No! He is Meghan and mine's son. There was no way she was ever going to get her claws on Keirran...But if something happened to Meghan because of all this-

I don't know what I would do.

I suppose I must have fallen asleep at some point and awoke to the sound of faint screams from next door. At first thought they sounded like Puck and Nevada arguing.

Then my eyes went wide as I woke up properly. I sat up stiffly.

No, no, no that isn't arguing. I gave a faint shiver of disgust. Yes, me and Puck might be good friends of sorts and had known eachother for years but there were certain parts of his life that I wanted nothing to do with. I'm sure he felt the same towards me and Meghan. Even if ours had, ummm… more or less very visible results. Well, make that result.

I got up quickly and left the house, careful not to slam the door for once. I already knew quite well the results of a angry and horny Puck.

"Uggh," I shivered again at the memory. Luckily they'd pulled the curtains in the bedroom. The waterfall covered them from my ears so I wasn't grossed out as much.

I started to realize that I was quite a mess from all the dried blood. My neck, my arms, it was everywhere. At least I knew not all of it was strictly mine. I sighed and wondered to the waters edge. The sun was shining high in the sky, but in the Nevernever the weather was never a very good measure of time. Sometimes it was day for weeks, months, years even. The same could be said for night.

Stripping down to my underwear, I washed my clothes then lay them on a rock to dry in the sun. I waded out to the middle of the pond, in its deepest part. The water was clear and clean, soothing the hand shaped bruise on my back. I felt it wrap around me as I lay floating on my back. There were no fey in the water here, which I thought was slightly strange. But then again, I'm pretty sure that was because of Nevada.

I swam slowly against the current to go directly under the waterfall. I stood there, letting it rush over me in heavy waves. It was beautiful.

I have to try bring Meghan here one day. I turned away from the water so I could open my eyes without them stinging, scrubbing at the dry blood all down my neck and down my side. I glanced a brown tendril of it gliding away from me in the pool. Looking up, the trees moved in the breeze, wind whipping at the colorful flowers beneath them. Nothing but birds and insects moved in the small space. Everything here was so tranquil. Peaceful. I could see why Nevada had built her home here.

Then something shattered the blissful peace.

"BOOYAKASHA!"

A shape smashed into the pool below me, sending water everywhere. I stifled laughter as Goodfellow surfaced facing away from the waterfall. He snorted to clear his nose of water, then shook his head and slicked back his soaking hair. He heard me and spun around trying to find me.

"That was just pure grace," I mocked. His bomb had been anything but graceful. He smirked up at me when he saw me under the waterfall.

"Ha! I'm always graceful."

"I'm sure I've seen a troll with more grace then you, Goodfellow."

"Oh yeah? Must have been one impressive troll."

"Ha!"

"You try do better ice-boy," he challenged. I smirked, jumping back under the water to swim back to the side. Puck climbed out just after me, dressed in no more then me. He pointed to the top of the waterfall. "From up there?"

I shrugged. "Doesn't matter to me, either way, I'm going to win." He grinned evilly and ran to climb the side of the waterfall. I sprinted to keep up. We both scrambled up the rocks, racing to the top. He managed to get ahead of me when I slipped and cut my hand open on a rock. He laughed at me and got to the top first. I pulled myself up and went to stand beside him. I noticed Nevada watching us from the kitchen window.

"On three," I said. He nodded, the pair of us grinning with challenge.

Oh, how I've missed this.

"One…"

"Two…"

"Three!" we both yelled then jumped over the edge. As the water rushed up at me I curled into a ball to smash into the still water. It stole away my breath, the sunrays on the bottom of the pool mixing with the air bubbles me and Puck caused. I had to push myself back to the surface. I broke the top, gasping and smiling. Puck beamed at me, laughing. I kicked water at him and paddled to the waters edge.

Again he got out after me. Nevada stood there, holding our clean dry clothes. I'm quite sure I blushed, standing infront of a gorgeous woman in only underwear. I may be married but that doesn't make me automatically blind to another woman's beauty. Puck leered openly at her.

She snorted and threw his pants in his face. He laughed and put them on. She handed me my clothes and I pulled them on over my wet body. I noticed that she was wearing her jacket. It was white with coattails that reached the back of her knees, the brown buttons were done up all down it's front. I also noticed she kept glancing at Puck's torso, which was toned, tanned and scarred.

Of course he realized too. "Like what you see?" he smiled, gesturing to his middle, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. She smirked evilly and tossed his shirt and daggers at him. I registered her grin looked a lot like Pucks. He just smiled and put on his dry clothes. Nevada must have kept spares of his clothing or something, the ones he slipped on were completely intact. When I'd carried him in yesterday they'd been in shreds.

I checked my sword was attached properly, sweeping my hair from my eyes then waited for Goodfellow to finish. He slipped his daggers away then looked at me expectantly.

"So, where we off to now?" he asked. I remembered the feeling that I was meant to be somewhere. The headache had returned. I recalled what a healer had told me a long time ago when I went to him about the headache. 'A strong otherly force is directing you where you must be. Or its some really really extreme brain freeze.' He'd been the kind of Fey that got very close and personal with his herbs, and not the light kind.

First the feeling had led me to Puck, now where would it take us? I glanced around trying to get an idea of where we were meant to be heading. For some unknown reason I had a much clearer idea of which direction we were meant to go. I tried to imagine what was that way and remembered a Trod to the mortal world that was vaguely in that area. It was the only thing in that direction of any major meaning. I pointed after it.

"That way."

"Right, well that's awfully specific," Puck said. I glared at him.

"We need to get there fast. Nevada," I looked to her, "Do you have a horse or something we could borrow?"

She shook her head then leveled her gaze at Puck. "No but I know where you can find one."

Puck, who was busy looking at something under his nail didn't notice for a minute that we were both looking at him. I cleared my throat. He glanced up.

"Umm, what?" He blinked in mock confusion. "Is there something on my face?"

"No but we need a ride."

"Oh right and you expect me to be the horse."

"Yes," I replied flatly. He narrowed his eyes at me.

"Where are we going again? You forgot to mention that," he said coldly. I didn't know if he was secretly angry at me because of Keirran, or because he'd nearly been torn to shreds a few hours ago. Or 'cause I'd brought him back here. He kept glaring at me with his piecing emerald eyes. I didn't say anything. I heard Nevada sigh and shift uncomfortably on her feet beside us. I didn't want to tell Puck the truth, which was that I had no idea where we were going or why. I just knew that for some strange reason I needed to be somewhere, and I needed to have Puck with me. We may be fey, all 'unicorns' and 'talking cats' but a headache that says 'go that way' is still pretty unbelievable. I could still remember the time Puck threw me into a human mental centre. I was apparently their most curious case. After a few minutes of silence and intense glaring, Puck threw up his hands.

"Fine, don't tell me. I love riddles too." From his tone of voice I knew it wasn't finished. He would never completely drop anything. Puck smiled his eerie little grin and began to change.

His face stretched out, becoming longer and narrower, as his neck began to grow. His arms spasmed, fingers turning black and fusing into hooves. He arched his back, spine expanding, as his legs became hindquarters bunched with muscle. Fur covered his skin as he dropped to all fours, no longer a boy but a sleek gray horse with a shaggy mane and tail. The transformation had taken less than ten seconds.

The dappled horse stamped its foreleg and swished its tail impatiently. I saw its eyes, shining like emeralds through the dangling forelocks, daring me to say something. I held my tongue, fully aware of what he could do. I went to get on his back but Nevada put her hand on my arm. I turned to her, surprised.

"Wait a moment, I think I might have something you may need." She spun and ran into the house. I shared a quick glance with horse-Puck. He did the horse version of shrugging. She came back a moment later with a small brown satchel. She thrust it into my hands without a word, then turned away, with a bow strung over her shoulder and legged it into the forest.

Puck snorted and tilted his head in confusion.

I shrugged. "I don't get it either." I leapt onto his back and pointed him in the right direction. He tossed his head, and kicked into a full gallop.

Just a short chapter, maybe to lighten the mood a little. I dunno, i just feel like I'm enjoying the fact that Ash no longer HAS to kill Puck a bit too much