Chapter 7.5 - Underground

A Once Upon a Time Word-Prompt Collection

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Wolves

She is the little girl in the story, the maiden lost in the woods, forest beasts howling for her blood and hungry for her flesh.
She is the princess in the forbidden forest, wearing a cloak the color of blood and sex.
It calls the wolves to her.
Sends them hunting after her, slavering for a taste.

She saves her breath to run,
but when they catch her,
she uses it to scream.

Drowning

When the blows were raining down on her,
when the wolves howled and snarled and slavered after her,
when the living waking nightmare screamed through her body and threatened to shatter her sanity,
it was as if she was drowning,
gasping for air,
struggling to keep her head above water.

She had already slipped beneath the waves and given up the fight.
Her body still struggled,
but her mind had been far away by that point.

Then he came, her shelter in the storm, and he'd saved her.

Lines

There are some lines that can be crossed easily.

There are some,
Nuada thinks to himself,
that should never be crossed.

And then there are those that,
once crossed,
can never be uncrossed.

Staring at the human female in his sanctuary,
the Elven warrior wonders if it's possible to uncross this one.

Terror

The stench of woman's fear has always revolted him.
It reminds him too strongly of his mother,
of that dark and bloody day when human males raped and butchered her for sport.

That is why he hates it when the mortal invading his sanctuary watches him with fear in her eyes,
and waits for him to attack.

Cleanse

She is grateful the Elf prince allows her the use of the gargantuan bathtub in his sanctuary.

It is the only place she can go,
and stay,
long enough to finally start to feel clean again.

Loathing

It does not matter
that she is a victim of the human wolves.

It does not matter
that his honor demands he protect her until her wounds heal
and it is safe for her to leave the sanctuary.

It does not matter
that all the worst atrocities committed by the humans
occurred long before this mortal was born,
that she more than likely had no part in them,
that she is most likely innocent of any serious wrongs against his people.

It does not matter
because he hates her.

He despises her every shuddering breath,
her every fleeting glance,
her every touch.

He hates her with a fire that burns like acid in his belly,
and he cannot wait until she is gone,
from his sanctuary,
from his life,
forever.

Talk

After that conversation about books and legends and faerie tales,
they do not talk again.

She gives him orders to follow,
but then she is a healer speaking to her patient
and not a commoner speaking to a prince,
not a human speaking to one of the Kindly Folk.

He does not speak to her.
He merely gives her regal orders,
a prince speaking to a common wench.

Or he answers her questions,
a patient speaking to his healer that
yes, that hurts
or no, the stiffness in his shoulder isn't gone yet.

She doesn't know how to break the ice.
He doesn't even want to.

Freeze

Though the sanctuary is warm enough,
with the fire crackling in the hearth and the hearth-spells heating the air,
it is still ice-cold to her.

Every time eyes of glacial topaz ice knife into her,
every time frostbite-black lips press together in irritation,
every time the word "human" drops from his lips like a gust of frigid wind,
the Elf prince freezes her out as effectively as winter's gnawing bite.

She tries not to let it get to her.

Soulless

He knows that she is empty, heartless, without a soul.
He knows this.

But for some reason,
when she flinches away from him,
or cringes from the lash of his tongue,
he is the one who feels as if he is a beast without a heart or soul.

As if he is the monster,
not her.

Care

It makes no sense to the Elf prince that she should worry for him,
that she should strive to care for him even though
he fights her at every turn.

It makes perfect sense to a mortal healer that he should fight her,
that he should snap and snarl at her,
because she understands how strange it is to be alone and then suddenly have someone who honestly cares for you.

Antidote

Willow-bark tea sweetened with honey is cure
for the headache throbbing at his temples
and the fever that often flashes through him when he pushes himself too hard.

A hefty dose of the troll potion called Never
helps combat the iron fatigue dragging at his limbs and burning in his blood.

Soaking in the bath,
free of the mortal plaguing him,
washes away the aches in his body.

The odd sweet drink he sips every so often
fights the poison still sludging through his veins.

Unfortunately,
there is no antidote for Nuada's sour mood or dour looks.
There is nothing that can sweeten his temper,
or cure his hatred.

Dylan ignores this and focuses on what she can fix.

Tourniquet

There are times when the memories and the whispers and the flashbacks
are so vivid and sharp
that she would do anything to drown them out.

She wants to cut the nightmares out of her skull.
Rip them out of her heart.
Tear them from her body with her own two hands.
Anything, so long as they just stop.
So long as her heart stops bleeding from them.

Though he has yet to speak to her with anything but chill animosity,
though his eyes still glitter like topaz knives,
and though she has never seen him smile or heard him laugh,
somehow when she looks at him,
everything stops.
Just for a moment, all the pain stops.

She doesn't know how and she doesn't care.
She is simply grateful that it is so.

Spartan

This place is not empty, but it is still only a shell.
It lacks the warmth of a true home,
er even just a haven.

The stones are cold.
The walls are lonely.

Dylan thinks that maybe,
just maybe,
this feral-eyed Elf prince is lonely, too.

Comfort

She wakes in the dark of the underground,
ripped from a nightmare of wolves and blood.

And in the dark of the Elven sanctuary,
she hears the sound of deep and steady breathing,
and remembers that the warrior asleep in that same dark is there with her,
and has sworn to keep her safe.

With that promise, she can slip into sleep once more.

Glitter

When she chastens the Elf prince for pushing himself too hard,
for forcing his body beyond its limits while he is still healing,
his eyes take on a feral gleam and he regards her
almost as if she were a dog who had somehow learned not only to speak,
but to recite the Gettysburg Address.

Dylan tries not to take it personally.
The Elf has already made it clear he hates humans.

Tongue

Every time the human female opens her mouth,
Nuada marvels anew at how she can dance around him.
She does not run circles around him, exactly
(that, he would never stand for).

But she is always very careful of how she speaks to him,
the tone of her voice and the words she uses.

Her courtier's tongue is no doubt forked, the prince decides.

Men

After this, she isn't sure if she will ever be able to trust males again.
Human or fae, she doesn't know.

Even John, her special one, her twin brother, in some ways can't be trusted.
He wasn't there when she needed him in Saint Vincent's as a girl.
He hadn't been there that cold December night in the subway.

But Dylan wonders if maybe, just maybe, she can trust
the Elven warrior that risked his life to save her.

Viper

Every day that passes,
she becomes less and less the serpent in the grass waiting to strike.

He sometimes forgets about
the metaphorical forked tongue that she keeps behind her venomous teeth.
He forgets, often, that her heart is an empty black pit.

Instead of cold figurative scales,
there are healing scars.

Instead of icy reptilian cruelty,
he can see her compassion.

He's not sure if it is merely that he has grown used to her,
or if it's something more.

Truce

It had been the beginning of... something.
That softly spoken "thank you" and his tersely muttered "you're welcome."

He stopped snarling at her every time she gave him her patient look (he really
hated that patient look, the one all healers seemed to possess).

She tried to stop flinching every time he looked at her; Dylan could tell it
angered the prince for some reason.

With that simple exchange, the Elven warrior and the timid mortal woman
found themselves falling into almost-comfortable routine.

Neither knew how long such a thing would last, but that wasn't what mattered.

What mattered was that it had happened in the first place.

Kindness

He awakens all at once, aware the something has changed.
It takes him a moment, still sick as he is, to realize just what that change is.

He'd fallen asleep in his chair,
lulled into a sense of complacency by the human's presence in the bathing chamber instead of the cool main sanctuary.

Now the golden quilt his mother made for him is draped over him,
the warmth of it chasing away the chill in his body.

The mortal lies curled up shivering atop the narrow bed without a blanket.

He stares at the sleeping human,
unable to process that the human has done something... kind.

Man

It hits her, after perhaps the third week in the underground sanctuary.
Like a lightning bolt to the brain.

Watching the Elf prince walk out of the bathing chamber in nothing but a towel slung low over his hips
(and even that took some pleading and convincing on her part before he agreed),
having seen him naked more than once,
Dylan finally realizes...

Nuada is not just male.
Nuada is a man.

Withdraw

One night, two months after the human came to the sanctuary,
Nuada woke to the sound of her muffled weeping.

There was something so heartbroken in the sound.
Once again her pain resonated with an old ache deep inside him,
one he almost never allowed to see the light of conscious thought.

It was that odd resonance that made him get to his feet and go to where the human sat hunched before the fire
(the fire he never allowed to die after her confession that she, like Nuala, feared the dark).

He said not a word.
Only lightly touched her shoulder.
She looked up at him, and the tears glittered on her cheeks.

They locked eyes for a moment.

Could she see the strain he was under, to hide his revulsion from her?
Did she understand the depth of his kindness to her,
that he comforted one of the creatures he loathed more than any other?

Somehow, though he didn't know how, he thought she might.

She flashed him a wobbly but grateful smile, and he pulled his hand back.
That was enough comfort for one night.

Nuada strode back to the chair he'd fallen asleep in, keeping his back resolutely turned to the mortal.

Shrew

He is careful this practice session.

If he exhausts himself,
if he starts sweating too hard or struggling to breathe evenly,
the human will snarl at him in the way of stubborn females,
and the prince does not want to deal with an irate healer right now.

Aching

Every muscle throbs and protests even the smallest movement.
His skull pounds mercilessly.
His wounds burn.

He has pushed himself too hard,
to stop her irritating scowling at every move he makes.
Now he bites back a groan and watches the human approach him as she would a skittish horse.

"Let me help you," she says softly. "You're going to want to soak out those aches, for one thing."

Before he can rouse himself enough to protest,
she slips herself beneath his arm and helps him to his feet.
Even that simple act makes everything hurt.
The mortal is very gentle with the Elf prince, though.

"Come on. Let's get you into the bathtub, then I'll make you something for the headache."

He wants to demand of her why she is doing this,
why she is taking care of him,
being so kind when humans should not be able to be kind.

But a hot bath and a healing brew for the headache sound like heaven to him just then,
so Nuada merely mutters something disparaging about healers and bribes,
and allows her to do what she wants.

Heartless

He finds himself entertaining an impossible notion one day
when he catches the human scrubbing the sanctuary's fireplace grate until it sparkles.

It's not the sight of her cleaning that sparks this notion,
but the way she laughs and plays with the airy little sprite who normally handles such chores.

Could it be that this human,
this mortal who never behaves as humans should,
instead of possessing an empty pit in her chest...
truly has a heart?

Impossible

Impossible, that he should find his thoughts captured by the mortal invading his sanctuary.
Impossible, that she should not be afraid of him.
Utterly impossible, that he should find his hatred and disgust thawing into tolerance, acceptance... fondness.

Linger

The human carefully uncovers the wound in his shoulder to check how it's healing.

He ignores her

- for the most part -
until those nimble fingers suddenly stop
just shy of where they would cause actual pain
and merely rest against his skin for a moment.

Nuada knows he should speak.
Should reprimand her
or at least demand to know what it is she thinks she's doing.
But for some reason he allows the brief touch.

Then she pulls away and moves on to check his other wounds.

Remain

He knows she wants to stay in the sanctuary;
would be perfectly content,
he is almost positive,
to live out her days as his servant in the subterranean lair.

And for a split second he is tempted.

Three months is not long in the life of an Elf,
but for a human it can be an eternity.
She has not betrayed him yet.

Perhaps... just perhaps... she never will.

Why can't she stay, if it is what she wishes so desperately?

Then Nuada realizes what he thinking,
and shakes his head to clear of such foolish and pathetic sentiment.

So the human had saved him;
well and good.
But to deliberately and willingly infect his sanctuary with her mortal stench was ludicrous.
Insupportable.
It would not do.

She had to leave, and she had to leave tonight.

Mistake

'Saving her was a mistake,'
his hatred hisses at him as he struggles to forget the bizarre human whose life he has so recently preserved.
'Better to let her die.'

'It was the honorable thing to do,'
he tells himself, thinking of her fear and her courage.
Thinking of a mortal woman who'd risked her life more than once to save his.
'It is done. Forget about it.'

'A mistake,' the black voice snarls.
Nuada ignores it and continues on his way back from the human hospital,
trying to shove aside any thoughts of Dylan
and whether she will survive the night.

Absence

He returns to the sanctuary only once, to clean it.
This must be done by him alone;
his crinaeae, sylph, and salamander do not possess the magic to completely eradicate Dylan's scent from the chambers.

Once the stones are scrubbed and the linens washed anew,
Nuada uses some hearth-magic bought at the Troll Market to purge the place of the stench of iron-laced blood.
But once that is done... an odd sense of dissatisfaction tugs at him.
He cannot place it.
He does not understand it.
It is almost as if there is something missing.

In the end, he decides to ignore it,
and leaves the strangely empty-feeling sanctuary to return to his lair.

Good

He lies in bed and stares at the ceiling of his underground lair,
unable to sleep as thoughts of the irritating human that had only recently vacated his sanctuary buzz inside his skull.
How can any human be so kind?
So compassionate?
How can any human care so much for their own race, much less a species not their own?
How can a lowly Child of Mud be so impossibly, inexplicably... good?

Time

Three months is not long to an Elf.
It's an eyeblink.
For one who has lived for more than four millennia,
it is as nothing.

Yet three months is enough time for him to begin to doubt.
For him to begin to wonder.

Three months is an eternity to some humans -
humans,
with their impatience and their lives like candleflames that flicker to burning before being snuffed out forever.

The moon waxes and wanes thrice.
Time passes.

The mortal woman should have betrayed her blood by this time.
Yet three months is just long enough to make Nuada think,
make Nuada slowly slowly slowly start to wonder if maybe just maybe he can trust a little.