(no subject)

[theravenboy]

Bran Davies was not expecting to come to Milliways today, but it is as good a place to study organic chemistry as any. He is sitting in one of the quieter booths, reading a textbook and taking notes in two languages in a black-and-white notebook.

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[thisfatefulhour]

Quiet is a very attractive prospect, lately. Charles passes, on his way to the next empty booth, a mug of cocoa in hand.

It's a normal enough image -- but he's moving slowly, as if he's not entirely sure of his footing, and his head is held at a slightly odd angle.

[theravenboy]

Bran thinks he recognises the other young man, and then he knows he does. It is only the odd trick of Charles's motion that confused him. "Charles Murry?" he calls, closing the book. "Are you all right?"

[thisfatefulhour]

His head comes up.

"Bran. Noswaith dda."

The Welsh is out before he has time to really think about it; he frowns as he catches up with himself.

"I've been better."

[theravenboy]

Bran notes Charles' shakiness, and his frown. "You look like you can hardly stand up. Sit, sit."

As Charles seats himself, Bran remarks, "I never knew you spoke Welsh." With an American accent, and good pronunciation of the consonants, too.

[thisfatefulhour]

He shakes his head. "I -- don't, exactly. It's complicated."

[theravenboy]

"Not badly at all, for an American," Bran says lightly, but he is gauging Charles's pallor, and the shadows under his eyes.

"I am sorry to ask, but have you eaten anything at all recently?"

[thisfatefulhour]

Wry -- "Even better for not speaking it for -- a long time, no matter how you look at it."

He sighs. "This morning, yes."

[theravenboy]

Bran is not a stranger to games played with Time. His attention sharpens, minutely.

"Well. I do not know what time it is, if there is any time at all in this rabbithole of a bar, but it has been more than long enough since this morning. Let me get something for you. Soup and bread, if nothing else."

[thisfatefulhour]

Charles closes his eyes. "You sound like my brother Dennys. If it'll make you feel better -- but put it on my tab, all right?"

[theravenboy]

"If you wish." Bran waves over a waitrat and orders soup for both of them; he's missed his own dinner, studying. "You have a brother?"

[thisfatefulhour]

"Two -- they're twins, older than me." He hasn't opened his eyes.

"And Meg's the eldest," he adds, hands tightening around his mug, and there is love and warmth and wistfulness and not a little worry, all just in the name Meg.

[theravenboy]

Bran can hear the love and the longing in Charles's voice, but at least Charles is willing to talk. Family may not be a perfectly safe topic, but it seems not to be disastrous.

"A large family, then," Bran says. "There were times when I wanted one."

He wonders what his brother is doing, these days.

[thisfatefulhour]

Charles quirks a faint smile, opening his eyes.

"They're all quite a bit older than I am. There were a few years where it was almost like being an only child."

He shakes his head. "Brothers are complicated."

[theravenboy]

Bran snorts a laugh. "Mine certainly is."

He blows on his soup, waiting for it to cool.

"I grew up an only child. Just me and my da, a bachelor household."

[thisfatefulhour]

Charles blinks. "And your brother?"

[theravenboy]

"I was adopted," Bran explains. "I only met my brother later. Half-brother, actually."

A severe oversimplification, that, but Bran is not about to explain his alternate-universe biological half brother Mordred Ambrosius.

Some of the story might, however, flicker through his mind.

[thisfatefulhour]

(Pendragon)

Charles blinks again, hard.

"It's -- I see. And you get along."

[theravenboy]

"These days, yes, although I hardly see him any more." Bran wrinkles his brow in worry. "I hope he is all right." Bran would prefer not to discuss Mordred with Charles; he likes the other man well enough, but he has no particular reason to trust him. He takes a spoonful of soup and turns the subject back to his earlier curiosity. "Do any of your family speak Welsh, or are you the only one studying it?"

[thisfatefulhour]

"My -- no. Sorry--"

He rubs his forehead, shooting a glance at Bran.

"I'm trying to think how to explain this simply. You've come here for a while; you have experience with the extraordinary?"

[theravenboy]

"I have, yes." The dry tone of his voice suggests, More than enough experience.

[thisfatefulhour]

A nod. "All right."

He glances up to meet Bran's eyes.

"I learned it from -- no, as -- a 19th century writer named Matthew Maddox." His mouth quirks up in a faint, wry smile for a moment. "With a twin named Bran."

[theravenboy]

Bran's eyelids flicker in a quick, owl-like blink. "Games with Time, I see." There is no doubt in his voice or face; he believes Charles. "Then you were the writer yourself, were you? How did that happen?"

[thisfatefulhour]

Charles blinks back; then his smile firms, though it's still small.

"I was sent Within him. It's not quite the same, but there's little enough difference."

[theravenboy]

"Duw." Bran shivers. "Like possession, is it? I've never heard of anything of the sort."

[thisfatefulhour]

He shakes his head. "Not at all. Possession makes it sound like I took over. But it was -- I was them, and myself, but mostly them."

[theravenboy]

Bran struggles with the concept. "Like a, how shall I put this, visitor in someone else's head?"

[thisfatefulhour]

"Close enough."

Gaudior had explained it in terms of kything, and even that couldn't explain it fully -- and explaining kything is like trying to explain snow to someone who's never seen it.

[theravenboy]

Bran shakes his head in wonderment. "So, tell me about this Welsh writer of yours. And his brother."

[thisfatefulhour]

Charles smiles again. "He was a fine writer. He only published two books, though -- he died young. Bran was the adventurous one."

He reaches out and tears off a chunk of bread. For the first time in days, it seems, he's hungry.

"Matthew was crippled young by a riding accident, you see, so Bran had to do the adventuring for both of them."

[theravenboy]

"Oh, I see." Bran takes some of his own bread, to give Charles a chance to eat, and then inquires, "What kind of adventuring did he do, then?"

[thisfatefulhour]

"He enlisted, for one, but he was wounded in the war. And once he recovered, he left the States for a Welsh colony starting up in Patagonia."

Brushing his hair out of his eyes -- "He needed to be there. For Matthew, too."

[theravenboy]

"Really?" Bran's face lights up with interest. "I think I have heard of the colony. Not very much, but I have heard it mentioned."

[thisfatefulhour]

Charles gives him a curious look. "What When are you from, again?"

[theravenboy]

"Nineteen-seventy-nine. That is, that is the year where I am."

Bran looks carefully at Charles and decides to risk providing more information. "When I am from is a rather different question."

[thisfatefulhour]

"Ah," Charles says softly to the first part. "If it's only been mentions, even by then . . . that's good."

To the second part, Charles says nothing, but gives Bran a curious look.

[theravenboy]

"Something about nationalists getting away from the English, so they could speak their own language, as I recall." Bran shrugs. "I do not know very much. Why is that a good thing, then?"

To the curious look, he only says, "Games with Time. It is a very long story."

[thisfatefulhour]

He shakes his head. "It ties in with Matthew, and Bran, and farther back to Madoc ap Owain, and Zyll . . ."

Letting out a breath, he closes his eyes and echoes, "It is a very long story. Just -- if you were going to hear much about Vespugia, you would have already. But it never happened."

[theravenboy]

"I do not understand Time, not really," says Bran (although the audible capital letters may suggest that Bran knows rather more than many). "Is it a good thing, that I have not heard?"

This may be business, Bran is thinking, of the sort Will Stanton needs to know.

[thisfatefulhour]

"Another option might have been nuclear war. In '78."

[theravenboy]

(Now especially since man has the strength to destroy this world, it is the responsibility of man to keep it alive.)

(I think an intellectual nightmare is not better than a primeval nightmare...The split atom is intellectual.)

"Diawl," Bran curses quietly. And then, with certainty, "But you stopped it, didn't you? You and your Matthew and Bran, and all the others that you named."

[thisfatefulhour]

"Drwo Eiddo hollalluog allu a gras," Charles agrees. Through His almighty power and grace.

"We made it so it never could happen." A faint smile. "So that it was El Zarco -- the blue-eyed. The peaceful."

[theravenboy]

"Good work," Bran says quietly.

[thisfatefulhour]

"Thank you." Equally quiet.

A beat.

"And there," he adds, dry, "you have the long story of how I remembered Welsh."