Will Stanton stood upon the outcropping of rock, head thrown back to feel the sun upon his face, arms spread wide as if to embrace the sky. A figure of average height, pleasant but plain looks, brown-haired and brown-eyed; so utterly ordinary that nobody would look twice at him if they passed him on the street. He was clad in jeans and a t-shirt smudged with the marks of exertion and the outdoors, with a hiking backpack set down by his feet that slowly listed and toppled over onto its side.

"You'd think English boys never went outdoors at all," a mocking voice commented from behind him, accented in lilting Welsh.

Will let his arms drop, turning to the figure standing behind him.

Bran Davies. A boy - or perhaps a man, now - that nobody would dare call ordinary. He stood, slender and straight and tall, with his shoulders pushed back and his hands shoved in his pockets, a wry smirk tweaking his mouth up at one corner. He wore dark glasses and dark clothing, but of he himself, there was no colour in him anywhere.

His skin was so pale as to be almost translucent; his hair was white as snowy silk, pulled back from his face and tied at the nape of his neck in a short tail. He looked bleached, like bone left out to weather the elements too long. And then he took off his glasses and it became apparent that the lack was not total; though his colouring was albino, his eyes were yellow; the tawny, glittering eyes of an owl, fierce with intelligence and confidence.

"I'm hardly a city kid," Will retorted with a grin, turning back to gaze at the view from the mountainside. Below them, the mountain swept down to the pastures, with a patchwork stitching of stone walls separating the farmlands, sheep dotted about. "There's just something about Wales! It's the air up here in the mountains, it's not like anywhere else in the world."

He took a deep breath of it, savouring the scents that brought back so many memories flooding back, feeling the familiar surge of pain within his chest. He recalled everything so vividly, every last detail of the time he had spent here. He treasured each memory like precious jewels, hoarding them in his mind, replaying them to comfort him when the loneliness became too much to bear.

But Bran remembered nothing.

Oh, he remembered Will's visits, he remembered hiking up into the mountains, he remembered the Welsh lessons that had usually degenerated into fits of bantering and hilarity. But he had no memory of the great battle that had been fought here, between the powers of the Light and the Dark. He remembered nothing of Will's true nature, or his own. And it hurt, to have the barrier of knowledge between them, the gulf that kept them apart.

Will knew that it was for Bran's own good that the memories had been taken, to spare him the pain of what he had chosen to give up. But it didn't help Will to know why.

"I haven't been up here in some time." Bran's voice startled him.

"No?" Will tilted a look over his shoulder in inquiry.

"Been busy on the farm, training the dogs. School. Not a lot of time to be wandering about up here and admiring the scenery. Fanciful, my father would say."

He's not your father, Will thought immediately, but kept it to himself.

"But of course, with the Sais bach here to visit, I have a reason be off sightseeing now, don't I?" Bran's golden gaze slid back to him, eyes sparkling to match the grin.

"Ahh, well, I'm pleased I could provide you with an excuse then." Will said wryly. He turned back towards the valley, and they both stood for a few more minutes, drinking in the view, side by side. The reds and greens and greys of the land spread out below them, and the breeze tugged at Will's hair as it danced through the mountain's hollows.

"Are we staying here tonight?" Will asked eventually.

"Of course not." Bran snorted, as if the stupidity of the question was evident. Will grinned to himself, pleased that some things about Bran hadn't changed. "You would turn over in your sleep and go rolling down the mountain, and then I would have to chase you and pick up the pieces at the bottom."

"We couldn't have that now, could we? All that time wasted just to look for pieces of an English boy?" Will teased.

He caught the smile twitching pale lips before Bran resettled his dark glasses upon his nose, turned, and set back off up the trail. "It flattens out farther up. I know a place where we may camp. Well, come on!"

Will grabbed his pack with a sigh and hitched it back onto his shoulders. "You enjoy this, don't you? Making me walk up mountains? Me with my legs only used to flat ground."

Brain just smirked over his shoulder in reply, and cranked the pace up a notch. Will groaned and followed in his wake.

When they reached the clearing, Will let his backpack slide from his shoulders and flopped on his back upon the grass. The sky above was bright and blue and streaked with light, tattered clouds. When he had arrived in Wales, Will's uncle had told him that the weather would be clear for at least another few days, and suggested the bachgen spend a day or two on the mountain while Will was here.

Bran had unexpectedly latched onto the idea, though he was unable to resist making certain comments about city kids and the great outdoors, which Will good-naturedly ignored. Will, of course, could think of nothing he'd rather than spending time alone with Bran. The fact that the Welsh weather had finally warmed, the sun creeping back to bathe the land, was an added bonus. It was even warm enough for an English boy to wear short sleeves, Will thought with a little amusement at his own expense.

He heard a soft thud and felt Bran flop down near him.

"It's a gorgeous day, don't you think?" Will beamed up at the infinite stretch of blue in sheer delight.

"It is," Bran agreed. "Just please tell me that you are not making animal shapes out of the clouds."

Will laughed. "I'm not. I'm just thinking." He flung his arms up over his head, one wrist coming to land atop something warm, with the solid but soft feel of something living. After a split second of panic, he realised that it was Bran's arm; the other boy was lying at right-angles to him, and must also have his arms stretched above his head.

For a few moments Will contemplated moving, but Bran didn't seem inclined to either comment upon it or draw away himself, so Will remained where he was, still staring upwards. It felt so good to be back here, sharing a companionable silence, with Bran close by him. The contact of crossed wrists was reassuring, a connection.

He'd been so lonely back in Buckinghamshire that he'd ached with it. It wasn't that he lacked for company, not with his sprawling family, his friends at school. But there was nobody that could fill the void of Bran in his life. For while Bran was no longer a part of the High Magic, there was still something about him that was somehow otherworldly, his birthright imprinted upon him too deeply to ever banish. Something akin to Will's nature, even though Bran was mortal now.

There were the other Old Ones, of course, who cared for him as aunts or uncles might. But Will was the last of them, and the youngest, and there were none that he could speak to with that familiar rapport that he and Bran had created, when they were twelve years old and fulfilling prophecies on a mountaintop. Only Merriman, who was like a father to him. But that was different.

Bran's arm shifted slightly beneath his, and with the rub of skin upon skin, Will was drawn back to the here and now, to the sun upon his face and the smell of summer heather drifting by.

Absently, he flipped his arm over, his palm coming to rest against Bran's. For some time more they lay there, and Will could feel the slight warm clamminess of Bran's hand, and eventually he curled his fingers around it. Not really thinking at all, except to want to hold onto his friend, as if Bran might be taken away, if he didn't.

"Will." The soft Welsh-inflected voice startled him, bringing the reality of what he was doing to him with a sickening jolt.

Mortified, Will sat up, jerking his hand from Bran's. "Sorry, I wasn't thinking, I--" And then was further shocked when Bran sat up too, and grabbed his forearm.

"Bran?"

Bran seemed quite determined not to look at him, keeping his peculiar eyes fixed upon the ground between them. And then, as if searching for something to explain his own actions, he turned Will's arm over to display the paler underside.

"Will, what is this mark, here? I was wondering, before."

Feeling a strange kind of disappointment, Will let himself be distracted by the obvious diversion, peering down at the inside of his wrist that bore the shiny white-pink symbol, a circle quartered by a cross. It was a brand he had almost forgotten about.

"An old scar." He shrugged at Bran's brief look of concern. "It was a candlestick, and I was hurrying. I bumped into it and burnt myself."

"It is an odd pattern," Bran said thoughtfully, tracing it with a thumb in an intimate gesture that almost made Will shiver. "I feel as if I should know it... but I can't quite remember why." He frowned slightly, and then shook his head as if to clear away the cobwebs. "It is nothing. We ought to set up the camp, before it gets dark."

He dropped Will's wrist and turned away to rummage through his backpack.

Will stared down at his hand, cold now in the absence of Bran's touch. For a moment there, hope had flared within him, only to be quenched again at the abrupt dismissal. Bran was his friend. It was unreasonable and impractical to think that there could be anything more between them.

Oh, Will, you are a fool, he sighed to himself. Wanting something you cannot have. It will be your undoing.