A/N: Hi! Did you miss me? Or the story at least? There is a huge laundry list of reasons why this took so long, but I won't bore with them.

Thanks always to my dear and beloved beta, old ping hai, who is always there with a helping hand and an encouraging word. These stories would be no where near as good without her.

And yes, I did give an awesome reason why Sherlock is reckless as hell.

Happy reading!


War. We often fought before the Great Desolation but nothing like how we fought afterwards. There are a few of us who believe that the Government encourages this. The more we squabbled among ourselves the less energy we had to rebel. And we had tried to on a couple of occasions, each with the same disastrous effect. We lost. We always do.

This particular war was senseless. The kifmer are bastards. While they know that it takes a conscious choice to die, it doesn't stop them from going after the taelár. I suppose the prevailing thought is to take out the healers so the war doesn't drag on forever. Never mind that each army is only allowed a set number of the taelár. Which is, of course, what makes the kifmer bastards to begin with.

Being a dúdradae had its advantages. I was trained to fight as well as to heal. I am a frontline spears-man, though I do have a sword in case someone actually makes it past my spear to close quarters. With me I also carry two daggers. They were my mother's and were never meant to kill. They are implements of my healers' craft. Where human doctors use scalpels, the taelár use these daggers. And as with fae weapons, they are cold iron. The only thing that can break our skin.

Much of the morning is a blur for me, but I remember fighting to keep the opposing kifmer away from our taelár. Sweat poured down my back and brow. Blood crusted in my hair, my blood singing with the tang of cold iron in the air. This was my home. On the battlefield.

I thought I had managed to push them back, but it was a ruse. I had stopped to catch my breath and suddenly I felt it. I looked down and in my side was a sword, but before I could do anything about it, the wielder lifted it up. It brushed against my rib and I screamed in pain. I looked up and the swordsman grinned evilly. That's when I felt it. When he skimmed along the bone, he had broken off the tip inside. I coughed up blood as I stumbled back.

"Filthy dúdradae, you should have been wrapped in cold iron and dropped into the Channel," the kifmer growled. He lunged forward and grabbed me by my collar. He whispered in my ear, "But at least your mother was a good fuck." He laughed as he pushed me to the ground.

I got up and scrambled away from my father. I ran blind and somehow I must have stumbled through one of the portals into your world, for suddenly it was pissing rain when it had been a clear summers' day only moments before. While England is known for such things, the Underland is not.

I hobbled through the underbrush, my hand pressed to my side. When I could move no further, I found a mostly dry spot under a tree and slumped against the trunk. I tried to take in air, but my lungs burned from the torment of the wound and my attempts to escape my fate. So, I did what any good soldier would do, and swore in every language I knew.

Above me I heard a small voice say, "That was French, German, Spanish, Italian, Farsi, Arabic, Latin, and some language I've never heard before. Is it made up?"

I looked up to see a small boy standing in front of me, his dark eyebrows furrowed over icy blue eyes in confusion. His curly dark hair stuck to his forehead at odd angles and I tried not to laugh. Not just to spare the boy his feelings, but because it would have aggravated the gaping hole in my side.

"It's not made up, it's Coptic," I told him.

"Ancient Egyptian?" he asked skeptically.

"Very good," I coughed. "How old are you?"

The boy frowned. "No one has spoken that for a couple hundred years, at least."

I had to laugh that time, though it quickly turned into a cough. "No speaks Latin either," I informed the youth.

"Doctors and scientists do," he argued.

"They may use it on a daily basis, but they don't actually speak it." I smiled when he grudgingly accepted that.

"Where did you learn Coptic, then?" the boy tilted his chin up obstinately.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

He crossed his arms over his chest and pouted. "That's what everyone says. Or that I'll understand when I'm older. No one tells me anything, I'm smart. I'm five."

I blinked at him slowly. If I had pegged an age for dark-haired young one it would have be older, seven or eight. At least. He was tall for his age with intelligence shining through those icy blue eyes.

I leaned forward. "Can you keep a secret?" He nodded. "I leaned Latin from the legionnaires and Coptic from the pharaohs." His eyes went wide. He opened his mouth and then closed it when nothing seemed to come out.

After a moment, I could see the little wheels turning as he thought of something to say. Finally he huffed, "Prove it."

I smirked. "Come closer."

He moved as close as he could without standing on my lap. I removed my hand from the wound and his eyes lit with interest instead of revulsion.

I chuckled, "You really are something special, aren't you?"

The boy leaned back a little then, a frown creasing his brow. "You'd be the first to say so."

I cocked my head to the side, "What makes you say that?" I asked concerned.

"No matter what I do, Mycroft's gone and done it first. Done it better, even."

I huffed out a short laugh. "Your older brother I take it?" He nodded, mutely. "Well, you get to see this first, then."

He leaned in close. While I had been talking to this bright young thing, I had been slowly working out the shard with my mind. Once it was out I concentrated and soon blood vessels closed, tissue knitted back together, and skin stretched out over renewed muscle, leaving only a shiny scar in its wake.

"Do you believe me now?"

"Why couldn't you do that before?" he asked, still skeptical.

I maneuvered my hand so he could peer into my open palm. He looked at the bloody tip with interest.

"Do you know what that is?"

"A small piece of ferrum," the dark-haired youth huffed with pride at knowing its chemical name.

"Very good," I praised and he preened. "It was preventing me from healing myself."

"Are you a vampire then?" he asked.

"That would be silver, but good guess. Of all the creatures you lot came up with, I am grateful that those don't exist."

Finally he made the correct connection. "Taelár."

My eyes went wide. Most humans would have called me a faerie. "Where on earth did you learn a word like that?

"I found a book about them in my father's library. I read it. It was very sense-sen-ation-al." His face screwed up at the word.

"Sensational?" I asked patiently. He nodded. "It didn't have any facts at all. It kept saying things like 'we believe' or 'we surmise'. That, and it said they were evil. I had never met anything that was truly evil." His face scrunched up again. "And I doubt my father knows nice people."

I was impressed by his wisdom. "And what make you think they aren't nice?"

"Because Father isn't."

I rocked my head back like I had been hit. A boy his age shouldn't know something like that so absolutely.

"Does he hurt you?" I asked as bile rose up in my throat. The boy nodded. "What is your name?"

"Sherlock," he muttered.

"Your full name, Sherlock." I shouldn't be doing this, I thought.

"Sherlock Alexander Holmes."

I got up on my knees and he scuttled back a bit. "Sherlock Alexander Holmes, I grant you the blessing of a dúdradae. You will be protected." I leaned forward and kissed his forehead.

He touched his head with his fingers, his mouth open and his eyes wide. He pushed himself up and dashed back out into the rain. He vanished into the mist and he was gone.

That was only the first time I met this outlier known as Sherlock Holmes.