Twentieth day of Equos, lighttime

Weaving continues at breakneck pace. Apparently the largest of the merchant vessels is set to leave in two days, and they want to make sure it has a full load. Hence the never-ending work. The rooms fairly hum with flying shuttles. I don't know that I've done much to help; in fact today Queen Teleria had me stop struggling with the pitiful hand's breadth of fabric I'd managed and set me to work hauling yarn skeins, sweeping up clippings, and generally doing odd jobs around the room. I wouldn't have minded except a few of the other girls snickered at me, and I'm sure Aeronwen dumped more tangled threads on the floor than necessary just to give me more to do. The queen says I'm to go back to learning weaving once it isn't so urgent, so I'll have plenty of time to go slowly and carefully. I wish she wouldn't bother.

And my hands are drying out in spite of lotions and such. It just can't be helped when one is constantly handling all this everlasting fiber. I shouldn't complain; it's no worse for me than for the others – although most of them have calluses in the proper places from doing so much of this, and my hands are tough in all the wrong spots from hoeing and weeding. I can't even boast of sword or bow-calluses anymore, it's been so long since I've held either – but I don't suppose they would help guard against shuttle blisters anyhow.

The queen says there are ancient weaving arts and skills that have been lost; stolen by Arawn and forgotten by men. There seem to be so many things like that; I wonder how many supposed skills were truly stolen and how many times things just get blamed on him as a convenient excuse when we can't figure out how to do something. What possible use could he have for the secret skills of weaving? Honestly. Though I don't pretend to understand the mind of the Dark Lord, it does seem a silly thing to steal things of no possible use to you just out of spite.

Now that I think on it, Achren said once that one's subjects must not be allowed to grow too successful, or they would decide they didn't need a ruler. I suppose you could take that idea a step further and start cheating them out of their skills, but it does seem a dreadfully unfair way to stay in power. Although why I should be surprised at unfairness in either Achren or Arawn, I've no idea! Llyr, what a pair they must have made. It's difficult for me to imagine, though.

I actually laughed when Dallben told me about Achren's history. I was only a few days or so at Caer Dallben, and I didn't know Dallben well enough yet to realize that one doesn't casually dismiss his assertions. But it seemed such a ridiculous idea. Achren, the consort of the Dark Lord, indeed! I knew she hated him, of course, but I always thought it mere envy; certainly she never admitted to me that they'd been lovers, or that he'd betrayed her and stolen her throne. She would speak wrathfully and bitterly about the days when she was Queen of Prydain, but anytime I asked why she wasn't queen anymore I was sure to get cuffed and told to keep my nose out of places it didn't belong. I still wonder how it all played out. Dallben wouldn't answer most of my questions and said it was complex and involved much that was inappropriate for a young girl to know. Naturally that only makes me more curious!

Taran said when he and Gwydion were captured, just before I found him, that Achren had offered…um…friendship, of a sort, to Gwydion, and it was his spurning her that made her furious enough to lock him up in Oeth-Anoeth. That I can believe. Gwydion is just the sort of man she'd want most because she couldn't have him, I think. She had plenty of consorts, after all – slaves, more or less, although they didn't know it…beastly, barbaric men driven so witless by desire of her that they did her bidding at the blink of an eye. She used to tell me that was why women would always be more powerful than men at the last. I never knew whether to believe her or not.

How I wish I could have seen her face when Gwydion refused her! Taran says it wasn't a pretty scene at all, but he always had trouble describing it. He's never been able to put his finger on why, but he says that Gwydion seemed as sad as he was angry. "As though it broke his heart to see her," he said finally, and that was as much as I could ever get out of him. Yet another complexity, no doubt masking something Dallben would consider inappropriate.

And to think now she's living at Caer Dallben! For she agreed to journey back with Taran and seek refuge there, after Gwydion prevented her from killing herself on the beach that day.

Gwydion again. There really is something puzzling about the two of them.

He stayed a few more days at Dinas Rhydnant, which threw the king and queen into great discomfiture. They were quite dismayed to find that the shoemaker they'd been ordering around was really the Prince of Don. I remember seeing a few guards falling over each other in their haste to raise the sunburst banner. Gwydion was polite as always, but quieter than usual, and that is saying something, for he doesn't waste words even at his most eloquent. His eyes never change, and you can't ever tell what he's thinking.

He spent a little time talking to me, gently pressing for more details about my ordeal. I don't know what he got out of it. I still didn't remember much of anything at that point, and it's only come trickling back to me little by little since. It's too bad he isn't around to hear the rest of it. I wonder why he wanted to know.

He told me right away that it was by his own advice that Taran had been so maddeningly protective when I first got here. I asked him why he hadn't just come to me and warned me about Achren himself. He gave me a long look with those unreadable eyes.

"Would you have heeded warning?" he asked finally, and I started to say of course I would have. But he held up a hand, with an odd little smirk at the corner of his mouth. "Think twice and speak once."

So I thought. And began to squirm inside my head. Because the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if I would not simply have brushed aside thoughts of Achren and gone right ahead and done whatever I could get away with, and then whether sheer curiosity might not have sent me looking for Caer Colur eventually anyway.

I suppose my long silence was enough of an answer, for Gwydion tilted his head knowingly. "You have ever been heedless of your own safety. But I had more than one reason for not revealing all to you. It was only on a hunch of Dallben's that I came at all, and I did not wish to alarm – or more likely, interest you needlessly should there turn out to be nothing to fear. By the time I guessed the truth of the matter, you were too difficult to reach, and I still feared your impulsiveness." He spread his hands apologetically. "Taran of Caer Dallben has been known to be impulsive as well on occasion. But I knew that where your safety was concerned, he would take a personal interest. Thus I directed him to protect you. There was not one who would have done so as devotedly."

He gave me another long look, and I felt my face warming under it. It seemed suddenly as though he knew everything about how I felt about Taran. It made me so uncomfortable I turned away from him. "He would do anything you asked of him with equal zeal," I said lightly, which was true enough. Taran has always worshipped the very ground Gwydion walks on.

"Maybe," Gwydion said, giving a dry chuckle. "But doubt not, Princess, he would have given up his life to save you."

I knew that, of course. But it still made me absurdly glad to know that someone else did.

There was something else I'd been wanting to ask him, without knowing whether I really wanted to hear the answer. ButI didn't know if I'd get another chance.

"Gwydion," I faltered, forgetting to call him 'Lord' – how horrified Queen Teleria would have been – "What did she want me for in the first place?"

He was silent for some time, so long that I thought he wasn't going to answer. When I looked at him he seemed to be staring at his own knees, but it was clear he was seeing something else entirely. His gaze was blank and faraway. Finally he spoke, and his voice was rather heavy.

"You know very little of your heritage, and so you cannot understand how powerful the line of Llyr actually was." He looked out over the battlements – we were sitting outside on top of the eastern watchtower. "There is enough latent magic in your blood to lay waste to Prydain, if you only knew how."

I stared at him, my scalp crinkling as though icy trickles of melting snow were running down my head. I wondered if he could be wrong. Achren had never told me any such thing; in fact, she had always said I had little talent and less potential. When I said so, Gwydion looked at me gravely.

"She feared you. She taught you nothing but the most basic enchantment deliberately, knowing that as her power waned, you would become a threat to her. She thought instead to harness your ability and use it to conquer Prydain once more for herself. And so she should have done, had you not willingly relinquished your own birthright." He laid a hand on my shoulder. "So in truth, I must thank you. It was not only our lives that were saved by your sacrifice, but my kingdom as well."

It seemed so ridiculous and wrong. I wanted to tell him to stop looking at me as though I should be bronzed – I didn't sacrifice anything, not really, at least not anything I missed, for it isn't as though my magical abilities had ever done me any good. The only difficult part was giving up the thought of being home, the feeling of belonging, the sense that for the first time I really knew who I was – it was as though the very stones of Caer Colur whispered to me of wholeness. But most of that was Achren's spell, and what wasn't…I guess I can keep the bits that were real, with or without magic in my blood.

A few shoutouts to new reviews:

Pseudanonymous: I LOVE YOU. -ahem- or, more accurately, I love your profile page, and consider it an honor that you like my fic. Thank you for pointing out the bit about the sugar; you are absolutely correct and I can't believe I made such a silly faux pas. It has been fixed.

Angharad: Fear not, you are not the first toship Gwydion/Achren;according to other comments I've had elsewhere, it's a fairly popular pairing, which made me consider it enough to play a leeeetle on the edge of it here, although it had never occured to me before. Surprisingly enough, the idea has some basis in mythology, if not in the Prydain canon per se. Although a woman named Achren does appear in Welsh myth, Achren as we know her shares more similarities with the mythological character of Arianrhod, who is actually Gwydion's sister. There is also some implication of an incestuous relationship between them. Aren't you glad Alexander cleaned all of this up for us?

Me: I'm not bothered by criticism! It's okay, really. And I have fixed that link, so try it again (you'll still have to cut and paste).

Aine: Not weird. I know what voice is, and I am flattered. Thank you!

Eloise82: Glad you are continuing to enjoy. I had a lot of fun with that scene. To be honest, Ilove doing Eilonwy's PoV on scenes we have already seen in canon, because then I don't have to make up new material. Lazy, aren't I.