Work Text:
Circa 440
Gwynedd's travels have brought him mixed blessings. Though many of his brothers and sisters are still as he remembered them, many more have been altered almost beyond recognition, or, worse still, have vanished entirely; perhaps absorbed by another, or perhaps just faded away – leaving behind nothing more than a faint voice on the wind and a Name etched somewhere deep on the land's bones – as their kind sometimes do.
Near his journey's end, he is relieved to see yet another familiar face when he draws close to the most southerly of Rome's old walls. The familiar face, however, does not appear to take the same comfort in seeing him, greeting Gwynedd's arrival with a sling-shot rock and harsh words snarled in the tongue they both share.
Gwynedd ignores the insult, but is less successful at dodging the projectile, which spins close enough to nick the skin at his temple before it whistles past his ear. The sharp sting raises tears to his eyes and an answering curse to his tongue, but he chokes down both and forces himself to find a smile for his little brother, instead.
The friendly overture does nothing to soften the boy's expression. He glares down at Gwynedd from his treetop perch, and snaps, "What the hell are you doing here?"
Gwynedd blinks back up at him, nonplussed. He had thought his brother would greet him warmly, as all of their other surviving siblings in the west had; as glad to know he still lived as he felt to see they did. "I've come to make sure you're all right…"
Rheged. The boy is called Rheged. Gwynedd hears it clearly when he looks at him, and it thrums with the power of a true naming. The name he bore when last Gwynedd saw him has turned as insubstantial as mist in his memories, and he knows it will take some effort to recall it now.
"Fat lot of good that does me now," Rheged shouts back as he rearms his sling. "Could have done with you here a few years back when the old man was always kicking me around, but I didn't see much of you then, did I?"
"He was kicking me around just as much." Gwynedd feels like a coward for saying it, and a coward now for staying away, but he'd never felt his brothers to the north could need what little help he would have been able to give them. From all of the reports he'd heard, they'd never stopped fighting Rome's control, and fighting it well. "I came when I could be sure he wasn't going to be coming back."
"How very brave of you," Rheged says, sneering. "Well, as you can see, I've managed fine without you." He aims the sling at Gwynedd's head again, his hands as steady as rock. "So you can piss off and leave me alone now."
"I'll go if you want me to," Gwynedd says, holding his hands up towards Rheged, palms open to show they're empty, "now I know you're safe. That's all I wanted here."
Rheged calls out to Gwynedd as soon as he turns to walk away. "Gododdin and Alt Clut will doubtless be happy to see you. Alt Clut especially, I should think, given how much he still yammers on about you."
These names, too, are new, but the images they summon to Gwynedd's mind are not. He smiles. "Then I shall go and see him next."
Rheged snorts loudly. "You could, but it'll take you days to find him, I should think. Bastard's always hiding himself away; going to ground like a fox." Autumn-curled leaves start rustling behind Gwynedd, suggesting that Rheged is perhaps shifting his position. "But I know all the places he goes. I could probably take you straight to him, if you like."
The offer sounds almost like an afterthought, as though Rheged cares not one whit whether Gwynedd refuses it or not, but genuine enough all the same.
"I would," Gwynedd says, his smile broadening. "Thank you, Rheged."
When Rheged draws close enough that Gwynedd can better study his appearance, it's obvious that he has changed very little since they last saw one another.
His eyes are the same shade as Gwynedd's own, as they have always been, and they have lost none of their old sharpness. He has the same strong nose, the same pointed chin, and his reddish-brown hair sticks out at all the same odd angles.
He does seem to have grown, however; the top of his head almost level with Gwynedd's shoulder now.
Rheged scowls, and Gwynedd notes with some amusement that his eyebrows also seem to be a slightly thicker, although it's only obvious once they start bristling. "Why are you staring at me?"
"I'm not staring."
"Yes, you are." Rheged is still as scrawny as a winter-born calf, and the narrow line of his spine presses like a blade against the thin fabric of his tunic when his back stiffens. "Stop it."
He kicks just as hard as ever, too.
Rheged leads Gwynedd through streams, bogs and bramble thickets alike, but Gwynedd does not complain about his sodden shoes and his ripped and muddied clothes. He suspects that his brother is testing him somehow, and Gwynedd is determined not to be found wanting.
So he keeps his peace, matches stride with Rheged no matter how rough the route, and as the hours and miles pass, Rheged's posture slowly loosens even if his tongue does not. Their journey is silent save for the occasional barked warning Rheged gives him when the ground becomes particularly treacherous underfoot.
On the morning of the third day, Rheged finally announces that they are approaching Alt Clut's current bolthole. Gwynedd does not need the whispered disclosure, however, nor the gesture towards a nearby cave entrance, because he can feel how Alt Clut's presence is distorting the natural flow of magic in the air around them and the earth below, like a dam altering the course of a river. The resulting eddies form patterns that Gwynedd knows intimately, but has not seen for far too long, and his heart beats a little faster at the recognition.
Alt Clut must have sensed them drawing nearer, as well, because by the time Gwynedd and Rheged scramble down the scree-covered hill outside the cave, he has emerged to stand outside it.
Before Gwynedd has even had chance to balance himself at the foot of the slope, he is pulled into a fierce hug; crushed close against a narrow chest with wiry arms wrapped firmly around his back.
Alt Clut too has grown, but seemingly at the same rate as Gwynedd, as Gwynedd's chin still fits neatly and naturally into the crook of his brother's neck as it used to whenever they embraced before.
"It's good to see you again, Gwynedd," Alt Clut says, and his voice is thick with what sounds to be the exact same emotion that is wrapping tight hands around Gwynedd's own throat.
"You too," Gwynedd manages to choke out, though the words are still barely more than a sigh.
He has missed them all, all the brothers and sisters kept from him by Rome, but Alt Clut more than most, and this reunion is one he has both longed for and feared in equal measures. They were close as small boys, playing and laughing and learning to fight together, but he hadn't dared to let himself hope that that closeness could have survived the long years of separation until this moment.
Eventually, Alt Clut releases his sound grip so he can hold Gwynedd at arm's length, his gaze searching Gwynedd's face avidly, no doubt looking for every similarity and point of difference to the memories he holds of the last time they met.
To Gwynedd's mind, Alt Clut himself has changed even less than Rheged, save for the natural alterations wrought by the slow passage of boy into man. From the copper of Alt Clut's hair, through the spring green of his eyes, to his warm, open smile, he matches Gwynedd's recollections of him perfectly.
Gwynedd doesn't realise he's started crying until Alt Clut swipes his cheek with the back of one hand, and his knuckles come away glistening wet. "And I thought you were happy to see me," Alt Clut says, his tone lightly teasing, but wavering a little all the same, as though he might be close to tears himself.
"I am," Gwynedd reassures him. "I am, it's just –"
"Fucking hell," Rheged interjects loudly, "I'm happy we're all alive, too, but we haven't even broken our fast yet today, Alt Clut. How much longer is this all going to take?"
Alt Clut breaks away from Gwynedd with a burst of bright laughter, and then lunges towards Rheged with a suddenness that makes their little brother squeal with alarm. Alt Clut's legs aren't long, but they're longer than Rheged's, so Rheged doesn't get very far when he starts to run. Alt Clut catches him easily, and slings him over one shoulder just as easily when he starts to struggle.
"I can't offer you much hospitality here, but I did catch a rabbit last night if you'd like to share it with me," Alt Clut says, motioning for Gwynedd to follow him as he starts back inside the cave.
After breakfast, Alt Clut takes Gwynedd to see Rome's other wall; the one he abandoned practically as soon as it had finished being built, then retook but didn't hold.
It's little more than rubble in some places now, the smooth cut stones no doubt carried away to build homes and enclose pastures. Alt Clut helps Rheged clamber up the wall so he can see over the tallest parts, but gently pulls him back when he tries to stand atop it.
"You know you've got to be careful," he says, swatting Rheged's backside perfunctorily after he's set him safely back down on the ground. "Pictland might see you."
Rheged pouts and rubs his rump like he's been dealt a grievous hurt. "Pictland's a bastard," he says, but very quietly, as though he's afraid Pictland might overhear the insult even though he's nowhere to be seen. "But then so are you."
Alt Clut chuckles, and cocks his head to one side quizzically. "How am I a bastard, Rheged?"
"You hit me, just like he does."
"I barely touch you," Alt Clut says, sounding affronted. "Pictland throws rocks at you."
"It still hurts!" Rheged pauses for a moment, considering, and then adds, "Though perhaps not quite as much."
Alt Clut acknowledges this admission with a quick pat of his brother's head, before turning his attention to Gwynedd again. "Do you remember Pictland, Gwynedd?" he asks.
It's been so long since Gwynedd last saw Pictland that the name brings only fuzzy, near-featureless images to his mind now. "Not well. What’s he like now?"
"A bastard," Rheged mutters at the same time as Alt Clut says, "He's got big." He raises one hand high up over his head, and then holds both of his arms out to his sides, elbows crooked. "All over."
"He's fat?"
Alt Clut shakes his head vigorously. "Naw, pretty sure it's all muscle, which you'll find yourself out the first time he punches you. Which he will, because he's got such a temper on him, you're bound to do something or other that'll piss him off sooner or later.
"If you're going to be around here more now, you should know that it's safer to always stay on this side of the wall."