Present Day-

Kenzi grew anxious as the canyon walls gave way to constructed stone stairs, the bartender beckoning them forward down a spiraling path into the earth. She involuntary shivered as the keening wind whipped up through the depths of the passage as they descended. The tonal quality of the moaning set her teeth on edge for some reason. After twenty minutes of endless circling with her companion in silence, she looked up, keeping a grip on Lauren. Her practiced eyes veiled over and found their translucent violet tone. It was harder to concentrate and focus on her abilities when she felt weak, the blood hunger strong running through her. The girl bit her lip and ignored it.

Rain bounced off her face as she looked up, trying to measure the depth of their travelling in near darkness; it felt like they were at least a mile below the surface. She could no longer feel the heat of their pursuers but knew they couldn't be far. The smell of wet loam, earth, and moss overwhelmed her senses mingled with a sharp slick taste of silver.

Her blonde companion stumbled and cursed, catching her foot on a large rock, pulling Kenzi off balance for a moment. "I can't see anymore," the doctor stated while pausing a moment, "Trick!"

"Trick!" Lauren's call reverberated around the well of stairs unanswered. Kenzi's eyes glowed dimly in the dark as she looked downwards. "I don't see him, Lauren, I think he may have gotten too far ahead." The shifter grabbed a hold of her friend's hand. "Let's catch up, I'll got you."

Gratefully, the blonde moved her weight against Kenzi as they continued downward into darkness; the pattering echo of their footsteps loud against the silence. Ten minutes passed and the world went from dark grey pitch black.

Sucking in a breath, Lauren clenched her jaw and put one foot tentatively down in front of the other. The bruises on the side of her chest ached and the cloying darkness stopped her breath with mild panic. A flicker of laughter escaped her lips. "Did I ever tell you I've always had nightmares about being buried alive?"

The cat shifter looked at her briefly, the light of her eyes betraying a hint of curiosity before looking down. "No, but Lo, you don't really ever talk about yourself that much."

"Yeah. I guess not."

The silence extended. Kenzi squeezed her arm in understanding. The past always had a hold over everyone. "You wanna talk about it?"

Breath eased out of Lauren, as she faltered a moment. "There are some things you can never take back, you know? Some things you wish you never did, never started. Things you wish you never finished."

Kenzi could smell the woman's sadness as she scanned their path in the dark. It was so different to feel things from people in a different sense. Sharp, ozone-like regret. It was so much stronger in her animal form. She kept them moving, leaving the space for her companion to finish, but Lauren remained silent.

Before Kenzi could poke at her for more of the story, crashing noises from below flooded the entombed stairwell and torchlight flickered upwards, around the shadowed walls. Trick's voice carried from the same direction, most of the words followed with cursing and general irritation. Finding her footing more easy, Lauren pushed forward taking the stairs two at a time, Kenzi close on her heels. They rounded down to a landing where a great stone was rolling back into the wall, its movement shook the earth around them. Rune marks and sigils shimmered brightly in yellow light around the doorway as Falwyn and Leena bent their heads, chanting in some unknown verse.

Trick stood by, pulling the torch from one of the wall scones, his eyes looking beyond into the doorway. Waving the fire in front of him he ducked under and walked into the cavernous room.

As the chanting finished, Kenzi touched the vanishing runes written on the stone, pulling her hand back sharply. Burning sensations rippled up her arm, fading quickly.

"What the hell was that?!"

The wood nymph watched her interaction curiously. "It's the silver, young one."

Rubbing her hands together, the girl walked into the vast space, trying to see beyond the dark; Trick had moved farther in, his light a small pinprick in the inky black. Leena touched Lauren's arm and smiled a bit. "Go in, dear, quickly."

Falwyn followed whispering in hushed, almost reverent tones. "I've never seen the Origin Cave before."

The powerful fae witch looked towards the nymph. "As well, you shouldn't. This place has been sealed away for a very long time, with purpose." She pulled both of her arms forward sweeping them in front of her in an arch. "Rabhchán!"

Lauren gasped as the entire cave was illuminated in flooding light. Hundreds of thousands of runes burned fierce white rays, one on top of another, a cacophony of speech long dead, left on walls hidden from the world. She had to shield her face against the visual onslaught as her eyes adjusted to the relentless bright. Kenzi mewled her discomfort in front of her, "Jeeez, Glenda, warn a girl, why dontcha?"

Leena looked at Lauren who's eyes were captivated by an enormous dark blue pool of water, hundreds of feet in length, the edges extended almost to Lauren's feet. Silvery light shown from far below, mirroring its played out patterns as she held out her hand to refract them in wonder.

Kenzi turned towards Trick, who had crossed halfway across the lake messing with the red stones embedded in the rock wall. "Hey barkeep, is this place safe?"

"No. But it is the only place we can hold off the gregori for a time." The massive stone doorway where they had entered suddenly came to life as the enormous boulder rolled back into the wall, sealing them in with an ominous crashing noise as the air once again became still.

Leena and Falwyn, began to chant at sealed wall, invoking wards they had earlier disassembled.

"But, what is this place?"

"Hidden." Trick's voice echoed against the walls, hollow. "Lauren, what do you know of our history?"

Lauren shook her head, as if to rid herself of the visual fascination of the water that had captivated her for a time. As the slight man walked back towards them, she approach him. "I'm sorry, not as much as I would like, I'm afraid. Most of my study on your kind as been into the biological and social aspects of your natures."

"This place is no ordinary cave. It is the gateway to our UnderLands, the birthplace of all fae. It's a land of dreaming, a shifted realm of magic, where the Progenitors first created us. "

Kenzi popped by the human's side, eye wide at the revelation. "Holy Shit! Are there unicorns down there?"

Trick ignored her completely, and turned back towards the lake, eyes clouded.

"You've heard of the stories of the fairy folk who lived under the hill?"

"Tuatha de Dannan, yes."

"This is our gateway, both existing and not, in many places and also in none. Our once home is now a prison for one of two ancients." Trick picked up a stone and dropped it into the water, watching it sink and vanish from sight, lost for a moment, before continuing.

"The first was powerful, strong. He prided himself on control and fidelity to order, death over life. He made many of us from elements in his darker image. We loved him for his decisive action and dedication to power. The second was more whimsical, a creative force rather than a creature of habit. She made many of us what we are from the living world around her, and we called her White Mother. But she was different from Finvarra, Lord of Death. She loved humans, and frequently took their form upon the lands above. Bonding with one in particular, she made a race of flawed, noble mortals, gifted with nothing more than long life and keen minds."

Trick paused and looked at his fellow fae. Leena continued for him as she glided across the cavernous room. "The Dark King despised his sister's creations. You see, they were an abomination to his race, a mingling of the divine with the mundane."

Lauren took in the words, trying to extrapolate how they connected together. "And the gregori, how are they tied to this? I've never seen anything like them from the fae I've encountered or the books I've studied."

His shoulders bowed forward, as if under a heavy weight, as Trick came to rest in front of her. "You wouldn't have. They are powerful servants and very rare; underfae of the dark. Valkyrie fae who fail their dawning become sexless creatures, enslaved to beckoning call of the one who made them. Their forced allegiance comes with one chance for freedom. Eradicating the last of a sister race their former selves once protected. The mortal Olliathar."

"I don't understand. That's what he called me, but I'm not fae."

Leena looked over at Trick as he paused unanswering.

"Finish it Trick. She deserves to know."

Sighing deeply, he walked towards the blonde and took her hands in his. Looking up he found her eyes and smiled slightly.

"No, Lauren you are not fae, but your heritage is far from common. It's the reason that Ash originally bound you to him, the reason Lachlan forced your recommitment; it is the reason why some fae say you can never be free."

"Those of us made from light, from the elements that our Mother gave us, promised Her children protection, when we left the lands below and joined them above the earth. But when we left the worlds below, we were not alone. Our dark brothers and sisters followed us. Accidents seemed to follow the Olliathar and their descendants. Many of the them abused their position and gifts, vastly superior to the normal humans that walked the earth. Some went mad, marked by the passage of days slower than those they loved. Many were slaughtered by those of our dark kin, a suitable prize for their king. The noble house of mortals dwindled and faded from this world, a single lineage remained...until at last, one."

"You."

Kenzi's eyes grew wide as Lauren gulped back her disbelief and the sickening feeling in her stomach. Anger crept in like ice through her veins, slow, cold and merciless. Stuttering out, she tried to make connections with uncertain memory. "I never knew my parents, they were killed when I was very young... only my older brother."

"I'm sorry Lauren, but he was never your brother. He was your fae keeper. Sent by the Ash when you were very young to test your intelligence, your adaptability and verisimilitude. You life has never been yours, not since the moment of your birth."

Lauren snapped, unable to hold in the fire that raged in her blood. "Why was it so important to keep me? As a slave no less?! God Trick, I did EVERYTHING for you and your kind! WHY?"

"To protect ourselves."

"I was never a danger to you. I gave my word to the Ash."

Trick turned away from her in that moment, looking out across the expanse of water. "The Dark King laid prophecy on the winds when the White Mother created your half breed race, one that has lasted millennia. That his heir would usher in a new age and kill the last Olliathar; in doing so the power of the fae would be ultimate in the dominion of humans on this world. The Natural Order of Things."

He shuffled to the edge of the water, picking up a white stone from the smooth bank of gravel, unmarred by impurity. Turning it in his hand, he continued. "The White Mother could not gainsay his curse, so she laid one on top of his. Finvarra's progeny would be born, a creature of love and lust, dual in nature. And in her love, she would rend and remake the world. When the last Olliathar dies, all fae will walk the doorways of death."

Leena touched Lauren's face, looking deeply into her eyes. "All fae, light and dark."

Pained, Lauren looked at the fairy witch, understanding slamming the truth of it home. "But...but, Bo is..."

Kenzi barreled in eyes blazing, grabbing a hold of Trick's lapel. "Bo would never harm Lauren." Her vehement response evoked sudden movement from the blonde as she stayed the shifter's hand from its firm clawed grasp.

The ancient barkeeper veiled his eyes when he saw the young one's anger. "It's already done, written thousands of years before you were born. The question is not if but when. And when all of this comes to pass, all of us, as fae...we will be no more."

Whistling noises broke the silence of the chamber, impacting the door way, the explosive concussion muffled by wards and rock, knocked down streams of pebbles from the walls. Falwyn backed away from the warded stone. "Our time is ending sooner than we might think. We make our stand here."

Trick looked at the door and then to Kenzi. "It's time then." Chanting an incantation over the underground lake blood runes alight, Trick gestured towards the doctor. "Where I send you, Lauren, where you go will be either the beginning or the end of us. But if you stay here, you will surely die."

"If I die without it being Bo's hand, your geas would be broken, your people freed. Why would you save me, Trick? Why did the Ash save me?"

"Because the office of the Ash has always been charged with your protection, as the White Mother willed it." Smiling, he reached out and grasped her hands inside his small calloused ones. "And because I am not the same fae I once was. Because everything has pushed us here, in this time, in this space together. Because if you do not go, I will lose my granddaughter to the darkness forever. Because I believe in your extraordinary ability to see Bo as the pure being she is instead of the trappings of what she is."

"You mean both of us, right Trickster?" Kenzi came up to stand next to the doctor. "Cause I'm all about that succubus and her pureishness. Lady Gaga pure."

Sudden, sharp slams ripped the runes as Leena joined Falwyn near the door, invoking the power of the cavern to reinforce their only shield.

"Of course Kenzi, but only those marked by the dark may enter this place now. Show me your mark, Lauren. "

"Hey, were Lauren goes I go!" Kenzi shouted, emphatically waving her arms around.

The older fairy look back at them. "One human? That's suicide, Trick. Kenzi has drunk from Lauren's lifeblood. The vampiric taint gives them a bond no other would. The gateway will recognize them both and allow them to pass."

"Sweet!" The goth grabbed Lauren's hands as they approached Trick, Lauren pulling down her shirt to expose the brand. The Blood King cupped water from the lake in his hands and dripped the liquid, contacting the mark and as it glimmered and slid down her skin. She shivered. He again reached down and cupped water from the lake, pouring it over Kenzi's head. The silvery glow of the Underlands silhouetted Kenzi's form in an otherworldly glow. Trick smiled.

Rushing sounds of thousands of wings poured through the cavern, as a flock of crows burst from the surface of the water, feathers sleek with wet, hitting the runes on the wall as they vanished.

Leena looked around them, "Those are his messengers. Bo's time is very near." Addressing Kenzi, she continued. "Keep Lauren safe, little one, and when you return, I will grant you the one thing others cannot."

"Backstage tickets with Taylor Swift?"

Snorting back a retort the fairy witch gave her a wicked smile as she pulled her attention back into the wards. "Watch your thoughts in the UnderLands, Lauren. Fears and nightmares become his tools there. Conquer your fear and he will not be able to touch you."

Lauren sucked the air through her teeth as she grasped Kenzi's hand and slowly waded in. The ice cold water made her draw in a deep breath as the goth shifter gasped beside her. Stones began falling from the ceiling as the pounding of the walls grew fierce. Trick kept his eyes on them as the growling beyond their chamber grew louder and more insistent. He pulled his daggers and turned to see the stone rolling back, an onslaught dark heralds pushing against the light barrier, gnashing their teeth as the light.

Kenzi looked towards Lauren when they had gone past where their feet could touch the bottom. Teeth chattering, she clasped the woman's other hand. "Are you ready?"

"Never more ready, let's go." Counting to three together, on the last they breathed one last gasp of air and dove into the inky darkness.