FicWad

Chapter Eight


"Dow?"

He hummed softly in his sleep, and then was awake, staring at intelligent blue eyes from a short distance. Sharply, he inhaled, pulling back out of habit and nearly reaching for his bow, before settling quietly back into the warmth of Llewellyn's arms. The battle against the Woads had been hard and brutal, and not at all helped by the Pewter Folk who were advancing ever North toward the Woads' land.

Llewellyn's hand skated over Dow's face gently, drawing him back. The sling on his arm restricted his movement for the most part, but his fingers were insistent when they reached his face, and Dow moved to them willingly.

"I'm worried."

Dow nodded a little, brushed Llewellyn's hands away, and worried closer to his lover's insistent warmth. His arms wormed around the firm waist, locking fingers-to-wrist in the small of his back as he nuzzled the hollow of Llewellyn's throat.

"Dow."

He hummed his questioning tone but didn't speak. His entire being felt tired and dragged, and his body ached from hard battle against the weather and their elusive Northern foes. Llewellyn's fingers drug through his hair a few times, tilting his head back a little.

Their lips met softly, and Dow opened his eyes to Llewellyn's gaze once again. In the tent beside theirs, someone moved harshly against the canvas, and they both tensed a moment, before focusing back on each other.

"I'm worried."

"You said that, love. Whatfor?"

Llewellyn shook his head a little, and kissed Dow softly again, resting their brows together as they parted. Dow drifted slowly back into sleep, until Llewellyn's ghosting fingers drew him slowly back out of dreams. He shifted a little in the half-haze of lazy waking, and groaned a little, swatting at those ghosting hands.

"Stop," he grumbled, turning onto his stomach and grumbling into the bedroll beneath him.

He started violently as one hand ghosted over his hip, almost roughly, and flinched away from Llewellyn in a fright, staring at him with wide eyes. Llewellyn gazed back seriously, blinking away his own hazy sleep, and slowly eased up onto his knees as Dow slid away, against the canvas.

His hands came to Llewellyn's shoulders roughly, and he shoved the ginger back, scrambling toward the flap the tent. His voice was hoarse and shrill when Llewellyn caught his ankle and pulled him back, and he thrashed, sobbing a little as Llewellyn held him done, shushing him gently.

Their eyes met, and Llewellyn slowly crawled off Dow, frightening himself to see the deep horror in his lover's eyes. Dow lay there, shaking and gasping for his breath, before leaning slowly up and watching Llewellyn slowly and carefully. The ginger had his face turned studiously away, his hair shielding most of his profile and coiling over his arms and his knees and such.

"'wellyn . . . I'm sorry."

"I'm not worried, Dow," Llewellyn whispered to his knees. "I'm scared of the morning." Dow could do nothing more than stare at his lover, then slowly slide across their bedding, and wrap around him slowly. He buried his nose in his lover's ginger hair, and sighed gently.

"We should rest."Uryen was watching him when he woke, and he groaned a little. At least when he woke this time he was not bound and listening to the strange and sharp language of the strangers. His companion knelt at his side, and brushed his hair out of his eyes.

"Do you know what day it is, Dow?" He thought of it for a while and then shook his head very slowly. It ached to move, even that little amount. Uryen nodded slightly, and pressed his fingers to his brow, slowly dragging his eyelids down. "Sleep for a little while, won't you? I've got to watch over some others."

He drifted out then. He didn't know how long he slept, but when he woke next, Uryen was there again, speaking in hushed tones over his head. Dow tried to reach out to him, but could not move his arm; it felt laden and thick, barely attached.

He wondered what had happened. Where was he, and why was he here? If Uryen were here, where was Irving? Where was Gwyn, and his other brothers and sisters?

Where was Llewellyn?

Later, he would never be able to retell how many times he fell in and out of his knowledge of Uryen and the tiny tent he was holed away in. He knew of the burning itch under his skin, and was vaguely aware of his unanswered requests for Llewellyn to come and see him. At times, he would see snakes roiling beneath the cot he was laid out upon.

He thought he saw, more than once, a single man dressed all in white and glimmering as though bright under a pregnant moon, his long hair streaming and a scar dark and ominous on his cheek. More than once, later, he learned that Uryen had to put him back abed.

When his fever broke, he was at home again, under the careful care of Gwyn's wife, and truly out of sorts when he found himself staring at the ceiling of his brother's home. Gwyn's smiling face was suddenly in his eyes, his pale eyes bright and full of mirth.

"Welcome back from Tir na-nOg, little brother. Did you enjoy your stay? I'd thought we'd have to take your head off if you hadn't woken soon."

"What day is it?"

Gwyn's smile dimmed a little, and he shifted on his crutch to sit beside Dow. He helped him sit up, offering him water for his parched throat and a gently caress to his back. Dow asked again, his voice wryly insistent.

"It's the third moon after your birthing, little stag. You're home again." Dow stretched his arms slowly, testing his motion. Gwyn's wife was watching them skeptically, as though waiting for Gwyn to say something; Dow's glance bounced between them.

Softly, he asked, "The others? Are they back as well?" To which Gwyn nodded, smiling just a little.

"Uryen's treating the last of the living, and arranging with families for those that have passed. You're a lucky deer, Dow. That arrow did a number on you, but you've kept up the race."

"And how is everyone?"

"Well enough." Gwyn shifted beside his brother, itching at the wrappings he kept ever present on his severed leg. Dow stared at the wrappings for a moment, caught Gwyn's wife watching them out of the corner of his eye again.

Gwyn hefted himself up, and approached her slowly. "Dierdrea, could we have a moment?" His wife looked over at Dow for a moment, before sighing softly. She wiped her hands on her apron, and strode away, out beyond the threshold. It suddenly seemed terribly cold in Gwyn's home, as he hobbled back over and sat beside him.

"Dow," he began slowly. He sighed, and hung his head, leaning over his knees as he sighed lightly. Dow touched his shoulder gently, tugging at his sleeve.

"Whatever it is, brother, I would hear it. I would know."

"You won't think me a kind messenger, little brother," Gwyn contested, shaking his head with another sigh. He straightened, turned, and grabbed Dow's hands, squeezing them gently. "How much do you remember of the battle?"

"I remember up to my shot. Things get fuzzy then, though I remember waking several times with Uryen." Gwyn nodded. His thumbs were idle over the backs of Dow's hands, and he rotated his wrists to grab those hands and still their distracting movement. "Gwyn, you're worrying me. What's wrong?"

"The Woads did a number on us, little brother. There are more people Uryen's helping put away than he's helping patch up. We lost Father, and Drostan. And . . . and Llewellyn as well."

"What?" Dow breathed, staring at his older brother incredulously. Gwyn nodded sadly. He had laced their hands together intimately, and his thumbs were tracing idly once more. They were rougher than Dow remembered from youth, but still tender.

He heard Gwyn tell him that they had thought Llewellyn only captured but had found him on the way back. But his mind and soul conflicted with the knowledge. Firmly, he shook his head, and tore his hands away from Gwyn's.

"That's a lie," he proclaimed, standing and glaring down at his brother. "I saw 'wellyn while I was abed. I saw him. He was there, and very real, and most certainly not dead."

"No, Dow," Gwyn said, shifting up and grabbing Dow's shoulder gently. He shook his head, and repeated, "No, you didn't see him."

"Yes I did!" He shrugged off Gwyn's hand, shoving away from him in a frightful huff and rage. Ominously, he shook a finger at his brother, and vowed, "You all thought him dead before, when those horrid beasts from across the waters captured us. Now, you think him dead again. I tell you, he is not! And I will wait for him, until he comes back."

"Dow-!"

He rushed out of Gwyn's home without a second word or glance back, and ran until he could not run any longer. As he collapsed, sobbing, he had the state of mind to commiserate the irony of finding his way back to their clearing once more.He was listless, laying about before his alter in the nude, when his senses returned to him. He could hear people talking outside his window of the Passing Over of Llewellyn, son of Fionn; and could feel the first sharp, hot rays of light beating through his shutters and onto his face. Someone was outside his door, too frightened to knock or simply enter.

There were very few who came passed his door. Gwyn and Uryen and Irving, and on occasion, Vyvyan or Gwendol or Meghan. But any of them had no trepidations at his door. After several long moments of simply knowing his guest was there, he sat up, reaching for his clothing with a half-interested grace.

He opened the door, half-dressed, just as a small fist raised to the wood. Blae stared up at him, tears in his awesomely blue eyes, and fell harshly against his stomach, sobbing miserably. Dow brought his arms slowly around the boy's shoulders, holding him gently as he shook and rattled, raving of things Dow could not comprehend.

Slowly, he brought the boy in, and sat him before his alter. He brewed tea without looking at the boy, simply listening to his hitching breath, and finally brought the clay mug to him, handing it to him with a listless grace and no glance. Blae thanked him quietly, and held the mug in trembling fingers.

"Why are you here?" he asked of his lover's son. Blae shrugged, and shook his hair out of his eyes. He wore the black of the clothes he'd worn the night before, in the same cut as his brothers; he was beginning to outgrow those clothes, as well, too much a man for a boy's garments.

"Rhia does not wish to speak of my anguish," he explained quietly. His voice was ever chipper and high, though the wetness spoke readily of his grieving spirit. "She doesn't wish to hear or tell what I want to know of my father."

"And what would that be?" Blae shrugged, shook his head, stared into his tea as though it held all the answers in the world.

"You're the only one who cried for my father," he observed softly. Dow sat on the edge of his prescribed circle, and shook his head.

"Kynan did as well. He came as the rites ended."

"He mourns because he is to marry," Blae contested, shaking his head. His voice held the color of a vindictive younger brother than. Dow covered his hands gently, and sighed a little. The anger and resentment in those eyes seemed out of place.

He had seen it, once, in Llewellyn's eyes. When Dow had spoken of Llewellyn's love of the women around him over his own love. Now, it seemed well and true. But still out of place in Blae's young eyes.

"What would you like to know about your father, Blae? I'm sure Rhia knows more of him than I do." Blae stared at him incredulously then, blinking back thick tears.

"You've known him since you were a man, have you not?"

"I have-."

"Than who else, besides Fionn, would know of him? Rhia knew him for no time at all, compared to you." Dow shook his head a little, and sighed. He stood, and strode to his kettle. Through the shutters, the light skated through dust motes to the ground. Blae stood, and approached him.

"We did not speak much, your father and I." He looked at the young boy, took in his forceful visage and vengeful tears. There was a final sigh breathed, and he returned back at the alter.

He took up the pewter goblet Llewellyn had given him, and stared at the etching for quite some time, before looking up at Blae. In his young face, he could see his lover as he had been at their meeting, perhaps more so now with only memory to compare their likenesses.

"I'm going to tell you something, Blae, that my father told me. It is of a young man, and the man he loved. And, hopefully, you will not make the same mistakes my father made, or that your father and I made."

Blae sat beside Dow then, and drew from his pouch a piece of granite he had once taken from that same pouch when it had hung from his father's hip. He tossed it in the air, watched it spin, and grabbed Dow's wrist to move the pewter goblet beneath the stone.

The goblet rang with a sharp, painful noise. Blae smiled slightly at Dow, and promised, "If I am to be happy, I should only hope that I live as well as you and my father did, Dow, son of Draga. I would hear your story."