This is my first Dark is Rising story, and unfortunately, I’m not exactly the expert in Arthurian myths [I’m working on it]. Hopefully, there aren’t too many blatant mistakes in here, and if there are, I wouldn’t mind some feedback…

I had been hoping for a… slightly more fluffy JanexBran fic, but it turned into this. So. Jane and Bran meet in a coffee shop and reflect. Go figure.

Disclaimer: I don’t own Susan Cooper’s series or her characters, etc.

!

“Jenny-Oh,” he said softly. The figure in front of him jerked in surprise, then turned around to face him. Her eyes widened in surprise, almost wonder, as she recognized him.

            “Bran! Bran Davies, right?” she asked tentatively. He smiled crookedly.

            “Hello, Jane Drew. How are you?”

            A strange expression flickered across her face, but it passed quickly, and she smiled with delight.

            “I’m good, good. How have you been? I haven’t seen you since…five years ago?”

            “Has it been that long?” Bran asked with mild surprise, his eyes unclear behind the smoky-dark glasses.

            “Yeah, just about,” Jane murmured, still staring at him in dazed wonder. They sank into an uncomfortable silence, and suddenly, Jane was aware of her friends’ whisperings and giggling.

            “I ah, so-” Jane took a deep breath and glared at her friends.

            “Janey, we’ll go on ahead,” one of them laughed, tugging on the other two’s arm and towing them away forcefully. They left the café and waved to her through the window. One of them grinned and gave her the thumbs up sign. She turned quickly back to Bran, who seemed to have dismissed the distraction. He slid into the empty seat across her.

            “Wow. You’ve ah, you’ve grown,” she said lamely. For a moment, Bran just stared at her, then his face cracked into a smirk. His face, sharp and delicate and severe, suddenly became younger and more like the boy she remembered.

            “Yes, Jenny-Oh, I’m afraid that’s what happens when you haven’t seen someone in five years. They tend to stretch up a bit,” he said with a touch of good humored sarcasm.

            “I’m sorry,” she said laughing. “You just took me by surprise, that’s all.”

            “You’re the one who nearly tripped me over,” he pointed out. “Imagine my shock when, turning around and all set to throw a completely irrational hissyfit, I see little Jane, all grown up. I nearly didn’t recognize you, except you still smile the same, with only half your teeth showing.”

            “Observant,” Jane commented.

            “Naturally,” he replied. “Where have you been for the last five years?”

            “School,” Jane shrugged. “I haven’t seen Will since, either. Simon’s off to join the Royal Navy, and Barney’s got his heart set on art school.”

            Bran whistled and laced his fingers in front of him on the table. “Why am I not surprised?”

            “Neither were we. You really should see Barney’s art though. They’re a little crude, but some of it is really amazing.”

            “Does he do landscapes, like your mother?” he asked curiously.

            Jane shook her head, pushing back a lock of brown hair. “No; well, he does landscape too, but remember how he loves the Arthurian legends?” Bran nodded. “Well, he paints scenes from it.”

            “Like, Lancelot, and Tristan, like that?”

            “His favorite is still Arthur and Guinevere,” Jane corrected, half-smiling. Bran shrugged.

            “So’s everyone elses’,” he said dryly. “We used to play games with the stories, remember? Will had the most fantastic ideas, saving the lost son of Arthur and all that. Hard to imagine a boy like him with a mind like that. He always looked so…sleepy.”

            Jane laughed a little. “I know what you mean. He’s the last person I’d imagine as Sir Gawaine, charging forth and sparring furiously with the Green Knight.”

            “That old bugger,” Bran said fondly. “I wonder where he is now?”

            “Maybe we should all go visit him someday,” Jane suggested. “I’m free as soon as I graduate. You?”

            Bran shrugged. “No immediate plans. As you can see, I’m just bumming around for the time being.”

            “You’re joking,” said Jane, raising an eyebrow. Bran laughed and adjusted his glasses.

            “I live my life the way I want to; stress free. In the words of Thoreau, ‘simplicity, simplicity, simplicity.’ Although my father has his heart set on me going to college sometime.”

            “You still live in Wales then?” Jane asked in surprise.

            “Of course I do. I couldn’t bear to live here,” he motioned to the cityscape outside. “I just decided to come take a look. I don’t get out often, but once I do, I remember exactly why I don’t in the first place.”

            “Ah,” Jane agreed softly. “You do live in a beautiful area. Nowhere else can compare, can it?”

            “Not if they tried,” he said cheerfully. “Besides, there are good memories there. Good times. Strange thing, I can’t for the life of me remember all we did together that summer, but every time I try to, this warm, muzzy feeling comes over my mind. All I remember is feeling a lot more excited then than I ever had in my life.”

            “You too?” Jane asked, surprised. She turned away from the window. “Funny thing is, I dreamed about it last night, but I can’t remember either. But it’s not so much as excitement as a little sad. It makes sense though; that time was the last time we ever saw Gumerry.”

            “Is he dead?” Bran asked bluntly, raising an eyebrow.

            “Good heavens, I hope not!” but she looked troubled. Bran felt a little contrite and raked his hand through his pale hair uncomfortably.

            “What was your dream about?” he asked in hopes of changing the subject. It worked. Jane’s face stilled and became thoughtful, as she tried to gather all the strips and wisps that dreams become after having woken from them.

            “I-I…I know for sure I dreamed about one of our games,” she said at last. “You were there, and Will and Simon and Barney and Gumerry too. There were six tokens of some sort that we all held together.” She suddenly laughed self-consciously. “I think you were pretending to be a lost prince of some sort, because I imagined this glorious kingly man offering you a crown. Everything goes blurry after that.”

            Looking up, she caught the look on Bran’s face.

            “Bran? You all right there?”

            “Yeah-yeah. I’m fine. It’s just… I remember that too, now that you mention it,” he replied casually, but Jane could see the discomfort in his expression.

            “Maybe you should have something to drink,” she said worriedly and pushed her iced tea across the table. He shook his head.

            “I’m all right. I just didn’t- strange, I can’t think how I forgot about that game. We had wild imaginations back then, didn’t we?” he asked weakly. Jane nodded. “Those tokens; I wonder who has them now? They were crosses like wheels, weren’t they?”

            Suddenly, Jane felt the same feeling of unease. “Maybe…maybe Will still has them,” she suggested lightly.

            Bran nodded. “Yeah, of course. Let’s ring him up later, yeah? Ask him about that.”

            “Oh, definitely, sure. I have his number at home. We can do that later…” Jane trailed off, and avoided Bran’s eyes. For a moment, there was only a heavy silence.

            Bran spoke quiet, almost solemnly then. “Jane.”

            “Yes?”

            “I’m not sure- I mean, was that…? It was just a game, right?”

            Logically, Jane thought, it was impossible. That kind of thing only ever happened in fantasy novels and movies. She ordered herself to agree with him, say yes and avoid the implications of all that “no” carried with it.

            “It… it was…” Suddenly, she found herself shaking her head slowly, a no. “No. No, it- it’s not, I mean…Bran, I’m not sure if it was just a game.”

            “But it can’t be-be real,” Bran whispered back hoarsely, looking at her straight in the eye. “That’s not…I can’t…”

            Jane wanted to agree, assure him that he was right of course, and that logic and reason had won again, but deep down, she knew, as he did, that there had been no game. The dream had been real, and the dreamers were now realizing that the waking world wasn’t as far from the dreaming as they had hoped.

!

ended a little abruptly there, didn’t it? --;;

Gah! They won’t talk like I want them to! Yeesh. That kinda just petered off…

I’m not too clear about their ages or their locations. If you see, I’m rather vague about it all… ehehe.

It’s not too impossible though, is it? A perfectly plausible little meeting, right?

Aye, well. That’s it.