milliways_bar | (no subject)

A week ago, Bran Davies packed up his clothes, his textbooks and the collection of political pamphlets he's begun to accumulate during his first year at university. He carried his old leather suitcase, full nearly to the bursting point, on one train east to Shrewsbury and a second train west to Machynlleth. Owen Davies met Bran in the LandRover at Machynlleth station and drove him, silently, back to the Dysynni Valley and Clwyd Farm.

It wasn't a bad term, really. Bran found a circle of friends in Cardiff. His exam scores were strong, although not perfect. He was distracted at the end of fall term and the beginning of spring term, and in any case he's finally gotten to a school where many of his classmates are as intelligent and hard-working as he is. The fact that Bran's been able to reach Milliways only once since he returned from the Summer Country, and hasn't been able to go to the bar on purpose at all, hasn't concerned Bran very much.

When Bran finally returned to his old bedroom at the farm, pulled the harp from under his bed and began to play it, he still couldn't reach Milliways.

By now, several days later, he's certain he's lost whatever gift brought him to the bar of his own will. Therefore, Bran's surprised and delighted when one of the barn doors opens, for no reason Bran can determine, on the end of the universe.

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There is a pause and Mordred tilts his head slightly.

"I don't think I remember about her."

"Oh, it is only that she should never have been Prime Minister," Bran shrugs. "What have you been doing these months?"

He opens his mouth to say something and then stops. Maybe, he remembers the look on Meg's face. Or Bethan's. Instead, he reaches up and rubs the back of his head, swaying slightly on the spot.

"Existing. I think...that's all you can really say."

"Is it?" Bran tilts his head towards Mordred.

"You do not look well at all, boyo."

A soft laugh and, perhaps, it is not all that sane.

"I don't...I can't tell, anymore. Again. It's a cycle. Sometimes I'm okay. Others..." His hand drops from his head and he looks at his brother.

"Others, maybe I'm not."

"Is there anyone here for you to talk to?" Galahad has gone, Bran knows, and Ako; Bran has hardly come to Milliways at all, lately. Mordred was close to Meg, was he not? Bran has not seen Meg for quite a while now.

"It's not the talkin' that's the problem. It's existing. Watching. They're digging up Camlann."

"Duw," breathes Bran. "And you cannot go very far from there at all, can you?"

"Not without our father's sword, no. I'm tied to my bones."

Pause.

"And being dug up and cut up for dating and then shoved into a mueseum basements isn't the most appealing prospect."

"Ach y fi, I should think not!"

Bran rubs the bridge of his nose. "Is it likely?"

"Well, maybe not this year. It's a big battlefield. Lots of other graves to desecrate first."

Bran winces, and then realising what corpses might be present at the battlefield, he curses under his breath. (Not Arthur's, surely; in most of the stories, women carried him away.)

Bran says, with feeling, "That's ghastly."

"Well, that's archeology for you. Morbid people."

For a moment, he seems better. Alive. Just another not-quite adult bitching.

If one ignores how pale his skin is, at least.

"Obsessed with the past," Bran corrects. "So are we, really. I imagine that their research would be quite different if they tried to interview the dead instead of hunting out bones."

"Morbid. They go 'ooh, ah, look at this!' and then go about with toothbrushes."

He snorts.

"Well, most of the dead can't talk."

"With certain exceptions."

Bran laughs. "There must be some benefits to being a ghost. I bet you could terrify the archaeologists out of their wits."

"Now that, dear and as far as I know only brother, depends on them seeing me."

Bran blinks his white-rimmed eyes slowly. "I forgot that they wouldn't. Do you have a choice in the matter?"

"Sometimes. It depends on them, and how much they are inclined to believe that a sudden chill is just the wind, or if their mind starts tumbling over ghost stories. Imagination, and a willingness to believe."

"Or suspension of disbelief, at least," says Bran. "Logical, that."

"Or that's an easier way to put it, yes. Then it depends. If I can talk to them, I'm real. If I'm real, I can change things around me."

"Do you?" Bran asks his brother.

"Sometimes."

Bran considers this flat answer.

"Should we not be talking about Camlann at all, now?"

"I don't know. It's just a field that I care about, now." He waves it off.

"Well, then." Bran pushes a lock of white hair out of his eyes and tries to start the conversation over. "I could tell you about my term, but it's not very interesting, is it? All biology and organic chemistry."

"Hey, it's more interesting then going mad. Tell me more."

Bran isn't quite sure whether to read 'going mad' literally or metaphorically. For now, he lets the question go, and starts into a lengthy description of his life in Cardiff.