Alpine Lake dannedd wedi'u carthu

@Minori! Takes place right after this thread.

He lingers after his conversation with the dark male, not keen to leave the lake just yet. Compared to the bog, it is peaceful and cool, the gentle susurrus of the waves against the shore music to his ears. Llewellyn sits for a while in repose, looking out over the water. He ponders fishing, but it can wait--he feels no great hunger, now.

Perhaps he should get moving again soon, however. Flashbacks are starting to prickle at him, raising his hair much like summer lightning does, crackling through the sky. They have not yet receded into the domain of simple dreams; they plague his every resting moment, casting a constant shadow over his mind. Were they not real, he could simply fight them off with logic and reason: one could fight away demons using the brain and no other muscle. Alas. . .

He would always wonder if he could have saved his mother. His father, no--Gwynedd was a marked man from the first day of Ioan's rise, and it was only a matter of time before he fell. But Rhonwen. . .he should have insisted. She refused to go, to leave her husband's side. Even to protect the son that still had a fighting chance at survival.

"Gyda dannedd wedi'u carthu," she had whispered, in her husky whisper of a voice, "rhedeg a byw, fy mab." And who was he to obey a mother--a queen's--command?

It was the last time he ever saw her face. Alive, that was.