"Thank you for coming for coming to Dublin Castle!" the bright, and bouncy red headed girl called out. She adjusted the volume on the mike that was propped over her right ear. "We are going to have a wonderful time. This tour is going to be almost two hours long! We will start here just outside our lovely castle that has stood here since the time before Camelot!"

A tall, well-built man phased through the crowd and combed his fingers through his dark, brunette wavy hair and made a thoughtful noise. It was starting to get long. It was brushing against the middle of his neck.

"Gwaine!? Come on, mate. We're going to miss it!"

Gwaine looked over at his buddies and nodded. "All right. Yeah." he rolled his eyes and walked back over to the small group of friends that he had come with.

"Castles are so romantic. Don't you think, G?" a perky blonde with a bob-cut wondered, adjusting her bright red cat's eye glasses and looking at him in a flirty way.

"Sure Ange." Gwaine nodded and hooks his arm around her shoulders in a habitual way.

"I wish we could live in a castle. So cool." she continued.

Gwaine nodded and hummed, barely listing. "Yeah. Really cool, Angie."

Angie looked at him and hooked her arms around his ribs. "Thanks soooooooo much for coming with me."

Gwaine smiled slightly and nodded. "Let's get this over with so we can hit up the pub in town?"

Angie giggled and nodded. "All right."

The tour moved slowly through the keep and into the main hallway of the dark, heavily fortified castle. History facts flowed like the rain that had started just as they walked into the main part of the castle.

Gwaine looked around at the artwork hanging on the walls. He was bored out of his mind. He wanted to go back to Dublin proper and get a drink. Maybe if he was lucky he would stumble on someone who knew something about his family name. Gwaine wandered down the hallway a little ways down the hallway away from the constant droning of facts from the very knowledgeable redhead running the tour. He paused in front of a large painting that looked like it had been done in the eleventh century. He looked at the girl in the painting and smiled to himself softly. "You were a pretty lass." he mused to himself.

She had bright blue-green eyes that sparkled with mirth even through the paint. Her hair was milk-chocolate brown and cork-screw curly. She had an adorable little smirk that popped half a dimple in her right cheek. Just the perfect amount of freckles spattered across her cheekbones and on her nose. On the inside of her right elbow there was a dark Celtic designed wolf head that howled.

Gwaine looked down at the bottom of the painting. "Ah, Jaya. That's a pretty name." he informed the painting with a wink.

"Thank you."

Gwaine whipped around to look at a girl that was the spitting image of the painting that was on the wall. His eyes flared. He searched her face and slowly smiled. "Well. Hello." he smirked.

The girl smirked back at him and arched her eyebrow fractionally. She tossed her head, so her corkscrews bounced over and around her shoulders. "Hi." her voice was a pleasing alto and had a thick Irish accent. "What's your name then. Seems you know mine already." she pushed the sleeves up on the dark olive green cable knit sweater.

"My name's Gwaine." Gwaine informed, looking back and forth between the painting and her. "Did you say that your name was Jaya?"

She smiled brightly at him and half shook her head. "I didn't...in so many words. But, yes. My name is Jaya."

"Family name." Gwaine assumed.

"Much like yours." Jaya countered, coming to stand next to him with her arms folded comfortably. She looked up at the painting and smiled like she was fondly remembering something.

Gwaine looked at her. His eyebrows knit together slightly. "Oh my god!" he exclaimed, grabbing her arm slightly. "You have the exact same tattoo!"

Jaya glanced at him and smiled slightly. "It's a...sort of a family thing."

Gwaine pulled back from her and looked at her closely. "Aside from this-" he pointed at the painting. "Do I know you…? From….somewhere…?" he could still feel the tingle in his fingers from where he touched the skin on her forearm. Something in him felt honored that she had allowed him to touch her, though he couldn't put his finger on why.

Jaya turned to face him slightly and looked at him closely. "Do you?"

Gwaine licked his lips and shifted his weight. "Ever been to Nevada before?"

Jaya shook her head. "No. I live here actually so…"

"But I do know you right?"

Jaya smirked slightly and caught three fingers of his closest hand and tugged on them slightly. "Walk me to the library?"

Gwaine hummed and nodded. "Sure, Sunbeam."

A private smile crossed Jaya's face and she walked with him.

It was almost five minutes later before Gwaine realized that he was still holding three of her fingers. He pulled his hand away and then looked at her covertly.

She didn't seem to notice that he had suddenly pulled away.

Gwaine suddenly realized he was leading her through the castle. Which he had never been to before. He paused in front of a set of tall double doors and looked at her. "I uh...I don't know where I'm going."

Jaya stepped forward and pushed on the door. "Don't you, Gwaine?" she wondered, her voice amused.

"No!" Gwaine protested, chuckling slightly. "I've never been here before."

Jaya stepped through the doorway. "That's not exactly true."

Gwaine shook his head and stepped through the door. "I've never been here befo-" he looked around at the library and lost track of the sentence.

Jaya looked back at him and nodded. "Right. So you said." She leaned against a large slate grey wingback chair and propped her chin on her fists. "So tell me. How is it that you walked me right to the Queen's Personal Library?"

Gwaine shrugged. He closed the door gently. "I probably saw it on a tour map or something."

"It's not on any maps." Jaya disagreed so fast she nearly cut him off.

Gwaine stood up a little straighter. "No?" he shook his head slightly.

Jaya watched him for a moment and tilted her head. "You have questions."

"Mostly just...how I know you?" Gwaine looked around the room and walked forward a couple of steps. "And how it is that you're allowed in the personal library of the queen of Ireland?"

"It's my library." Jaya shrugged. "That's Ridire." she pointed to a big black dog that stretched on a large wolf pelt that was spread in front of the fire.

Ridire picked up his head and looked over at her when he heard his name and flopped his tail once before dropping his head back down with a heavy sigh.

Gwaine looked over at the fireplace and pointed at Ridire. The next moment he pointed at the fire. "How did that get there?"

"Magic." Jaya shrugged.

Gwaine scoff-chuckled and nodded. "All right then."

"You did not react like that when I told you that I had magic the first time." Jaya scoffed softly to herself. "Course I did wait a bit too long to tell you. My fault. I knew that I could trust you and I still didn't." Her eyes crossed slightly. "Probably should have told Arthur years before too. But-"

"I knew." Gwaine interrupted.

Jaya tilted her head. "Beg pardon?"

Gwaine looked at her like she had suddenly grown another head. "You actually have magic."

Jaya looked at him and tapped her chin. "I suppose that I should probably clear up that confusion for you."

Gwaine nodded slowly. He walked up to her but stopped just short of her. "I don't believe in soulmates-"

"But if there ever was a girl to prove you wrong, it would be you, Jaya O'Caiside." Jaya intoned like she had heard it before.

Gwaine stared at her for a moment. "I wasn't going to say that."

Jaya's eyebrows moved fractionally. "You were."

Gwaine tried to protest, but found he couldn't. "How in the world could you possibly know that?"

"Because you've said it before." Jaya smirked. "Couple of times."

"So we have met before." Gwaine looked at her closely. "Must have been a while ago?"

Jaya hummed and nodded slowly. "Just a bit."

"How long ago?"

Jaya made a high pitched humming noise. "The first time we met?"

Gwaine nodded. "Sure. Was I in like...middle school?"

Jaya shook her head. "No. How old are you right now?"

"Twenty-five."

"You were about your age now."

Gwaine dipped his head. "I don't understand."

"The first time we met was...rooooouuuuughhhhly halfway through the eleventh century."

"The eleventhing what?!" Gwaine's voice cracked before he coughed slightly.

Jaya wrinkled her nose and tapped her first fingers together. "I should explain."

Gwaine's eyebrows jumped. "This is too weird." He shook his head. "I'm out."

"Is breá liom tú Gwaine."

Gwaine froze with his hand on the door and pursed his lips. He turned to look at her. "Did…"

Jaya tilted her head. "Hm?"

"Did you just say that you love me?" Gwaine demanded.

"Did I?" Jaya tilted her head back straight.

"I really think you did."

Jaya tilted her eyebrow. "How could you possibly know that? You're very American."

Gwaine blinked a couple of times. He walked toward the chair on the other side of the coffee table and sat down. "All right. I'm listening."

Jaya watched him with a small smirk and tipped into her chair. "So. Where would you like me to start?"

"The beginning. How did we meet?"

"That's not the beginning."

Gwaine folded his arms. "All right. Fine. The very beginning then."

Jaya nodded and smiled softly. "This is going to be a very long story. Would you like some snacks? Or maybe some coffee?"

Gwaine shook his head. "No thanks. Not right now."

Jaya nodded. "Shouldn't you tell your girlfriend you're going to be here for a while."

"Girlfriend?" Gwaine shook himself. "Oh. Right." he fished his phone out of his pocket and typed furiously for a moment before turning it on silent and pushing it back into his pocket. "All right. I'm ready."

Jaya shifted in her chair. "Right. What do you know about Ireland's history after the Romans left?"

"Not much."

Jaya adjusted in the chair. "There was a single king. For years. And he slowly went mad."

Gwaine nodded slowly. "Mmhm."

"My father wasn't his first knight, but he was part of the upper level of the Garda an Rí." She tilted her head. "There was an uprising when the king tried to execute my father when he came back from assisting Uther Pendragon claim Camelot's throne for himself."

Gwaine shifted and folded his hands over his ribs. "Uther Pendragon. As in-"

"As in Arthur Pendragon's father. Yes." Jaya smiled. "But you're getting ahead of me. We'll get there in a bit."

Gwaine nodded slowly and shifted in his chair. "All right. Go on."

"When my father came back I was only a couple years old. For the next ten years my mother and I bounced from village to village while the king and a new guard chased my father and the rest of the Garda an Rí all over the country. Fighting was everywhere. Ireland was stained for the next decade with the blood of her people from the civil war."

Gwaine held up a finger. "Hold on. Let me see if I got this straight. You were born-"

"Year keeping was a little shaky at best around the time that I was born in Ireland." Jaya shrugged. "Early 1020s. I think" Jaya smiled softly.

"You look amazing for someone so-" Gwaine cleared his throat and cut himself off.

"Someone roughly one thousand years old?" Jaya offered, her eyes sparkling with the mirth that came from centuries of practice. "Though if anyone asks, I'm twenty-one."

Gwaine bobbed his head and smiled. "You look beautiful."

Jaya smiled and hummed. "Thank you."

"You said that this is your library?" Gwaine pointed around. "But I thought that the Queen was in her 80s?"

Jaya hummed and shrugged. "It's a delicate balance. Trying to be the Queen, and her great-granddaughter at the same time." She looked around fondly and shifted in the chair, the large boat neck on her sweater dropping down over her right shoulder. Two round marks with some light green spider-webbing poked out against the olive-tone of her skin about halfway down her collarbone. "This castle and Island has called me Queen since I was...twenty-three years old."

Gwaine shook his head and flared his eyes. "This is…"

"A lot to process." Jaya agreed. "And for that I'm sorry. But I promise that all the emotions that you're feeling will make sense very soon." she smiled at him fondly.

Gwaine nodded. "Right. All right. When did we first meet?"

"I was about eighteen." Jaya smiled. "Though, after a few years we realized that we had met when I was much younger for a brief time."

"But that's not the start of the story?"

Jaya shook her head. "I promise it's better if I do it this way."

Gwaine nodded and gestured for her to go ahead.

"My father was from a noble family. Very blue blood." Jaya smiled fondly to herself. "My mother was the daughter of the blacksmith. She was slight and pale as fresh milk." Jaya looked over at him. "The gods blessed me with my father's skin tone and personality and my mother's thick accent. It was very confusing I'm sure." She shifted in the chair.

Gwaine nodded. "They sound lovely."

Jaya smiled. "Mother loved you. She called you 'my rogue'. My father appreciated you, though he wasn't too fond of the fact that you wanted to marry me."

"We got married?"

Jaya smiled to herself and nodded. "Eighty-Five times."

Gwaine blinked and half shook his head. "So you're saying-"

"This isn't the first time that we've crossed paths. Right."

"Wow." Gwaine nodded slowly and hummed. All right, so...from the beginning."

Jaya stared at the fire and got a far away look in her eye.

"You don't strike me as the embroidery type."

Jaya snorted. "Ohhhhh, but my mother tried. No...I was my father's daughter. I learned rather quickly that those who didn't carry a sword were just as likely to die on one. So I learned how to fight. Fists, knives, swords...anything I could get my hands on." She hummed to herself. "For my sixteenth birthday Da-my father-gave me a dark, dapple grey charger. My mother was furious." She smiled to herself and then sighed softly. "I still miss that horse. Though, I kept his line alive, and I have his...I lost track of how many grands...son in my stable right now."

Gwaine nodded and combed his fingers through his hair. "So you were a badass."

Jaya snigged and nodded. "I suppose that I was." She looked over at him and smiled. "I caused quite a stir. Running into battle with my two short swords and the knives I had stashed everywhere. Not to mention Ridire-not him." she pointed to the dog splayed out in front of the fire. "The original."

Gwaine nodded. "Sure. Right."

"I wore mini skirts with pants under them. Boots clear up to my knees and loose-fitting shirts. Camelot was not ready for me. But I had a brilliant time there. Made so many friends that I have kept all these years."

Gwaine looked like he wanted to ask, but thought better of it.

Jaya settled into her chair comfortably. "By the time I was fourteen my father was crowned the king of Ireland, officially. But half of the Island was wild and the other half loyal to the previous king. It was...honestly it was amazing my father managed to have so many loyal subjects in this country." she stared at the fire again. "Dublin was raided nearly weekly by the time I was seventeen…"