milliways_bar | Entrance Post

Entrance Post

He had left Elffin in a warm wind, propitious sign, sweeping out from the south and away from the sea, upward and onward. He meant to follow that wind, northward along the Wall, until he reached even harsher lands than these. But on the seventh day the wind turned cold again, and with the harp packed safely away he struggled forward in the snow, seeking the nearest outpost.

Taliesin followed the first glimmer of light in the darkness, hopeful despite the weather, because the voice of his awen still sung in his ear, quiet maelstrom of music. Instead of fire, he had seen reflections off the edges of ice, but he recognized the place by the standing stone at the crook in the path. It loomed dark. He knew the symbols along its sides nevertheless, wound like twisting ribs, words layered on words.

He could find a cave near at hand.

When he stooped under the entrance, he was singing, low and smooth under his breath, the tones deep. "King, beggar and fool, I have been all by turns..." He paused, and arched a dark brow. Only very rarely in his experience had he stumbled upon an entirely unmarked gateway between time and place, but he had walked through rock and into wood, cave to door to a world familiar more by sense than sensibility.

"An unexpected note," he murmured.

[OOC: New mun, old millicanon discarded--if your pup is meeting Taliesin, it will be for the first time.]

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And the first person Taliesin will meet is a man with a wolf. A man with a patch over what should be his right eye, and beside him a silver wolf.

Neither will recognise the man, but they will remember the name, for they too knew a man who called himself Taliesin.

Taliesin the Ihlini harper, who with Carollan's help healed as much of Niall as they could, though Niall's right eye was irrepairably unsalvagable.

This Taliesin will either bring Niall to confusion or he will bring back old and somewhat painful memories.

"Welcome stranger," he says cordially. "You are new here, aye? I am Niall, Mujhar of Homana. And this here is Serri, my lir."

[If you need to due to whatever time it is where you are, I'm more than willing to slowtime for you.]

"Aye, that I am," says Taliesin with a sideways grin, brushing snow from his cloak and then from the bag that carried his harp. Last of all from his hair, fingers running through the strands. "Your land is unfamiliar to me, I do admit. Does here have a name for itself?"

Part of his creation and recreation, he supposes, is that places may be familiar without concrete reason.

Niall has a slightly amused look to his face.

"I am told that this place is called Milliways. It is a tavern of sorts where people seem to find themselves at very odd moments. Why they come seems to be as diverse as the peoples and races that come here.

I myself seem to find myself coming here quite often as of late, but then, that may be due to the burdens of kingship."

He begins to smile.

"Aye. I am a king. It is what 'Mujhar' means in the Old Tongue of the Cheysuli race."

This place might be nexxus, the pin at the center of the wheel comprised of stars and sea, and earth in the middling place between. Not at all what he had expected, but definitely interesting.

"My lord, I shall offer you both pity and praise then, for the burden of the crown you must wear," Taliesin replies, with the suggestion of a rather courtly bow, eyes faintly gleaming. "I have had many names and have been many things, but Taliesin suits me best."

"And three sons and two daughters as well. Which would not make me weary were not my youngest son and daughter inclined to incorrigible behaviour. I am convinced that Corin and Keely are determined to feed each other's rebellions both against me as well as their eldest brother Brennan."

He gives a sigh. Before coming here he and his brother Ian had to break up an incident involving Corin and Brennan. It had not been easy, and Corin was particularly fractious that day.

"No one ever said being a jehan—" He stops, stiffens, pales. "No. Not Taliesin. You cannot be. Taliesin had white hair and claw-like hands. Taliesin was Ihlini. You cannot be him."

No he is not lir. He is not the Taliesin you know. That Taliesin remains in his cottage in the mountains of Solinde. This man is a different Taliesin, one from another world if what I sense about him is true.

Taliesin arches a brow, drawing back just a bit in posture if not in actual physical distance, his spine straightening. "I am the only Taliesin I have ever known," he says, voice casual, eyes a bit dark with affronted pride. "No other has touched fingertips to the Harp of Teirtu. If the Taliesin you have known was not I, then I am not him."

He has always been himself, no matter what the shape. Words transformed by song remain recognizable in meaning.

And the Ihlini harper you know would say the same lir; that he is the only Taliesin he knows. Just as you are the only Niall anyone knows.

The wolf's assurances calm Niall slightly, but he's still taken aback from having come across a second Taliesin in his lifetime.

"The only harp Taliesin of the Ihlini ever laid hands on was the one his former master Tynstar - the Ihlini lord at the time - gave him. The one he played until Strahan came, took his father's place upon Tynstar's death and ruined them as punishment for Taliesin's desertion of the god Asar-Suti.

And as your hands are whole and unmarred..."

You see lir? He is not the flaxen-haired bard we know but another.

"I offer an apology if my words were rude. My mind had taken me back to a time from before I ascended the Lion Throne.

A time when I lost my eye as the price to pay for freeing Homana from the Ihlini Strahan's plague."

[I'll probably be availible in the afternoon/evening, if that's not a problem for you.]

"Then I offer you apology for that loss, as well," says Taliesin, after a moment's solemn pause. "No offense, indeed. The gods of your land are not the gods of mine." His lips curve, wry. No surprise to learn of yet more gods and yet more unknown kings, especially in a place such as this.

"Your companion," he adds after another pause, dipping his head to Serri with a flash of a grin. "He seems particularly great of soul."

"It is something I have come to learn, that the gods of one kindgom do not hold sovereignty over others. Deirdre of Erinn was kind enough to remind me of that during my stay in her island realm."

There's a pained look at the mention of Deirdre. Though it turns out that she as well as her family - save her father Shea - survived Alaric's assassins, the thought of what he did still haunts him even twelve years afterwards.

It passes though, as Taliesin addresses Serri, who voices his approval aloud in the way of all wolves.

"Aye. He is lir. All lir are. They are a gift of the gods after all."

"Erinn," murmurs Taliesin, musing, just a snatch of song hummed under his breath. Returning his attention to the matter at hand, he nods once to Serri. "Wolves sing always in good harmony," he chuckles, layering his meaning--both musical and political. Wolves sometimes showed a solidarity better than the chancy and often too-temporary moments of peace between men.

The stranger is kind, Serri said with approval, pleasure thrumming within the link.

Well, he is a bard and knows how to express himself with his words.

And that is why I believe his kindness and good words are truly meant. That what he says is the honest truth.

"You have wolves where you come from?" Niall asks rhetorically. "Do you regard them with favour?"

"Poets regard all things natural with favor," says Taliesin with a grin. "Those of the true Cymry remember the Wolf of Menwaed, while those men who follow Iessu Crist in deed and thought together are less likely to consider the wolf admirable."

More the pity for them, he supposes, but he considers himself rather capable of following two faiths together, and holding to the threads of truth in each.

"You sound like you could be one of the Cheysuli, only with a kinder tongue," he says, grinning. "The Cheysuli are a race most happy when they are out living amongst the wilder things."

He takes a moment to pause, then resumes.

"Tell me about this Menwaed Wolf and this Iessu Crist. I am intrigued to hear more about them."

Taliesin laughs. "My profession requires a kind tongue, else I may find it cut out," he says with a narrow grin.

He imagines that the sway of the Cristonogian faith has not reached so far, if this man has not heard of Crist. "According to the bishops and priests who would baptize my country, Iessu Crist is the son of God, born to sacrifice himself to save men from their sins."

Niall laughs, much to Serri's amusement. "So glib. It is not surprising that you are a bard."

Then he listens.

"The son of a god was sent to save men? But why? What have the men of your world done that requires them to be saved by a man born of a god?"

Cywyllog has taken to watching the space in the wall where a door should be, when watching the fire gets tiresome. It is interesting to watch people come and go when one cannot see the door they enter and exit.

On this particular occasion, it's the singing she hears that intrigues her first. Not that she knows the song, but because for some reason, it reminds her of home.

"Is this your first arrival, sir?" She regards the man curiously. He certainly looks lost.

"Lady, that it is," says Taliesin, adjusting the wood of the harp against the somewhat more yielding curve of his shoulder before resting his eyes on hers.

She gives him pause.

The angles of her features make a wariness stiffen his spine. Curve like the quarter of a dawning moon, silence in her eyes. "We have not met, I think," he says, low but warm. "But you have a shade about you that I seem to remember, nevertheless."

"Do I?" She eyes him a little more carefully, and the harp. Not to mention the dragon carved on it. She's beginning to feel a little wary herself.

"Where is it you have come from, if I may ask?"

"Many places," he says with a narrow smile, a little indulgent, and steps a little closer, but only to take a seat almost across from her, nearer the fire. His next answer is willingly truthful enough, in any mortal sense. "Most recently, Porth Gwydno. Somewhat to the north, I believe, of your ancestral home," he adds, very low.

She watches him very carefully and raises an eyebrow at him as he sits.

"My ancestral home? I suppose that could either be Bodysgollen or Aberffraw." Her eyes return to the dragon. "You are Welsh, then?"

He gives her a grin, just a moment of gleaming teeth before his smile settles into something a little more serene. "I am of the Cymry, yes." He strokes deft fingers over the curve of the harp, brushing away any lingering moisture from his sojourn through the winter night. "Taliesin is how I am known."

She nods politely.

"It is always nice to meet someone from home. I am Princess Cywyllog of Gwynedd." Somehow, she feels this title is appropriate for the moment.

Eyes widening a moment, then narrowing again, Taliesin sweeps to his feet, eyeing her, then giving her a sleek sort of bow and a narrow grin.

"Lady of Gwynedd," he says. "I pray your temperment may be sweeter and your patience somewhat longer than that of your kingly brother." His eyes glitter; he's half in jest, at least.

Well now she's just staring.

"My kingly brother?" She has the advantage over him, perhaps, of knowing about alternate versions of their world. Still, the reference to her brother as a king is interesting. While nowhere near a far-fetched idea, it's certainly not a guarantee.

"My father rules our land in my time, sir."

With another arch of a brow, Taliesin nods once and takes his seat again, adjusting the harp against one thigh. "Ah. Forgive me, perhaps I am somewhat before my time?"

Or somewhat after. He has watched the stream of time, its ebb and flow, and he has stood in its center to watch its coherency dissolve into leaping chaos. Only perception made sense of its movements.

"That is possible, though if true, I would not know. It is also possible we are not from the same world at all."

She glances over to the fire. "My brother is king, you say?"

"Perhaps I should say no more, if you have no wish to hear the future of a world which might well be your own." He can take the confusion of times and places with some grace--no water runs entirely clear, after all, and so is the stream of history.

He curves his lips, and speaks despite his words. "That he is. With a son somewhat fit to inherit." After Maelgwn's doubtlessly noble death, blood and bones and all the rest of it piled beneath him in battle.

She looks back at this strange man seated across from her, a man who obviously does not like her brother. She hasn't the slightest idea what to make of him, and that's likely evident.

"I know my future, or what is likely. Others here are not as interested in preserving my ignorance in such matters."

She's trying to remember if her brother has a son yet. So many siblings, so many nieces and nephews.

"In my experience," says Taliesin, not entirely concerned with her opinion of him--not here, at least, free from merely mortal wrath, "no future is certain."

He settles against the seat with his cloak pulled around him, stretching his fingers toward the fire. Cold always settles into the joints. "So I cannot assure you of my veracity."

She's not someone who should cause anyone worry, really.

"A future may not be certain, but fate is a little less variable." She shrugs slightly. "Though the reason I was told about my potential future was in the hopes I might change it. I think."

Eyes glinting a bit in interest, Taliesin tilts his head slightly to one side, regarding her. "And did you manage such a thing?"

"I have not tried yet." Her voice is soft and she looks away again. "I know I could, but acting on it is not so easy."

His lips curve a bit, softened, his voice low when he speaks again. Smooth tones. "True enough. Or rather, the action itself is simple. The decision is the difficulty."

She hesitates, staring at the fire and sipping her tea. Then she nods.

"It is difficult. No one else seems to understand that. They think it is so simple

"More the pity to them, then, for their shortsightedness." Men of his time--perhaps not of any time--are not given to great patience, or great forethought. The true strategists are so pitifully rare.

"Better that you give the question the time it requires."

"I thought I had, but now I am not so sure. I am not very decisive at the best of times." She sighs.

"How is it you know my brother?" It's not necessarily an attempt to change the subject. Her brain is just working on overload lately, and she's asking things as they come to her.

Taliesin shifts back in his seat, pulling the harp into his lap and running fingertips just along the strings, testing for tautness instead of tone.

"Do you know of King Garanhir Gwydno? His son was my master," he begins.

She shakes her head apologetically.

"I am sorry, I do not. Which kingdom is his?"

Pausing, Taliesin blinks at her once, then chuckles after a long moment. "It must be so, then, that your world is not mine," he says. "Gwydno Garanhir is one of the kings of the north of Prydain. His son is Elffin, one of the three great princes of the isle. They pay a certain great level of respest to your brother, Maelgwn mab Cadwallon Lawhir."

"It may also be that there are so many Kings and Kingdoms that I have lost track. After all, as a woman, I have little use for such knowledge." She shrugs a little.

"This King Gwydno Garanhir has dealings with my brother? I suppose that is possible. I have not lived at home in some years now and have no idea of my brother's business."

"Possible enough," Taliesin returns. "I was young at the time. Just thirteen. I fear the tale does not paint your brother in a kindly fashion, for he took my friend and master Elffin prisoner, when he dared to speak truth instead of flattery."

She frowns slightly.

"Kings do often wish to be told what they want to hear, and not always what is true."

She wishes she could defend her brother, but in truth, she doesn't really know him that well.

Taliesin chuckles. "And that is truth, Lady of Gwynedd." With a sigh, he strummed his fingers over the harp strings, tightening the strings and working them one by one back into tune.

"Perhaps it is so with all men," he says with a narrow smile. "Truth seems to be relative."

"Indeed." She offers a thin smile back. "In fact, some even try to force events to fit the truth they wish for themselves."

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