Non-challenge - Loyalty (4/7)

[shanaqui]

Title: Loyalty
Chapter: 4/7
Characters/Pairing: Barney, John, Blodwen, Guinevere, Owen, OC (John/Blodwen, Owen/Guinevere)
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Summary: Six must be gathered again, to face an old threat wearing a new face.
All chapters: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.


Barney didn't see John approaching. He was lost in drawing: almost frowning in concentration as he held his sketchbook in place. He had it awkwardly balanced on his knee while he drew with the other hand. For a moment, John just watched him; then, rather than leaning over him to look at it, potentially getting in the way of the light, he moved to sit beside him and wait. Barney looked up then, though, his eyes dancing. "Mister Rowlands! Hi. I didn't see you come up."

"P'nawn da, Barney," John said, smiling. "But you can call me John, as Bran does."

Barney liked the way John Rowlands smiled: his whole face came to life, his eyes smiling too, little crinkles showing around them. He grinned back. "That means good afternoon, right, Mi -- John?"

John nodded. "Right, indeed."

"It is a good afternoon, even after last night's storm," Barney said, happily. "I mean, sometimes people say good afternoon and really, it's miserable. But it's nice today. The sun's up, the ground isn't even wet, there's not a cloud in the sky.... It's like last night was just a dream."

"More like a nightmare," John said, smiling again. "It was a wild night."

"Kind of scary," Barney agreed. He looked down at his sketch book, frowning to himself. After a moment he began to add some more detail. John watched, intrigued by his intense concentration. It reminded him somewhat of the way Barney had looked the day before, as he and Will listened from the doorway -- as if he communed with someone else and let them use his hands in the same way that the other voice had come through him.

"What are you drawing?"

Barney took a moment to answer; it almost seemed as if he had to make a conscious effort to look away from the sketch. But his smile was normal enough, the cheerful grin he'd shown just moments before. "I'm trying to sketch what I saw yesterday, when I scryed for a sword for Bran. It's hard, because... I can see the place clearly in my mind's eye, but it doesn't... it..." He shook his head, waving a hand around vaguely. "It's hard to explain. It... I couldn't put it into words, and it seems I can't sketch it easily, either."

"Will you be finished soon?"

Barney glanced at it again, as if expected the lines on the page to have gone somewhere while his back was turned. Then he nodded, looking up. "Yeah, it won't take long at all now."

"I'd like to see it, when you're happy with it."

"Not now?"

"I've time to wait, and no artist likes to show half finished things."

Barney laughed, bending his head to return to his work. He sounded a little absent-minded, but again, as cheerful as ever. "That's true. I hate it when Jane gets impatient to see what I'm doing and just snatches my sketch book. She's always so impatient about it when I just want to sit and work on the details. Are you an artist at all, then?"

"Not quite. I play the harp, and..." John shrugged. If Barney had looked up, he might have seen the hint of a self-conscious flush on the Welshman's face. "I string songs together, now and again. And I don't like it when someone's too impatient to hear."

"I'd like to hear you play something sometime. You taught Bran, didn't you?"

"Have you heard him play?"

Barney looked up again, laughing a little. "Oh yes. I think he's brilliant, but I'm no judge. Everybody winces when I so much as touch an instrument... and they say I can't carry a tune in a bucket. There, I think I'm done with this. It doesn't look quite right to me, but... it probably never will. Sometimes that happens, with drawing, even when everyone else thinks it's wonderful. Here, have a look."

He held the sketchbook out and John took it. The minute his eyes fell on it he thought something about the scene was familiar: it was just rocks, and grass, and an area behind a thick bush where sheep might huddle and hide... there were plenty such places in the Welsh hills. Yet something about it struck deeper than that, as if he'd actually been there -- sat on that rock, squeezed past that bush. Barney was watching him, when he looked up.

"Do you recognise it?" he asked, quietly. His expression was suddenly serious. "I had a feeling that I should show it to you... that you'd know what to do about my vision. And you felt it was your task, didn't you?"

John looked at the drawing again. "Can I keep it?"

There might have been disappointment in Barney's eyes. In any case, he took the sketchbook back and carefully ripped out the page. John folded it in silence and slipped it into his pocket.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome," Barney said, with a smile and a shrug, and settled again with his sketchbook and pencil. John stood up, stretching his legs for a moment and then turning. He didn't walk to get tools, and nor did he call his dogs as if he were going to work. Barney looked up from drawing after a moment, and grinned to himself as he saw John halfway up the hillside. "Good luck. I wish I could go with you," he said, softly, and then turned back to his sketching again.

---

John had been up to the place before. He remembered it better when he looked at the picture again: remembered a summer evening spent looking for sheep that had strayed. He'd found more than one up there before. Part of him wanted to laugh at the idea of finding this thing there -- a sword where he'd found only found sheep before?

A chill crept into him. He shook his head, shaking the thoughts away, and focusing only on the certainty that had come to him when he looked at the sketch -- bone deep, soul deep. "Ac nac arwain ni i brofedigaeth, eithr gwared ni rhag drwg," he said, aloud, but quietly. And then he began to move up the slope, keeping the words in mind. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. He felt it, the oppression of the Dark; a chill, a heaviness, something pressing down on his mind and making him breathless and tired on a path that should have been a pleasant walk to take up five minutes.

He whispered the prayer again, trying to believe that it made a difference. If he faltered for a moment -- if he paused --

John lifted his head, thinking of Bran: so arrogant and yet so vulnerable. He thought of the sword, of Barney's sketch, and only of those things, ignoring the whispers, the warnings, the voices that told him to turn back.

And then he heard her.

It was Blodwen's voice. He knew that immediately, and without thought he was running, hurrying up the uneven path to where he thought her voice was coming from. And there she stood, just beside the path, and her face was full of warmth and teasing laughter. She called his name and he went toward her -- and then stopped, just as suddenly as he'd started to run.

"You're dead," he said to her, even though she was solid and real and didn't look like a ghost. She shook her head, reaching her hands towards him, and he turned his face away. "You're dead, and driven away, and you never really were."

"I was alive," she said, though a hard edge had entered the soft voice he remembered. "I was alive, and I lived and breathed, and I swore to you -- "

"All your promises were nothing but empty air, Blodwen," he said, heavy with regret.

"Cariad..."

He looked at her again. He tried to feel angry, tried to welcome the feelings of betrayal and bitterness back into his heart. And yes, he felt regret, and yes, he wished she were real, but the strength of it had all gone. He looked at her and couldn't forget the darkness, the twisted soul behind a face that had always looked beautiful to him. He shook his head even as she stepped toward him, her hands reaching out again as if in longing.

"John, cariad... We were happy. Don't you remember? If you turn back, and forget this stupid quest, and just wait a while... I'll be back. I swear that to you. You can have your Blodwen again, we can be happy again... God knows that I never wanted this... Just turn back, just give me time..."

"You're not real," he said, firmly. "God knows nothing of you, and you're gone from the world, and I am glad. You never were the woman that I loved. I loved a lie."

"You're strong, John Rowlands," the apparition said, and now there was no semblance of warmth in that voice. "Strong, and stubborn, and stupid."

"Perhaps I am that," he said, mildly. "But at least I'm not evil. Bran Davies needs something from me, and I'll do that thing if it takes my life, so you don't deter me -- whatever you are. I don't think you're anything but a lie, really. A memory."

Then John Rowlands started to walk away, up the path. He didn't turn, didn't look back, just kept on walking, more sure than ever that this was his task, and that was his test, and at the end lay what Bran needed. Behind him, the image stood for a moment; and then without even a scream of defeat, it vanished.

---

The summer he'd first seen that place, there hadn't been a cave. He was sure of that. And Barney's sketch hadn't shown him a cave, either -- and yet there it was, a dark and stony entrance, like a wound in the side of the hill. John stood before it, waiting, listening; though he wasn't sure what he was waiting or listening for. A tingle of warning still lurked at the base of his spine and his ears seemed to ring with the power in the air. And there was a trace of music in the air, too: faint, so faint, but somehow beckoning.

"Won't do any good standing around out here," he muttered to himself. He hesitated a moment and then stepped forward. He tried to be as sure, as steady, as he would be if he was still that young man looking for lost sheep. For a moment, darkness surrounded him, cool and almost tangible, like something slick against his skin. And then light surrounded him again -- the flickering, wavering light of torches, torches that made shadows dance in the huge cave that shouldn't, by rights, exist.

In the center of the cave, a woman stood, a sword in her hands, her eyes closed. The sword was in a sheath, attached to a sword belt, and the woman stood so straight and so still as she held it that she might have been a statue. Even her face might have been carved from smooth, featureless stone. John paused, suddenly breathless, his heart hammering.

"Didn't think I'd be seeing you again," he said, after a long, long silence; his own voice sounded harsh in his ears. It echoed around that cavern that surely, surely, couldn't be so large.

Guinevere opened her eyes. "Do you hate me, John Rowlands?" she asked, softly. He looked at her for a moment, trying to judge what he should answer. He noted as he did the way she was dressed: she wore a gown, but it was a simple one, blue like her eyes. He didn't feel like he was in the presence of a queen. He felt he was in the presence of an ordinary human: a sad one, who had sinned, and who perhaps was doing her penance.

"I don't know why you left them. Owen Davies is a good man, and Bran... he's a good lad, but he could've done with a mother," he said, and he shrugged, and tried to keep his voice free of the taint of accusation. "But no, I don't hate you. The only ones that have a right to do that, I'm thinking, are Arthur, Owen and Bran."

She sounded wistful. "Would Bran forgive me?"

"As I said, he's a good lad. I think he would. Though, may I ask... why was this quest mine, and not Bran's? Surely the boy deserves to see his mother... Or Owen would have done it. He loves the boy as if he were his own. And he's... well, he's as good a man as any."

"Bran deserves to see me, but perhaps I don't deserve to see him," Guinevere said, simply. "And Owen... seeing me would not be good for him. Bran, perhaps, would understand why I had to go. But Owen would not."

"He loves you still."

Guinevere's smile was sad again. "I know."

There was no noise, no sound of movement at the entrance, and yet suddenly John was seized with a strong feeling that they were being watched. Guinevere gave nothing away, her blue eyes calm and still sad. Slowly, John turned to the entrance, where a person stood. The light from outside didn't seem to touch him, and his face was in shadow -- John could see nothing of him but the fact that he was there.

"I've already been tested," he said, suspiciously, and the figure laughed. It was a male voice -- not Blodwen, then, John thought, and was alarmed to note that he didn't feel anything one way or the other.

"Perhaps I simply wanted to see the man who resisted the Dark's wiles so well."

"I don't wish to see you," John said, shortly.

Another laugh: this time a mocking one. "Of course not." There was a pause, and the man took a step forward. John somehow knew that the gaze had shifted from him to the woman standing behind him. "Lady Guinevere," the voice said, more mocking than ever. "What a lovely flower you still are, after all these years."

"Mordred," she said, and there was an edge of steel in her words that John didn't find surprising.

"Still can't forgive me, can you?"

"It's not your fault whose bed you were conceived in, or under what circumstances. What matters is what you do with your life."

"So noble," the voice said, mocking again. "So who do you blame, Guinevere? My mother? Your precious husband? My father betrayed you, you know. Under the influence of one tiny charm, he gave in..."

"Arthur did no such thing," Guinevere said, but she was flushing with pride and anger. She lifted her head, her chin stuck out a little, and John realised with a little jolt of surprise that Bran himself had exactly that expression when things weren't going his way. "He was a mortal man. He couldn't be blamed for falling into a tangle of sorcery such as your mother always favoured. And he betrayed me less than I betrayed him."

Mordred didn't seem to have an answer to that. He turned to John again. "Aren't you going to ask for the sword you came to take?"

"If that's what you want me to do, maybe I should be wary of doing so."

Somehow, John knew that the man in the doorway, untouched as he was by both daylight and the flickering light of the torches, was smiling. "Or perhaps in turn that's what I want you to think. An awkward situation, I think. And here, there's no dewin to help you make a decision, is there?"

John looked over his shoulder at Guinevere. She didn't move, though the sword in her hands must have been heavy.

Catching his glance, Mordred shook his head. "Oh, she can't help you, either. Nor can I harm her, though. There are still rules, even in this day and age when only one set of players is meant to exist. She's keeping a relic safe -- why should I care?"

"You're here. Suggests that you do care, to me."

Flash of a smile in the dark again. "I'm not interested in the relic. I have one to match it. It's you I'm interested in. One of the Six, these days, but before you didn't quite make the cut, did you?"

"I've never minded making up the numbers."

"Not even when you were a child and you were always picked last?"

"Not even then."

The man laughed again. "Such a good, steadfast, sensible Welshman, aren't you?" he said, but humour had gone from his voice and it sounded like an insult. "The perfect piece for the dewin to play with."

"I chose to come here of my own accord," John said, mildly. "Will's a good lad, even if he's not quite just a lad. He does what he has to, it's true. But he's not using us as pawns. Had we said no..."

"Had you said no, he would have been very surprised," the man said. "He made his moves to make you think -- "

"John?"

For a moment, the tableau held. And then the shadowy figure that was Mordred disappeared and through the entrance came Owen Davies, his face lit by the torches, his expression confused. Behind John, Guinevere took a sharp breath and he heard the clink of the sword belt's buckle as she wavered and the sword nearly fell from her hands. He turned to her quickly, holding his hands out. "I think it's time for you to give me that," he said, quietly, ignoring Owen. Guinevere took a moment to tear her eyes away, but then she looked him full in the face and nodded.

"Take this to my son," she said, and put the sword into his hands. For a moment, her hands touched his. They felt cold. "Tell him -- tell him I'm proud of him. Tell him I love him. That I wish I'd been there for him."

"I will."

She smiled, then, as if a weight had been lifted. "You're a good man, John Rowlands."

John took a step back, glancing over his shoulder for Owen. The man stood there as if transfixed, staring at Guinevere. When he finally spoke, his voice was thick with emotion. "Gwen..."

"I'm sorry, Owen," she said, quietly. John saw that she was trembling: perhaps not enough for Owen to see, but visibly all the same. "I'm so sorry."

"I did my best to raise him."

"And you did well."

"I still -- "

"Please," she said, looking at the ground. Her dark hair fell about her face. "Don't. I never deserved it. I never -- you shouldn't have -- "

"Every human being that loves another loves imperfection," Owen said, quietly. He took a few steps toward her, and John stepped back to give them some semblance of privacy, remembering when the dewin had said such words to him. They had seemed nothing then, words thrown into the face of grief, but then they struck deep, struck him silent. Owen took Guinevere's hands in his. "I never had any illusions about that. I... I just loved you, and always will. You can trust that promise."

"Owen," she said, and John looked away as she leaned up and kissed Owen as sweetly and fiercely as she could. "Thank you," she said, when she pulled back. "Thank you, Owen."

There was another moment of silence, while John looked at the floor and Owen looked at Guinevere and Guinevere looked at him. And then Owen drew away, and when he spoke his voice gruff with emotion, and somehow so normal that it made the cave seem entirely unreal again, despite the sword that was heavy in his hands. "You'll be going again, of course."

"Yes," Guinevere said softly, drawing away from him. She stepped backwards, rather than take her eyes from him. "I can finally rest, now. Take care of Bran -- take care of our son."

"You didn't even need to ask that," Owen said, strangely tender, and then he turned to John. "Let's go, John. You have to give that thing to Bran, don't you?"

Owen was the one to lead the way out, and John was the one who cast a look back. Guinevere watched them go, although around her, the torches were all flickering and dying, and the great cavern filled up with darkness until it seemed she should be swallowed in it. John hurried to catch up with Owen, knowing that if he looked back again, the cave would be gone.

"Bran's in danger, isn't he?" Owen asked.

"Yes."

"If any harm comes to him, I'll -- "

"I'll make sure no harm does come to him," John promised, though something in him wanted to laugh at the idea. It was more likely, he thought, that Bran would be saving him.