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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[cywyllog]

"I am not saving everyone, just Eyslk." She sighs and attempts to explain. "Siwan is leaving soon and she's upset about it. Eyslk is the youngest of our group, so she's the easiest to take it out on."

[cadcamlan]

"Leaving?"

That's a good distraction from his own day. He pushes to his feet again as his attention flicks away over the shore to the other girls. It would be strange to think about them all vanishing, one by one, sent off into the alliances that would keep the kingdom strong.

"Already?"

[cywyllog]

She nods, a small frown forming.

"She'll be sixteen next month. She doesn't want to go."

[cadcamlan]

"Suppose there isn't much of a choice." Someday, he'd learn how to comfort properly. For now, his best guess is contact.

And 'contact' amounts to shoving lightly at her shoulder.

"We've all got our fates. Just... clearer, with you lot, isn't it."

[cywyllog]

She wrinkles her nose at him and seriously considers shoving him back, but all this talk has reminded her of the lady she's supposed to be.

"A bit, I guess. I still don't know where I'll be going, but that's a few years off for me still."

[cadcamlan]

Proper ladies, Mordred was fairly certain, didn't have skirts stained with sea water and their lips kissed with salt. Proper ladies didn't wipe away blood with practical efficiency and pick seashells off the shore with a perfectly artistic eye.

Mordred absolutely preferred Cadwallon's daughters to 'proper ladies.'

"Aren't any of you staying here?"

[cywyllog]

Proper ladies, Cywyllog thinks, should be able to do all those things. Along with the silly embroidery and singing lessons. And maybe even be taught how to read and write, too, despite that it would be in Latin.

But that's just her.

She gives him a quizzical look, shifting her braid back into place. "Why would we? This is what we do for our family; we make alliances." She's known that since she was born, but moreso when she was seven and Myfanwy was the first to leave.

[cadcamlan]

Maybe it wasn't a matter of proper ladies. Maybe what would be better would be proper women. Surely a proper woman of old could have read, lifted a sword, laughed because the sea wind tasted so wonderful on her lips.

"I-- know." And certainly, although his own wasn't yet clear, wasn't one to speak against laid-out fates. "Does that mean I have to like knowing you'll all be gone in a few years?"

[cywyllog]

She shrugs, giving her sisters another glance to make sure Siwan wasn't still acting out. They seem fine now, sitting on the sand wringing out Eyslk's dress.

"By then you'll be getting married yourself and we will only be memories. Think about that," she suggests, "what your life will be like."

[cadcamlan]

And there comes the proper scowl. He bends for a moment to lift an uninteresting sort of rock from the ground.

"Maybe I won't be. Might be too busy-- adventuring."

Or something like that.

[cywyllog]

"Why not? Certainly there must be girls already following you around." And at this point, she will lightly poke his shoulder. It's definitely not a shove, but still teasing.

"Why would you go off adventuring?"

It occurs to her, then, that they don't really know all that much about him. He's just been Mordred, a boy who comes and teases them, helps them find shells and rocks, a boy who fell in with them easily enough that they never questioned it. But what he does when it's time to go home, or before he shows up to play, is unknown.

Though it apparently involves him getting his lip split and his eye blackened.

[cadcamlan]

The hand shoving hers away isn't quite rough, although it's perhaps a touch more so than it really needs to be. Girls had taken to looking at him, after all--dark and brooding and apparently rather handsome in a rough fashion--but not quite to following. The other boys made sure of that.

"To prove myself." To be something other than the bastard child who had appeared almost out of nowhere. The rock is skipped over the waves carelessly before he stoops for another. "To find the court I'll ally myself to, I suppose."

[cywyllog]

She sighs, taking a step back from him. He's been like this before, though not often, and it isn't any fun. She supposes it has to do with the with the injuries on his face.

"So you're not really doing anything different than we are. We just don't get to choose where we go."

[cadcamlan]

"I suppose that's the difference between men and women." Which they were turning into, really rather rapidly. Maybe she had a few years before she actually left. Maybe he had choices about how he lived his own life.

It was still disconcerting to think about.

"Are you frightened?"

[cywyllog]

"One of many," she agrees, glancing out over the water. "I don't think about it much. But maybe a little when I do."

Her voice softens as she adds, "I've never been alone before."

[cadcamlan]

"...you won't be alone," he frowns, fingers poking distractedly at her shoulder. There should be physical contact, but a hug doesn't occur to him. "You'll be with your... husband."

[cywyllog]

Cywyllog smacks his hand away gently, in a mood now herself. "But I won't know him, will I?"

It's not exactly a question. She knows how this works.

[cadcamlan]

He knows how to be in a mood. How to solve Cywyllog being in one... he's not certain.

But a piece of him wants to. His shoulders twist slightly in confusion. "You'll get to. Quickly, I should think. And-- he'll adore you. That... ought to be nice."

[cywyllog]

"Will he?" That is a question, though not necessarily one she believes he can truly answer.

She sits on the sand, skirts over her knees, and throws a rock into the water. "All he'll care about is what my father can do for him. I'll just be... convenient."

[cadcamlan]

"...I think he will." He lifts another rock of his own, skips it hard over the water before he shrugs. "You're... very charming. He'll be mad not to care for you."

[cywyllog]

"Siwan's the charming one. The pretty one. All the boys clamour for her attention. They'll be disappointed when she's gone."

She sighs then and brushes sand over his shoes. Just because.

"I don't want to talk about it anymore. Are you going to tell me why you're hurt?"

[cadcamlan]

The neutral expression on his face cracks briefly, foot kicking to get the sand off before he dropped to sit properly beside her on the shore.

"What if I don't want to talk about that?"

[cywyllog]

He has a point.

She inches her toes out from under her skirt, just far enough that the small incoming waves lap over them gently. "So shall we sit here and pout?"

[cadcamlan]

That's hardly the mature thing to do. And they're turning, however slowly, into mature adults, aren't they?

Staring at their feet helps. His lips still twist rather sullenly to the side as he leans back on his arms. "I got into a fight. That's all."

[cywyllog]

Slowly but surely.

"Did you win?" Because really, that's what matters.