A/N: Prompt #14 - See.
He wasn't supposed to be out alone. The astrids were supposed to be with him. He had heard his wife giving the order.
But the astride were filled with guilt and desperation, and sometimes it was just - too much. So he went out onto the balcony.
In the distance, he saw a line darkness that was still uncleansed. His hands shook. Cold panic froze his chest.
Take a good look, fairy. This will be the last place you ever see.
He'd hoped so desperately to be noticed when his captors were locked up, but he'd just been dragged along and the wizards had sealed them in, and then -
No. He was safe. His captor was dead. The girl, that shining girl, had killed him with the sword the shadow boy had given her. Bracken had told him so, many times.
But it was still the last place he'd ever see. A kinder prison now, but still there.
"My dear?" The queen's light touch graced his shoulder.
A claw digging in, vile poison barely purified by his overwhelmed powers -
The queen removed her hand. His shudders eased.
"What do you need?" Her voice was gentle.
Out, he thought, but it was the one thing he couldn't say.
He liked to go to the pools. The world here was painfully bright, and he had no place in it.
We will destroy the darkness here, Mizelle had promised him. He wondered if his daughter remembered that he had been tainted.
This world of light had no place for him, so he watched a more shadowed one.
It had changed much. He recognized little. So he watched the Sorensons.
The girl who had given him the light back. The shadowed boy who the darkness reached for.
Seth. Bracken had told him the boy was Seth.
And Seth was running desperately for one of the shrines.
It was a simple matter to fulfill his requests. It was a . . . relief, as well. A relief to do something worthwhile. A relief to see another tainted one refuse to give in. A relief to acknowledge his endless debt.
He kept watching Seth.
The Fairy Queen smiled when she saw her king laugh for the first time in this age of the world.
He remembered the dark. The agony. The helplessness. The dark spells.
And he remembered a single, blinding point of light that had found him in the place he had hidden his mind. He remembered seeing that dazzling brilliance and clutching it tight.
He held to that memory whenever he feared that this hope was just another torment. That light had been real.
So when his son came to him, stubborn yet nervous, and said, "Father, I want to propose to Kendra," he didn't say what he might have said, oh, eons ago. Nothing about position or worthiness. Those questions were long settled.
"The two of you should live here. If anywhere can keep an Eternal safe, it is here." A warm glow of satisfaction filled him at the idea.
"I know it's not the - " He blinked. "What?"
"I approve. Heartily. Now go ask her."
"Oh."
Seth would be at the wedding, he was sure. It would be nice to see the boy again.