passion when you have managed to briefly drive him from her thoughts. Always...
"We'll go to my chambers," Fiona says aloud, a concession of sorts. "I wouldn't mind changing, anyway. This isn't as comfortable as I'd hoped."
She has to have an excuse, after all. Something. Even as she allows you to lead her past all of the rigid centaurs, her smile given to them all impartially, her sigh kept on the inside where it will not be heard and taken as criticism. But you know. You can feel the tension in her. Even as you take her arm, even as you lead her...
She is afraid of you, in her own way...
Yes, he is aware of his own rival, even as Day is aware of Night and Night of Day. It is much like that. Between them they strike the balance and the weight of your love. His hair is a spark of daylight, tangerine fire and streaks of gold and white-hot light. His warmth is there, the warmth of King Daylight.
As he leads you past your guards, into your palace and up the stairs. These, slowly so, his spring-green eyes going to you in glances to make certain the speed is not too much, or should you need a break you shall have it.
"I suppose none of this is as comfortable as you had hoped," Rhodri states. He looks at you, the smile is there yet, but your tension he feels. Perhaps, like a bee, he can smell fear. "But... comfort... life can be said to be many things, but comfortable? Rarely, Fiona." In private, he only calls you 'queen' in bed.
"And ... new love... unexpected love... and new child... unexpected child... I know... it is ... a lot, all at once. And you and I... we have been an item for less than a year..."
"I've stopped bothering to keep track of time, except for specific things. There isn't much point in it at this point - when you've committed to 'forever' and meant it as something other than a schoolgirl at play, you can't be bothered, I think." Fiona doesn't look up so much as she looks at her own feet. She looks at them with an intensity that borders upon a scowl; with the certain knowledge and silent dread that this might be the last time she sees her feet for a very long time.
She glances up from time to time - oh. You're still there. You haven't vanished in a puff of logic or convenience. "I'm ... not used to being comfortable, either. I spent a long time wearing hair shirts and flagellating myself and anyone who came close. It's - hard, sometimes, not to slide back into those habits."
And it isn't even that she's a masochist. She isn't; it's just - pain becomes something to hold onto...
Fiona looks away, stopping for a moment in the hallway, a physical sort of stutter before she resumes movement. "I don't know what I'd hoped. I think I stopped thinking about things. Stopped - expecting them. Why should I? It's none of it what I'd expected, anyway - expecting something seems the surest way to make sure that's not what's going to happen."
"Personally, I like surprises," Rhodri admits in a hush, giving no special stare to your physical stutter -- no more than he would gape at a verbal stutter. "Our story could have been easier, shorter," he notes, going on with a smile, leading you upward another flight. How many until your chamber is reached? "Complications... are like a puzzle, a puzzle is like a lock, and I... as you know... love picking locks. I'll be picking at yours for years to come."
He leans in, kissing you as he walks, and he smiles. "Habits." He seems to ponder that for a moment. "If you beat yourself, then you beat anyone else to it? I think I know the pattern. It's not one I've ever had to deal with. I've had others. I ... tend to ... go into myself. To dissolve into the scenery. I almost lost you because of that. A thief's habits," Rhodri notes. "Aloof, watching, studying..."
She accepts the kiss, though with a slightly startled sideways glances at you as the two of you continue to ascend. "I don't see how I'm a puzzle," Fiona mutters, turning to stare straight ahead. "I'm perfectly and completely straightforward. There's no mysteries to me."
She reaches the top of the landing and comes to a halt, staring now at and through the massive double doors. She's cheated, of course; a queen's prerogative. "I don't see how you could ever really blend into the background. I mean, I did notice you. Just ..." She shakes her head. "You don't want me to finish that sentence," Fiona deduces, putting a hand forward to push open the doors. "At least, I don't think you do."
"I am a chameleon," Rhodri says, "... I can become a wallpapered den, shadows in a forest. Unseen, unfelt, unheard. I was to you, before I took you in my arms that night. Now... you can't stop feeling me." He chuckles at that, following you into your Queen's chambers.
"I am a well-kept consort," he remarks at the splendor of your castle, your personal chambers. "But here..." his hand lands on your waist, his other closing the door behind him, "...with you... I feel like a king." A kiss. "And the best of thieves."
Rhodri parts your shadow with another kiss, letting you go change. He himself takes a moment to get comfortable. Off comes the jacket, revealing the tissue-thin t-shirts beneath, layered in colors ending at the red leather at his hips. The shirts come off and are laid aside. With colors and decorations such as his skin contain, why should shirts stand in the way? The shoes are next. They are set beside the sofa and cushions, and he goes to the windows, opening the drapes to let in the light, the warmth and the view.
"I don't want to talk about my father. I am here with you, soon to be my wife, soon to be the mother of my child-brother." He does not look at you for a moment. "I have my own love, my own need," Rhodri murmurs as he pours drinks for you both, sweet meadow nectar. Non-fermented. "I'd rather talk about Us. You. Me."
"I'm ... not a chameleon. I'm more into stigmata, I suppose. An angry fucking Christ, if so, though I'm not very messianic." Fiona makes a face. "That analogy fell flat fast. Well, whatever." She closes her eyes as your kiss lands on her, a soft sigh echoing like a wave touching the shore. You release her, and she turns away, opening the wardrobe and peering into it as if demanding it yield up secrets.
"I don't understand why you think of me that way," she mutters, even as she struggles with the silk, finally impatiently banishing it with a touch. "You seem to have me confused with someone else. Someone who means more than I do, at any rate. I - I barely feel like I exist at all, right now. What's there to talk about?"
She finds another gown, something even lighter, almost transparent and the palest shade of blue imaginable, almost white, it is, floating about her like the faint line where clouds are edged by sky in spring. It drapes over and around her, hardly touching her save on those places where gravity suddenly and inexorably requires it to - breasts, hips, thighs. Then she turns, eyeing you as sidelong as if looking too directly, too closely might render her as turned to stone as any of Medusa's unhappy victims.
"I'll talk, I ... just don't know what to say, with you..."
"Why is that.... I wonder..." Rhodri begins, pivoting to look at you. He holds a glass out to you -- an offering, with a smile. Red-gold eyebrows lift skyward, jetting blazes over emerald eyes. "You seem to have so much to say about everything." The grin curves. "Why so silent with me? Well, when we are vertical and clothed." Such a purring laugh. "You're never lacking for conversation when we are horizontal and naked."
Rhodri chuckles, gesturing for you to take the cup, woman. He drinks and takes himself to the cushions where Davydd lay that night when the new king took you to his bed and loved you ... in royal multiplicity.
The leather bends. Like to his skin, it does not creak. Red-gold his hair in its variant hues shines as he takes a seat in the warming rays of the sun. Across his form, the hunts immortal race -- game is forever game, hounds forever in chase. Shall you always chase after him, and what he means to you? "Is there anything you'd like to know about me? Something I have not said. Something I have not shown. If you ask, my sweet, I will answer. Nothing but the truth for the woman I love."
Cautious fingers clasp the cup, bringing it to her even as her cheeks go suddenly ruddy with a blush at your words - for your laugh. "It's easier then," Fiona says stubbornly, moving to the edge of the bed and sitting down. "I've already got nothing to hide, then. Nowhere to hide, more. I'm not a very relaxed person! What do you want from me? I'm good at blood and spit and defiance. I'm not - very good at the other things, at the rest. It's newer and I don't entirely trust it."
She juts her chin out, almost sullenly, then lifts her cup to take a drink, eyelashes coming down to veil her gaze with a blink. "I've asked you questions before," Fiona murmurs. "It isn't your fault that the answers don't make sense to me. I don't know what to do with you. And I know that's just laying myself open to entendre, but I don't. I end up wishing I'd met you back when I was still at school - maybe then it would've been easier. But it wouldn't have, would it?"
"Probably not," Rhodri remarks with that thieving smile. It steals its way wherever it wishes, that look. A better lockpick set than any other tool. "Though we'd have made a great pair then. When you were a punk rock girl." He peers at you a moment and drinks as he studies you. "You still are. You're doing it now." And it delights him. "Defiance, even in the face of love."
A longer drink is taken and the cup is set aside on a small tea table surrounded by all the pillows. "Come sit by me. You look like I've just asked you to 'stand and deliver'..." Rhodri keeps his pants on -- a miracle, that -- his legs lifting, knees bending as he half reclines back. "I don't know why you are afraid ... as if I am going to bite you, leave you, or worse...cheat you like Paul did. You don't have to defend yourself against me, Fiona," Rhodri softly continues. "Just like ... I do not need to hide from you, all obfuscated..."
"If you'd asked me to stand and deliver, I'd probably react better," Fiona mutters, hunching down a bit where she sits. "But I wasn't a punk rock girl until the end. I was a ... a ..." It's difficult for her to say it, but she finally gets it out, like a small child forcing down lima beans. "I was a good girl."
What does this bode for her own children...
She looks down into her cup again, then grudgingly hauls herself upright again, looking bitterly resigned to the shifting of position, crossing round the bed the long way as if to punish you for the request (though in truth, she's most likely punishing herself). "It's hard for me not to be scared of you. I can't fucking defend against you. I don't know how, don't you understand? Paul got through my defenses because I let him through."
She stops, sits down near you, but doesn't lean up against you yet. She sits like a broomstick, spine ramrod straight, cup held just as stiffly. "With Davydd, I fought against him. I fought and I fought and I bled and I bit and I kicked and I scratched and I yelled and I still don't exactly know how we got to where we are, and I'm still scared of losing him, even though I know I won't, that I can't, because he hasn't got anywhere left to run even if he hides temporarily. I know it but I don't know it. I don't let myself know things, sometimes. I can't let it be too easy."
She turns her face away, and that Drancy-shadow falls over her countenance, scarlet and purple-hued against the pale skin, the rose flush on the milk white, the grey and blue of her eyes shuddering even if the rest of her doesn't. "How long did it take with me and Davydd, Rhodri? And when you decided to make a move, how long did it take you?"
Rhodri chuckles. "You are so uncomfortable with intimacy. Are you certain you're pregnant? It could just be a case of bad gas, you know." His laughter ceases and he looks into his own glass. His smile is somewhat wistful. "I think it is why you and he work so well. You're so alike."
And then something extraordinary happens...
Rhodri shows emotion...
His skin goes pink, much as his father's does, spreading even as he looks away. His turning gaze becomes shifting motion, his body unwinding from its sit to a stand. The smile fades by tiny degrees as he goes to pour himself another drink. "It took you a couple of years. Less, if he were not already in love with someone else at the time." Sandrine. "When I decided to take a move..."
Rhodri looks to you and he shows you his tears and his emotion. "It took days. Years for me. Days for you and me." He exhales. "You love him... and I know this and ...knew it when I acted. I thought my love was enough..." He stops himself, looking from you back to the bottles. "I am sometimes very vain. I thought I could steal you and that you'd be happy about that."
"I'm not unhappy." Fiona tips her chin down, and there is the liquid spill of tears as if in contrast; but it is not contradiction. It is distress. "I do love you. I just - it worries me, in a way, that I love you. With us, we always seem to end up in bed - and I'm not saying it's bad, you know I enjoy it," she flushes slightly, "maybe too much. But ... for years, I hedged my heart, my emotions, my body behind these defenses. And I let them down, a bit at a time, for Davydd. Not even because I wanted to, at first."
She sighs, shifting on the bed and then rising to move towards you, hands lifting up towards your shoulders, towards your face. "By the end, I wanted to - but I was scared, all the same. I ... didn't think he could love me. I don't think of myself as lovable. I'm prickly, cross, unpleasant, covered in spines and quills, filled with poison and anger and rage and bitterness. I hate myself. How could anyone love me?"
She blinks back her tears, hands falling slowly to her sides as she looks away, as if suddenly unwilling to meet your gaze. "I'm not unhappy that you stole me. I just ... I don't know what to do about it, Rhodri. I can't expect that it'd last. With Davydd, I knew the risks - I knew that I'd have to fight against him, to keep him from sabotaging us, from sabotaging himself. With you? You don't seem to need me. You want me ... but how long will you want me? You either know me too well or not well enough, but you scare me. Because if you do know me, then I don't know why you want me. And if you don't know me, then I can't expect this will last - and I'm - I don't want to hurt you. But I know that I will. Hell... I just have, haven't I?"
And Fiona folds her arms over her chest, shoulders hunching as she looks down at the floor very hard.
"The only one who can love you, in the end, is yourself. You'll... figure that out one day. We are, all of us, our worst critics. Others see in us things we don't see in ourselves." He looks at you. There is sympathy, immediate and warm. Rhodri reaches for you. His hands come up to your face, he cups it.
"I love you because I see what I see," he murmurs. "I want you, because I see things that have not yet happened, but they're promised in the way I've seen you grow. None of us are perfect. We are all... horribly flawed. Do not give up, Fiona. And don't run away. Don't do to us... what he has tried to do to you."
Don't run like Davydd runs. You stop him? Now stop yourself.
"I just... I want you know that I do need you. You make me laugh. You bring brightness to my life. And, yes, warmth and eagerness to my bed and... I like it with you. It would all be ... so much less were you not here with me. Where you go, the magic goes with you."
His fingers move against your face, wiping at your tears, lifting you and leading you to his mouth. The kiss is warm, sweet, loving. And repeats. Repeats, with growing intensity. "I love you," he speaks against your mouth, your chin, your face. "We'll hurt each other, that's just the way of it. But tell me you love me... and that you ... will stay, Fiona. I need to hear you say it. Don't shove me from your life."
Rhodri pulls from a kiss that threatened to deepen, to turn wild. His breath, sweetened by the nectar he has sipped, brushes against your mouth, rhythmic touches. A hint of things to come?
She breathes out noisily, a wild sob that is stifled before it can get very far. "I do love you." She leans in, her palms flattening against your chest as she lets her weight rest against you. "I do, Rhodri. I'm just - scared." And it costs her something to admit it; it is hard for her to admit to fear, when in the past, she has clothed fear with belligerence.
She is afraid of her own weakness, even as she leans in against your warmth, lips parting as you kiss her, tears spilling further down her cheeks, blinking doing nothing to suppress or slow them. "I don't know how to get rid of you - I'm just - when you see what I'm really like, you won't want to stay. You won't - even Davydd won't. Both of you could have any other woman you want, after all, so why would you want me?"
Fiona sobs again, catching it in her throat, a hiccup that has noise. Closing her eyes doesn't seem to help. "I do love you, Rhodri, I do," she repeats, voice wavering. "Just ... you watched me from a distance, and I can't see what you saw. So I can't believe it. I want to. I feel so locked away from both you and Davydd right now, and I'm so scared."
His arms go around you. "You know, some of this is hormonal," he whispers. He holds you close, giving you his strength, his warmth. You can feel the sun coming through his skin. It is soothing, that warmth. The only thing more soothing would likely be the warmth of the womb.
"I'll show you what I saw," Rhodri murmurs. "You will see it, and you will hear it. For now... let's lie down again, hmm?" He begins humming, softly singing a song plucked from the air...
From the air, or from the heart?
He moves you, as he always seems to do, toward the bed, without your being able to stop him. There is no stopping him, is there? But this isn't a seduction. "You love me... then I'm happy," Rhodri murmurs. He guides you back to the bed, gently helping you to recline.
"Lie there, my sweet. I am coming in to join you." He moves to the other side of the bed, the bed sinking with his own weight. His back against the headboard, his hands are suddenly full with the presence of a violin. Two plucks, and he tunes it.
She sniffles; you're right, of course. At least some of it is hormonal. It doesn't make her feel much better. She huddles against you, not resisting your sweep of her towards the bed. "I do love you. I was - I liked you, a little, when I saw you in Davy's first, and then you just ... stopped really being there, just - you didn't talk to me as a man," she murmurs.
She lies back with your help, closing her eyes as she shifts position, then reopening them. "You were just in the background until you were helping me with the painting, and ... and then I was with Davydd, but I did notice you then," Fiona whispers. "You were there. And I did see you. But I didn't think..."
That there was a mutual pull, and besides, she was with your father, then...
You sink onto the bed, and she blinks, lifting her head to regard you warily. What is this that you do, now...
"I was about as interesting to you as a stateroom chair. It's all right. I know you love me. Now." He grins at you, how own emotion still quite evident. He says 'shh' very softly and he gives his body to the headboard as he tucks the violin beneath his chin.
The music is for you. It is of you. About you. Inspired by you...
In the beginning, it is a romp, coming with the images of girls walking on the sidewalk and kicking the cans, two young women -- one with fuschia hair and one with a black bob. The girl with the fushia hair has something in her eyes, a glimmer of brightness that she shows no one, not even herself. But it is there, like a jewel a woman keeps beneath her sleeves so that thieves like him don't get any ideas...
Capriciousness slips into waves of melancholy. A girl who walks with her arms crossed over her chest. A girl who is in armor. A girl pounding her fists upon the brick walls of London, popping out windows as she goes. The girl with the flying fists who comes to a point in her journey and decides to jump off a bridge...
Next, the song becomes florid. Virtuoso trills and inspired improvisations leap from his fingers and the horse hair of the bow. A young woman, refined clothing, meeting with her friends in the bar. Her drinks are always free. She only thinks she knows the reason why.
The song swells, the sound rolling and rolling, each phrase more beautiful than the next. Rhythmic strains become the creaking of a bed, long held notes sound like the moans of music, quick, jumping bars to the crescendo of metaphorical orgasm...
She opens her mouth to argue - how like her to do so - and then subsides as you shush her, though she glowers at you for a moment, gives you that defiance before settling again, sighing as the music begins. What can she say, really? You see her through your own eyes and not hers, not through the filter of doubts and dislike that she's arranged...
Fiona closes her eyes, bowing her head against the pillow and then rolling onto her side with her arms folded over her belly. "You really were watching me for a long time," she whispers. How long? How much did you know - how much did you guess? She shakes her head a little, cheek shifting against the pillows (there are many) and then holding still.
Her cheeks go pink when the music moves to such erotic sounds, and she shifts again, almost as if uncomfortable. One hand lifts, moving to rest against your side, fingers curling and then slowly slipping away. I do love you. And you know how you affect me, Rhodri. I just don't know what to do.
The music stops with the same flutter of your breath and heart, beginning again with the slow and melodic sound of musical, magical breathing until it drifts away in silence, even as you so often drift to sleep in his arms.
"I saw you now and again," he says as he slides down to recline beside you. His mouth finds your skin, your face. He leaves gentle kisses there. "Fuschia hair is a bit hard to ignore." His arms surround you. "You and your friends, traveling in a pack. But you were always on your own, like a lone wolf. That's something you and I share."
His hand comes beneath your chin and he lifts your mouth to his for another kiss. "I love you... so much... especially when you are hormonal," he winks.
"Bastard," Fiona whispers, moving into your arms, wiping her tears against you. "You could have ignored me if you really wanted to. You're just some sort of masochist, not wanting to..."
She sighs again, emptying her lungs of air and then refilling them slowly, curling against you as you kiss her mouth, and she kisses you in return. What's so wonderful about my being hormonal? I'd think it'd be fucking annoying.
Because what is causing it is wonderful. Is that so hard to understand? His arms around you, his hands may easily find your back. He begins rubbing, his mouth continuing to pluck kisses now and then. I suppose I am a bit of a masochist. But who would have guessed it from a man who likes to tie up his woman and cuff her ankles to her wrists? Now that's a visual...
Rhodri chuckles into the kiss, emerald eyes gleaming. So close to you...the show the verdant world of Avalon in the shine of them. "How are you feeling? Do you need to eat?"
And she goes beet red again, squirming slightly against you. "You don't need to remind me about that," Fiona murmurs, voice muffled by you. She sighs, relaxing slowly and almost reluctantly as your hands find tension in her muscles and coax it out. "I still have dreams about that, sometimes."
It is, for her, a bit of an admission. Maybe she's too English, but as much as she enjoys sex, she draws the line at talking about it too much in detail, as if your not reading her mind and body to see what she likes would be cheating...
You kiss her, and she leans into the kisses, lingering there even after you move back to speech. "I'm not hungry yet, but I should eat," Fiona murmurs, snuggling a little bit closer. "And I do still need to talk to Huw and Hwyll. Before you get me all distracted again."
"Can I get you... a little distracted? And then, my queen, your business may be your business..." Always a thief, a thief king now. He steals the kisses he wants, takes them anyway, rolls them around and savors them. "I do, too," Rhodri smiles. "Dream of it, I mean. You are the loveliest, strongest, most rebellious woman I've ever tied up. You'd like to spit at me as much as you want to surround me with your legs. I've seen it in your eyes. And... god... it makes me want you. That's... what first got my attention."
Like father, like son. He has to have a battle.
Rhodri's mouth parts yours, playing with the flesh of your lips. He nibbles and suckles to soothe the slight sting. "Just a little diversion. Huw and Hwyll won't mind..." His mouth pulls from yours, going to your neck next.
"You make me want you too much." Fiona sighs, drawing a hand along your shoulder, digging her fingernails in slightly and then letting go. "...I can't ever just give in. I have to be conquered in order to give in. I feel like Red fucking Sonja - it's a little bit sick, isn't it? Being so ... headstrong like this..."
You kiss her, you nibble at her mouth and it elicits a small whimper, a breathy little sound and a little shudder as she moves close to you, even as her head tips back to reveal her throat, eyelids growing heavy. "You get under my skin so much, Rhodri. I don't know how to say no to you..."
"Good," he smiles against your throat. "I don't like the word." He watches how you respond. A picture is worth a thousand words, to be sure. Gently, he rolls you upon your back, his weight lifting so no part of it bears down on you. Green eyes sparkle and his mouth curves upward.
All while his body slides downward.
I like my women headstrong. Don't you understand? Stubborn and rebellious. Oh, but giving too. And sweet. His mouth parts at your belly, warmth condensing against the silk gown. Even though later... you'll make me pay for it. But first...you'll be sweet... won't you?
His breath lands on a thigh and the red-gold head pops up, his eyes gliding along the horizon of your body to your face.
"I ... suppose..." Fiona sighs her surrender, grudging words even as she lifts her fingers to draw them through your hair. "Bloody impossible man," she murmurs, warmth in her skin as she drags her hands away again. "How am I ever supposed to win an argument with you, when you always bring me right back here..."
Ending things where they began...
In bed...
Posted by rowan at June 09, 2005 01:46 PM
