(Untitled)

[pwyll_twiceborn]

One last farewell to make

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[first_of_dana]

The acolyte returns, after a moment, and with her is Jaelle.

"Pwyll," she says. "I wondered if you would come. Will you take a glass of wine?"

[pwyll_twiceborn]

He had thought he might be kept waiting. Then again, if she thought that's what he'd expect, she almost certainly would do the opposite.

He nods, and follows her back along the hallway to the room he remembers.

[first_of_dana]

She dismisses the acolyte and closes the door, goes to a sideboard and pours wine for them both, her motions brisk and impersonal.

She gives him one of the glasses and sinks down into a pile of cushions on the floor.

"This evening, then?"

[pwyll_twiceborn]

"If you will," he says, hastily; trying for all the politeness they've so often missed. "Is there a difficulty? Because if there -"

[first_of_dana]

"No, no," she says, quickly. "I was only asking. We will do it at moonrise."

[pwyll_twiceborn]

There's a silence -

- broken, eventually, by quiet laughter.

"We really are terrible, aren't we? We never could manage a civil exchange."

[first_of_dana]

She considers, not smiling, though his tone has invited it.

"That night by the Anor.

"Until I said the wrong thing."

[pwyll_twiceborn]

"You didn't. I was just - sensitive. About power and control."

Not, really, as if that's news.

"You found a nerve."

[first_of_dana]

"We're trained to do that."

She smiles, mocking herself a bit.

[pwyll_twiceborn]

"I did my share of goading," Paul admits. "One of the reasons I came was to tell you that a lot of it was reflex. My own defenses. I wanted to say goodbye, and to tell you that I have -"

Has what?

What, after all, had he come to say?

"- a great deal of respect for you," he finishes, carefully. Feeling somehow lacking all the same.

[first_of_dana]

She says nothing. She's not sure what to say. I have a great deal of respect for you as well?

It's true, as far as it goes, and yet . . .

So she says nothing.

[pwyll_twiceborn]

Sooner or later one of them will say something wounding. Sooner or later one of them will spoil it; they always do.

"I should go," he says, and rises, swiftly. "I'll see you this evening, I guess."

He turns towards the door.

[first_of_dana]

"Paul. Wait."

[pwyll_twiceborn]

. . . not Pwyll.

Paul.

A sudden suspicion - or perhaps a hope - stirs within him.

He turns again.

[first_of_dana]

She has not moved, her arms crossed tight across her chest, suddenly cold in the midst of summer.

"Are you really going to leave me?"

[pwyll_twiceborn]

In that instant, everything changes.

Words that he had never thought he would say again:

"Oh, love," he says.

The room is full of light, so much light, but not blinding; he takes one step, and then another, still hardly able to believe what he's doing.