milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

[OOM: After Bran reclaimed his harp from the lake and went home, Bran and his da had a quiet holiday, and an interesting conversation.]

Harpsong winds through the front of Milliways. Owen Davies holds open the door so that Bran can go through first, and follows after. Both men are dressed in their Sunday best.

Bran goes immediately to the bar, where he receives a gift and a note. As he reads the note, his jaw tightens.

[ooc: Yes, they're both here. Please ping before tagging, though.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I wonder, then," she says softly -- so very softly, and with a dangerous hiss to her tone, "how it was that my John who happened to find you in time to help keep you, yourself, Owen Davies, from doing a thing that you would have forever regretted, would you not?"

A beat.

"Murder is still a sin, after all."

From the door (http://www.livejournal.com/community/milliways_bar/10236609.html) Will spots the group.

Everything about him changes in an instant from boy to clear-eyed Old One, and there is a clear kinship to Merriman in his sharp-glinting gaze and the swiftness of his steps.

Softly, as he takes his place on Bran's other side, "Sins you speak of, Rider?"

"I would not think that is a road you would wish to start down, here."

Will stands tall and straight before her, and coldly furious.

She is also standing, facing him-- facing them, and the power of the rising Dark coils around her like a storm building to strike.

"No, and you would not, now would you?" Mockery in her tone, cruel laughter, and it is the White Rider of the Dark before them now and no trace of Blodwen left, not when facing the Wild and the Light at once.

"Have a care, Old One, dewin bach -- even you cannot strike me here, not without paying for it; it is an assurance that I now have, you see."

"Go ahead. Try."

Owen Davies, shaking with rage, barely contains the urge to snap Blodwen Rowlands' neck with his work-roughened hands.

Bran touches the lowest harpstring. The Wild Magic hovers in the air like waiting thunder.

One eyebrow rises.

"In this room, at your challenge?" Faintly scornful, but the words are directed at Bran as much as the White Rider, though he never looks away from her.

"No." The soft word falls like a stone. No, Bran, he thinks with it.

"You were cast out once, Rider, and the Dark defeated at the height of its rising. Winter will turn to spring, here as in the world, and the Dark's power has ever been less than it thinks."

Hearing Will, Bran pulls himself to the forefront of his mind and silences the harp. He is still blindingly furious, but at least it is only a human anger.

"You would like to have it so, Old One, would you not?" Malice and poison, hatred and bitter, bitter seething fury. "And yet it is that I think you are wrong."

"Some things do change, and this is not your world, little Watchman. Even you, too, may fail."

"And you will." A beat. "You already have, I think."

The fury of the Dark beats at the borders of his mind like heavy buffeting wings, and the fury of the Davies next to him throbs like pounding hearts; almost he can hear the wind howling here indoors.

Neutrally, "Do you?"

He's composed. He would be in any case; now, with Bran and Owen teetering on the razor's edge of temper beside him, it's doubly important.

"Why, cariad, if you do not know, then I surely would not presume to tell you," she says.

Smiling, in defiance of the whirling risen invisible storm that seethes around her, held in check only by her will.

"Ask one of these two, perhaps the white raven -- I would be surprised if he did not have an opinion on matters, indeed."

"An opinion, is it, that you want?" Bran snarls. "You are hardly worthy of it."

The icy wind biting at Owen's face and hands is familiar, like the cold ragged breath of the Brenin Llwyd on the day a dark-haired girl appeared on Owen Davies' doorstep. Owen lets it touch him without flinching.

"You have betrayed every loyalty, every duty, every love you have ever had," Owen Davies says to the being wrapped in darkness. "And I am not afraid of you, Blodwen Rowlands."

She jerks, as if struck, and for a single moment everything stills. A single moment only, but one that is frozen and as clear as an icicle gleaming in a sudden ray of sunlight -- and in that slice of time, utterly agonized grief is clear on the face of the woman who once was mortal, before she gave herself to the Dark, so very long before she was Blodwen Rowlands.

Grief, and loss, and the bitter, bitter knowledge of exactly just what it is that she has lost -- and the pain of that knowledge is very, very visible.

Then it is gone, blown apart by the raging power of the Dark, so very near its height-- and something else is suddenly, utterly clear, as she welcomes it to her in an attempt to fill the emptiness that is all that remains within her now.

"No."

One single, hissed word, of desperate, furious negation, and the White Rider gathers herself to strike.

The front door to Milliways Bar opens.

It is ever the job of the Maker to see what is going on around him.

Gwion sees this.

Light catches on the harp string on his wrist as he moves forward, quickly. "Blodwen Rowlands." Clear, and urgent. "I would offer you a trade."

Bran was ready to jump in front of Owen and face the White Rider on her own terms.

When Gwion speaks, Bran freezes in position, his knees still bent to move. He says nothing.

Then his eyes snag on the harpstring around Gwion's wrist, and the harp missing from Gwion's arms.

It is with very great difficulty that Bran restrains his terror and anger now.

The very air is heavy with the weight of the risen power, but it is enough. Enough to distract her, for one crucial second, as she turns, balanced in the fury of the storm that is her own.

Enough that she looks at him, ice-blue, ice-bright gaze on his, surprised.

"You would bargain with me?" A beat. "You, Gwion harper? Now?"

Another beat.

"What, then?"

The Rider's power is rising, a shrieking storm and a silent oppressive weight in the air, and Will gathers his own strength instantly to match, words of the Old Speech in his mind and a strange brightness about him, like a swirling pillar of light only half-glimpsed. The Dark is rising with deep winter, but still they are paired and matched, and he can meet her strength; he can shield Owen Davies, and Bran and himself, and he is ready to, about to cry the word--

And Gwion is there.

Will holds himself taut, and does not look away from the White Rider. Not now.

The air, he thinks, is holding its breath.

A wash of wary gratitude, and of uneasiness. What are you planning, Gwion?

Carefully -- so carefully, and with love -- he slides the string off his wrist, and holds it out, standing straight.

"This."

His chest rises, and falls -- a steadying breath.

"For one of those lovely flowers in your hair."

And Gwion smiles, the lines in his face creasing and deepening with the weight and freedom of sincerity.

"One thing of the Lost Land for another."

There's art in everything. Craft, too.

And this -- this, too, is Making.

How long has it been since he has called Cantref y Gwaelod, the Lowland Hundred, by that particular name, after all?

Her hand rises to her hair, unconsciously-- fingertips brushing lightly over the delicate flowers, shaped from frost, from memory.

A copy only, a mimicry of what once was.

Moving slowly, Blodwen pulls the brightness of the two remaining flowers from her brown hair, and holds them out to Gwion.

"They will not last, I am afraid." The light voice is soft, strangely quiet-- and yet clear as a bell of silver, cutting through the taut silence.

"Nothing does, in the end."

Owen does not know what is being traded, nor why, but he sees Gwion's smile -- strange, at such a time -- and the glinting flowers in Blodwen's hair.

Very quietly, he says, "That is how it should be."

As Gwion takes the flowers, he looks at Owen sharply -- and then strangely. And then smiles.

He holds the flowers in an open palm, and looks down at them as he speaks.

"I am sure that you remember what my land was like in the days of its glory -- you spent enough time there." Gwion looks up, and gives her a quick smile -- nothing of animosity, and why should there be? The Lowland Hundred was a land of many wonders, there for all to see.

He looks down at the flowers again. "Full of Makers, it was. We Made such beautiful things -- smelted, forged, sculpted, wrote, sang, danced, dreamed -- and why? To capture something that had been, or that could be, and was not. We know well what loss is. It is our business."

The fingers of his other hand come close to touching the other flowers, and do not.

"I wish that I could help you see what it is to create, Blodwen Rowlands. But I cannot." He's not looking down any more, and his smile is sad. "So I will create for you. And that is my choice to do so -- and my honor. And I do wish you well."

Bran almost forgets his fury for his awe. Lightly, he touches the golden vines on the harp that Gwion made for the High Magic and the Wild Magic.

The harpstring is tangled still in Gwion's fingers, gleaming brightly under the shining white of the flowers in his palm.

She does not take it from him. Blodwen lets her hand fall to her side, and stands still. Her glance flicks to Owen, and to Bran-- but then returns to Gwion, and lingers there.

"To capture something that was not," she says slowly. "And to keep something of it. I think... that I shall wish you better success in your seeking, harper, than I myself have found."

And with that, the White Rider leaps up on the wind of her storm, and is gone.

The silence, when she is gone, is utter.

Will looks at Gwion.

He says nothing, but his face has softened into a grave sorrow far too old for his features. Thank you, he does not say, but it is there to be seen.

And the gifts put into some men, he half thinks and half remembers, shall light the dark corners of life for all the rest.

In so brave a world.

It is there to be seen; Gwion catches the end of it, for he is busy working the string of his harp around his wrist again. Where it belongs.

And when his dark eyes catch Will's, the harper gives him the old smile -- the one that is wry, and fond, and crinkles the lines at the edges of his eyes.

Quietly: "Well, now."