Chapter 38 - When You're Gone (Part 2)

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A Short Tale of Clover and Daisies, the Persistence of Memory, the Threat of Pictures, Girl Time, Troll Sense, and a Whisper of the Crown

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Nuada walked familiar halls again, but this time there was no stench of blood, no spattering of crimson against white walls. There were no vicious words. No screams. No weeping. But the Elf prince was following something. The sound of laughter. A young child's innocent laughter. Carefree and easy.

This is a dream, he realized when he found the laughter outside in a small courtyard with spring-green grass and a few stone tables scattered around. White against the green were patches of clover blossoms and even a few daisies. Dandelions glowed golden as tiny suns amidst grassy viridian skies. Overhead the heavens were an impossibly deep blue. Silky-soft pollen floated on the air. It all smelled of spring and new life. Hope.

He didn't remember falling asleep. Did not remember what he had been doing before sliding into this dream of sunshine and laughter that was so at odds with the tangle of emotions coiling and knotting in his belly.

Dylan sat on one of the stone tables, swinging legs too short to reach the ground. Her hair was a wild tangle and her eyes were closed, her face turned up to the gently beaming sun. Dirt and the green juice of the grass stained her bare feet. There were no scars on her face.

She was perhaps seven years old here.

"I haven't had a good dream in a long time that didn't start off bad or go bad in the middle," she said softly. She didn't open her eyes, but somehow the mortal child knew the Elf prince was there. "A very long time. But this is nice." Blue eyes flickered open to glance down disparagingly at her swinging legs. "Except that I'm not sure I like being so young that I can't reach the ground."

He wasn't sure he could speak. He remembered that there was something he was supposed to remember, but he didn't know what it was. This was a dream - he knew that much. Only the real world hovered just out of reach. He knew he was angry with her, still. Knew that the hurt hadn't faded. Otherwise why was there this sting behind his breastbone when he saw the child who had grown up to be the woman he knew? Yet the amber-eyed prince couldn't remember what he was angry about, or what she had done to hurt him. It was as if he could remember nothing before the beginning of this dream except who he was, and who she was.

"Another thing about being seven in my dreams is that sometimes I don't remember being any older," Dylan murmured apologetically. Her lips were twitching as she struggled not to smile. It was odd to see her expression shift without seeing the usual slashing scars shift with it. "So if I suddenly start squealing about ladybugs or tell you a cloud looks like a kitty cat, please have some patience."

"Is this my dream, or yours?" Nuada managed to ask. Those eyes flicked to him. Flicked away to watch a bluejay fluttering above one of the high walls. The little bird carried slender pine needles in its beak; it was building a nest behind one of the floodlights attached to the wall.

"I don't know," she said, and slid off the table, onto the stone seat, and then to the grass. The thin, blue cotton pants she wore had grass stains at the knees. "Is this a good dream?"

He couldn't lie, so he didn't answer. Only watched her pad across the grass toward him. When she stopped about a foot away, he realized she barely came up to his waist. Were all children so small? Dylan held out her hand to him. Waited. Her eyes were the same incredible blue as the early-morning sky overhead. He could see in their depths that she would not be angry if he didn't take her hand. The mortal child wouldn't get angry or think less of him for rejecting the innocent overture.

But she would be hurt by it. Hurt like...

Disgusting human whore. The ghastly whiteness of her scarred face as she fell back from him; a scalding hot tear falling from one rainswept blue eye to splash onto his bare wrist like a drop of blood; such shock and betrayal and horror in those eyes. Disgusting human whore.

Had he not hurt her enough?

Nuada took her impossibly small hand in his. Let her silently tug him toward a flowering patch of clover, green with leaf and white with bloom. A ladybug flapped her lazy way from a blossoming clover onto a blade of grass. Dylan plucked one of the many-petaled flowers and held it up to him.

A flash of memory, startling in its brevity. Her words in his mind: Maybe it's just me, but it seems like not a lot of people give you stuff just as a simple gift. So I wanted to give you something. A deeply pink peony. The King of flowers. Honor and bravery. He had that flower in a little wooden box beside his bed. Dylan's first gift to him. I thought it fit.

And a tulip, red as mortal blood. A blood-red flower tucked into night-dark curls. In Japan, red tulips were for trust. Elsewhere, he remembered suddenly, they were a declaration of love. Had he known, secretly, even then? Had he known in some dark part of himself that his heart had betrayed him?

Peonies. Tulips. White clover for a promise and a vow. I swear on the Darkness That Eats All Things, on that living Darkness that lives beneath Faerie, that if you ask me to go to Findias with you to stay, I'll go. Broken promises mended. Broken vows reaffirmed with those words. Fealty sworn once again. An Elven prince reminded by a small white flower and the affection shining in solemn blue eyes like the morning sky.

Pale fingers closed around the slender stem. Accepted the gift, and all that it meant.

He blinked, and she wasn't seven anymore. Now she was a woman grown, the top of her head topping off a bit above the curve of his shoulder. Instead of blue surgical scrubs she wore slightly worn white jeans and a blue long-sleeve shirt. Her medallion glinted golden at her throat. She twirled the unwilted crimson tulip between her fingers.

"Chailleann tú mé," Dylan said softly, looking down at the tulip.

I miss you. Mortal words, but fae feeling. He could see it glimmering in the depths of her eyes.

Shaken by what he had done - what he had agreed to, even silently, even if it was only in a dream - Nuada didn't speak. Only watched her bring the tulip to her scarred lips and lightly kiss one of its petals. The lightest brush of lips. Somehow the Elf knew this was something she had done even as a little girl - kissing flowers as if they were people. It didn't mean anything that her lips lingered for just a moment against one sweet-scented crimson petal. It didn't matter that this was the tulip that he had given her that night on the roof. Didn't matter that he could almost - not quite, but almost - feel that brief, chaste kiss against his own mouth.

"There's a song I really like," she murmured against the tulip's petals. "From Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella. I've liked it ever since I was a little kid, the first time I heard it. What's funny is that I don't know what it's called. But one of the lines goes, 'Am I making believe I see in you? Are you the sweet invention of a lover's dream?'" Silver-swept eyes slid to his face. "Are you really here? Or am I just dreaming again? I dream of you so often and it's never really you. Just my imagination. Are you really here?"

The words came out unbidden, though they were tersely uttered. "Tá mé anseo." Reassurance that he was here, that he was with her. Why did he feel this need to soothe and reassure her? She didn't even seem upset, but... but he knew her. That knowledge - that he knew her - crashed down on him like a brutal wave. I know you, Nuada. And he should have remembered, should have realized that he knew her as well. Maybe not entirely. It would take more than eleven months to know her entirely, even after walking through that mortal mind. He'd only been looking for specific things, then, anyway. But he knew her well enough to know that the fact that she'd even mentioned missing him meant that maybe, just maybe, she felt some of what he felt. That she missed him as much as he (loath as he was to admit it) missed her. Missed his safe place, his comfort, his sanctuary. The one place where there was no hate or disdain. The one place where nothing was expected or asked of him.

"I hate dreaming about you," she whispered. The scarlet silk of the tulip petals rustled with her breath. "I hate it. I can't stand it. I've been pretending to everyone and myself all day that everything's fine and I thought I could just take a nap and be okay but here you are again and I just can't stand this."

Hadn't she told him scarcely a week ago that she loved to dream of him? Nuada swallowed down the strange, harsh feeling that was rising from his chest into his throat. The bonds of dreamscape wrung the next words from him. "Gráin agat dom, nach tú?"

You hate me, don't you?

Dylan knelt down instead of answering. Hid her expression behind the tangled curtain of her hair. Mortal fingers plucked a white-petaled daisy from amongst the lush grass and she rose to her feet again to exhibit the ivory and amber prize to the golden-eyed Elf prince beside her. Her eyes were like lakes in spring. Gentle as softly-falling rain. Soothing as a lullaby.

"I could never, ever hate you, Nuada. It's just... hard. I've gotten used to having you with me. Gotten used to knowing you were there; used to relying on you. I shouldn't have let myself get that way. It's not your responsibility to look after me. You have your own life. Your own responsibilities. And I'm a grown woman, even though you don't think of me that way. I know I can't expect you to take care of me like some handsome prince rescuing the damsel in distress like in the fairy tales. Not that you're not deliriously handsome," Dylan added, brushing a lock of hair from her face. "Because you've always been able to make my knees weak. But we've talked about that before. You are an Elven warrior."

Her smile was gently self-deprecating. "Still, I know you have more important things in your life than me. A single hollow, heartless, insignificant mortal who betrays the man she... trusts most of all, when her promises are still warm in her mouth."

If she saw him wince, she didn't give any sign. His words had been meant to cut her. Now they sliced him just as sharply. Retribution and betrayal.

"And I respect - will always respect - that you have more pressing concerns, Your Highness. And I understand that you're angry. That you probably never want to see me again. It's just hard, and I miss you." Her laugh was exasperation tinged with a hint of melancholy. "Of course I miss you, O Prince of Elves."

She offered him the daisy. Held his gaze. "Tá tú mo chara daor."

You are my dearest friend. Did Dylan know what those words meant to him? How they wounded and healed and wounded again?

And the daisy. Such a simple flower. Love and loyalty. Those two words didn't mean the same things in the faerie courts, but they were the same thing to her. Clover and daisies. A vow and a promise of loyal love. Could he trust such promises? Could he let himself have faith in a mortal's vows? Human lives were like candle flames - brief sparks in the night. Because of their short lives, mortals were so changeable. She was changeable.

But he'd accepted that first small, white flower. Accepted what it meant, what she meant by it. And a prince was bound by his word. Even if a mortal was not bound by her promises (I swear on the Darkness That Eats All Things... I'll stay... I swear... I will always follow you...) he was shackled by his.

Indecision made his temples pound. An odd and insidious yearning warred with thousands of years of caution. Take her vow. Accept her promise. Put trust in the words of a mortal. He had already done so in the space of a heartbeat. He couldn't blame the dream for that because there were no lies in this place and so the Elf prince knew that he'd accepted Dylan's oath because he wanted so very much to believe in it.

You are my dearest friend. And other words. Stronger. Sweeter. Words that could condemn a man. Make a fool and a traitor of him. My heart's beloved. What could he do when his own tongue, his own mind, his own heart betrayed him?

"Is there anything you need, Your Highness?" Dylan asked, breaking his thoughts like glass. "Anything you want that I can give you?"

A thousand errant thoughts flitted through his mind; all of them forbidden. There was nothing she could offer that wasn't forbidden by the iron in her blood. The mortality in her made all those thoughts impossible. Treacherous. Aberrant. And yet... anything? Anything at all?

He was a fool to even entertain a brief glimmer of hope. What could a human possibly have to offer him that he could want? His people free of mortal oppression. His father's love and acceptance and support. His sister... there was so much he craved from his beloved Nuala. Her support, her respect, her affection. So much he wished for in his life, longed for. What could this human woman possibly give him? At least, what could she give him that he was allowed to have?

"Peace." The word was wrenched from him by the compassion in her eyes and the siren call of dreams. Nuada tried to bite back the words but they managed to escape from between his clenched teeth. "Comfort. Solace, for I have none."

When Dylan reached up and laid the softness of her palm against his face, his eyes drifted closed and he drew a ragged breath. He could feel her heartbeat through her palm. It was soft, steady against his skin. He could feel the warmth of her even though only her hand touched him. The air around them was cool with the last traces of winter before spring, but she was so very warm. Her voice was as soft and gentle as he'd ever heard it when she murmured, "Tóg an méid is gá duit."

Take what you need. Words of absolute surrender. Words like a sweet, sensuous caress. Another oath, another promise. Take what he needed. What did he need?

"An gá dom..." Nuada rasped, his voice nearly a groan. I need... He remembered other dreams; a crackling fire, an embrace that demanded nothing and offered everything, and a crooning lullaby in his ear. This woman, this mortal, in his arms while the sun slowly crested the tops of the trees and kissed the river with light. "An gá dom... ba mhaith liom..." I need, I want.

And Dylan whispered it again, so softly in the Old Tongue. Take what you need.

So he did. With a muttered oath he drew her into his arms. Sanctuary. Solace. He wanted to hate her, for offering it to him. For making him want it. For making him need it. Need her. He wanted to curse her for that, for this weakness she'd somehow poisoned him with.

Instead he buried his face in the soft wealth of her dark hair and the gentle warmth of that shadowed hollow where her neck met her shoulder. Breathed in the scent of her. What would happen to him in the real world? Now that his heart had betrayed him, betrayed his people, his king, his cause? Now that his sworn enemy, the sons and daughters of man, had brought him low with this most brutal weapon? What would become of him if he allowed himself to love her, even here? Dylan's arms around him were a golden cage. Dark curls brushed against his skin like the deceptive cords of a silken noose. Her warm breath caressing his ear was sweet poison.

"It's okay," she murmured. Her voice was as delicate as a touch. He felt that touch down to his bones. "It's okay."

No, it wasn't. Never would be again because somehow he had betrayed everything he believed in. My heart's beloved. Heartsease and heartache. Sincere charade. Only a ploy, it was only supposed to be a ploy to trick his father into thinking they'd capitulated so that they could find a way to break from the courtship farce without the king finding out and stopping them. When had it become more? When had he fallen? When had he, Crown Prince Nuada Silverlance, gone from despising humans to wanting one so fiercely he ached with it?

Comfort. Solace. Peace. He would never have peace from this. Not until she died, or he did. Never have peace from the love smoldering in his chest, poisoning him the way thoughts of her poisoned his mind. Seemingly with a glance, with a touch, with a vow of surrender, a human had turned his heart perfidious.

Dylan whispered his name and he shuddered.

"I cannot," he whispered against her skin. His lips brushed against the silk of her throat like a soft breath as he spoke. "I cannot, I cannot do this, cannot want this..." Her hands at his back burned him through his shirt. He could feel the butterfly-hammer of her pulse. "This is wrong."

"If you want me to go, I'll go," she said. His grip on her tightened. This was a dream. It was wrong. It was treacherous. It was unnatural and deviant and should have sickened him. But if he could have her nowhere else - and he would not let himself even wish for her anywhere else, much less have her - he could still have her here.

But the dream was already fading. Nuada could feel it. Too much internal struggle, too much rejection had made already-fragile dream bonds snap and break. Had forced his consciousness too close to the waking world. Even as the dream world began to slip away from him like water through his fingers, he heard a soft voice whisper, "I love you."

Love. Dreams. Regrets... and betrayals.

The dream broke into fragments and feral, golden eyes snapped open. This was not the underground lair he shared with Wink. This room was dimly lit with a few white candles, and the eerie light of the Troll Market filtered through the shuttered window. The Market's hustle and bustle were muffled by the wooden shutters.

He'd been dreaming. Of what? He couldn't remember. A woman... Dylan? Words. Promises, though he couldn't remember what she'd promised or why. The scent of clover and daisies, the warmth of early-morning sunshine in spring. But when he tried to grasp at the memory of this newest dream, it flitted away and left him tense and frustrated, grinding his teeth. Why did she have to haunt his dreams this way? Why? Couldn't he be free of her even in sleep?

He had not yet decided what to do with her. Wink's well-meant taunt earlier in the day had only served to prick his not-inconsiderable temper. After that, the Elven warrior hadn't even been able to concentrate on weapons' practice with lance or spear. He'd attempted putting together a new clockwork piece that had struck his fancy a few moons ago. That had not been able to hold his attention, either. Nuada had briefly entertained the notion of following Wink to Fafner's Cave, perhaps sitting down with Lorelei to catch up. Except for that night with Dylan at his side, he hadn't seen the rhinemaiden in over a year. Yet the prince had eventually discarded that option as well.

In the end, he'd settled for going to the Troll Market in search of diversion. He hadn't been able to find it. So he'd simply spent the afternoon wandering the Market, occasionally stopping at one of the many taverns for a drink.

And what had Dylan done with her afternoon? During the days he'd spent at her cottage, she'd used the afternoon hours to study her scriptures, to look over files from her job, to read a book or help Becan clean up some mess or other. With Bat in residence, there was always a mess to be found. Sometimes she would play with the energetic little beastling, as well. Other times she would watch with awe shining in her eyes as Nuada practiced with his sword or his lance. She'd looked at him then with pride in her eyes. And pleasure. As if simply watching him made her so very happy.

Stop it, he snarled at himself when a pang lanced his chest. He'd fallen asleep in this private tavern room, refusing to let himself drown in his cups to speed along the process. He would not allow himself to fall back on using alcohol as a crutch. The idea made him grit his teeth; his father had done so after his mother died. And Dylan would not approve....

Enough! She is a human. She is mortal, she is a betrayer, she is dangerous, she is...

A ghrá mo chroí. My heart's beloved. No. No, gods curse it, he would not allow this. He would not stand for it. No. Forget her, Nuada ordered as he got to his feet and tossed a few coins onto the table. Just forget her for one hour.

But forgetting wasn't that easy. He wandered the damp market streets and the ice-slick alleys of the City until well past midnight, and still he could not forget. Not for an hour. Not even for a minute.

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The next day Dylan woke bleary-eyed, with a disgusting taste on the back of her tongue and drool crusted to the side of her face. She splashed water in her fact to take care of two of those problems as soon as she woke up. The cold water helped a lot. Her phone buzzing helped even more. A mad, graceless scramble to get her cell away from Bat (who eyeballed the mysterious, vibrating plastic monstrosity with obvious feline suspicion and tried to smack it to death - or at least whack it under the bed, where it could do no harm to his human and her squeaky, brown mini-two-legger) ensued.

"Hello?" Dylan croaked out when she'd finally saved her cell phone from her cat. Her voice was hoarse and rusted from sleeping too long. Somehow she'd conked out in the middle of the afternoon and not woken up until the next morning. And she had that nasty dried-saliva taste in her mouth. Blech.

Anya's cheerful, though somewhat concerned voice came out of the speaker. "Wow, Dylan, you sound really out of it. Are you sick?"

"Huh?" She swallowed hard to try and get the nasty taste out of her mouth. Didn't work. Ugh, and her teeth were all gross, too. Why had she slept so long? The last lingering effects of the drugs? Or had it been the dream? The dream of... "Sick? No, why?" Blue eyes flicked to the bathroom entryway where her clock was hanging on the wall. The angle was all wrong for her to see it. "What time is it?"

"Ten o'clock," Anya said, as if speaking to an inbred, redneck cousin. "Aren't we going to the movie today? You, me, and Miss Tiana?"

Flash of memory: talking to Tiana on the phone. Talking to Anya. Plans for seeing the new Disney princess movie. Black cherry waffle cone and white cherry/Coke-a-Cola Icee. Morning-matinée, which started at eleven-fifteen.

"Holy crow!" Dylan flailed in an attempt to wiggle out from under her bed, where she'd had to dive to save her phone from unlawful feline imprisonment. She whacked her head on the underside of the box-spring and yelped. "Ow!" Finally she squirmed back out into open air. Using the mattress, she dragged herself to her feet, ignoring the throbbing in her skull and the twinges in her bad leg. "Yeah, yeah. Give me... um... give me thirty minutes. I'll be ready in thirty minutes! Bye!"

Her shower was swift and, at first, positively frigid. Her right knee informed her succinctly that this was highly unacceptable. When the water finally heated up, she sighed gratefully and sank into her shower chair, letting the hot pounding spray loosen up the tension in her bad knee.

Out of the shower, she hopped into black jeans and a white sweater before snagging the beautiful, black leather coat John had bought her. The thing was soft as butter and smooth as velvet. Dylan loved it. She was not going to lose this one. She shrugged it on and slipped her Young Women's medallion around her neck. Grabbed her winter boots. Grabbed her brother's gloves, which he'd left on her dresser when he'd left for work the night before. Grabbed the white scarf Joyce had bought her in London back in March. The only hitch in Dylan's step came when she remembered that it was positively frosty outside due to the snow and she couldn't go out without socks.

No silly socks. Not today. She was all right - she was just fine, thank-you-very-much - but she didn't want to put on the green socks with the honey-amber angelfish that Francesca had bought to match her favorite set of green underthings; or the purple socks with the pink and silver piglets, or her Snoopy socks, or any of the other footwear that sported adorable and outrageous designs.

But she didn't want to put on her standard somber foot accoutrements - black or gray. The slim black socks and the thick, warm gray ones just didn't... fit. Dylan settled for beige, even though they didn't match anything she was wearing. No one would see them inside her boots, anyway.

John stumbled in the door just as she was adding the faintest sheen of foundation to her pale cheeks. She called him into the back and he clomped over to her bed and dropped himself on it. "Why do I work for the Feds?" Her twin demanded, his words muffled by the nearly impossible softness of a pillow. "My feet are killing me."

"I don't wanna hear it, my leg's been hurting for months," Dylan informed him tartly, but laughed when he tossed the pillow at her and hit her in the butt. She kicked the pillow back. It hit Bat, who'd just made himself comfortable on John's readily available backside. The cat jumped a foot in the air and mewed in protest, slashing his human with a very hurt and indignant look.

"Awww, poor thing," John mumbled, dragging the black kitten against his chest. "Is Mommy being evil to you?"

"'Mommy' hit the 'poor thing' by accident," Dylan reminded her twin, adding a touch of concealer under her eyes. She loathed makeup (what a waste of time, unless you were going to some fancy-schmancy dinner or something) but if she didn't fix her face, Anya would notice her pallor. Not to mention the shadowed hag-bags under her eyes. "Anyway, I'm going to the movies with Anya and that little girl I told you about. The one they found at the Met. Wanna come?"

"To a chick flick? Isn't there some law that says sisters aren't supposed to drag their brothers to girl-time movies?"

"Yeah, but you're not just a brother." She studied her reflection. Good, she didn't look sick anymore. Too much sleep - or too little - always made her look washed-out and half-dead. "You're my twin. And you're so metro. That makes you practically one of the girls."

The look he gave her could've peeled paint. "And my testosterone levels take an immediate and almost-lethal hit."

"I seem to recall you wearing that one lacy pink dress at one point-"

"I was six!" John scowled when she gave him an amused and sarcastically understanding look in the mirror. "And Francesca made me do it. It's not my fault she tried to put lipstick on me." He paused. Gave her a wide-eyed look. "You got rid of those pictures, right?"

Dylan scooped up her purse and breezed toward the bedroom door. "Now why would I do that? I thought you looked gorgeous. So do all my Facebook friends."

His half-horrified, frantic shout followed her all the way to the front entryway. "D! You're just kidding, right? D? Dylan? Dylan! Get back here and answer my question! D!" John was still calling when Dylan opened the door to Anya's knock. Her friend gave her a questioning look but she only shrugged and hustled out the door before her twin decided his feet didn't hurt enough to prevent him from chasing after her to shake the answers out of her.

"Wow, Dylan," Tiana said as she reached up and snagged the older woman's hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "You look pretty. I like your scarf."

"Thank you, honey," she said as the three of them carefully manouvered down the ice-slick pathway toward Anya's car. The folklorist knew her friend's reservations about using the New York City subway. "And don't you look fabulous this morning?"

Tiana's wheat-blond hair was loose down her back, and it shimmered in the winter morning sun in just such a way that it reminded Dylan forcibly of Nuada, even though the prince kept his hair long and straight and unbound, and the little girl's hair hung in loose curls. It was the same color. The same beautiful star-blond. Dylan wondered if the little girl had any faerie blood. Even her clothes reminded Dylan of Elves, though of Nuala this time. Under her old-fashioned white cape (a gift from Anya from one of the smaller faires the folklorist frequented, the psychiatrist had little doubt) was a beautiful blue dress that reminded Dylan strongly of the Elf princess's many blue gowns. That dress, based on the olden style, was probably also from a faire.

A small hand squeezed hers and Dylan was graced with a delightful smile missing a couple teeth. Her heart knifed sideways in her chest. She hastily shut down the lancing stab of regret and hurt. Now was not the time or the place. And it was ridiculous to even see Tiana and think about how she looked as if she had Bethmoora blood and wasn't it odd that the child looked like what her own child might have if she'd ever... if she and Nuada had ever...

Dylan smiled down at Tiana and helped her hop over a patch of wide, slick ice. Anya walked beside the two, keeping her eyes surreptitiously on Dylan the entire time.

.

Wink finished stacking the invitations into three piles on the table he often used as a desk when acting as the crown prince's secretary. Those three piles were: Definite Yes, If I Must, and I Would Rather Eat Offal-Flavored Dirt (Nuada's words when he had been a brash thirteen-hundred years old or so). Based on the current tribulations with the prince's mortal lady, Wink kept the invitations from Lady Jocasta and other human sympathizers out of all three piles and into one of their own. Nuada wouldn't like it, but it was good politics to accept at least some of the invites. Lady Jocasta of Reedus was a very powerful political figure in Bethmoora and had a prominant seat on the Council. Even the king often asked her for advice. Cultivating her as an ally was a wise move on the prince's part.

Now if only I can convince him to swallow his prejudice and play nice, the troll growsed silently. The mood he is in regarding Lady Dylan, I have no idea how well he's going to take any suggestions regarding anything to do with the humans or their allies.

Just as the troll had placed the last elegantly scripted missive in its place, Nuada strolled into the current haven, considerably rumpled and looking as if he hadn't slept. Fairly certain where he'd been, Wink was fairly certain he hadn't.

"How was your... date?" The Elf prince asked casually. He had explained to Wink a few days ago, after a few shared bottles of Elven wine, what Dylan had told him of "dates" and how they applied to courtship rituals. Told him about the cold night spent with a mortal eating breakfast and watching the Night Parade from Onibi.

"Well enough," Wink rumbled, eyeing his prince. Nuada looked not only as if he hadn't slept the previous night, but as if he hadn't slept in days. Never before had the silver troll seen him look so... tired. And yet he seemed restless. Edgy. But the last time Wink had asked if anything troubled the prince, he'd received a snarled answer for his pains. Vassal he might be, but it was not his job to babysit His Highness when the Elven warrior was in a foul mood over his own missteps with a female. That had been part of his duties over two thousand years ago, when the prince was still a young man. So the troll asked only, "And yours?"

"I didn't go to see her, if that's what you mean," Nuada replied sourly as he dropped into a chair across from Wink and crossed his legs. He tried to keep his voice rigid and toneless, but it was harder to hide his ire from Wink, who had known him so long and knew him so well. "There's better company to be had in Faerie than that of a mortal woman's."

"It's not working, is it?"

Nuada scowled at his boots. No, curse it, it was not working. And it wasn't as if he sought out women to expunge his lust for an unattainable female. Those thoughts were not (thank all the gods beyond the stars) the ones that plagued him regarding the infuriating human who had somehow entrenched herself in his life and in his heart. He could almost ignore the simmering in his blood and the heat blooming in his belly whenever he thought of Dylan. No, he wandered the streets to try and outrun those infuriating thoughts. Let Wink think what he would of those nocturnal sojourns.

He'd yet to succeed in forgetting her, however. Still Nuada wondered about Dylan. Worried about her. Most irritating of all, he dreamed of her. Not always the vicious, bloody dreams of death and torment. Like the one from the evening prior, which had come back to him throughout the night. That one had been simple and easy until... until the whispered offering that still teased maddenly at his memory. Take what you need.

But Dylan would never say such a thing; would never offer herself to him so unequivocably. No human would - not even that one. So why did it matter? Why did he continue to torture himself? Why couldn't he simply forget about the mortal?

Betrayer. Beloved.

Words to condemn a man. Words to hang him. Words to rip out his heart and steal his honor.

"Come," Wink said suddenly, breaking the thoughts slashing at Nuada's mind. "You are getting lazy, my prince, sporting with all the pretty Elven maids." He ignored Nuada's scowl. "Time to see if your skills have not lost their edge."

Bronze eyes cut to Wink's craggy face. The prince frowned. The troll looked entirely too innocent. "Is that a challenge, my friend?"

"It is."

"And the stakes?"

"If you win - as you undoubtedly will, Your Highness, if your skills are still up to par - then you may ask of me whatever you wish. But if I manage to dump your lily-white arse on the ground thrice, then you must do the same for me."

Nuada studied his oldest friend, the sourness of his mood slowly fading. Ask Wink anything? Including details of his visit with a certain rhinemaiden? The offer was a tempting one. The prince would never have asked (unless it became a problem) because he respected his friend's privacy but if Wink was offering, then... well, Nuada could admit to being curious about the possible connection between the massive troll and the elegant Lorelei. And what could Wink possibly ask of him that he would not give his friend, anyway? Besides, since physical exertion of other sorts hadn't helped with his... problem yet, maybe a heavy round of sparring with the massive cave troll would make some dent.

The Elven warrior rose to his feet, bronze eyes melting to amber as he smiled at his vassal. "Very well, my friend, but you're going to lose."

A dry chuckle was his only warning before Wink's bronze fist shot out and nearly walloped him in the belly. Only a swift duck to one side saved him from the blow. With a single thought the halfspear lengthened and the butt hit the troll hard in the side of the knee. Wink dodged to his other foot and lashed out with the bronze fist again.

If anyone but an immortal had been watching the savage dance between Elven prince and troll warrior, simple mortal eyes would not have been able to track the lightning-strike movements. Nuada's acrobatics allowed him to leap and dive at the troll like a striking falcon. Wink's massive bulk and iron-thewed muscle brought his own blows down on the prince with all the unyielding force of a mountain. Several mutual bruises later, the Elf prince found himself dumped to the floor, courtesy of Wink's metal fist. The air exploded from his lungs as his back smacked against the cold stone.

"That's once," the troll informed his prince matter-of-factly. "While you get your breath back, I have to ask - how went your visit to Lady Dylan's demesne?"

With a twisting half-somersault, Nuada was on his feet again. Molten copper eyes bored into Wink's. "I thought we were sparring."

The silver cave troll knew he had to tread carefully here. Nuada needed to be pushed, prodded about this, or he would never see sense. Clearly something had gone amiss when the prince had journeyed to his lady's home two nights past. He had yet to speak of it. Wink had decided the time to wait for the subject to be broached had passed. How could the troll help his prince if he didn't know what was going on?

"We can talk and spar," Wink replied, advancing toward his prince. "I can concentrate on battle and conversation. You used to be able to. Have you gotten rusty?"

Nuada narrowed his already molten eyes. "If you must know," he replied, and lunged for Wink. Elven silver clashed against Elven bronze. The air rang with the sound of metal against metal and metal against bone when Nuada's spear glanced off the troll's unbroken tusk without catching the seamed, leathery face. "She was asleep when I arrived. Though we... talked."

Talked, Wink thought as he parried another blow that left his arm of flesh tingling. What did that mean? If they'd hashed out whatever trouble was between them, surely Nuada's mood should have improved by now. "You said you intended to go and see if my assertion of her innocence was correct," the troll said.

The Elf prince growled under his breath and lunged low to the ground, aiming for heavy troll legs. With both feet and the haft of his lance he knocked Wink off-balance. The troll tottered backward a moment. Nuada launched himself forward. His boots hit Wink in the chest and sent him careening into the wall. The shock of the blow reverberated up Nuada's legs as he stood up and gazed at his friend. "I did," he said. "And that is once for me. How many times must I drop you, my friend, before it counts as a victory for me?"

"Five; you're getting slow," Wink wheezed when he'd gotten his breath back. "But was I correct?"

Because you were happy. Was that the truth? Deliberate deception was barred from the dreamworld. It had to have been the truth - as she saw it. But when had he ever been happy in her presence? It defied reason that he should find joy with a human. And yet, he remembered snowballs flying in the park. Showing off like a carefree boy again as Dylan watched him train with avid eyes. Laughter. So easy to laugh with her despite her bloodline. I didn't want to take that from you any sooner than I had to.

But so what if he had been happy (which he still doubted)? It had still been a lie, curse it! She had still withheld the truth from him!

I didn't mean to deceive you.

May the Fates help him, his heart wanted to believe her, wanted to trust...

"Yes," Nuada admitted with obvious reluctance. He brought up the haft of his spear in time to block the punch Wink sent careening toward his face. "You were right."

It was the memory that distracted him - the memory of her sadness, her remorse. The treachery of his own heart. If he hadn't been thinking about the conversation with the silver troll, and the still only half-remembered sojourn through Dylan's dream that night, the cave troll's next attack wouldn't have sent him flying into the wall that still bore cracks in the stone from Wink's own recent flight. The air erupted out of him again as his body made violent contact with the wall. The back of his head struck stone. White light flashed in front of his eyes and he slid to the floor. When he could breathe again, he mumbled, "Ow."

"You owe her an apology, Nuada," the troll informed him. "And," he added without a hint of smugness, "that's twice."

"I owe her nothing," the prince snapped, getting to his feet. What was wrong with him? Usually their sparring matches were draws, or the Elf won (being faster than Wink and possessing much better reflexes). Those rare times when Wink did win, the battle was always a near contest. How had the troll managed to dump him on the ground twice already? Unless his friend was right and he was going soft.

"Oh, no? Need I remind you what you said to her?" Wink launched his bronze fist faster than an eyeblink, smashing it hard into Nuada's chest and sending him right back into the wall again, though he kept his feet this time. "Your words hurt both of you, my prince," the troll added softly. Instead of moving in for another swift attack, he waited while Nuada relearned once more how to breathe. "Do not make me repeat them. What liege lord hurls such insults at his vassals?"

"She is not my vassal! She is nothing but a..." He meant to say "lowly human," but the words stuck in his throat. For an instant he tasted the poisoning bitterness of iron on his tongue as his throat tried to close up against the words. He knew this reaction - the physical prohibition against lying. As a child it had been a serious problem when he wanted to get out of confessing to some misdeed or other. Now, as a prince come into his power, he could push past the faerie's natural reaction to speaking a falsehood and speak anyway... but he shouldn't have had to. The words should not have been a lie.

My heart's beloved. Even the magic of the fae, the magic that sang in Nuada's blood, lent truth to the traitorous sentiment festering within him. And Wink was still watching him with carefully blank eyes.

"She is not your vassal, though she has sworn to follow you always, but she is still bound just as tightly to you, my prince," Wink replied. Waited. Watched the Elf he had seen grow up from a young, emotionally shattered child into a proud and noble warrior prince. "She is your lady and you have wronged her. You owe her an apology."

I will always follow you. You are my prince, Your Highness.

Beloved, forgive me...

As a cocksure boy and sometimes as a foolhardy youth, the Elf prince had often attacked in hot anger. Usually he'd found himself flattened into bruises and aches on the floor of the salle or the dust of the practice ring. Such tactics had swiftly been beaten out of him by his opponents.

As a grown man, he had never attacked in fury. He did not do so now. But as he moved to reengage Wink in their sparring, Nuada could feel simmering anger coursing hotly through his blood. Not anger at Wink. They were liege and vassal, son and father, shield-brothers and comrades. No, his anger lashed out at the human woman who had twisted up everything until the Elf prince had no idea what to do with or about her... and it lashed out mostly at himself, for allowing himself to fall into such a position to begin with, and for the indecision that plagued him now.

Attacking in rage had always landed him with a bruised head, belly, or backside on the ground. The anger didn't drive him now, but it distracted him enough that he ended up with all three on the cold stone floor of the lair with an irate cave troll glaring down at him.

"That's thrice," Wink growled. "Where is your head at, my prince? I thought I was fighting the mighty Silverlance, not an undisciplined puppy."

With a sharp twisting of Nuada's legs, he brought Wink crashing to the floor. "Ow," Wink grumbled.

Then, smiling a little, he glanced at where Nuada still lay on the floor taking internal stock of his aches and pains. A little amber blood trickled from a cut on the prince's forehead and stained the long, blond hair. Recalling the very first time the prince had ever brought the cave troll down in a sparring session (Nuada had been "an undisciplined puppy" of perhaps fourteen-hundred years at the time, and it had been sheer luck that did it), Wink said now what he'd said then.

"Bad puppy."

The prince laughed, even though his bruised ribs protested. "Old wolves challenge young cubs, but never mock them," Nuada said, quoting an okami proverb.

"This old wolf happened to win," Wink replied, climbing to his feet. He thought about offering his prince a hand up, but Nuada was on his feet before the thought had finished forming. "And you deserved censure. Your head was not in the battle, as it should have been." And because the troll was right, the prince merely inclined his head in acknowledgment. "As for my prize..."

"You wish me to apologize to the human." Mo duinne, a ghrá mo chroí, forgive me. Nuada gritted his teeth. He couldn't afford such weakness. Would not allow himself to feel such treasonous sentiment.

"No," Wink rumbled, startling a look of surprised puzzlement from the Elf. "I want you to go and see her again."

"Wink-"

"I like her," the troll said suddenly, and the protest died on the prince's lips. "I like her very much. If I did not, I would not push this. You are my prince and have my undying loyalty, Nuada... but you are also my son and my brother. Your own father would tell you the same and for once I would agree with him - do not cast aside love freely given out of anger and hurt. She is your friend. Yes," Wink added when Nuada narrowed his eyes. "Your friend. You had female friends when you were a boy and even as a youth. Exile does not preclude you from them. Lady Dylan is your friend, and you miss her. I see it. Do not be a fool, Nuada. Go see her again."

He couldn't. Couldn't go back to that humble cottage that carried her scent and the echoes of her laughter. If he went there he might do something foolish. Yell at her again, perhaps. Hurl more vicious words at her. Or drop to his knees like a spineless cur and beg her forgiveness.

But he was a prince, bound by his promises. Wink had won. Nuada had agreed and Wink had won. So the prince only sighed and asked, "Now?"

"I suggest you bathe first," the troll said dryly, noting the sweat and grime streaking pale skin, as well as a few stripes of amber blood nearly brown with grit. "But yes. Now."

"She may not be home."

Nuada almost smiled when Wink gently whapped him across the back of the head with his hand of flesh. "Then wait for her."

.

"Did you ever figure out what was taken from the Met?" Dylan asked Anya as they watched Tiana racing about with other children in the Hudson Mall play area outside the theatre. The movie had been cute, light and easy - just what Dylan could've asked for in a film. The love story had been just soft enough to warm the heart without being gag-me-fluffy. And the love interest had been nothing like Nuada, so Dylan hadn't thought about him at all. Well, mostly at all. Partly at all.

Darn it, she'd thought about him the whole time. Especially each time Tiana had tugged on her sleeve to ask her a question, just as Dylan had done as a child to her mother when they'd gone to the movies.

She licked at the top of her black cherry waffle cone and ordered herself to stop being so lovesick and pathetic about the whole thing. Everything was fine. She didn't need Nuada to be happy. She had ice cream. Her second dose in as many days. Ice cream could solve all of her problems. Frustrating faerie men just caused most of those problems.

But she still missed him, darn it. In the depressed kicked-cockerspaniel kind of way, which was just sad. Get over it, she snapped at herself.

The folklorist shrugged and waved when Tiana paused at the top of the neon orange plastic slide and flailed her arms in mimed greeting. "Some kind of... golden bar thing that they found randomly near the banks of the River Boyne. It was on loan from the National Irish Museum or some other big bopper whose name escapes me. Supposedly it's a piece of some crown from some Irish faerie kingdom."

Dylan tensed, but said nothing. Anya noticed, but didn't say anything, either, and her friend didn't notice the noticing.

"Irish fairy kingdom?"

"Faerie," Anya replied with another shrug. She half-rose from the chrome bench she and Dylan sat on to keep an eye on the five-year-old who zipped down the slide, leap-frogged over another child playing dead on the floor, and raced up the steps to prove her bravery by taking the slide again. "You know, like in those myths and legends you like so much. Some place called Bethmoora. I thought Bethmoora was a place HP Lovecraft made up, but-"

"It's another name for the kingdom of the Tuatha dé Danann," Dylan mumbled, trying not to think of the court of Bethmoora and the fae there. The merciless fae that Nuada would have to face when he returned to Findias to face his father's wrath alone. Her heart clenched. Would the king hurt him? "The People of Danu."

"Oh. I knew about the Tuatha dé, but I didn't know about the Bethmoora thing," Anya replied. "Cool. Yeah, apparently it's some random piece of a crown or something. How they knew that when it was just a clinky strip of gold, I have no clue, but whatever. Hey, I think Tiana's done for the day. She looks wiped."

"Has she had a nap today?" Dylan asked, getting to her feet as the little girl trudged over to the two grownups.

"She's five; does she need one?"

"The rule with naps are, if the kid's having trouble getting to sleep at night, you don't need the nap," Dylan replied, finishing off the last bit of her ice cream cone. "If they nod off in the middle of the day on their own, they're still young enough to need one."

"Good to know. Well, you ready to go, Miss Tiana?"

"Can we go to McDonald's?"

Anya's dark eyes locked with Dylan's blue ones. Both women managed to communicate an entire, mysterious grownup conversation without so much as uttering a single syllable or even lifting an eyebrow. The conversation flew right over Tiana's head. Eventually Dylan said, "I know a better place. In-N-Out Burger, they've got great food. How about we go there before you and Anya drop me off, huh?"

"Okay!"