Chapter 33.5 - All's Fair in Love, War, and Drinking

This chapter is written by the beautiful and talented OceanFire9; this is chapter 5 of her "Once Upon a Time" tie-in, "And Twice Beneath a Space" (which is on Fanfiction.net). This focuses on the secondary romance of the story, starring our favorite troll, Wink, and Lorelei, the rhinemaiden from chapter 26. =D Enjoy, everyone!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Timeframe: Somewhat co-running with Chapter 34 of Once Upon A Time

Location: the Troll Market (initially), and Fafner's Cave (the tavern).

Premise: This is an attempt at some playing with the idea LA Knight presented (in Chapter 34) of Wink being an accomplished lover as well as warrior... and a possible explanation of where and how he might have gotten that mostly empty bottle of Elf wine and the Troll beer. ;)

EDIT: Disregard some of what I just wrote there, since after talking it over with LA and both of us going "hey, why not," and giving the idea a thumbs-up with big smiles, as of Chapter 37, the Wink/Lorelei pairing is now in the works for Once Upon A Time canon, w00t!

Characters: Wink the troll is not mine, he belongs to the whole Hellboy-movies-and-comics crew. Lorelei the rhinemaiden is technically not mine, either, she belongs to LA Knight... Egad, I think I've just essentially said that LA owns me. O_O In some fashion, anyway.

All German dialogue is in italics. Trollish dialogue will remain in regular font. A few things may be quoted from Chapter 40 of Once Upon A Time.

Please enjoy. :)

Synesthesia: A term for when a stimulus of one sort causes an involuntary, automatic experience of an alternate sensory impression, as in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, such as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color, for example.

All's Fair in Love, War, and Drinking

"Danke." That was what she said to the spirits dealer, in a voice as smooth and clear as a stream in late summer, with a satisfied smile curving her deep red mouth and shining from her ultra-gold eyes like illumined coins. Right before she started to make her way to leave the brewery behind her for the closest exit from the Troll Market... Right before a sudden CLANCH! noise, and an iron weight locking onto her arm, made that mouth fall open with a silent gasp, and those eyes go wide with surprise.

Lorelei was spun around and yanked sharply back for about the space of almost two-and-a-half yards, falling against a great hulking weight that held her tightly - just as a large, out-of-control cart, which she had not had time to see coming, missed careening right into her. After it had passed, she kept staring after it with the same wide-eyed and open-mouthed expression still fixed to her face... Until she noticed that the towering mass that she had been pulled against carried with it a deep voice that was rumbling softly with laughter, apparently regarding her expression.

The minute she heard that voice, all other dazed thoughts flying around in her brain at the whole situation fled from Lorelei's mind, and she looked up with a smile into the face of none other than...

"Herr Wink," she gasped, still reeling from the shock of what had just happened. "I wasn't expecting to run into you, but it is a pleasure all the same," she said with a weak laugh. Wink grinned and chuckled with her before he helped her to right herself on her feet again. After a moment or two of shared smiles, Lorelei noticed that the troll's mechanical, chain-launchable-and-retractable metal hand was still clenched lightly but strongly around her arm. "Bitte," she said, "may I have my arm back?" Wink gave her a look that said Hmm? "I promise you, I'm not broken," she quipped, with a meaningful glance at his hand. That's when Wink noticed it, too, and he gave her an apologetic look as he carefully, one mechanical digit at a time, relinquished his hold on the river-fairy's slender arm. "Vielen dank," she responded, lightly rubbing up and down her now-freed arm.

As the enormous troll stood up straight again, he took in and appreciated, briefly, the lovely sight of the shaken up Rhine daughter that he was pleased to count among those whom he called "friend," and noted the tiny, uneven shiver that had invaded her voice with a measure of sympathy for the startled maiden.

"Other than that," Wink growled, nodding in the direction of the runaway cart, "how fare you of late, Lorelei? Well enough I hope?"

"Ja," she replied, after taking a few more seconds to finish collecting herself. "More excellently than usual, actually. Business has taken quite a good turn, for whatever reason, as the weather has gotten colder. In fact, that is why I am here, I was just ordering some supplies to re-stock the tavern." Lorelei looked off in the direction that the runaway cart had kept going and gave a slight shudder. "I was about to be on my way back, when you rescued me from that not-altogether-pleasant fate." Her aspect hosted another wry smile, and she returned her golden gaze to the one good eye of the silver troll.

"Und du, Wink?" The tiny shake in her voice had gone its way quickly, for she once again spoke with as rich a clarity as found in a wash of crystalline water, "What brings you here tonight?"

Wink gave a very light, casual shrug of his massive shoulders. "Running a few minor errands of my own on behalf of Prince Nuada and myself. Nothing of great importance," he answered. There was a silence that stretched on for a few minutes, before he finally said, "Will you now be on your way, then?"

Lorelei nodded. "I will, ja." And then she surprised them both by saying, "Would you... Would you like to come with me to my place for a drink?" Wink at first stared in intrigued surprise, and then a smile overtook him while she rushed on, "If your errands are through with, that is." Her smile was a wry one as she said, "I feel that you deserve something more than just a breathless 'thank you' for your chivalry, and besides," her smile softened, "how long has it been since we've been in each other's company? Three months? Four? Was it early Autumn or late Summer? The relativity of time as we live it tends to blur in and out with time as we measure it, I've too often noticed."

Wink's one good eye glittered as he answered, in his deep, growling voice, "Too long, either way, my dear Lorelei, and while I do still have a few things left to be done-" he made a dismissive gesture with his mechanical hand in such a way that it made Lorelei giggle quietly "-as I have said, 'tis all nothing of great importance. I would be delighted to repair to Fafner's Cave with you."

The Rhine daughter grinned. "It's after-hours. We'll essentially have the place all to ourselves."

"Most excellent," growled Wink in reply, his own smile just as broad.

.

True to the river maid's word, Fafner's Cave was, for all intents and purposes, empty as Lorelei and Wink stepped over to the bar - Wink seating himself in front of it, Lorelei discarding the jacket and gloves that she'd been wearing while she was out and standing behind it. "Was mögest du trinken?" The tall faery woman asked of her guest, leaning forward with her hands on the bar and smiling. "Is there anything in particular that would interest you?"

For a moment, Wink was tempted to reply with something witty along the lines of implying that the rhinemaiden herself might interest him. Which would not have been entirely without truth, especially looking as she did now, with that charming smile on her blood-red mouth, and her long hair, dark as a moonless midnight, falling across her shoulder to brush lightly against one porcelain cheek as she dipped her head forward a little more, eyes shining like all the treasures of a dragon's hoard beneath the fringes of long, black lashes. He really couldn't help the kind of smile that overtook him as a human expression that he'd heard somewhere came to mind, uttered by a drunken old man, stumbling upon a pretty woman. The man had loudly slurred, "Whooooa, somebody get me a glassh! 'Cause I just found me... a tall drink... of water!" That was Lorelei. In so many ways. Anyone with any kind of perception could see it. But the troll warrior supposed that Lorelei had more than likely heard plenty of such flirtatious replies to what she had just asked him, many times before, and so he decided against it.

In the exact same moment that he was about to make an actual request of his comely hostess, however, a slight smirk came onto the Germanic river-fairy's face and a particularly bright twinkle sparked in her eye, as she revealed a (remarkably undamaged) bottle of wine from the large satchel that she'd had with her at the Troll Market for him to see. "Perhaps something rare and fine to start with?" She gave the bottle the lightest little spinning toss in her hand and grasped it again. "It would seem such a waste and shame if I had to drink this all alone," she said, and then turned her eyes back to her companion. "Wine itself is nothing altogether extraordinary - from Italy to France and beyond - but, rare it is that one can find any made by elves in the Magyar tradition nowadays." There was a sly smile on her face that would have outdone a fox. Wink's brows went up. Impressive, he thought, as she poured them each a glass of the rare Elf wine. "Prost," she toasted, and Wink carefully raised his glass to meet hers with a musical clink! Truthfully, Wink would have preferred to have something much stronger than Elf wine, however, such a rare drink paired with the company of such a rare lady as Lorelei was a hard thing to pass up, if one were sane.

They were both just finishing their first glasses of wine when one of the biersal of the tavern approached Lorelei, carrying a slender white box, and proffered it to her. "Was bringst du mir?" she asked, in a low voice. The biersal just shrugged, set down the box, and then scurried off after being waved away dismissively by the Rhine daughter. Lorelei's brow furrowed, as she took the lid off the box to reveal a single red rose, fully bloomed, inside with a small folded card. She pulled out the rose first, careful of the thorns on its long stem, and then read the card. Suddenly her eyes rolled skywards with a groan, and a broad, lopsided smile twisted her mouth up and to the left as she shook her head and chuckled, looking at the card.

"What is it?" Wink grunted, curious.

Lorelei's head snapped up to look at him. If it were even possible, it almost looked as though her niveous face both blanched and blushed at the same time, for the quickest instant. "It's... a token of esteem, I guess you could call it," she responded. "From someone that I met... Who would like to know me better." She dropped the card back into the box and closed the lid on it, setting it aside.

Lorelei regarded the rose in her hand for a while, thoughtfully. "Hmm," she sighed, after a minute or so, a sound somewhat like a small wave receding from a great lakeshore. "Red roses are so overdone... To the point of being boring, actually... Oh, I don't fault the gift itself! Natürlich! This rose is a magnificent specimen!" She lifted the rose up to her face, brushing her nose and mouth with its scarlet petals, and breathed deeply. "Exquisite fragrance. Remarkably soft petals. The color is amazing, such a vibrant red is hard to find..." She held the rose away from her face and twirled it carefully between her fingers a bit, her look still thoughtful. "A nice gesture... But in all honesty, I think I would have been more impressed if it hadn't been done with an obvious cliché," she sighed, with a smile that wasn't a smile on her lips. With that, she let the rose fall to the gleaming top of the bar, soundlessly. She figured that she would dry the thing and use its crushed petals in her next batch of lip-rouge - something which she made herself, from red wine, honey, finely ground rose petals, lamb's blood, and powdered paprika in a sweet, natural wax base... and which now stained her wine-glass. She quickly snagged a napkin from behind the bar and wiped away the offending smudge, before wiping away the rest of the stuff from her mouth. There was no need for it anyway, she wasn't going out or entertaining paying patrons, no need to impress anyone at the moment. It did not escape Wink's powers of observation that, even without it, the rhinemaiden's mouth was still a flush, ruddy color on its own, though not quite as dark. The silver troll glanced over at a table that would seat two, and made a gesture towards it with his head. Lorelei answered his silent question with a single nod and came out from behind the bar.

Wink could understand Lorelei's point of view towards her gift, now lying on the bar. It wasn't hard to see how someone like her would inevitably grow to be disenchanted with the same old flowers, chocolates, and empty words and promises from hopeful admirers, over and over again. No real thought put into the gesture beyond a desired result. A woman deserved better than that. As they both seated themselves comfortably across from each other at the table, he rumbled, "I am curious, if roses are not quite to your liking, may I ask what is?" She didn't even have to think for an instant when she smiled and immediately answered, "Seerosen," as she poured them another glass. "Like the soft, blushing ones that bloomed on the surface of the large pond where my family lived in Bavaria, or the pure white ones that grace the small lake by the house that my mother retired to..." The fond, faraway look on her face made Wink smile. She continued, "But, regrettably, there isn't a floral service in all of Manhattan that has figured to arrange water lilies into any kind of bouquet, as of yet." She raised her glass in a little mock toast to that, and took a sip, making the troll warrior laugh softly.

"Have you ever gone back to Bavaria since you left?" he grunted. "Or have you spent your whole life since in North America?" She nodded at his last inquiry. "Do you ever think of visiting? Seeing your old home again, or touring the Rhine?" Wink started into his own glass as Lorelei smiled at his questions. How prettily she smiles, Wink thought.

"Bavaria, ja, particularly during Oktoberfest, but the Rhine..." She trailed off, looking ponderous. "Ich weiß nicht," she finally said. "I'm not so sure that there would be a point." She raised her gaze to look Wink in his good eye, and he could see dubious uncertainty showing clear in her expression, and strangely, even hints of a regret that was not her own. "Even if I did go, I would not get to see it as I would really like to. Even with environmental efforts in motion now, too much has been done to the river since the time that the industrial pollution of it started. The full damage done will still not be undone for many years yet. Much time and work will have to pass before I ever get the chance to know the Rhine in the ways that I really want to..." Her voice became very soft and she looked away, mumbling, "The ways that my mother once knew it."

Wink reached out with his nonmechanical hand to gently touch the Germanic faery-woman's arm, resting on the table, as much in sympathy as it was to bring her back from whatever thoughts she was getting pulled towards losing herself in. He did not want heavy thoughts to preoccupy his fair companion, particularly when they were supposed to be enjoying themselves. Lorelei looked back up at him and smiled, appreciative of his caring. "But, sometimes good things fall apart so that better things can fall together, ist das nicht so? If most of the surviving Rhine-folk had not been driven inland by the pollution, trying to continue to survive, then my mother would have never met my father on her travels, in Bavaria, and then where would I be?" The familiar sparkle lit once more in her auriferous eyes and her smile widened. "Certainly not here, sharing this excellent wine with such excellent company!" She raised her glass again, and took another sip of wine.

As Wink raised his glass to do the same, he suddenly stopped mid-drink when she asked casually, "So... How go things with Silverlance and his lady?"

The silver troll just managed to choke down his wine and keep from sputtering the deep red liquid all over the table and his charming hostess. He supposed that he shouldn't have been at all surprised, considering that talk everywhere was all abuzz around the subject of the Crown Prince of Bethmoora and his mortal lady, but it caught him off-guard all the same, coming from Lorelei. It must have been the wine, she was typically rather discrete with whatever was in her spoken words - never quite laying any of her cards on the table, as it were.

"So," he grunted, "you know of that, then?" Again, the sly, foxy smile (which looked quite fetching on her, really, Wink thought) bloomed on her luminous face, showing delicately pointed white teeth, sharp and shining against the soft red of her mouth, and the river maiden gestured at the tavern about them and spoke in a sort of improv verse.

"Faery rumors fly quite fast,
When word-of-mouth is quick to pass
From tongues made loose
By souls made brave
With what they seek in Fafner's Cave."

The spirit of her wide grin and impish laugh right then was infectious, and Wink could not help grinning back, as she explained, "Talk of all sorts is cheap to come by in a tavern such as mine, mein lieber Wink, I can tell you that for free." She brought one foot up from the floor and put it on the seat of her chair, wrapping her arms around her bent leg, so that she could tilt her head to the side and rest it on that knee. "But tell me, has she changed his disposition significantly at all, or does he still bear that legendary grudge against 'They who build towers of iron and glass?'"

Wink hadn't noticed that he was staring at the elegant curve of Lorelei's exposed neck once her long sleek hair had fallen away from her shoulder to drape behind her bent knee when she tilted her head. He quickly snapped himself out of it and considered the rhinemaiden's query - for her part, Lorelei smiled faintly and partly hoped that the troll didn't notice the barest tinge of color that touched her cheeks when she caught his unconscious looking - but at length, knowing that he could trust her, he answered, "It is hard to say, as far as the lady is concerned." The great silver warrior shrugged his big, burly shoulders, and finished off his glass of wine with one final swig. "Time can only tell how things may yet turn out between my Prince and the mortal woman." Lorelei poured him another glass of wine and he gave her a grunt of thanks. "As to the ages-long resentment that he bears towards her race-" his face took on a wry look "-I don't believe that any of the 'legends' surrounding it will see any true reason to be dissolved at any time soon," he growled, before taking the first sip of his next glass.

"Hm," Lorelei sighed disappointedly, losing her smile. "Such a pity," she remarked quietly.

Wink could only stare at her in something akin to amazement once it hit him that she was being completely sincere. When he remembered to move again, he muttered, "A very forgiving sentiment, coming from someone like you; considering what their kind did to your kin," as he lifted his glass to his mouth again for another sip.

Lorelei's head snapped up to look at him. "Forgiving?" She exclaimed. "Nein! I've never blamed them for any of it."

Wink about nearly dropped his wine-glass. "N-no?" he stuttered, utterly incredulous.

"No," the river faery declared. "If I were to blame anything, I'd put the blame with the lousy ideas of corporatism and profiteering that parented the whole mass-industrial movement to begin with. Ideas which, I might mention, show no racial favoritism at all when it comes to what minds they'll infect. In just the time that I've lived, I've seen plenty of business cartels - human and goblin alike - commit countless atrocities against all manner of life, simply for the sake of profit." She practically spat her words with disgust, her eyes and teeth flashed, her fingers bent of their own accord into a slight curl with the instinct to claw something, and for a moment she looked quite fearsome - as much as any proud daughter of the Rhine could - and somewhere in him, Wink felt a glimmer of admiration as he watched her, in her just-barely-contained and seething display.

Lorelei looked away towards the floor and took in a deep breath, letting it out in a heavy sigh - similar to the soft but heavy wind that carries the thick clouds before a rainstorm - calming herself. "Besides," she murmured, her eyes getting a distant, far-off look, and her voice falling into a whisper like raindrops on autumn grass, "I already know and have already seen what happens when blame and punishment are lain on an entire race for something."

Her words nearly froze Wink.

Oh. That. He thought.

He hadn't considered that.

By human reckoning, Lorelei looked as though she were a stunning young woman in her early twenties... As did her mother, as a matter of fact. But the truth was that both mother and daughter had lived out their girlhoods a long time ago - some centuries on the part of the former, and not yet a whole century on the part of the latter - and it was only a well-trained or experienced eye that could catch the subtle mannerisms and characteristics about them that gave away their true age. Lorelei had been there, long ago and far away, in Germany, to witness the rise of the Third Reich and everything that came with it. She had watched as neighbor turned against neighbor for petty jealousies and favors, selling each other out to the powers that rose to rule them all, dividing each other when they should have all seen what their home was turning into - and it wasn't just Jews that were betrayed to their deaths, either. Gypsies, people who were mentally or physically disabled, ethnic Poles, Slavs, and Serbs, "political dissidents" and "social deviants" - the list went on, of "undesirables" who did not fit with the vision of political correctness in that time and place.

But it didn't end there. The human world was only the start. Hitler was one of the men of the Thule Society, a group of German aristocrats obsessed with the occult. Both he and his top-echelon supporters wanted absolute power. It didn't take long at all for the hunt to bleed over into the realm of the Hidden.

Creatures and beings long held in reverence in Germanic myth and beyond found themselves fighting or fleeing for their lives, as leading figures in the Nazi party sought to rout them out all over Europe and use them for their agenda. A great number included among the targets weren't even of faery origin, either, but rather, mortal creatures with unusual forms and abilities - like humans who could bend metal or fire to their will with only a thought, or men with leonine faces and strength. Honest "freaks of Nature." It didn't matter though, all were to be found and "made use of" in the eyes of the Thule Society.

Many were captured and broken to the will of the Reich and the Society. Many were killed. But many others were successful in evading or thwarting the will of the Nazis and the Thule Society, though it was not uncommon that they had help. One very famous example of this, around the so-called paranormal world, happened after Karl Kroenen, Hitler's top assassin, became the head of the Thule Society. In 1944, Kroenen and the famed Grigori Rasputin led a top-secret mission to Scotland to do the unthinkable - summon the demon Anug un Rama, and awaken the Ogdru Jahad, the gods of chaos, to rain destruction on the world. Fortunately, a team of the human Allied Forces was able to stop them, and the infant demon was taken into their care, taught to fight for the protection of the world against the minions of evil and forces of destruction - which he did, and very well, for many years unto this day. Some who had encountered him since then had described him as being more of a crude angel than a prince of demons; saying also that he fought "on the the side of God." The same god revered by the particular man that raised him as his own son. How would the world be now, one had to wonder, if the allied humans had failed, and the demon had been molded to the aims of Rasputin and Hitler, like so many other dark creatures that had been scooped up by those power-mad men?

Wink briefly pulled himself out of his thoughts long enough to notice that Lorelei now had her head rested lazily on the table, cradled on the back of one hand. The other arm was stretched out on its own, resting slightly away from her face. She appeared almost angelic, like this, with her eyes mostly closed, the expression on her pretty face soft and neutral.

Neutral... That was a stance that she habitually took, Wink noticed, particularly when regarding any matter of significant sociopolitical controversy. He had never thought to wonder at it before, if she'd had a reason for it, or what that reason could be. How strange. He had always simply supposed that it was just part of the way she was - fair, impartial, not really judging anyone but simply accepting or rejecting them as they were, on their own merits, and never seeking to change them or impose her ideas of what "should be" on them. Why had it never occurred to him that perhaps there was also another reason, some other monster that she wanted to leave behind her and never see it being fed again?

Without even thinking, Wink stretched out his flesh hand with only a single slight movement of his thick wrist, and ever-so-lightly began running his large, rough fingers across the soft, delicate skin of the inner side of Lorelei's forearm.

The river faery's eyelashes fluttered open and shut like the wings of shining black butterflies, briefly, and a smile curled her rosy lips as a soft hum of pleasure escaped her in a sigh, her somewhat foggy brain registering just what it was that the great silver troll was doing. Wink continued his featherlight attentions to her arm, contemplating the pristine white of it. What if Lorelei and her family hadn't left Europe when they did? As soon as they had? He wondered. It had been not that long before the war itself began, when they fled. What if they had waited too long to get away to North America before it was too late? What if she had been discovered by agents of the German ruling powers and captured? What would have happened to her? Would the Nazi scientists have broken her mind and "programmed" her, through torture and manipulation? After that, would they have used her, and her wonderful siren voice as a walking weapon of mind-control, another drone in their war-machine? Would she have been a subject in one of their hideous experiments? Would she have had an inventory code number tattooed to her arm, like so many other mortal and fey prisoners had? Would it have been right here? He thought, as he stroked over a particular spot that was right in the middle of her long, slender forearm. The very thought sickened him, made him feel ill. It made his mechanical fist tighten up with silent, smoldering rage as he imagined a sequence of blue-black digits marring the flawless alabaster of her arm with their lurid contrast.

Lorelei turned her arm, and gently squeezed the troll's rough hand with a drowsy-sounding sigh, her eyes opening again. She lifted her head to look up at him, pure empathy shining from those aurulent eyes at the massive warrior's inner distress for her sake at what could have been and yet never was. The scowl that had found its way to Wink's battle-scarred face softened under her understanding gaze, and he relaxed into a faint smile, which she returned as she let her head fall to rest on the back of her other hand on the table again, closing her eyes, brushing her thumb back and forth over the rough hide of his hand, softly as snowfall, as she still held it.

No more of these thoughts, the silver troll said to himself, determined to not let any sort of dispiriting mood overtake him or the beautiful faery woman that he sat with for the remainder of the evening. He once again took to languidly trailing his large fingertips over her hand and arm, going in slow, complicated patterns up and down her skin, and tracing to the end of each of her long, slender fingers. She really was beautiful, he thought, looking at her, with that soft smile on her deep rosepetal mouth, her face as fair and serene as a full moon shining from the night-darkness of her hair, spread out a little across the table behind her head. Here and now, if he'd had the mind or care for it (which he didn't), he would have been hard-pressed to name anything more exquisite than this.

Reflecting on his actions later, he would wonder lightly just what it was exactly that made him so bold right then. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was something else. It didn't actually matter, either way. All the same, Wink's eye moved to Lorelei's slender shoulder, essentially bare from the cut of the black, spaghetti-strap top that she wore. His fingers were not long in following the path that his eye took.

Lorelei's faint smile pulled itself wide at this, though her eyes remained shut. She was among those creatures that had an outrageously acute sense of touch, and she would certainly have been lying if she had said that she wasn't thoroughly enjoying the sensation of strong, warm, leathery troll fingers moving with such gentleness across the skin and muscles of her exposed shoulder at that moment. The river-maid all but purred with pleasure, much to Wink's own satisfaction. As his fingers inched their way on up her spine to the back of her neck though, she really couldn't help herself, and a deep, low sound escaped her, full of sheer bliss.

There was magic in that sound.

She hadn't meant for it to happen, of course. It was involuntary, simply a slip in self-control, it happened to even the best (and all the worst) amongst the unseen folk of the world. Things would just happen when certain conditions were right, or when extreme emotion overcame them. A sudden burning glow in the eyes, a spark of flame in a clenched fist, a slide into a burrish growling voice, a wavering slip in glamour, an automatic reflexive unsheathing of claws, a change in color somewhere in the skin or fins or eyes or scales, maybe people or things in the area somehow floating inexplicably, or a slight metamorphic shift - all were examples of what could well be expected, whenever one became very angry, hurt, excited, afraid, jealous... Or in Lorelei's current case, totally overcome by the absolute pleasure of deep relaxation.

Unintentional as it may have been, though, the fact remained: there it was - shimmering underneath the audible frequency of her voice. While it didn't exactly register on Wink's less-than-completely-sober awareness, it certainly affected him all the same.

It stroked down his nerves - from his ears, down is neck, through his shoulders, out through the bones of his arms and ribs, and disappearing somewhere down his lower spine - like the touch of something solid! Like the sensation of standing in still water, and then feeling the soft, curling caress of languid, whirling eddies started by the slow wave of someone's arm, disturbing the water under the surface. It made his every little hair stand on end, this same thing that had soothed the ferocious spirits of dragons and lured wayward humans to their watery deaths, for generation upon generation back through time, and continued to do so, even to this day. Even now. Wink was lucky to keep his fingers on Lorelei's swan-like neck moving steadily, and only just remembered how to breathe in and out, for the seconds that it took for the effects of that amazing sound that the Rhine daughter had made to subside from his system.

"Das ist wunderbar," the river-faery breathed, happily hanging in the haze of easy rapture that Wink had her in. As he started to work in her hair, she groaned out, "Oh, curse you a thousand times over for discovering my weakness. Mmmm..." Both of them grinned like Cheshire cats and chuckled heartily at her quip, and Lorelei carefully turned her head so that she could angle it to look up at him, while still having it rest on the table. The warm smile on her face as she looked at him was captivating, filling the warrior with a warm glow from the inside that he had not felt for his lovely friend before - but was not at all displeased to be feeling now - and he gladly returned that smile, as he found himself caught in the coruscating glimmers that were in her beautiful, dragon-gold eyes, under the soft lights in the tavern.

Wink's feelings were not lost on Lorelei's empathic senses. The shining cocoon of contented happiness and well-being that surrounded him was beautiful, and each luminous thread of it was leaning, bent delicately, towards her.

The notion of that gave her a bit of a fluttery feeling in her insides, but it didn't do anything to overwhelm the comfortable warmth of her own contentment at that moment, not really. She was no stranger to these feelings. She had felt them before. Not many times, but more than once. Such was the case of reality when one is looking forward to their one-hundredth birthday in the not-so-far future and many, many more birthdays after it. Wink had surely felt these things before, too, in his thousands of years of living, but how often? She knew that he hadn't felt like this about her before, in the years that they'd so far been acquainted with each other... and she couldn't say that she held any aversion towards the idea of it, now that it seemed he did.

She smiled all the more to think of what some of her sisters would say to that, if they could see her now... Well, out of the handful or two of the scattered siblings that she knew about, anyway; siblings begotten from previous involvements that her mother'd had over the centuries, before she fell in love with Lorelei's father.

Lorelei had effectively been raised in the same manner as an only child, but there were some sisters and a few brothers that hadn't made themselves strangers in her life, and right now she could just picture some of her sisters' expressions. Some of them would gawk in horror at seeing her like this with a troll. Some would laugh, or roll their eyes and shake their heads as if to say, "Yes, that's our adventurous Lorelei for you. She must get it from her father." Not that it would matter or that she would even care at all, unless they tried to make an actual problem for her out if it, but they knew better than that - that she'd do what she liked anyway. It was no secret to anyone that Lorelei found a certain visceral charm in creatures and beings that most of her kin - and several other races, like humans and elf-kind - would generally find to be brutish, beastly, fearsome, monstrous, or even grotesque in their outward manner. Once, one uniquely gifted but actually very human patron of her establishment had half-joked, "You've got a thing for the freaky creatures!" upon discovering (rather invasively) that their hostess' first crush, at the tender age of thirteen, had left her with a particular lasting soft spot for males of the lycanthropic persuasion.

A thing for creatures? Perhaps. But even so, it wasn't the obvious things that truly appealed to Lorelei. It never was.

Many of those "freaky creatures" that she felt so drawn to had traits that she couldn't help responding to, instinctually. Like their ferocious spirit, or their straight-forward manner, or their cunning minds, subtle things that she greatly admired and was all the more charmed by. And Wink - the massive, silver, troll warrior - was nothing, if not a being of a most admirable sort in the eyes of Lorelei, in so many ways. It was all just facts of Lorelei's nature, facts that certainly worked in his favor at the moment.

Wanting to return the favor he was giving her, Lorelei lifted her head up from where it rested, gently took Wink's large hand, and guided it to rest palm-up on the table. Wink gave no objection and no resistance whatsoever as she did this, nor as she then laid her head to rest inside his open palm, face looking at him, her soft cheek warm on his leathery skin. His great, trollish fingers could still easily curl into her hair, but now she was in a better position to return the attention to some degree, as she glided her fingers along the skin of his arm past his wristguard, similarly to how he'd done to her, earlier. Both were smiling as Wink worked in Lorelei's hair, and the slender fingers of the river fairy sent light, curling trails of sensation over the silver troll's hide, soft as rainfall. At some point, Lorelei languidly closed her eyes, and with movements so minute as to only be readily perceptible to just herself, brushed her cheek in the tiniest of strokes across on the skin of Wink's palm. A well-contented sigh escaped the great warrior, when -

DONG DING DANG DONG! DING DANG DING DONG!

A clock behind the bar sounded out a set of chimes that would have had an old-time Swiss clockmaker beaming with pride if it were his own work, and turning green with envy if it were not. Lorelei became immediately yanked out of the half-haze surrounding the two of them and regarded the timepiece. Wink was just a bit dazed by the abruptness of how their moment was shattered. But... was it a moment? Was it hours? How much time had passed since he came to Fafner's Cave? When had he lost track? Lorelei cursed softly in German and put one hand to her head, "I re-open soon, and I'm going to be utterly useless on the morrow if I don't get some sleep now." Upon hearing this, there was a part of Wink that waged an already-lost battle at what her statement implied. Wink was going to have to leave now, and the greater character of Wink respected that and was resigned to it, that he would have to depart from the company of his beautiful hostess and go elsewhere, finish his errands, perhaps. But a small, instinctual part was not resigned to this at all and very much wanted to stay, and roared in protest at the damn clock that had so rudely intruded on the marvelous time he was having with Lorelei.

Lorelei didn't blame him, she felt quite similarly, and sighed ruefully, before her aspect assumed a resigned smile, as she gave his great hand a small squeeze and asked, "Is there anything that I can get for you, before you take your leave?" Thinking back to earlier, before she had brought out the elf wine, Wink answered that he would take a case of troll beer, if she had any, and was going to cork the wine bottle while she fetched the beer for him, when she said, "You can take the wine with you, as well, there's only about a glass-and-half left of it now, anyway." Wink finished corking the wine and put it with his other things that he'd left by the bar when he came in, his face carried a faint echo of Lorelei's foxy smile, knowing the subtle token that she was giving him. In the court of elves, since the days of yore, it might have been kerchiefs or locks of hair. Here and now it was a nearly-finished bottle of wine from a night well-spent in each other's company, and it seemed the more fitting for the two of them, he thought.

Lorelei showed Wink to the door, and he warmly thanked her for the drinks, the hospitality, and the good company, and turned to go. He'd hardly gone five paces on his way when she called out, "Hey Wink!" The silver troll stopped and turned to look back over his shoulder at the river maiden. There was a kind of hopeful flicker in the dim city lights bouncing off her aurulent eyes, and a sort of shyness in the smile that played over rosy mouth, and she seemed to hesitate just a little before she said, "Don't be a stranger around here, huh?" Wink smiled broadly at her open invitation to come by more often, and nodded firmly, his good eye never leaving hers. Eyes dancing, wide smile firmly planted on her snowy face, a warm "Auf Wiedersehen" were her last words to him as Lorelei went back inside and Wink turned back to his own way.

Wink had a lot to think about as he made his way back to the Troll Market. Lorelei didn't seem to object to this new development between the two of them... Perhaps he should pursue it? He was a warrior, and therefore never one to back down readily from any sort of challenge (particularly when such a fine woman was concerned, he thought with a grin), and he knew that she rarely if ever said "no" to an adventure when presented with one, and this certainly felt like it could turn out to be quite an adventure, of sorts... No reason that he could see to walk away from it, he thought, and smiled to himself all the more.

His next thought nearly obliterated that smile, though, as he realized that she had no knowledge of what Prince Nuada planned for humanity with the Golden Army. Precious few, if any at all, besides himself and the Princess did. Even with Lorelei's intuitive and empathic abilities being what they were, she would know the hate that Prince Nuada bore humans, but not what he planned to do about it - she was empathic, not telepathic! After tonight, after what Wink had finally realized about Lorelei... If she ever knew what he was helping Silverlance to do... Could he ever even bring himself to tell her? He battled long and hard with himself over this, nearly all the way up to the Market entrance. In the end, he decided that he would not tell her. Ever. Not while he lived. His first duty was to his prince, no matter what he felt for the river faery...

Even if it turned out to be the only act of cowardice that he ever committed in his whole millenia-long life, to hide behind that oath to Silverlance, as long as he could, he would never tell her.

Before he set about finishing the rest of his errands, there was one thing that Wink absolutely had to do first. He strode through the crowds of the Troll Market to the magically warded "street" corner where Yang had her natural, glass and crystal flowers spread out on gold-embroidered white silk for customers to admire. The Onibi sea-faery was not long in spotting his approach.

"Good evening, Wink," Yang murmured, placing her palms flat to the ground and bowing low from where she sat. The silk of her kimono rippled with all the colors of the ocean under moonlit darkness. When the shōjō straightened from her bow she smiled at the silver troll. "Is there anything that I can do for you?" She asked, her voice soft and strong as an ocean wave when the tide is low.

"Yes," Wink replied, his deep, rumbling voice contrasting quite a bit with Yang's. "I need to know: how much for a custom arrangement of water lilies, and how soon can it be delivered to the East Village in Manhattan?"