Alpine Lake symud ymlaen

For @Issun!

He decides to press on, eventually. There is nothing left to go back to, in Mynydd. Should he even manage to overpower Ioan and his minions, there is barely a kingdom to rule over. The Gwynedd loyalists were slaughtered, and all who remained had been persuaded to follow Ioan's reign. Hells, he managed to get out of there only by accident; had his departure been any sooner or later, his head would be on display beside his father's, his mother's.

His stomach twists. His sisters. Three there were, all as gold as he, but much more fair than brutish. Heulwen he knows had perished--he will never forget the sight of her body, strewn over the river rocks--but Eurwen he had not seen, and of course Seren was far away, married off to a prince from another kingdom. Seren, he prays, is completely out of harm's way, and Eurwen is fleet and smart enough to have evaded capture. Still, Ioan has spies everywhere. . .

The golden prince climbs into the mountains, finally out of the bog, and after a couple hours of alpine travel--his paws wholly unused to such terrain--he comes across a lake, clear surface almost like glass. It is raining, slightly, and the drops make ripples on the water. Arc after arc travels to the shore, crisp, lapping over the edges of his paws. He steps in, beginning to clean the mud from his paws. He is a vain creature, accustomed to keeping his gilded pelt pristine at all times. Once he feels refreshed, he retreats from the lake, nimbly shaking droplets from his toes.

Llewellyn's cerulean eyes cast over the lake, over the mountains and to the sea beyond. It is a vast land, bigger even than Mynydd and its surrounding kingdoms. A suitable dominion, for a prince. If they will have him.