NaNoWriMo - Cymru 12

Copy and paste, copy and paste, copy and paste...

Also, no personality for Lorcan still. None at all. Not even a gimick, look.

GWILYM

“So!” Marged said brightly as she starting digging through her enormous basket of knitting. As one of the top balls of wool fell it was caught in mid-air by the most psychotic-looking alley cat Gwilym had ever seen, who proceeded to tear the wool into tiny fibres. “Your first Archwiliad coming up! How exciting! Are you looking forward to it?"

"With a feeling of barely-controlled panic, yes," Gwilym mused. "I'm fairly sure I'll say something terribly wrong and get beaten up by a Rider before drinking all the mead to console myself and trying to sleep with Lady Ienifer." He glanced down at the straggly, psychotic thing on the rug nervously. "Er, should he be doing that?"

Marged glanced down. As she saw the scarred and mental animal on the rug her face lit up, and before Gwilym could protest she bent down and scooped it up, pinning it for her mighty bosom. The cat froze, apparently in shock.

“Oh, isn’t oo a sweetie?” Marged cooed. “He’s so beautiful! Who’s beautiful? You are!”

The cat turned evil yellow eyes on Gwilym and Lorcan. It felt distinctly like a never-mention-this-again threat. Gwilym stared at the ex-ball of wool and swallowed.

“Yes, he’s fine,” said Marged affectionately as she placed the cat back on the floor and turned back to her knitting basket. It fled under the nearest sofa and vanished. “Anyway, dear, you were saying about Ienifer. She'd absolutely sleep with you, you know, she never turns down a free invitation."

Lorcan almost choked. Gwilym had expected it.

"So I hear," he said mildly. "Anyway; on the subject of the Archwiliad we'd like to ask a favour."

Marged glanced up, one eyebrow raised. Gwilym shook his head.

"Nothing like that," he said. "It's innocent. Lorcan here is visiting Cymru for a reason, you see. He and my uncle are wanting to unite Erinn in much the same way that Cymru is, so Lorcan is looking at all aspects of Cymric culture to see how they could be adapted. Obviously, though, the most important part - "

"Is the Archwiliad," Marged nodded. A pair of children's socks fell out of the basket, and Gwilym found himself bracing for the cat. "Well, I can't see you being allowed in on the big decisions, but I imagine you could sit around for the boring bits. It's the same level of interaction, just about boring things. I'd be quite happy with you there!"

"Thank you," Lorcan said, and Marged shushed him.

"No, no!" she said. "It's nothing. Really, though, if you want a working system you'll need an equivalent of the Riders. You should meet some Riders. Have you met any Riders?"

"A few," Lorcan smiled, nervously. Apparently Alaw's eyes could follow you when she wasn't even there.

"He's met some of mine," Gwilym offered. "And the odd visitor. We had the Alpha Wingleader from Casnewydd the other day."

He still couldn't quite shake the memory of her, either. Maybe it had just been the contrast between her and Alaw, but Awen had stunned him.

"Meeting full Wings is a good idea," Marged nodded. "Although they vary; the Alpha Wing in Tregwylan is a bit dreadful."

“I’ve not met them yet,” Gwilym admitted. He mentally marked them as “No Fun.”

“Hardly an experience to look forward to,” Marged sniffed disdainfully. “They’re all so… stiff, you know? They don’t smile, they don’t sit down, they don’t wear their scarves. Llangefni are usually a riot, though!”

“Yes,” Gwilym said, with feeling. “I think three of our taverns had to be redecorated the next day. They sang lots of songs about mead.”

“Those are the ones!” Marged chuckled. She pulled a single green glove out of the mass of wool and regarded it sadly before searching for its mate. “I do like Llangefni. They taught me a fascinating new way to drink mead, actually, in these tiny little glasses. At the end of the evening, though, it turned out they’d been giving me brandy! What scamps, eh?”

What scamps. It truly disturbed Gwilym that they were Llangefni’s premiere defence in the instance of war; they seemed like the reject Wing, where all the Riders who’d failed at the intelligence tests had been sent on the grounds that no one cared about Llangefni.

“Have you met the full Wing from Casnewydd?” he asked cautiously. Marged straightened for a moment, looking thoughtful. The cat’s yellow eyes reappeared under the sofa like some kind of goblin.

“Casnewydd,” Marged repeated. “Once or twice, yes. They’re a bit of a mixed bunch, actually. Or is that fair? Most of them are jolly nice. I like the girl with the bird; she showed me how to fly it and all sorts! It sat on my shoulder! I didn’t sleep for a week, Gwilym, magical it was.”

The cat leaped forwards and reclaimed the remains of the wool, dragging it back under the sofa before Marged saw.

"And their Wingleader is lovely," Marged continued. "Lovely singing voice, and she was quite happy to tell jokes with me all evening. Oh, and such beautiful hair! It's a shame Riders aren't allowed to wear more colours. Although," Marged frowned, again pausing in her knitting basket overhaul. "I met her when I was visiting Casnewydd, so I met her with Flyn. He's a bit... odd around her."

"Oh?" There was always a chance it was just Marged, of course, but that sounded slightly sinister. "How so?"

"He liked it to be clear that she was sworn to him," Marged said. "Which possibly makes sense in a way, because all of my Riders tell me she's reknowned for being really very good, and when you live constantly under threat of Saxons the last thing you want is a poor Alpha Wingleader. A matter of pride for Flyn, I think. I didn't like it, though. It was like he saw her as a scarf."

"A scarf?" Gwilym echoed.

"Mind you, I think he sees everyone as scarves," Marged said diffidently. "Odd man, Flyn."

Gwilym chose not to look at the knitting needle in Marged's hair. Everyone had their own definition of odd.

"Oh, here we are!" Marged said happily. She spun around, holding up two green fingerless gloves triumphantly. Gwilym grinned, and took them from her.

“Thank you,” he said pulling one on. “You didn’t have to.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Marged beamed, waving a hand dismissively. “You’ll be needing them this winter.” She sank into the armchair across from Gwilym’s and leaned forward, her manner theatrically conspiratorial suddenly.“Tell you what, though,” she said, her voice attempting to be low, “I never thought much of one or two of the Casnewydd Wing. That funny boy with the fringe… There was a big dinner while I was there, and they were all dressed up formally and looking lovely except him. I mean, he’d made the effort, but he’d managed to get hold of that terrible hair jelly the fishermen use, and his fringe looked like two slugs. Disgusted, I was.”

Gwilym laughed out loud. He could just imagine Marged’s reaction. The cat, startled, fled from under the sofa towards the door, pausing half-way and looking angrily at them.

“I told him he might not want to bother next time,” Marged continued. “Got all sullen, he did, face like he’d been slapped. He spent the rest of the meal telling the others what to do. I think he’s their Deputy. I didn’t like him.”

"I'll keep an eye out for him," Gwilym grinned. Marged started digging in her knitting basket again.

"So, what have you got planned for that City of yours?" she said, pulling at some red wool. "Are you ready to make your post-Archwiliad changes?"

"No," Gwilym groaned, and Lorcan laughed the laugh of someone who wasn't yet responsible for the lives of a few thousand people and didn't care. He did care, of course, but Gwilym wasn't one to waste a good moment of bitterness on trivial details. Uncaring bastard. "I don't know. I had all of my clerks do a big review for me of exactly how much tax we get and what services we offer, but there's a discrepancy somewhere, I'm sure of it. Or maybe they just really don't like my ideas for free clinics for the poor."

"I doubt they do," Marged sniffed, pulling out a pair of red gloves and handing them to Lorcan. "No, no! Don't thank me. Anyway; clerks generally think only of profits, Gwilym. They only think of poor people as a sadly necessary burden in order to get food and things. I generally find it's best to ignore them and do as you please."

Well, yes, but Caerleuad had no economy outside of what Aberystwyth gave it.