A/N: I hated Ariella. I thought she was a total jealous bitch who couldn't get over a relationship that ended decades ago. When she died in Iron Knight, I said good riddance. But despite my dislike of her, I felt that some of her's and Ash's story went untold, and so I took it upon myself to try and tell at least some of their story.

Disclaimer: I'm not Julie Kagawa. Duh. I can't believe I have to tell you people this. ;)

"'The Duke of Glassbarrow and his daughter, the young duchess Ariella Tularyn, will be expected at Winter Elysium on December 21st. Presence is required.'"

I stared at the heavy paper my father held in his hand, the invitation to Elysium that he had just read from. I had never been invited to Elysium. I had gone last year for the first time, but that had only been because my father had been hurt, and a titled family such as my own was required to have a representative. I had been nervous, sure I would become lost or embarrass myself in front of the queen. But just moments after I had arrived in the beautiful ice palace, I had gained an escort, beautiful in his own right. It was only later that I had realized who he was.

"Ariella!" I jumped, jerking back from my thoughts at the sound of my father's angry voice. The Duke of Glassbarrow had a short temper, and wouldn't spare hurting me if I angered him or acted disrespectfully.

"My apologies, Father." I said quickly.

"Do you have any idea how this came about? Who did you make such an impression on that they want you back?"

The prince, I thought the beautiful, wonderful prince. But I couldn't say that. I couldn't give away how Mab's youngest son had acted towards me. There would be too many questions and consequences, and I wouldn't be able to deal with it. "I am not sure, Father," was all I said.

He grunted, wishing for a better answer. "Have your visions showed you anything of this, Ariella? Anything that tells you about your future at court?"

"Nothing," I said truthfully. Though I had been getting visions for as long as I could remember, recently they had become fewer and farer between, all but disappearing. They had never showed anything of importance as it was, and I felt a sense of relief at not having to deal with them anymore.

"Very well. Elysium is in a month. Be ready, daughter."

O0o0o0O

"Hello,"

I was speechless, staring at the man in front of me, framed in the doorway of my family's estate. "Prince Ash? What are you doing here? My father cannot know of us."

"I don't intend to let him find out. But the longer you stay inside, the more likely he is to realize I am here."

Cursing his logic, I stepped outside into the ever-present snow flurries, closing the door quietly behind me. It was not uncommon for snow or ice to be placed decoratively throughout a Winter faery's home, but if there were piles of it just inside the entryway, my father would know I had left, and would demand for me to tell him where I'd went.

Ash began walking and I rushed to follow him. "Where are we going?"

He shrugged, a strangely fluid motion. "I don't know. I just wanted to be with you."

Those words made my heart beat faster. Though I had met with him at both the Elysiums I had attended, this was the first time he had come to my family's estate. I wasn't sure what he was expecting. Did he really want to just talk and be with me, as we had in the past, or did he have… something else in mind?

It seemed to be the former. We walked and quietly talked for an indeterminate amount of time, simply being.

After - minutes? hours? days? - we came to the line that divided Tir Na Nog from the wyldwood. On one side of the border, the side we stood on, the wind blew and the snow fell as hard as ever. But on the other side, trees loomed too high for us to find the tops, blotting out the sky in an eternal twilight.

Ash kept walking.

"Prince? I-I-my father will be wondering where I am. I have to be returning to my family's estate." I had been in the wyldwood before, but on planned trips with my father in order to learn how to hunt. Never by accident or for pleasure.

The dark faery glanced at me. "You'll be safe with me, Ariella. I won't let anything touch you. Besides," he added, almost to himself "if I lose the scent now, I might not pick it up again."

Oh. Of course. The third prince was known for being an avid hunter, spending most of his time in the wyldwood. He must have been tracking his quarry for a long time now, perhaps even before he enticed me away.

I followed him into the wyldwood, taking the bow that I always carried into my hands, Ash readying his own weapon.

Then, suddenly Ash stopped, and I came to a halt beside him. I looked in the same direction as his eyes and drew in a gasp at what I saw.

A magnificent silver stag stood not twenty feet away from us, nibbling on grass. The majestic creature was beautiful, liquid moonlight poured over graceful muscle. And though I was not one for death and killing, I was still Unseelie, and that dark part of me rose, taking over my actions, wanting the moonlight stag for itself. My bow rose, and I created an ice arrow in the space of a second, before setting it loose, right into the creature's heart.

Only a second later, the prince's arrow hit a millimeter a way from mine.

He stared at me. "You killed it before I did."

The Unseelie in me gone, I bowed my head and blushed. I couldn't decipher his emotions. Was he angry? Would he kill me for killing his prize? "I'm sorry," I said.

"Why?" He said, and I glanced at him. The look on his face showed his emotions clearly for once: amazement. "I've just found myself a new hunting partner."

0Oo0oO0

"Ariella?" The third Winter Prince looked over me as I lay on my bed in the Winter palace. He had invited - no, ordered me - to stay in Tir Na Nog not too long after he had first come to my family's estate. He wanted me in his home - with him. I didn't know what he wanted, what he saw in me. But he was the prince, and so I couldn't have refused him even if I wanted to.

"Your Highness?"

He came closer to me, and I drew the covers of my bed tighter to my body. Not because I was cold - I was a Winter fey, I didn't feel the cold - but because I was dressed in little more than my undergarments, and it was improper for him to see me as such.

"I've told you to call me Ash," he said "I don't need or want titles when I'm with you."

"As you wish... Ash." I said, and he gave a smile. And that smile let me know that breaking etiquette to call him by his name instead of his title was worth it. "Was there something you needed?"

"Are you tired?" He asked. "There's something I want to show you."

I was tired, but I knew better than to refuse him. "I can come," I said.

He looked at me, silver eyes that took my breath away searching my face. "You're tired." He said "Sleep. I'll show you tomorrow." I didn't protest, but watched as he moved towards the door, his lithe body crossing the distance in only a few short strides. When he came to the threshold, he stopped and remained motionless for a moment, holding onto the door handle. Then, slowly, he turned back around and walked towards me, stopping at my bedside. I watched him, unsure as to what he wanted. Then, to my surprise, he sat down on the edge of my bed, took off his shoes, shirt, and sword, and lay down beside me.

"Ash?" I said, strangely breathless "What... what are you doing?"

"I thought it might be better for us to leave the palace when we did this," he said as he pushed the covers off of me and kissed my bare neck. "But I suppose we can do it here perfectly well."

I knew what he wanted then, and I didn't think twice about giving it to him. Because though we had started to grow a relationship before then, that was the night everything had changed. That was the night it had become love.

0Oo0oO0

"Ash?"

"No."

"Ash…"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"What's his problem today?" Robin Goodfellow asked, red hair sticking up in tufts as he watched Ash and I. The third Winter Prince was grumpy today, and it had taken me several hours just to convince him to leave Tir Na Nog. Even now being in the wyldwood with our normal hunting partner, Ash wasn't acting his usual adventurous self.

I knew why. I understood it as a fellow Unseelie, in ways that Puck, being Seelie, could not. There were times when the dark nature of our court penetrated us, made us grumpy at best and cruel at worst. No, worse than cruel. Mab hadn't even hit the worst yet. How I knew that, I wasn't sure. It was not something my visions had shown me, but I knew it all the same.

But none of that would help me - or Ash - right now. Only one thing would work in calming him at this moment. "Ash," I said very softly and he stopped examining our surroundings warily and looked at me. I stepped closer and framed his face with my hands cautiously. Even after being with him for decades, I still had a hard time believing I had this privilege. I said his name once more, then kissed him.

He was stiff at first, not responding, but then I pressed closer to him, and he relaxed, wrapping his arms around my waist. The longer I breathed in the sharp scent of frost and peppermint, the more I seemed to lose myself - my thoughts, my purpose, my secrets - in him, until it was just myself and him, existing.

Then Puck heaved an annoyed sigh, and we pulled back. "Are you going to behave now, ice-boy? Because I really have no desire to watch you two neck all day."

Ash shot the Summer faery a look over my head, but the former angst was gone when he said "Then don't watch," before kissing me again.

0Oo0oO

"… so I think we should go and steal it."

Satisfied with himself, Puck leaned back against a tree, lacing his hands behind his head.

"And how do you suppose," Ash said slowly "we are going to steal one of one of the most valuable possessions from a group of three thousand harpies?"

Puck shrugged. "Do what we always do. Wing it."

A sure way to get us killed. Ash and I shared a look, and I knew he was thinking the same thing.

Puck caught our look and his grin stretched wider. "Unless you're scared, ice-boy. Didn't think a bunch of harpies could turn you into such a chicken."

Ash bristled. "I'm not scared."

And he wasn't. I knew he wasn't. He was just concerned for the state of our well-being after facing three thousand harpies.

"Then why haven't we left yet?" Puck sprung up from the tree and began bouncing excitedly away. "Let's go kill some harpies and steal something valuable!"

"Puck, wait." I said gently, touching his arm. If I didn't want all of us to get hurt, I would have to do something about it. "Maybe would should think about this. I know you and Ash are both plenty capable, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a plan. Maybe we should wait until the harpies are gone, or they are less concentrated."

He seemed to deflate. "But… but… but.." Our eyes met, and he sighed. "Fine. Be a scaredy cat, Ari. We'll have to do it without you some other time." Despite what he said, I knew the problem had been avoided, and smiled.

0Oo0oO0

"But it's right there." Puck said to Ash and I, gesturing to the golden fox on the opposite side of the ravine that separated predator from prey. "If we go around, we'll lose it."

I shifted on my horse. "I don't want to, Puck. I just… I have a bad feeling about going through that ravine. We've been tracking it for a few days; what's a few more?"

The prankster threw up his hands. "Do you want to try reasoning with her, ice-boy?" he said, and I turned to look at Ash, a small bit of fear working its way up my throat. What if he made me go into the ravine?

Luckily, my lover shook his head. "She said no, Puck. I'm not going to force her to do something she doesn't want to." Ash began turning around his horse, the conversation finished. "We'll go around."

I moved to follow him, but before I could, Puck gave a whoop and whacked my horse on the rump, sending us flying down into the ravine. I tried regaining control, but before I could, there was a monster rising up in front of me, all fangs and claws and stinger. And there were voices and screams and yells and howls around me, and then there was pain blood death dying-

"No!" I scream, pulling myself out of the memories. Though most are good, happy even, now they remind me of all I have lost. Of all I didn't have. Of all I couldn't have.

Or could I?

Standing from my bed where I had just been attempting to sleep, I walk around my small dwelling agitatedly. This place has been my home for the several decades since my death. I have grown to love it here, able to relax in this secluded place better than any other location I have lived.

This might not last much longer.

It's not that I am planning on moving. But there is something else. Someone else. The person who has been on my mind and has lived in my thoughts since my death, and for a long time before that.

Ash.

He is coming. Maybe he doesn't know it yet. Maybe he isn't coming for me. Maybe he wouldn't care about the fact that I am alive, and still in love with him.

After all, he is coming for her. For another girl. For Meghan Chase.

If there is one girl who is good enough for Ash, it is her. She is loyal, loving, noble, kind. She won't hurt him in anyway; if anything, she will protect him with her own life. She deserves him.

I know they had to be together. I know that if he hadn't fallen in love with her, hadn't stayed with her every step of the journey that led to her destiny, the Nevernever would have been destroyed, everyone that lived here with it, including Ash and I.

And Puck. Puck, the one I love and trust just as much as Ash, in a different way. She has him wrapped around her finger as well, in love and ready to do anything she asks for, wants, or needs - not that Puck minds.

There are so many reasons to not hate Meghan Chase. But nothing changes my feelings towards her at all.

For she has stolen my life. She walked in when I had been kicked out, and had managed to take over my life much more quickly than I had made it.

And so as Ash and Puck move closer to me and the truth, I turn up the cowl on my robe and walk to meet them. Because even if she has stolen my life, she isn't here now. And I am going to do everything I can to take back what is mine.