AN: Fast-forward about 400 years, give or take, to a few years before Hellboy 2. Prince Nuada is on the trail of the crown piece. 7/24 - minor edits, mostly polishing.
The strident horn of the subway sliced through the air, just before a gust of false wind carrying the stink of their machinery sent strands of his hair into his mouth. Nuada silently spit them back out again, waiting for the break between public transits. He watched the subway grind to a halt, his dark lips twisting in disgust at this creation of the humans. Crafted conduits in the earth, but unlike the passages that were lovingly sculpted by the trolls, these were like the tunnels left in decaying flesh by borer worms. Tunnels left in the decaying flesh of the Mother.
His stare burned with momentary anger in the shadowed pits of his eyes. The anger was quickly tamped down.
An electronic voice bounced off the white tiled walls of the subway. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered with the announcement of the subway's arrival and destination, as if the wiring couldn't handle both light and sound at the same time. Herds of humans shuffled out of the cars as the doors slid open in a pneumatic hiss, and herds of humans shuffled in. Heads down, avoiding making eye contact with anything around them. Humans had turned into placid cattle in the last few decades. It actually made it easier for Nuada to move about without wasting power on hiding himself from sight.
San Francisco was a festering pit, and the sooner he and Wink could put this wretched land behind them, the better. Nuada waited patiently, clad in black from chin to toe, with only his face and hair to give him away in the shadow of a support pillar. However, he had no fear that any of the cattle would look in his direction. They barely looked in the direction they were heading. As the subway began to move, he sidled along the wall around the landing platform. Once the subway was well on its way down the tunnel, before more humans arrived to wait for the next mechanical worm, he dropped down to the tracks and headed the opposite direction.
Far down the tunnel, far enough that he had to flatten himself against a crumbling concrete wall to avoid another arriving train, a passage opened up in the side of the tunnel leading to the maintenance conduits. From there, a slimy slope led to a heavy steel grate that he easily lifted with one hand, dropping down and catching the ladder below as he lowered the grate without a sound. The ladder stabbed down into nearly pitch blackness, shaking slightly every time the subway roared through the tunnels above.
Lack of light was no concern to his Elven eyes. What he couldn't see, he could hear, and he walked briskly to the den that Wink had fashioned by creatively rearranging supporting blocks. Like the most revered troll artisans, his friend had a rare touch for stone and similar things, and though their den looked precarious, it was actually quite stable.
For now. Wink had told him that the stresses of the subway was telling on the blocks, and they would eventually collapse. Perhaps in ten or twenty human years. Nuada had shrugged lightly, finding not a scrap of himself that cared what would happen to the herds above when it did. Perhaps they should take more pride in crafting their structures, like the trolls, rather than slapping things together and calling it a "job well done."
Whatever disaster befell these humans in ten years gave him no pause; he and Wink would not be here that long. They had been warriors for longer than most human civilizations had existed, and knew the value of patience. Soldiers rushed into battle with little thought beyond their targets - warriors were the true predators of a battlefield. Like wolves on dangerous prey, they used the terrain and their enemy's own weaknesses against them. And like a pack of wolves, they had a plan of attack.
What had begun centuries ago for him as a stray thought had turned into a burning obsession. Nuada had berated himself for not thinking of the obvious sooner, but to do so would have meant defying his father to a degree that he had never before considered. He would not consider it now, if the fate of their people were not in such peril. Balor was aging, but still wise. Tired, but still strong. Fading, but still King.
Distant, but still Father.
He'd locked the stray thought away at first, worried that Nuala might somehow catch it during those nights when he ached for the company of his own kind. Were it not for Wink remaining with him in his self-imposed exile, Nuada was certain he'd go mad. Eventually, though, he couldn't help taking the thought back out and rolling it around in his mind, examining it from every angle and prodding it, much like he might prod a cut on his lip with his tongue until he knew every possible angle of pain and sensation. He had prodded it and turned it about until he knew every nuance of it so well that no permutation of fate or the machinations of others could possibly catch him off-guard.
Four centuries earlier, the stray thought had hardened into a plan. Three small words: the Golden Army, danced before him, shining with the promise of future glory for his people. He was not so arrogant or filled with hate that he plotted to exterminate all of humanity, but the earth would certainly benefit from a decrease in the population. A very significant decrease.
Nuada permitted himself rarely to dream of a world like the one that had died; small human tribes scattered across the world, separated from each other by their fears, while his people - Elf, Ogre, Troll, Fairy, Brownie, Goblin - were all free to be as one with the world again, without being poisoned by human waste or murdered by human ignorance. His hands tightened into fists as his anger at the humans - an integral part of him for as long as he could remember - flared suddenly. With a minimal effort, he pushed the anger back down to where he kept it, deep inside where it served him, not the other way around.
The prince had always had a temper; everyone knew this and few were surprised when he'd left the courts. Many of them no doubt remembered the spoiled child, or the impetuous adolescent, storming to his rooms and slamming the door as hard as he could manage. Nuada had always felt that if he slammed the door hard enough, others would realize how utterly, truly, deeply angry he really was, and take him seriously instead of turning politely away from his tantrum.
Unfortunately, not even the time he cracked the door and the frame had gotten their attention. That was when he'd realized, finally, what his weapon masters had been trying to drill into his stubborn head for some time: When the maneuver no longer works, change the maneuver.
He had begun to practice subsuming his anger, deliberately picking fights with larger fey and older elves and letting them beat him during practices in humiliating ways. He worked to rein in his fury and keep it banked, letting it smolder out of sight while still drawing strength from its heat. The princeling had grown into a much more controlled and somber young prince, which had gratified his father and weapon masters. Nuala, however, had always felt a faint thread of worry at the change in him. He'd reassured her, of course. No matter how vile his temper, or how harsh his words, the love he bore for her was the soothing water to cool his anger. Nuada had thought it strange that he had to tell her what she should have already understood, but Nuala's concern had not been for herself. Keeping your fire hidden may serve your purposes, brother, she'd said in that sweet, breathy voice of hers. But fire consumes, and when it is locked away, it will devour whatever keeps it confined. I worry about you, Nuada.
No more than he worried about her. She had meant no insult and he had taken none, only kissed her lightly on the forehead and given her a smile, something that few others ever saw from him.
However, because of that locked-away fire, his choice to leave the courts was decidedly not due to his temper. It was purpose, nothing more. Balor had struck a truce with the humans, an action with which Nuada had strongly disagreed. They had already seen humans spreading out across the land like a swarm of locusts. The wars with the humans did not start until humans intruded upon Elven land and refused to retreat or even share. Balor did not understand humans' hollow hearts, yet based his peace and the lives of their people upon them.
The terms were simple: the humans were to stay in the cities and his people would keep to the forests. Even a child could do that, could it not?
Balor thought the humans could. Nuala thought they could. Nuada didn't. Yet his father was not going to listen to what his son had to say - and why would he? Balor was far older and wiser, and more than likely still saw Nuada as a fitful child slamming his door shut. There was only one way to convince Balor, and that was for Nuada to leave, to remove himself from the courts long enough for Balor's memory of his young son to soften with the dust of time. Long enough for Nuada's eventual reappearance to jar with that dusty memory, showing his father the sharp contrast between the child Balor saw him as, and the man he truly was. Only as one adult to another, one warrior to another, could Nuada convince his father to fully accept his counsel.
Secondly, he had to learn the ways of his enemy. Balor had secluded himself within the courts ever since the Army had been sealed away. Humans live brief, bright lives like a flare of the trolls' sparkpowder. They reached out in hunger, not only for raw materials but for inspiration and change. They tired quickly of what they had and were always searching for something new, something more grand or more impressive, or simply more. It would not be very many generations, hardly any time at all for an Elf, before the fabric of human culture and understanding changed. With that change would come other changes. Nuada was not going to hide away and be surprised by them later.
Though doing so felt like swimming in a brackish pond choked with the disgusting effluvia of rot and refuse, he went among them. Shadowing them within their own shadows, he watched and listened. He learned their diverse languages, hating the gutteral sounds and too-simple intonations, but knowing that language was the key to understanding how they thought. Understanding how the humans thought was the key to outmaneuvering them.
He turned into the den, avoiding the one pillar of blocks that Wink had told him was the most precarious. This section of the undertunnels was old, older than most of the "modern" improvements built over the top of it. As a result, the blocks used in the construction here were real stone, not the bastardized amalgamation of sand and cement that the humans used now. The rough surfaces of the blocks were smoothed a little by the passage of time, and moreso by Wink's careful hand whenever the troll stonemaster shaped it a little more to his own liking. The fact that Nuada was surrounded by real stone and not concrete made this den tolerable, but only barely.
Against the back of their lair was a hollowed out firepit, with a raised hearth built from the blocks Wink had liberated from the supports. A small fire burned in the back of the pit, fueled by troll "hot rocks," which burned for very long periods of time at very high temperatures, with no grime or smoke to suffocate the troll using it. The troll market in this region was extensive, and Wink had encountered no problem finding those of his kind who were willing to trade with them.
His friend hunched on the ground beside the squared hearth. Nuada slid his lance, in its halfspear length, from his back and set it against the wall, deliberately letting the silver head clink against the stone. Wink looked up at the sound and nodded in greeting, a small hammer held in the strong fingers of his left hand. Laid out on the hearth were more tools of metalworking: a chisel, polisher, saw and bore. The shiny metal fist of his other arm lay on the hearth, two dents out of what had been several still remaining to be smoothed out of the back of the hand.
"How go the repairs?" Nuada asked.
Wink looked back down and tapped the hammer lightly against the edge of a dent. "Slowly, but well," he replied in a low trill. "I'm afraid my kin's metal meets its match in the natural strength of true stone."
The prince grinned. "You're not losing your touch, are you?"
The troll snorted, "Getting slow in your old age?"
The return sally brought a low chuckle from Nuada. He stripped off his heavy overtunic and shook it out, then folded it twice and laid it on a low shelf made from more support blocks. His undertunic was also black, but sleeveless silk and much more comfortable to wear so close to a fire. Nuada ran his fingers through his hair, pulling it back behind his shoulders and out of his face before settling down on his heels near the much larger troll. His pale face was bathed in gold and orange light from the fire and he gave Wink a broad grin. "I heard them talking today of their Irish inheritance."
Small amber-green eyes blinked and his friend's head turned slowly to look at him, the hammer and dents forgotten. The bristles on his head twitched as his brow furrowed in thoughtful speculation. "The crown piece?"
"It could be no other," Nuada replied, not bothering to restrain his expression of smug triumph. Much of their time in exile, when not studying the enemy, had been spent in searching for the piece of the crown that Balor had gifted to the humans. While unendurably frustrating at first to trace human lines of ancestry through documents, rumor and finally magic, the long search had finally paid off. One human clan by the name of McNeil was the only direct line going back to Lóegaire mac Néill, the last pagan king of Ireland. Lóegaire had been the final surviving heir of the original tribe to whom Balor had entrusted the crown piece.
Unfortunately, the clan of McNeil was scattered throughout the world, largely in America. He and Wink had methodically gone across the country, seeking out every wed- and blood-relative of McNeil. They didn't make themselves known in any way, though Nuada considered once or twice removing some especially revolting descendants from the face of the earth. They spied upon the families they found, alert to any hint of the crown piece. A string of disappointments had finally led them to Thomas McNeil, an investment banker living in San Francisco.
"His wife," and here Nuada used the term lightly, since the woman had three other lovers that he'd seen, "is anxious to leave this city and wants him to "unload" some old family antiques. They argued about it again tonight, and she told him that even if a "half-relic" fetched only half-price, it would still be enough to set them up in luxury in the south of France."
"Half-relic," Wink rumbled. The slit of his mouth quirked in the beginnings of a grin. "Sounds promising."
The prince nodded, permitting himself to indulge in a rare space of satisfaction. It was the most enticing tidbit they'd gleaned in a long time. "The male is going on another business trip. I'll go back there in a few days when he is due to return. I have not the fortitude to listen to that female rutting with her lovers again."
The troll shrugged, his broad muscled shoulders lifting once. "I'll go," he said. "The rutting doesn't bother me, and she may plot with them while her mate is away."
Nuada considered this, then nodded again in agreement. "Very well. I'll not envy you your watch, my friend, but you do have a stronger stomach than I. It would be just like that female to- What is that?"
His tone sharpened suddenly as his eyes noticed a slight movement beyond Wink's shoulder, on the other side of the den. Wink didn't turn to look, he only tapped gently on the metal of his fist, coaxing the dent out of the shining surface. "Nothing of consequence, Sire."
The prince scowled; Wink only resorted to formal titles for official functions and when something was up. Nuada stood with fluid grace and walked across the space. He froze in mid-step before he was halfway there.
Huddled in brown and gray rags that blended in with the concrete was a sleeping child. A sleeping human child.
"Wink," Nuada said, a warning simmering under his tone. A thousand things flew through his mind, none of them good.
The hammer made a few more chiming taps before Wink finally set it aside. "She followed me home," he said at last.
The banked anger began to flame inside the Elf. "You brought a human here, to our sanctuary?" Disbelief roughened his voice, "Why did you not simply kill it?"
Even as Nuada spoke, he regretted the question. He was a warrior, not a monster, and Wink was alike enough in that regard to be his brother. Wink snorted as he gathered up the tools and replaced them back into their pouch, "Why did you take the human infants to the other tribe after we killed the adults of the settlement?"
"I know full well why I did what I have done," Nuada snapped. He pointed at the small shape, his other hand clenching in a fist. "There is no logic to this, no need or strategy. Having any human here, even a miniature one, is a danger to what we are doing."
Wink shrugged again, his craggy features holding a touch of embarrassment, but not shame. "I found her when I was looking for food to replenish our supplies. Just turned around and she was right there, staring up at me. Been a long time since a human's seen me and not run away screaming."
Nuada resisted the urge to rub a hand over his face. "Small humans have families," he finally said. "You should have frightened it to run back to them."
His friend and bodyguard sighed and shook his large head, giving Nuada a sinking feeling that he might not win this argument without pulling rank. That soft spot the troll had for lesser beings was going to be the death of him some day. "She's alone," Wink said. "Too dirty and skinny to be in the care of parents. I didn't want to frighten her."
"What do you imagine will happen, with that here?" Nuada asked him. "You cannot keep a human for a pet. They are noisy and messy and they smell absolutely foul. You must take it back above."
Under the rags, the shape stirred. The prince's fire-gold eyes shifted back over there, looking away only when it gave a sigh and settled back into sleep. Clutched under one thin, dirty arm was a ragged stuffed unicorn. At one time, it might have been bright pink, but now it was a faded peach color patched with grime.
Seeing the image of one of Elfland's most graceful and nobles creatures mocked in an effigy of synthetic fibers made Nuada's stomach turn over in a wave of nausea. He turned back to Wink. "A stray human is worse than a stray dog," he said, lowering his voice to avoid waking the vermin in the corner again. "Feed it but once, pet it but once, and it will never leave you be."
Wink gave him a mildly abashed look. "I already fed her."
Nuada closed his eyes and counted to ten. Twice. Then again backwards. He stalked back to his pallet on the far side of the lair and dropped down on it with an ill temper.
"Couldn't help but hear her stomach growling when she was looking up at me," his friend added.
The prince's lips compressed into a thin line; having a human nearby left a loathsome taste in his mouth. But it was a child, it was helpless, and it was asleep. His honor was too strong to sit easily upon the thought of simply dispatching the creature while in such a state. And Wink had fed it. Nuada's teeth clenched hard and he rubbed his temples with the heels of both hands. Why in the name of the Four had Wink gone and fed it?
"Very well," Nuada finally said, his words edged with precisely how displeased he was. "But your pet is your concern. I will have nothing to do with it. And the moment it makes a mess in here, or makes too much noise, you will take it back above and release it somewhere. Maybe the park. I don't care, as long as it isn't here."
His friend nodded, the bulky shoulders drooping a little in relief.
"And if it gets into my things, I'll toss it into a passing garbage truck," Nuada added. His earlier good mood was gone, and in its place was a sizzling irritation and sense of having his hands tied. Despite his harsh words, chances were that he would not release the human simply anywhere into the city. Better than any Elf, he knew what humans did to each other, especially to the weak ones. If she was truly alone...
He shook his head sharply and lay down for sleep, banishing the thought before it began to form. It was not his place, nor Wink's, to take responsibility for every human brat. It was not their place to take responsibility for even one.
"I'll teach her to behave," Wink said.
"Make sure it's housebroken too," Nuada replied sourly.
