it's a melody; it's a battle cry | childhood | for cywyllog

[cadcamlan]

Sometimes, it's just easier to play with girls.

Or, at the very least, with the particular girls he's come to know. They're strong, not silly, absolutely persons to contend with in tree-climbing and racing over rocks and arguing about the things children argue about. They smile at him. They touch his hand and his arm and his cheek and they laugh with him. They never throw rocks or words at him. He never wants to hit them. He always leaves them with a bit of a smile on his lips.

He adores them. He spends his life thankful for them. He does his best to steal away when he knows they'll be free, playing away from their nurses, making the world calm and wonderful.

Today is no exception.

The difference, today, is that he's been playing with boys all morning. He's got a cut on his lip and a bruise around his eye, is stepping only slightly more gingerly than usual as he scrambles down the rocks toward the shore. He's entirely unconscious of trying to avoid the girl closest to his own age.

He doesn't know why he dislikes the idea of Cywyllog seeing him sporting bruises. He doesn't want to think about it.

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[cadcamlan]

He can't help that the story--real or otherwise--perks his attention. His entire being is drawn to it, body curling forward and eyes sparking with actual interest. The hiraeth is strong in his gut even without a proper understanding of why.

"Why-- aren't we all like that? Doesn't it make worlds more sense?"

[cywyllog]

"I hear rumour things in the north are still much like that, though mother doesn't get word from her family often." It's nice to think that simpler ways are not completely lost, brutal as they may be.

"I think-- I think that it becomes more complicated when men become less willing to respect that in order for such ways to continue, they must eventually lose."

[cadcamlan]

"But that's how strength-- works."

His eye was blackened and his lip bloodied because he hadn't been able to win properly. Everyone loses something in combat. There's no help for it.

"We ought to be ruled by the strong and deserving. And we ought to be constantly challenging that. When a king isn't fit, why shouldn't we replace him with one who is?"

[cywyllog]

She studies him for a moment. Not his lip or the bruising, but his eyes, the tensing of his jaw. "Would you be so willing to admit defeat? To simply give up what you had worked so hard to obtain simply because others feel you no longer deserve them?"

[cadcamlan]

"We've all got-- a destiny, haven't we? A fate. A purpose. A reason we're here and living the life we've had laid for us."

He's still young. He's still got something childish and roughly adolescent in his voice and his being. But this much he knows. This much makes him look old--and something like his father, if only in the eyes.

"When it is my time to fall, I hope I have the good grace to fall knowing I've served that purpose."

It will be different, perhaps, when he finds what his own fate is. Hopefully, some of the strength of conviction he feels now will help him along in being prepared to lay down his life.

[cywyllog]

"Some say we do. Others say our lives are our own."

She reaches out, gingerly touching the skin around his eye. "But you would rather fall than yield, aye?"

[cadcamlan]

"I should hate nothing more than to yield, I think." And doesn't now, barely wincing from her touch.

[cywyllog]

She stops, drawing her hand back. "What makes you think most men are any different?"

[cadcamlan]

"You think it's the same to fall in pitched battle and to yield, Cywyllog?" His arm shifts, leans him forward more properly to study her face.

[cywyllog]

"No, I think it's the exact opposite." She sighs, trying to think how to make herself clear. "You say that as soon as a king is deemed unfit, he should be replaced. That would be yielding."

[cadcamlan]

"I mean a king should be challenged. Frequently. Particularly when there are questions about his continued strength as a leader." It's something of what he's been taught, of course, if moderately more influenced by something older. "He's unfit when he finally falls."

[cywyllog]

"Wouldn't that just encourage people to find fault?" Politics aren't really her strong suit. Not that it needs to be. "A king should want his land to be peaceful."

[cadcamlan]

"A good king should have nothing to fear. Men don't-- want to overthrow a kingdom without need. Men want a leader. Someone strong to follow, to devote themselves to. It's... comforting." For most people, at any rate. His eyes drop to the sand, fingers tracing an idle pattern in the sand between them.

[cywyllog]

"Like a father." She brushes her hair out of her eyes, studying him once more. "Is that what you're looking for? Someone to devote yourself to?"

[cadcamlan]

"...I'm not certain." It's honest, at least. "It would... make things easier. Less-- uncertain."

[cywyllog]

"My father is a good man and a good king." Hint, hint, Mordred.

[cadcamlan]

"He is."

And it isn't a thought that hasn't occurred to the young man before. His fingers wipe out the pattern in the sand as he glances up at her properly again.

"So might your husband be."

[cywyllog]

She offers a half-hearted shrug. "He might be, he might not. You'll find a place."

[cadcamlan]

"It'll be strange. To be here without..." There's the slightest hiccough in his gesture as he shifts back onto his elbows. "...all of you."

[cywyllog]

It's a sweet thing to say, in his own strange Mordred way. "It'll be strange to be gone. I'd invite you to visit, but I'm not yet certain where I'll be going."

[cadcamlan]

The exhale is slight as he sits up more properly. "It isn't as if you're leaving tomorrow."

[cywyllog]

She giggles again, light and airy sounds almost lost into the wind.

"Goodness, no. Not until I'm sixteen, too."

[cadcamlan]

"I could be the champion of your father's court by then." Unlikely, but possible. Certainly the sort of thing he could jut his jaw out about. "Maybe I'll escort you to your new home."

[cywyllog]

"Maybe you will." It seems perfectly reasonable to her.

Then she sits up suddenly and waves, arm stretched high up into the air. "I think we're leaving now."

[cadcamlan]

It's easy enough to pull himself to his feet. With her, with her sisters, it's actually fairly natural to reach out a hand and help her up as well. "But I'll see you tomorrow?"