Author's Note: So here's another Hellboy II fic, Nuada x Nuala. It's the third in my series of "seven" things. I'll probably make seven oneshots all of seven things. The order (though you don't have to read them in order) so far is: Seven Secrets, Seven Colors and then Seven Shades. I hope you enjoy. Forgive my whimsy and the liberties I take with these two. Their love is too precious to just be a passing concept in a movie.

I don't own, though I wish I did.

Enjoy!

"Seven Shades"

Crimson

The battlefield is a challenge that day--surprisingly so. His lance is no less than a hundred double-steps from him, hilt deep in the ground and lost to his sight by the thick ring of humans standing all around, surrounding him. They jeer and they taunt. He holds his breath, knowing that she's coming. The sun rises behind him, cresting the horizon; a red-dawn swings high as the swords come at him from all sides. The attacks never connect, though, because very suddenly, the lance is back in his hands and his sister is there, her own golden fans poised in deadly grace. His grin is wide and bloodthirsty. There's no one he'd rather go into battle with than her. The slaughter they make is beautiful in its fury, as she is in her warrior airs.

Vermillion

Her dance is something at once wicked and divine; from across the length of the throne room, he is forced to watch in absolute unrevealing stillness as the whole of the court takes notice of that which he has seen all along. Her grace is unearthly, even for one of their kind, and her long pale fingers so light on the base of her large weapons are so beautiful. Her hair is a curtain of silk; her skin cloud-stuff, made of wonder. In the air around her, tiny fires hang in tribute. She is Nuala of the Goldenfan; her power burns red-orange in the flames of eternity. And yet, while the rest of the court can only clap at the end of her performance, he saunters to her side and leads her away. In her room, she dances for him again and again, and he watches with rapt, avid attention, glad that he is the only one privileged enough to do so, now.

Carmine

The world was cruel, she decided. To be made to feign interest in some noble, some fool--it was the ultimate of despairs. Or so she thought. It was only when the fool made the mistake of putting his hands in places she had no intention of giving him that she realized what despair truly was. A silver flash in darkness; the kiss of elven weaponry through flesh. And then Nuada, holding her close and wiping at the lip-color that's smeared across her cheek. No one, he says, can touch her but himself. He means it, with every fiber of his being.

Burgundy

The harvest festival is held on the cliff-side, against the spray of the wild ocean. There's firelight and dancing; warriors and those nobles still young enough to enjoy the break from propriety. It's when the midnight moon is full above them and the stars are singing out their enjoyment that they come together, he and she. She's wearing gold and he, silver; in her hair are chiming bells and they're barefoot against Mother Earth. The mulled wine is flowing in them both and the dancing--informal, improvised and without their weapons--is exhilarating. It brings a flush to her cheeks that the wine does not. When all the others are looking away, a decidedly befuddled Nuada whispers to her that there's nothing as beautiful as her in all the world. And then he kisses her.

Scarlet

She's so scared, she's shaking--not in fear of him, but in fear of his rejection. He's lying in the bed, feigning sleep in this darkened chamber, but she knows the truth as only she can. He's hiding from her--from himself--and there can be no further delay. Hadn't they played this game for so long already? When she peels back the heavy blankets and slides her bare body against his, she feels the tension rush from him in a great rolling wave. His hands come down on her naked hip, cool fingertips tracing her bone structure. That night, they find no solace in sleep and come morning, the sheets spotted in scarlet.

Garnet

His gift to her, on her birthday, is always of garnets--an appropriate gift, always, from one royal sibling to another. Garnets. A stone so blood-dark as to be black; she knows that he means it to be worn and to be admired, but she can't help but shake a little with a dread-chill every time. They're so dark, those stones, and sometimes she swears she can see him inside them, whirling like a mad creature in the throes of battle. He's blood-drunk and burning with hatred; she fears the image and hides from it. He scares her, sometimes, with his dark-thoughts of humans and war; her love for him never withers, nor his for her. But the stones--the shadowed jewels--must be worn; she wears it for him. For no other would she don those small shards of the larger darkness. They burn against her flesh.

Carnation

The Army was locked away and he was leaving--everyone said so. Nuala rushed to his room, but he wasn't there. She checked the stables, the armory, the kitchens--nowhere to be found. Finally, in a moment of abject panic, she found her holds on their bond and pulled. He stumbled forward out of the shadows by the garden gate, his hand pressed to his chest as if she'd struck him. He went down on his knees into a bed of flowers and she was there instantly, apologizing with tears in her eyes--in his eyes, too. She hadn't meant to hurt him, she whispered, over and over. She kept his face pressed into her shoulder--her neck--hoping against hope that he wouldn't look her in the eye. But, inevitably, he does and the truth is there. He orders her not to apologize anymore. "In the end," he says, "it is I who will need to atone." And all around them, the carnations are blooming, their sweet scent embracing them whole. Peace was with them, inside them--and then nowhere at all, as he rose and left her. Gone. He was gone. And all that remained was the crushed bed of carnations, their nectar bleeding their petals until all the soil ran red.