milliways_bar | (no subject)

[from here (http://www.livejournal.com/community/milliways_bar/4783868.html?thread=195741948#t195741948)]

Owen stares, hands clenching. Very quietly, in Welsh, he says, "It's not real. She's not real." He does not move from his place near the piano.

Gwion looks, and holds very, very still.

Equally quietly, he says to Owen, "Real is a hard word -- almost as hard as true. Or now."

He is aware of Will's presence, but does not look at him.

From under a table, Mordred's normal table, a small, grey-hued fox watches. He creeps forward, golden eyes unblinking.

Her scent is real. Guinevere.

*At the look on Owen's face, Will's head swings around, his face going expressionless in a way that is not boylike at all. He sees the dark-haired woman -- black-haired and lovely, with eyes blue as speedwell -- and he goes very still.*

*By Owen's third word, he has begun unthinkingly to hear the Welsh as an Old One instead of an English boy, with fluent unstudied comprehension.*

*For now, he says nothing, but his gaze is hooded and intent.*

*Gwen is still standing by the door, transfixed. Her fists clench in the folds of her skirt. She barely notices the others around Owen.

Owen. Owen who she almost thought was a dream. Owen who cared for them.

She takes a small, hesitating step forward, barely breathing.*

Owen shows no sign of having heard Gwion. He stands still, looking at the woman. Older, she is, maybe ten years older than the being who was not Gwen. The look on her face is nothing like Desire's strange incomprehensible smile.

He steps towards her without thinking, one step, two steps and now he's running towards the door staring at her with his heart in his eyes.

*She holds out her arms, eyes wide and wondering.*

Owen. Owen Davies.

He does not embrace her, but he takes one small hand and grips it tightly. "Oh, Gwen."

He has possibly forgotten that he is in public.

*Will is still standing motionless and unboyish, and watching.*

*He's looked away, a little, for the illusion of privacy, but not so much that he cannot see. There is a part of him that is a boy that feels uncomfortable seeing so much naked emotion on Owen Davies' face, but he is both Bran Davies' friend and the Watchman of the Light. A quick flicked sidelong glance at Gwion, but other than that he watches and listens, discreet and waiting.*

*She touches Owen's face, ever so softly.*

You're real.

Owen closes his eyes for a moment as Gwen's hand touches his face. When he opens them he notices Bran (http://www.livejournal.com/community/milliways_bar/4791095.html?thread=195933495#t195933495) standing behind her.

Owen lets Gwen's other hand drop. He has no idea what to say.

There is a harp playing somewhere.

Bran Davies, in an old faded black sweater and black jeans, harp nestled in his arms, opens the door and stares. The harp gives off a discordant chord before he stills it.

Owen is holding the hand of a dark-haired woman.

Bran can't see her face, but suddenly he knows her absolutely. He stands white and trembling, and the harp shakes in his arms.
<font color="white>I am the womb of every holt.</font>

The fox moves, or rather, he doesn't, but he appears sitting at his brother's side, the look in his golden eyes oddly protective. Mordred glances up at Bran, but doesn't say a word.

Yet.

The fox is grey and comes and goes like the milgwn... but there is something else familiar about the fox, something oddly comforting, even. Bran looks down at it. Looking at the fox is safer than looking at his...parents.

And Gwion is not looking at Owen Davies and the woman he himself once knew, though not well.

Instead, he is looking at Bran with compassion, and a little understanding.

*Will isn't looking at Owen and Guinevere any more, either. He is still paying attention, with the part of his mind that is an Old One and will not ignore this, but most of his attention is entirely on Bran.*

*His face isn't quite expressionless any more, either. It's faded into a friend's rueful, crooked compassion. If there is also the grave reserve of an Old One lurking in his eyes, it's well-hidden, for Bran's sake and because Will is not just Old One but also a teenage boy.*

*He moves, finally, breaking the stillness to cross the few yards to stand at Bran's side.*

The fox is gone, gone in a swift changing that barely registers on the preternatural senses. In his place stands Mordred. Mordred, long black hair tied back from his pale face, wearing not armour or leather, but a deep red tunic and black hose.

Mordred, with his heavy sword belted to his hip, but still with the look of his tall, slender mother.

His eyes, gold as they are, are his father's - cold, watching, protective.

*When Owen drops her hand, she frowns a little.*

Owen?. . .

*She notices his gaze fixed somewhere behind her, and she turns.

And she suddenly wishes she could sit down. It's been some sixteen years since she's seen the pale boy standing before her, but she knows him with the unerring instinct of a mother.*

. . .Bran. Bran.

White eyelashes blink rapidly. There is something gleaming in Bran's eyes. It might be water.

Bran's voice, though, is cold and flat. "My lady," he says.

*Will stands at Bran's side, a few feet away, beside and a little behind. He is silent, eyes flicking from one to the other, waiting. The position of a friend, or of a prince's trusted advisor, or both in one.*

*He waits, and if he looks something like a less commanding version of Merriman it is not intentional.*

Not intentional, maybe. But not unnoticed. Not by the harper, who knows the lion as well as any mortal man ever did...and who was there, that day in the Lowland Hundred, acting for the king in granting hospitality to a woman in exile...or something very close to it.

From the piano, Gwion finally stands, arms at his sides, watching the scene before him.

If Will is taking on Merlion's role...it is the same business over again, or like to be; Gwion stands, and watches, and waits -- not only a harper, but a diplomat, if there is need.

Owen looks helplessly at his son, and at Gwen, and at his son again. He knows why Bran is angry. He cannot argue with Bran now.

*The world shatters. She stares at Bran for a moment that seems to last forever, cold and hollow.

And Arthur's queen drops to her knees before Arthur's son, skirts pooling around her, blue eyes gazing into gold ones. Her hands reach out for his, pleading.*

Do you -- do you not know me, then?

"Guinevere, daughter of Leodegrance, late wife of Arthur ap Uther."

His soft voice is icy, carrying the hint of old death and a cold, winter's day, Mordred looks down at his stepmother without a flicker of expression. In his face.

His eyes are hot, hot with anger and with hate and he does not mention that she is the mother of his beloved brother.

Bran nods briefly to Mordred before turning back to Guinevere.

"Yes, I know who you are."

Sixteen motherless years are suddenly bare in his voice. "Why did you leave?"

*She winces backwards, and her hands fall, twisting together. He is, without question, his father's son.

But she is -- was -- a queen, so she continues to gaze into his eyes.*

Bran -- I had to. Merlion took me back.

*She raises her hands, palms up.*

I feared your father -- feared for you -- and Merlion said you would be safe -- Bran, do you think for a moment I would leave you if there were any other choice?

Owen stands listening, hands clasped tightly together. There is something in his face reminiscent of the shepherd in his twenties standing on the hills, in the snow, calling a name into the empty wind.

His voice is sharper, the icy feel of steel in the air. He looks human...and looks dead. Too pale, too bloodless, with a too still stare.

"Choice?" Mordred Ambrosius, Mordred Pendragon, smiles. "You always had a choice, Guinevere. You could have chosen not to betray our lord. You could have chosen not to have fucked Lancelot. If you had chosen not to do that, then the question of choice regarding the abandonment of Arthur's son need not ever have been raised."

The anger and hate breaks through for a moment - a passionate boy forced to watch as someone else betrayed the love and regard that he had always yearned for.

"Don't speak about choices, madame...you made yours. Live with them."

Owen blanches and turns aside suddenly, pulling his hands apart.

And Gwion steps forward, then -- one slim, black-clad man wading into a sea of heightened emotions and feelings of hurt and anguish --

"And some choices, sir, are no choices at all." Calm. "And few there are who can say that they truly understand the choices another man -- or woman -- makes." Gwion is facing Mordred; now he bows very slightly to him, inclining his head. "I am sure you would not claim perfection."

Gwion turns now to Bran, and says nothing...only fixes him with a quiet look, for a moment.

His eyes flicker to Will, then; and narrow nearly imperceptibly. Some choices, he reminds himself, thinking of the lion, are no choices at all.

And finally to Guinevere. His smile is kind, and warm -- saying, I am pleased to see you, even if the words never leave his mouth. "My lady. It has been some time."

He holds out a hand to her, to aid her in rising, if she would.

*For almost the first time, she's aware of the others gathered around. Inwardly, she cringes. Mordred's rant stings, in a way she's familiar with. Outwardly, though, she ignores him, still gazing at Bran.

At Gwion's words, she finally looks away, and up at the warm smile. Her small hand goes into his, and she rises gracefully, studying him.*

My thanks. It -- yes. You were at. . .

*Her eyes flicker back towards Bran.*

*All her choices have been her own, a part of him thinks, grave and sorrowful and detached. And all Mordred's too, however bitterly he might rail at her; he is no stranger to betrayal either. And Will's eyes on Mordred as he speaks are narrowed, and not approving. An Old One's words, some of them, but meant as cruelty and not stemming from an Old One's way of thinking.*

*But Gwion is right, too, and he has something none of the rest of them can bring here -- neutrality and ordinary human kindness both together.*

*He leaves the explanations to Gwion, who can give them better just now, but his face softens, before his eyes flick back to Bran.*

Bran catches Gwion's look, and Will's. He turns towards Mordred -- angry on Bran's behalf, and glances towards Owen staring off towards the fireplace.

At last he looks at Guinevere, and shakes his head in near-apology.

"The Light gives strange choices." Bran's expression may be a rueful smile, but he is blinking again, and his eyelashes glint white. "We must talk about choices. Not tonight. I am not ready yet." He turns away from them all, suddenly, setting the harp down and covering his face with his hands.

Owen lifts his head and turns swiftly, walking towards Bran and setting an arm silently around Bran's shoulder.

For a moment, Mordred doesn't look at Bran. He's staring at Guinevere and, for just a moment, his golden eyes go blank.

Pain, hurt, betrayal, grief, that's all you ever cause, isn't it?

Then he blinks, slowly, and turns his head. It hits him, then, but what he really can't put into words, or even thoughts.

"Stepmother, dearest," Mordred says at last, not looking at Guinevere. "Whose son is he? Yours, or Owens?"

He smiles, oddly, and walks away (http://www.livejournal.com/users/maydaybrat/6186.html).

Gwion says quietly, then, under the silence: "My lady. There are some...things...you need to know, about where you have come. If you'd follow me...?"

His manners are courtly; he is all warm courtesy.

For an instant, he almost wishes that Merlion were here -- and then the wish evaporates.

She needs someone kind, he thinks. Not one of them.

It's good to be needed.

Bowing slightly, he says, "If you'd accompany me to the bar..." First, tea. Then talk.

She takes his arm, and, with one last look for Will, Gwion leads the queen away.

*Will returns the look evenly, and there is compassion in his gaze.*

*He knows the reprimand layered with the other emotions in Gwion's glance, and does not deny it, nor quite concede it. All the same, he lets them go, and with whatever gladness he can find in this situation. Gwion can help her in ways that Will, who is a teenager and an Old One and her abandoned son's best friend, cannot.*

*He looks back at Bran and Owen, and exhales. Gwen who is Guinevere cannot understand how rare Owen's half-embrace of his son is, but Will has only seen such displays of affection between them twice before. Now...*

*Now, he can think of no help for either of them that he could add onto that, slim comfort though it might be.*

Owen helps Bran stand, and watches as Bran picks up the harp. If Owen is wondering why Bran has an instrument that looks very much like a golden harp he saw tossed into Tal y Llyn three years ago, he says nothing about it. There are more important things to worry about now.

He looks over towards Guinevere, and then returns his gaze to Bran.

"Come, boy," he says. "Let's go home." Standing closely together, father and son walk out the front door.