Put out the light, and then put out the light.

If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,

I can again thy former light restore

Should I repent me. But once put out thy light,

Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature,

I know not where is that Promethean heat

That can thy light relume."

The Witch – funny how that name stuck – stared intently at the disgruntled Prince, reclining majestically across her kitchen table. He found comfort in old habits, she decided, and let it fly, seeing as she really wanted to start this right. Sure, she may not die, but butchering at the hands of an irrate Elf prince was one hassle too many.

His patience was magnanimous in its length – or so he was taught to believe, but Nuada had never much learned the lessons of his life.

"Speak!" his fist commanded upon impact with the hard wooden surface. The tableware clinked and clanked in a pleading cacophony for mercy.

Witch sighed and wondered which beginning would better soothe his high-born temper. With a flick and a wave of her hand, the fire sputtered and died.

"Let me remind you, my Prince, why we all once feared the Dark."

The flickering tongues of fire crawled out of the ashes, like restless half-woken worms, then leapt and crept up her arm, dancing alluringly around her neck, until they pooled in her eyes, where gold and red and blue waged a timeless war, consuming each other with a fury.

"In the beginning", Witch said, "the Dark was great and ponderous, its colossal weight the only obstacle in its quest of devouring the universe. And in its shadow, the world we live in was created, as fragile and pure as the first snowdrop pushing its way through a coat of frost. But then, in a heartbeat that may have lasted for a million years, the dark womb spawned its terrors unto our small corner of the universe to relieve itself of its massive burden. Creation took its toll off the many living things that inhabited our world. Some dwindled and died, others were swain in, corrupted and turned into tormentors of their own kind. And others…others fought back. It was in those times, when Aeglin was but a tender sprout, its magic shielded and carefully guarded by the power of Elfland, that the armies of the Queen of Solitary Rock rode against the Dark and did battle with its evil minions."

Nuada crinkled his great golden eyes and the frown that creased his forehead was nothing less than royal. So was the thundering disdain in his voice when he next spoke:

"Didn't she stile herself Empress of the Solitary Rock?"

Witch flashed her toothy grin at him and approved.

"She did. But later on, the ruling clan of Bethmoora didn't much care for the imperialist undertones and proclaimed her Queen. After all, Solitary Rock was not a kingdom, nor an empire for that matter, but a rock. The highest rock, true, but a rock nonetheless."

"She had great power", Nuada conceded in the name of all the slighted historians of his people. He was ever one to uphold matters of honor.

"She had True Power. And her Rock may have been small, but its people never wavered in the face of Darkness. It is said that she slew the Demon Lord, commander of the Dark Armies, with but a swing of her sword…"

"… Storm Dragon…" Nuada supplied with a faraway look on his face as if he were contemplating the thing at the very moment. His fingers twitched compulsively, but he managed to wrench himself from his reveries when Witch said nothing at all. The fire twinkled merrily in her eyes, the battle a mere dance.

The Prince straightened his stance and hardened his features.

"I thank you for the history lesson. Unless it serves a purpose, you might want to consider making it briefer."

"Cutting it short."

"Did I stutter?"

"That's what they say nowadays. Up above. As if you could cut heaps of millennia into small pieces with which to fill the silver spoons of insolent little princes so they don't choke on the vastness and complexity of their heritage."

Nuada was on his feet and the table an undistinguishable mess against the opposite wall in the blink of an eye.

But Witch did not blink and her eyes of fire did not flinch.

"Put out the light…" Witch sang softly and the bright light of Nuada's temper was put out. Subdued, the Prince sat down again without being asked to do so.

"Perhaps you'd like to tell the story", Witch entreated amiably.

Inside, an enraged animal was seething. Outside, Nuada was as cool as a flowing mountain spring, little bubbles of foam gurgling away as they hit some inoportune rocks on its way down to an unnamed sea.

"The Queen of Solitary Rock went mad from dark fever. It was the poison on the blade," he recounted petulantly.

"Yes, the blade was poisoned by the blood of Darkland creatures. And people were quick to judge her mad. Her Power dwindled and the Sun never rose for her again. Left unshielded, Solitary Rock became the bastion of Darkland into this fair world."

"Until the Sons of the Earth came and conquered it." A victorious smile bloomed on Nuada's blackened lips.

Witch's smile was blacker.

"If by conquer you mean raise an impregnable magic wall around it, then yes, that's what your Sons of Earth did." Appeasingly Witch added "It was a very good magic wall indeed. Goblin blood and troll power, elf magic and dwarf cunning. They also build a fortress."

At that, Nuada squirmed uncomfortably, which only translated to the visible spectrum of hearing and light as a rustle of princely clothes.

"Not quite a fortress" he heard himself say.

"A prison, if you must."

Nuada glared. Witch smiled back. It was a wicked little smile, pitch black and perfect.

"A place for the damned and damnable. Oathbreakers, murderers, sorcerers and the like. You know, the bad."

The ones who were less than golden, Nuada knew. The ones ill-placed at the Court of Bethmoora, for whatever reason. Somehow, his insides began to squirm too.

"The Council…"

"Your Father sentences them there."

"My Father sentences death!"

"And does he rise and deal the fatal blow himself?"

Witch took the grinding of his teeth as an eloquent denial.

"Alysum…" she whispered and had any living creature heard her then, the blood would have curdled in their veins.

Nuada simply clenched and unclenched his fist around an imaginary spear. The motion was comforting, but it did nothing to attenuate the images the word conjured in his mind – bird like heads and cleavers taller than himself.

Witch would have pried, but the light seemed to have gone out from his private little universe. Instead, she sat back in her chair and gently rocked herself to an unheard tune.

She'd been right, his power was true and his heart strong. His madness – she mussed - uncommon in a clansman of Bethmoora, what with their princely, prissy, self-important nature, had forged him into an outcast despite his royal blue blood. And yet, there was an endearing innocence in his beliefs and – at the same time – a perfect evilness in his actions, what with his warped hatred of humans. She knew the choice that flared in his eyes. Exile, though bitter, was a far lovelier illusion than the blunt reality of Alysum and the true horror that lay therein: that cruelty was equally distributed between races. Men were simply greedier, that's all. But Nuada was the son of his people and he wouldn't – couldn't – entertain such notions. But most of all – Witch sighed – Nuada was a warrior, not a murderer, and warriors don't kill their own kind. The effect of education, she presumed.

"You have woken me for Alysum?"

Witch ceased her rocking and the fire flared out of her eyes and back into the hearth, where it squirmed into the ashes to lay dormant.

"It's a far livelier place than this one, for starters. And it's bound to become even more so", she poked at the sleeping element and stocked it back to brightness, "what with the fall of the wall and all that."

Witch chanced a glance Nuada's way and found him unerringly uncaring.

For his part, he felt like a man firmly grounded on solid land after a trip on a particularly trippy sea.

"That cannot be." He believed it too.

"Why ever not?"

Nuada was self-taught in many aspects, but he didn't begrudge the ignorance of others. On the contrary, he aimed to alleviate it whenever the chance arose.

"Because" and here he made sure to inflict tonalities upon his voice that would illuminate even the daftest of creatures which in his experience took the shape of the shopping mall dwellers in the human world "its magic does not waver."

Now, if he happened to enunciate, it was all for the enlightenment of the galactically stupid.

"Really now?" Witch did not sound enlightened. Impossibly so, she seemed to have sunk deeper in her ignorance. Nuada was certain there was a word in the English language that could translate his reaction to such depths of moronity, for his native Elvish had clearly failed him.

Dumbfounded. Flabbergasted. Or even the more colourful gobsmacked. Possibly all three of them together.

"Then tell me, oh great Elf Lord, what's keeping it together? The blood of goblin, the power of troll, the cunning of dwarves, the magic of Elves and all that?"

Nuada nodded dumbly, an escape on his part he managed to rectify by adding an emphatic "Yes!" to her tirade.

"How many goblins, trolls and dwarves still walk the Earth? What royal courts still linger in decrepit old stations of cities that run on electricity, rather than on fairy-magic? How many Kings and Queens and Princes and Warriors left, Nu-ah-tha?"

It was when Witch called him on his given name in that strange voice of hers, hardly pressed by the burden of a half forgotten accent that Nuada woke as if from a spell.

"What light to shine in the Dark, when all the lights are out?"


A/N: Review? Pretty please with chocolate on top? I know you read and I'd really like to know how I'm doing here…

DISCLAIMER: Nuada and Othello are definitely not mine, but one of them is a hell of an inspiration!