Author's Note: Just a little ramble that I thought could happen between HawkSong and SnakeCharm, though SnakeCharm has yet to be released. Insanely short.

Disclaimer: I still don't own these characters, I'm just pretending to for my own amusement and the amusement of others.

He was eerily still, something that came second nature to Zane. Snakes in the wild can often be found motionless, coiled beneath a rock or paused knowingly in the sand. This however, was frightening.

His garnet eyes flashed alertly, but the rest of his body appeared dead. No tension, despite his position standing near the door. Oddly enough his eyes were the only place in which I found comfort since I was so disturbed by his sudden catatonic lapse.

"Don't move," he spoke suddenly.

I barely saw his lips tremble and wondered vaguely if he'd even spoken at all. This was foolish considering the danger of the moment.

Whoosh! One invisible motion and he was next to me, grasping something. My mind was still convinced he was at the door and needed a few seconds to catch up.

"A dart," Zane sighed.

"Where-? How-" I glanced to the window, the only source to the outside world in the entire room. We were in an old suite of the Keep, rarely used. This room had been locked and dusty but devastatingly romantic. Zane and I asked Rei for the key and went exploring in my own home. But we were three floors up, how could someone possibly shoot a dart through the window? How could we not see him? An avian?

"There's a note." He slid a rolled piece of paper off the wooden cylinder and read allowed, stressing the last sentence. "An unholy union shall not be tolerated by feather nor fang. You are warned."

Zane and I had become close. We even realized our deep love for one another. Only a few short days ago we stumbled across the revelation that I was pregnant. It was impossible that someone else might know without our announcing it.

But despite seeing Zane every day and sharing a bed with him every night, he never failed to amaze me.

"It's not possible. How could someone know? Did you-?"

"No! Did you?" I gasped.

"Of course not."

We stood in silence for a long time, his ruby eyes throbbing with hate for the paper that rested in his hands.

"We'll tell the guards and make our announcement tonight. Perhaps the more people that know the safer you will be."

"How exactly does that work?"

"More people to protect you and," his hand glided to my stomach as if the child growing there were asking him to, "our stranger."

I sighed and he kissed me, still tense. I felt myself glare at the window once more. "Is it safe to be standing here?"

"Yes, I don't hear anything any more."

"How did you catch that dart?" I asked slowly, still in curious shock.

A smile pulled at the corner of his lips. "Pure unfiltered talent."

"Oh, of course. I should have known."

Zane laughed and grasped my hand, leading me out the door. "Come now. I want to alert the guards."

"An unholy union," I spat the phrase out like poison.

"Our union is in no way unholy. Love is never unholy. Close-minded fools will always object to the happiness of others." His words were wise and careful.

"It just bothers me to see such hate among our own people, even when we have brought relative peace."

A thought crossed his face. "Well, perhaps we should be grateful that they us and not one another."

I put my hand on his shoulder, "What if they don't-"

"They will." He sounded sure. Confident. I nodded obligingly. "Come now."

We walked out the door and spotted a guard pacing the corridor. Since things had settled less security was needed at every waking moment. Now, though, more would be required yet again.

Zane explained the incident in a hushed voice and the guard escorted us away in a hurry. I looked over my shoulder, as if trying to glance at the window for a third time. The door was shut and I couldn't see through walls so instead I blankly starred over my shoulder.

Was this how our lives were to be from then on? Were we to be forced to slink in the shadows, hiding from our own people? Exactly how many people would object to our child? Why should they object? On a more morbid and shameful note I wondered, Is our union unholy? What will become of this child...

So many questions and so few solutions. Just a crow, a hawk, a snake and a long hallway leading to a door that probably never should have been opened.