(c) 2020, Taz Xandros, All Rights Reserved.

This is an entirely fictional story that is licensed solely to Nifty for workshopping purposes. It may not be reproduced, distributed, or commercially exploited in any form without express written permission from its author.

This story is Historical Fantasy set in the Early Victorian Era and may be too slow burning for some folks. If you're looking for a quick wank, this probably isn't for you. Although this is a sort of dark erotic steampunk, not every chapter will be steamy. But if you like action, intrigue, magic and character growth between sex scenes, then this is your cup of tea.

This story contains graphic M/M sex between teenagers, and between adults and teens. The sex is sometimes romantic, sometimes rough and/or non-consensual with an authoritarian, medical, or BDSM bent. Slavery, forced indenture, medical experimentation on the destitute and corporal punishment in schools were still common occurrences during this time period, so things may happen that should never occur in modern real life. Protect yourself and your health by using PReP and condoms and do not try these things at home, especially if they violate the laws of your locality.

CW: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS SUICIDAL THOUGHTS.

If you are a minor, or think something in this story might bother or offend you, STOP HERE.

If you enjoy this sort of thing, read on, and feel free to email me with comments or encouragement at:

taxandros@protonmail.com

A big thank you to all you who have written to let me know how much you enjoy this story. Your enthusiasm and kind words inspire me to keep going. I don't have any other stories posted anywhere else yet, but I plan to cobble some together, soon. Thanks also for being patient. Real life often gets in the way of my creative one.

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Your humble author, Taz

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End of Last Chapter:

Bran looked back down at the mysterious beauty, and nodded. He tried to sing back to her, but the only sound that left his shattered voice box was a croaking squawk.

Her arm wrapped round his head. Her lips sealed against his in an earnest, chaste kiss that flooded him with sweet, healing water. He swooned as he felt his body shrinking, even as it once again knitted itself back together. The chains fell away, meant to hold his magic self, not his mortal coil.

She embraced him and pulled him through the puddle into the gloomy depths of the ocean where a thousand smiling faces surrounded them, all as surpassingly beautiful as her own. He knew he should recognize them, but his mind was blank. He drew in breath to speak to them, but his lungs rebelled against the salt water a mortal man was never meant to breathe, and the crushing pressure of the deeps squeezed him into unconsciousness.

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Topping the Duke (Chapter 9 -- Sun Thief )

Bran started awake, pushing himself up to his hands and knees as every orifice in his battered body expelled fluid in a series of spasms. After he had purged everything, and his lungs finally filled with crisp, morning air, he realized that he was in a shallow puddle of mud and marsh grass. The liquid he had purged was black with coal dust.

Exhausted, he rolled onto his side, taking stock of his situation.

His muscles ached fiercely. His elbows, knees and shins were barked and bruised. His left shoulder throbbed with a stabbing pain. The nails of his fingers were torn to the quick, and the pads ripped raw from digging. But what hurt the most was how powerless he'd been in the face of Gofannon's wrath. No matter how hard he'd fought, Beli Mawr's blessing had been scoured away.

He knew it was, else he would be feeling that itch as his body healed itself. The magic the sun god had gifted to him had filled him not only with health and vitality, but with courage and possibility. It was all gone, now. He felt none of Gofannon's heat, either. Nothing magical, at all. Swallowing that villain's spunk had been an exercise in futility. He had to face facts:

He was nothing but a mortal, crawling through the mud like a worm. Doomed and insignificant.

He let out a groan and rolled onto his back, careful of his shoulder.

The part of the sky that wasn't smeared black with smoke and tinged by the fiery red of the steelworks on the hill above the town was a rather fetching shade of pre-dawn blue. Only a few stalwart stars still shone. Bran blinked slowly a few times, bile rising in his throat at the memory of the nightmare had had just awakened from. At least he could take comfort in the knowledge it hadn't been real. All his injuries were consistent with his experience in the mine.

Dragons didn't exist. Neither did Gofannon. They were just stories. Dreams.

"Dreams are real enough," a husky but high-pitched voice said in Welsh from somewhere in the reeds. "So are stories."

Bran swiveled his head in that direction, wondering how his thoughts had been read. He saw the coblyn with the forked beard who had led him to Marc and Mr. Jones.

"Blessings of the Mothers," Bran murmured respectfully. He sat up, not sure what else to do.

"Such a polite one." The coblyn smiled at him approvingly, tamping tobacco into a pipe. "Brave and unselfish, too. I'm glad we could save you. Not enough of us left in the world. The dreams are mostly of mines and mills, now. The meanings behind the stories have been lost."

"Am I a changeling?" Maybe his mother had been right.

"You're a Primal. The Fair Family were born from the dreams of humankind. Primals are even older. Born from the dreams of Sun and Sea, Earth and Sky, Moon and Stars."

"I'm a dream of Beli Mawr?"

"And he is a dream of yours."

"How can that be? One begets the other."

"We all beget one another. A song becomes more than the poet, more than the singer. It becomes a mother's love, and the heart of a nation. A dream recreates its creator. You're a child of all the Ancients. Modron. Aeronwren and Nfynfor, and all the rest. They dreamed of you, and you became, and in your becoming, you created a new way of being. That is what Primals do."

"But I served him. I was loved by Beli Mawr. I was his charioteer."

"Then you're a Sun Thief. And, since none of the Fair Folk have seen the likes of you in over a thousand years, we must now be entering a New Age. Did he set a task before you?"

Bran considered this, forcing his mind past the pain in his body to search out the details of that glorious flight. "His spear only had five heads. He wished for me to find the last two. But who has a spear with five heads? Let alone seven? How does one even use such a thing?"

The coblyn laughed, then sparked up his pipe, taking a long pull on it. He exhaled a curling, bluish smoke that looked like writing, but Bran was illiterate, so could not make sense of it. "Each spear head is a realm which he oversees. A power that is his to direct."

Bran felt the mud on his forehead cracking as he drew his brows down in thought. He wiped his face and flung the mud away, puzzling over this, sorting through his experiences. "Beli Mawr controls two fiery, winged lions. Their roars are like thunder, and their eyes and manes blaze with light and heat and...intellect and passion. His chariot sails through the blue bowl of the sky, and descends into the sea every evening. So of course he oversees the Sun, and the Sky..."

"Fire and Air." Another filigreed plume rose up from the coblyn's pipe as he nodded encouragement.

"And his gaze, it looks over the land, and the sea..."

"Earth and Water."

"And when he looks upon the land, he causes plants to grow." Bran looked at his benefactor. "So...Wood?"

"Life. Life is the central tip of the spear."

"Is that what Gofannon hammered out of me?" Bran certainly felt hollowed out and lifeless.

"The Spark of Creation. The Smith guards his Forge jealously. He believes that he, and he alone has the right to create. The first Sun Thief stole a Spark from the Forge and gifted it to Beli Mawr. And then, that Spark was given to humankind, and now they are Creators. The Smith is quite unhappy about all of that."

"I existed before the sun was the sun?"

"Why do you think they call you a Sun Thief? The Spark is the thundering roar of those lions. It's their manes, their wings. The Spark drives the sun's chariot. That is why Beli Mawr holds you so dear. And guards you so jealously. Without you, he would be a sad, cold cinder drifting across a barren sky."

"I gave fire and life to the sun?"

"You, or someone very like you. But you are so tiny, I'm inclined to believe you might, indeed be the very first. The one they call Morfran."

Bran made a sour face. "But Morfran was hideously ugly."

"Becoming is always ugly. It is pain and toil and chaos and fear. But it is also truth and light."

"But...Morfran never stole the Spark. Gwion Bach stirred the cauldron and drank of its knowledge."

The coblyn laughed. "Of course humans concoct stories where they are the heros. They've forgotten the true power of the Old Ones."

Bran thought dreamily back to that chariot ride with Beli Mawr. "My wings spanned from horizon to horizon."

"Back then, aye. But with each incarnation, a Primal grows smaller. Now, you're not even a proper human size."

Bran scowled. He hated being so short. "You're smaller still," he pointed out.

"Some dreams are big. Some are small. Since you've forgotten yourself, you're both. And neither."

"That makes no sense."

"Becoming is always a confusion before it grows into being."

"I want my wings back, I do."

The coblyn held his belly, his beard bobbing up and down with the force of his laughter. "You've made an egg of yourself. Now, we must wait for you to hatch."

"When does that happen?"

"When will you stretch your wings from shore to shore and your eyes from Heaven to Hell and back again? The dreams of Sun and Sea are not as small as you are now.

"I don't want to be small. I don't want to be helpless."

The coblyn studied him for several long moments, releasing puff after puff from his pipe. He stroked first one, then the other point of his white beard, then motioned across the marsh. "Neither do they."

Bran looked where he indicated. Four children slept around a guttering fire in a clearing on the far bank of the marsh. The Evans boys slept to the north, the Williams girls to the east. Nearby, little Dee Moss sat on a log. She clapped and sang quietly while three coblynau danced in circles around her.

Bran's heart soared at the sight. He had always looked out for the children working the traps, and given them some of his candles when their lamps ran out of oil. He knew first hand the terror of working such long hours in that stifling, unremitting darkness. His generosity towards them was the reason Driscoll had begun rationing his candles. "You saved the children."

"Of course we did. Their dreams are pure ambrosia," the coblyn smiled. "Without them, we'd starve."

"You eat dreams?"

"Dreams sustain us all. But you, more than most."

Bran struggled to his feet, suddenly angry at the coblyn's cryptic, confusing replies. He had spent countless nights dreaming of a warm belly and a place to sleep that did not involve Driscoll's nightly attentions. What had that ever brought him? Even now, his stomach rumbled. The one time he had tried to run, he'd been caught, and the police had returned him to Driscoll. Dreams held nothing but false hope.

He stumbled towards the fire, resisting the temptation to say something unkind to the coblyn as it chuckled at him. Everybody knew it was unwise to be impolite to one of the Tyllwydd Teg.

He clambered up the bank on unsteady legs and tottered a few steps, until the pain overwhelmed him. He sat heavily on the bole of a fallen tree. The bark ground into the bare skin of his buttocks, bringing his attention to the fact that he was naked. He groaned. He was too battered to survive a beating by Driscoll for having lost the only clothing he could work in. He glanced around but saw no evidence of fabric in the gloomy chaos of mud and marsh grass surrounding him.

He looked for the fork-bearded coblyn, but the imp had disappeared. He sighed and looked to higher ground.

His gaze was draw to the clearing, where Dee still clapped and sang, even though the coblynau she had been with seemed to have deserted her. Her fine, blonde hair drifted in a halo around her head, lifted by the slight breeze off the river. Her face had been scrubbed clean, and her clothing lacked any trace of coal dust, as if every piece had been newly made. The other children were in similar condition, as if they had just come from church wearing brand new clothes.

He wondered how they had come to look that way. Had they died? Was he beholding their heavenly forms?

Or was it Bran who had died? Was that why he was naked, covered in earth?

He made an anguished groan, hiding his face in his hands. Being a ghost meant he'd be hungry forever!

"Who is that?" Dee called out in Welsh, a fearful quaver in her voice.

"It's only me," Bran replied, also in Welsh. It was more comforting than English. He slid off the log onto the ground, to hide his lower half from the children.

"Bran! You're alive!" She stood up and clapped her hands in glee. "I saw you lying there, but I was afraid to call out. I thought you were dead."

The other children stirred, awakened by Dee's shouting. "Bran's alive?" Gar, the older Evans boy, rubbed his eyes and blinked. A smile broke over his face. "He is!"

"Bran's alive!" the other children echoed.

"I am," Bran agreed. He covered his privates with his hands. "But I'm not decent. I've lost my breeches."

"You can wear my shawl," Dee replied. She stripped it off and held it out to Gar. "Here, you take it to Bran."

Gar nodded, picking his way across driftwood and marsh hillocks to Bran's log. "You can use my jacket, as well." He peeled it off. Bran stood up, making sure to turn away as he lifted his hands.

Gar tied the arms of his jacket around Bran's waist to form a sort of apron across his front, then tied Dee's shawl so that it hung down over Bran's backside. "There!"

"Thank you." Bran put a hand on Gar's shoulder, grateful of his help as he navigated over to the fire. He was about to collapse and rest again, when Dee asked: "Can you walk? We're very hungry. But we don't know the way home from here."

The other children chimed in, turning their hopeful faces towards him. "We want to go home! Can you bring us home?"

The thought of returning to Driscoll's rowhouse sucked away what little energy Bran had left. But he could not deny their beseeching faces. He took Dee's hand in his, and that of John, the younger Evans boy, since they were the smallest and youngest. Knowing he had to look out for them would force him to remain on his feet. "Let's go."

When they exited the copse of trees surrounding the clearing, Bran was surprised to see the steelworks so near to them. He could see the cinders still sparking in the black billows of smoke belching forth from the tall, circular chimneys. "We're not in Dafen," he confirmed. "We're down at the estuary, almost to the sea."

"Oh, aye!" They launched into an excited chatter that reminded Bran of a cage of canaries.

When they saw his confusion, Dee waved the others to quiet and explained: "We were in the palace of Gwyn ap Nudd."

"The King of the Fair Folk?"

The children nodded.

He felt another stab of jealousy, imagining all the pleasures they would have enjoyed whilst he was being tortured and torn asunder by Gofannon. "What was it like?"

"Wet," Gar said.

"Only outside," John agreed.

The children all giggled at Bran's confusion.

"The palace is underwater. In the middle of the river," Dee explained. "But it's in a great bubble."

"Like a giant sheep stomach," Gar added.

Bran recalled the achingly beautiful face of the woman who had rescued him. "Were they singing?"

The children nodded, eyes going distant as their mouths all half-opened in remembered wonder.

"There were such delights," the Williams twins sighed. "Candies and sweetmeats and salmon."

"And no coal, anywhere," Dee added.

As they continued listing all the wonders of the palace, Bran shivered in the cold, wet breeze that sighed up the estuary from the sea. It seemed to him that the water was whispering to him. Sensual, seductive enticements meant to pull him into the depths and drown him. He was happy when they reached a road that angled north east towards the hills above Dafen, away from the water.

As they trudged uphill past farm after farm, the sun peeked over the hills, sending shafts of rosy gold across their path. The air was crisp with dew, but the road itself was dry enough that Bran's little band kicked up puffs of dust that drifted off into the hedges as they walked along the lane.

"Why don't you wear shoes?" Dee asked, her gazed turned curiously on him.

Bran shrugged. "Driscoll hasn't bought me any."

"That's the first thing I'll be buying," she assured him. "Shoes for you."

"I need breeches."

"Alright. Breeches for you. Then shoes. Then, candles."

Bran snorted. "You can't afford that."

"I can." She held up a bright gold sovereign.

"Where did you get that?"

"The coblynau gave us each one."

"Each?"

The other children nodded their heads, holding up similar coins.

Bran blinked. "Are they real?"

Dee shrugged and set the single piece of gold in his hand. Envy squeezed his heart as he felt its cool weight. The early morning rays glinted off its brilliant, golden surface. He had never in his life seen an actual sovereign, let alone touched one, but he felt certain it was, indeed, real.

He curled his fingers tightly around the coin. These coins could buy his freedom from Driscoll, he was sure of it.

Fantasies of freedom and luxury danced in his head. He could wear a suit like the duke's and eat as much beef and mutton as he liked, and own a lantern to light a room all night, while he slept in a bed and not on the floor. It was tempting, very tempting, to overpower all the children and force them to give up their prizes, but he knew that to rob them would be to steal their dreams from the mouths of the coblynau. And that would haunt him to the end of his days.

Reluctantly, he set the coin back into her palm. "Spend these with kind and open hearts, and you shall never go wanting. But tell no one where your good fortune came from," he advised the children. "Else you'll upset the Fair Folk, and your luck will turn bad."

"What shall we say, then?" Gar's brow furrowed over his warm brown eyes. "You know everyone will ask."

Bran frowned, and they continued along the lane for several paces while he pondered this. "Tell them...that you found them in the marsh. In a leather bag half-buried under an old yew tree."

The children nodded, tucking their coins away. Bran went silent and outpaced them, leaving them to prattle on about dancing with the Gwynn ap Nudd. He rounded a bend in the hedge. The road rose up towards a stone bridge spanning the river. Beyond that, was a hill of tailings, and beyond that, the tower of the winding house.

The sight of the mine knocked the stuffing out of him. By the time he reached the bridge, he was so filled with helpless fury, he couldn't bring himself to take another step. The children came up behind him, quieting as they approached. Dee seemed to sense his mood and took his hand. Her warm, moist fingers curled around his own.

The comforting gesture broke open the knot of rage in his gut. His anger drained away, leaving him exhausted and aching. He sat heavily on the pony wall of the bridge, pulling his hand from Dee's. "Go on." He flicked his fingers towards the mine. "I need to rest, I do," he said in English.

The other children caught sight of the tower and gave a glad shout. They pelted up the path, heading for the gates to the colliery. Only Dee remained behind,her brow furrowed in a serious expression. "I'll have them send a wagon for you." She patted Bran's hand before running after the others.

Bran watched them disappear behind the screen of trees that ranged across the far side of the hill, then laid down atop the pony wall. The sun had been up just long enough to bake the dew off of it, but the stone was cool and impartial. He turned his face towards the river and stared at the dark, slow-moving water. Some part of him ached to plunge into those silent depths in the hopes of finding the palace of Gwyn ap Nudd. The more rational side of him realized the futility of that course.

For whatever reason, he was not welcome there, else he would have found himself amid the enchantments so happily recounted by the children, and not drowning in the deep ocean, surrounded by an army of fairy women.

Bran heaved a great sigh and wondered how deep the river was. If he jumped, would he die quickly, of a broken neck, or would he plunge deep and be carried off back to the white women in the sea? Either way, he would not survive.

The prospect enticed him. Even a painful, watery death was preferable to the terrifying drudgery of the mine, and the crushing cruelty and humiliation of Driscoll's rowhouse. The problem with jumping was, he didn't have the energy to sit up and actually do it. And even if he did, his time in the air would be far, far too brief.

He yearned so desperately to fly.