The Dresden Files/Codex Alera is copyright Jim Butcher. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction.

Written for the Day By Drabble Blue Skies event on Livejournal.

Prompt #19:
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. (Albert Camus)

Author's Note: So that prompt just screamed 'Harry' at me, obviously. And I thought it suiting, considering the end of Ghost Story, to start there. I've never written Lea before, she's such a fun character and I hope I did her justice.

Every nerve in my body was screaming.

I moved my fingers, then my hands and arms – it felt kind of like blood returning to a limb gone numb, only everywhere, and instead of pins and needles it felt more like razorblades and chemical burns. My head felt like every hangover I've ever had decided to meet up and kick my ass, and I was lying naked in a heap of dirt and pine needles.

Mab had left the dimly lit cave, the presence of Demonreach had retreated, and I was utterly alone.

Entirely creeped out.

And rightfully so.

Not even an hour ago, I had consigned myself to the whole 'being dead' thing. It hadn't been difficult as I thought it would be, stepping through that door.

My daughter was safe, with the kind of family I had always wanted as a kid. My brother was…recovering, or at any rate, he was in very…um, capable hands. My friends were safe, maybe not whole or happy, but as safe as I could make them. I had accepted the consequences of the mistakes I'd made. Hell, I even got to see my dog before heading off to…wherever I was supposed to go.

I think it was the closest to peace I've ever been.

So you can imagine my shock when I woke up in a cave, attached to some kind of nightmarish life-support system with my head in the lap of the Winter Queen… on whom I'd just tried to pull the bait-and-switch to end all bait-and-switches.

Naturally, she wasn't very happy about it.

"Prepare yourself," I muttered sarcastically. "Bullshit."

I couldn't even sit up. I tried – when I pushed myself up onto my elbows, I almost blacked out. It was a thrilling, lightheaded kind of pain and part of me reveled in it.

Spend a couple days as a non-corporeal being. You'll know exactly what I mean.

There was a rustling sweep of emerald silk at the dark edge of my vision. A pair of frigid hands wrapped a thick white blanket around my shoulders, and then, before I could even blink, I was somewhere else. In a recliner. One of those nice overstuffed leather numbers. Certainly nicer than anything I've ever owned, anyway. The blanket was actually a bathrobe – weird, but then again, 'weird' seemed to be the word of the day.

I looked around the room. There were stone walls, a wooden door, a cheery fire crackling in the hearth. The ramshackle cottage on the island, then.

A tall, supernaturally beautiful woman with flame-red hair was standing near the fireplace, regarding me with an expression that might have been approval.

It's hard to tell, with the Sidhe.

"Well, Godmother, you've really outdone yourself this time."

"One could say as much for you, child."

She crossed the room, stopping to loom over me. She held a steaming cup of something, and offered it to me but made no move to put it in my hands. I had to reach for it. My arms felt like they weighed a thousand pounds each.

Lea took a tiny step backward. I glared at her.

She smirked. "Ah. This does remind me of – how do you say it? The good old days?"

I gritted my teeth and reached for the cup again, successfully this time, holding it in shaking hands. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the contents. I looked like death warmed over. Literally.

"Peppermint," Lea said. "From a market. It is quite safe for you to drink."

"And?"

"And freely given," she said, with a hint of impatience.

I drained the cup in one searing gulp and when I looked down at it again, it was full.

Sometimes, having a faerie godmother is kinda neat. You know. When she's not turning me into a dog.

"Why are you here?" I asked her.

"I was charged with your care, and the preparations for your journey."

"Oh. That."

"That, indeed," she said, and, as if things weren't surreal enough already, produced an honest-to-god Macy's shopping bag. "Your effects. We cannot have our knight arriving at court unclothed. At least, not yet."

"Huh?" I frowned at her, or tried to. Hell's bells, even my frowning muscles were atrophied.

"It will be some time before you are once again pleasing to look upon," Lea explained almost apologetically, peering into the bag. She pulled out a handful of socks, shirts, some jeans, a pair of boots.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I said. "What, no conquistador armor this time?"

"Our Queen requested you arrive in an immediately recognizable state." She dangled a sock between two fingers and looked me over, arching an auburn brow. "What, pray tell, is the function of this?"

And it went on like that for at least ten more minutes.

Then, from the seemingly bottomless bag she drew a black leather duster. It was heavier and rougher than the machine-stitched one Susan had given me so long ago, but it had the same reassuring weight as she draped it across my knees. A surge of something not unlike homesickness choked my voice down to a single word.

"Real?"

"Indeed," my godmother said, pulling one more item from the bag; a t-shirt. "And this. I thought it…appropriate for the occasion."

She held it up so that I could read the front – in white letters on black.

Back By Popular Demand

I couldn't help it. I laughed until I actually passed out.

Thanks for reading!