The Bright One

[lionbright]

There's a dark, slender boy walking toward the house, his bewitching face as pale as salt at the moment, and he's dressed for travelling in the dead of winter at least a thousand years ago.  He has the bearing of a prince and a warrior, for all that he's never seen a battle, and carries no weapon.  The sheath that held his hunting knife is empty.

Comments

[illgotten]

Mordred, just coming down the steps, pauses in startlement -- Kay is not wrong; he does look like a relative, especially at first glance. But they're pretty much all accounted for by now.

Still, his tone is gentler than it might otherwise be, for yet another bedraggled newcomer. "Are you all right?"

[typist: I LOVE YOU. That is all.]

[lionbright]

WHOA.

He starts back in deep, real, irrational and undisguised horror.

[typist: I am so. going. to. hell.

[illgotten]

"Easy-- easy." Mordred holds up his hands. "Easy, there. It's all right."

[it's cozy down here. :D]

[lionbright]

"Oh, so you say--what am I to believe or imagine, what?"

does a double-take.

"But you are not--"

agggh, so confusing, and he really doesn't trust his brain right now.

[It is! easy, easy, easy is the descent into Avernus...]

[illgotten]

"I'm probably not," he agrees dryly. Short, dark, bright-eyed, with a sharp flippancy to his voice, now that he's recovered himself. "You want to sit down? Are you hurt?" Since the kid seems to be moving okay, but you never know.

[lionbright]

"I'm not hurt." This man is like Lleu in height and coloring, and, well, intensity; but it's not himself that Lleu sees in him, though that's disturbing in its own way. "I won't sit."

[illgotten]

Mordred studies him. "Suit yourself. It's warmer inside."

[lionbright]

thinks: yeah, warmer inside, like I'd do YOUR bidding, whoever you are?

"Am I allowed?"

It's not obvious if he means will they let me in or are you going to allow me.

[illgotten]

"Everyone's allowed," patiently. "Or stay out here and catch cold, it's all the same to me."

This last is kind of a lie. He's intrigued, for no very clear reason.

[lionbright]

abruptly: "You look like me."

[t: never been famous for his subtlety, Lleu the Bright One.]

[illgotten]

A pause. "Or vice versa. I suppose so."

[t: so very, very true.]

[lionbright]

"What if I go in? Who's there? Is it an inn, or--" Shudder. He rubs his eyes, reaches for the missing dagger as if for assurance, and looks around in indecision. He's less steady than he's letting on. "Why are you here?"

[illgotten]

"I live here. Or near here, that is." Mordred folds his arms, leaning on the rail of the steps. "It's a house, that's all. People live there, most of them are harmless." A moment, then, softer, "Whoever's after you, I can almost promise you you've lost them."

[lionbright]

shakes his head. "No. You--"

[illgotten]

"What, boy?" The nerves are contagious.

[lionbright]

"I don't know. You are--you are like my brother. More like my brother than like me. And so--"

pause. faint smile.

"That's not fair, is it? I'm sorry." Then the defiant, defensive scowl comes back. "And why should I fear one if not the other?"