Nuada sat on the edge of his bed with his head resting on his palms. He remained there a long time with eyes closed. He was sieving through his memories to recollect something that held any semblance to what the woman had just told him. He couldn't recall much of the histories of elves or humans who had ever been endowed with such power, but didn't altogether trust his knowledge when it came to chronicles. Those were Nuala's field of expertise, as was war craft to Nuada.

He could not dismiss the fact that the human might just be lying to gain few more precious moments of her pathetic mortal life. Nuada scowled. He would test her words and then ponder the source of her powers. Thinking that, he got up and walked into the kitchen area of the cavern. He hastily shifted the assortment of pots in the larder to see if Wink had stored any fruit there, and soon found a couple of ripe peaches inside a small basket. He chose one and tore it apart in his hands to disengage the seed into his hand. He would simply ask the human to demonstrate her powers. If she was telling the truth, she could make this seed germinate into a plant, at the very least.

He walked back to the outer chamber where he had left her. He found her lying on the floor, apparently unconscious, and saw the blood seeping from her deeply cut wrists curling its way into a thin ribbon. He nudged her slightly on the side with his boot. She remained motionless. Nuada swore loudly in Gaelic. The woman had injured herself severely enough to cut through her veins and bring her own death closer. He had not as much as even lifted his sword to her; and here she was, bleeding out on the floor of his cavern.

With Wink gone, he himself would have to mop up the human filth. Hadn't he told her what would happen should she fight against her restraint? Humans were not only weak, but also stupid; their cunning was used only to harm others. It galled him to think that now he would have to tend to her wounds. Of course, he didn't care if she died - as long as there was time enough left for him to satisfy his curiosity regarding her powers. He was now beginning to regret Wink's absence.

Placing the seed into the folds of his sash, Nuada returned to the kitchen. From a large wooden chest, he retrieved a number of glass bottles containing dark liquids, and bunches of dried herbs and roots. Reading the runes etched on the surfaces of each bottle, he selected the desired one, and found a strip of clean linen. Taking these items, he went back to the woman.

He knelt down beside her and carefully untied the knots of the cord. He stared into her face, making sure she was truly unconscious and would not attempt to escape. Satisfied, he scrunched up the piece of linen and dabbed the woman's wrists to absorb the excess blood. He uncorked the bottle and let a few drops of the liquid fall on her wide, bloody slashes. After only a few minutes, the potion took effect, and soon the blood stopped pouring from the wounds. It would take only a few hours for the potion to heal the wound. It vexed Nuada to waste the precious potion which he had acquired after much excursion into the forests of the Amazon to find the native nymph hedge witches who had concocted this particular healing liquid for him.

Nuada could have summoned a healer to look after her, but he refrained from doing so. He was not yet sure what he would unravel from this woman, but he didn't want anyone else knowing about it. He replaced the potion back into its box. He brought a second bottle and poured its contents into her mouth. It made her cough violently, and slowly she opened her eyes.

"Water...please," she mouthed. Nuada's sensitive elven ears picked up her faint sound, and he felt a twinge of pity for the woman. If she had been a non-human female, he would have gone to great lengths to comfort and protect her. But, she was a human and nothing more – an empty hearted creature. However, he wasn't a complete brute, and would not torture her needlessly. Bringing a small pitcher, he helped her to sit up and gulp some water.

Emerald felt better from the moment the water touched her lips. Her vision cleared up and she found herself supported by Nuada. She drank some more of the fresh, delicious water. "Thank ...you," she said.

Nuada jerked himself away from her immediately, then turned her around slowly to meet his eyes. "Do you remember what you told me before?" he asked. Emerald nodded slowly. She felt a lot calmer now that Nuada was keeping his distance from her. "Then prove yourself," Nuada challenged, bringing out the peach seed from his sash. Emerald looked at the seed in Nuada's palm and appeared to be thinking. "I have kept you alive only to test your words, human."

Emerald gulped as she took the seed from Nuada. Taking a deep breath, she placed it on the floor. She held her hand a few inches above the seed and half closed her eyes to focus her mind towards drawing the earth's energy and channelling it into the seed. Nuada watched her, transfixed and made sure not to blink. He did not want to miss any trick she might pull on him. Soon, a tiny root appeared from the seed and within moments, a tiny shoot had begun to grow out of it. Emerald opened her eyes and looked at Nuada. He sat there, eyes focused down as he stared at the tiny sprouted seed on the dark floor.

"What are you?" he immediately asked.

"Human," she said simply.

"You cannot be."

Emerald didn't know what else to say and waited quietly to find out what the prince had in store for her. She looked down at her hands and noticed that the skin around her wrists was coated in dried blood, the gashes having now been reduced to scratches.

"How did they close so quickly?" she wondered aloud. The wounds that she'd had before she lost consciousness were too deep to heal so fast.

"It is a potion of mine, that heals you," Nuada told her.

"What kind of potion?"

"A kind of witch's brew."

"And what sort of water did you give me?" she asked. "I've never tasted anything so fresh and wonderful."

"It was rainwater with pickled dragon's blood."

"Dragon's blood? You gave me..." Emerald rasped faintly.

"Don't be silly, human!" Nuada's snarl made her jump. "It is a species of plant". Clearing his throat, he continued to interrogate her. "Who taught you to use such power?"

"No one. It just came to me one day." Emerald found it hard to describe something which she had suppressed all her life. Only her father had discovered it when she was a mere three year old, and had warned her never to use or show her power in front of anyone. No one could know. He had gone to great lengths to make sure of it by telling her frightening stories of shape-shifting monsters who could make themselves resemble humans, and who ate children who had such powers as hers. The strategy had worked wonders when she was a child, and as she grew up she learnt from experience that saying or doing anything out of the ordinary was contrary to an unwritten law in human society. She had noticed how the neighbours refused to look at her, and she had often heard herself being referred as the "crazy old professor's kid". The children in the neighbourhood avoided her because of her "eerie" and "creepy" eyes. She was thankful to have been home schooled until she was sixteen.

"Dare lie to me, human. When did you learn of this power?"

Emerald brought herself out of her memories and tried to focus on what Nuada was demanding of her. "I was around three, I guess and it had been a long winter that year. I suppose I was just tired of all the snow. My father was in the kitchen and I took the chance to slip out into the garden. We have a wild sort of garden at my house...we always let summer blossoms and weeds grow there. I just felt like placing my hands on the snow and ...I guess I wanted to see some flowers or something...but suddenly I felt this rush of energy surge through me, and the patch of snow around me had melted and there was grass and tiny daffodil blossoms. I was so surprised and excited that I started laughing and jumping. My father, I suppose had seen it all through the kitchen window and I remember him rushing out of the house in his pyjamas and slippers," Emerald said with a sudden giggle. She immediately suppressed it when Nuada's eyes narrowed dangerously."Sorry..," she said, looking down.

"Could your father do the same?"

"No. He told me never to reveal this to anyone and I never have...only he knew about it. And now you, I suppose."

"And why did he ask you to keep it secret?"

"People already thought my father was crazy. He spoke of faeries and the paranormal. If they had seen me doing what I can, they would call me a creep or a freak and worst of all...probably burn me at the stake!" she finished dramatically.

"Then, why did you choose to reveal it yesterday?"

"What do you mean?!" Emerald exclaimed. "The forest elemental was hurting everyone. Hellboy already had that huge gun thing with him and he would have shot at it. If I {hadn't done what I did, a lot more people would have died and the elemental too, by the end of it all."

Nuada raised his brows. "So you decided to risk yourself to protect others?"

"Yes.."

"What have you done with the seed?"

"I kept it in a safe place," said Emerald, avoiding Nuada's piercing gaze.

"Tell me where." When Emerald didn't answer, he bellowed, "Do not test my patience!" and took a step toward her.

"It's in my father's safe. At home."

Nuada remained silent and pondered the woman's words. He had proof of most of what she had said so far. The garden outside her house had gone untended, unlike the rest in the neighbourhood which kept neat hedges and remnants of foreign grass in the snow. The woman's garden was filled with dried brambles and woody vines. It was a perfect place for the garden gnomes who lived in the under roots of the brambles.

Emerald breathed out. Nuada's eyes had lost some of their ferocious intensity as he remained deep in thought, and it considerably lessened her anxiety. In spite of fearing for herself, Emerald found that she was curious about him. Here she was, with a legendary elf warrior; a Bethmooran prince, no less! Somehow, she had stumbled upon a world which she had believed to be lost. She could not help but ask her next question.

"So if you really are Prince Nuada..." she began. Nuada glared at her, but she couldn't stop. "And earlier, the elf lady was Princess Nuala...then is King Balor alive too?"

"He is not," Nuada said harshly. He quickly got up and rushed away into the kitchen. It was the first time that someone had asked him of his father since he had slain him. Almost unnerved by the woman's question, he attempted to control his emotions and regain his composure. How in the world did this human know so much about his Bethmooran royal family, when their memory had faded from the minds of all humans, so long ago? He needed to question her further to solve the mystery behind her familiarity with Bethmooran history.

Nuada looked for something with which he could feed the human. It wouldn't do to have her fainting and exhausted before he was done with her. He found a loaf of bread, broke a chunk off it and walked back to his prisoner.

"Eat," he said, throwing the bread at Emerald's feet.

She snatched it up and began to eat, feverishly. She was ravenous, not having eaten since the previous day, and finished it off as fast as she could. She was done with it in a very short while. "So," she began, taking a swig from the pitcher, "If Balor is dead, who is the king now?"

Nuada glared, taken aback by the casual tone of her voice, as though conversing with him on common politics at a wayside tavern. The nerve of her! "How dare you question me, human?!" he bellowed. "I will be the only one to ask questions here!" He took a step closer and immediately saw the fear returning in her eyes. "Who are you?!"

"I am Dr. Emerald Bruttenholm, an historian and archaeologist," she answered.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-five."

"How is it that you know so much of Bethmoora and the royal family?" asked Nuada. "The glory of my ancestral kingdom has long faded from the memory of men."

"It is not completely forgotten. Some remember the Great War between man and faeries, but unfortunately the facts over time, were corrupted into scattered histories, which then became increasingly inaccurate legends...and finally, were reduced to insignificant, colourful 'faerie tales'.

Seeing that she held Nuada's interest, Emerald continued, "My late father was a researcher of the paranormal, and during his explorations he came across things...certain fae creatures that convinced him that the fae races were real. He investigated further and discovered the ancient tale of Bethmoora. He used to read me the stories of how the insatiable greed of man destroyed the forests and ravaged the earth; how the elves and faeries of Bethmoora stood against those threats."

Nuada's eyes glittered with the harsh memories of that time.

"Something spurred my father's imagination and he began to believe in the story of the Golden Army. He collected and studied all the ancient manuscripts and documents that made mention of Bethmoora. During one excavation in Northern Ireland, he located an underground vault which contained jars and cylinders filled with texts written in ancient Gaelic. He felt it almost a lost cause because he couldn't find anyone to decipher the texts. I was about eighteen back then, when he brought them home. I was able to translate them. We were all surprised because I had never even studied modern day Gaelic. I suppose it's something to do with a mystery gene or a part of my brain that must have unlocked this knowledge of languages."

The prince showed no sign of interrupting.

"It took me about half a year to translate and document all the texts that he'd found. It was so very interesting because the persons and events corresponded with those of the fabled tales. Under carbon dating, the parchments were estimated to be between 2500 and 2000 years old. So, we were able to conclude that we'd uncovered concrete archaeological proof of the existence of the last standing Bethmooran royal family. Of course, I never imagined that you were still alive..."

Emerald stopped speaking and looked at Nuada. Her eyes took in his white chalky skin, glowing yellow eyes, black silk shirt and his red sash bearing its royal seal emblem. She stared at the seal for a long time before pulling her eyes back to his face.

Nuada felt himself being regarded as an object of great fascination. The woman's eyes held his gaze.

"Elves are immortal, as compared to humans. We, the Children of the Earth, age like the stones and earth itself...gently and imperceptibly," he revealed with an unusual calm. "Sometimes, it may take an eternity to wear us down."

Emerald sat still and listened intently. Nuada felt that this human would never stop surprising him. Here she sat, drinking in his every word, and again forgetting her place as his prisoner. He had never met a human like her. Most of them would have been frightened by his appearance alone. The one time she had screamed and pleaded was when he had been rough with her.

"Stop gawking at me, human!" he then spat out harshly at her continued stare.

Emerald shook herself mentally. She hadn't even realised what she had been doing. "Sorry...I didn't mean to. So...umm...that's how I learnt about the royal family. My father had also discovered some manuscripts which were written by a bard in the service of the human king during the time of the War. By comparing the manuscripts with the elven texts, we were able to locate the battle sites. We went on an expedition to excavate the area some two years ago, and this led us to discover an underground cave. Its entrance was marked by Old Gaelic symbols, used by the ancient human tribes to mark territories. At the dead end of the cave, we came upon the skeleton of an ancient warrior. On inspecting it further, we found the golden crown piece hidden within its armour." Emerald halted for a moment, at Nuada's responding gasp. "We believe that he was kin to the king, and had fled the camp after his king had been slain," she finished.

Nuada could not believe that the object of his quest had been resting at Bethmoora, all along. He had searched the entire European and northern African continents, only to find that it had been discovered by humans living in the far flung western land of America. The irony of it all!

"Did you know that fae children are born with knowledge of all fae languages, in addition to ancient Gaelic?" Nuada put the question in his ancient Gaelic, speaking the words slowly, to test her abilities before continuing his interrogation. It was difficult enough to believe that humans had been able to learn so much of what had occurred over a thousand years before their lifetimes, by simply studying scrolls and digging out caves.

"No...I had no idea," Emerald replied in Ancient Gaelic. Nuada reacted with wide-eyed surprise as he heard her speak flawless elven. Things were getting stranger, the more he pried out the human's secrets. But no way in seven seas could this woman be an elf. She looked human enough with her smooth skin and silly style of clothing...except perhaps, for her eyes. He was brought back from his thoughts by Emerald's voice mumbling something.

"What? Speak clearly, human!" shouted Nuada.

"I was wondering...if I could...uhhh...use a bathroom, or something?" she asked, hesitating.

Nuada nodded and got up to lead the way. Emerald slowly hauled herself up off the floor. Her knee ached from her earlier skirmish with Nuada. She hobbled after him into a cavernous chamber, keeping her attention sharp to spot any opening in the dark walls.

...

Author's note: As I may have mentioned earlier, Elvish and ancient Gaelic are used interchangeably here. They mean the same in my story.

Also, the conversation texts in italics are supposed to have been spoken in Elvish. I don't know ancient Gaelic, and I am sure that majority of the readers don't either. So...that's how I will be portraying it.

I need to know how you guys like the story so far. It would greatly help me to write better. (Reviews please xD) Also, who thinks Prince Nuada's a big bully? :P

Beta-reader: Flint and Feather