A/N: By far, the majority opinion in reviews so far seems to be a) a bit of disappointment that thus far, the Doctor hasn't kicked Irial's teeth in, b) concern over what Amy might be doing with Irial, and c) great curiosity over how the Doctor is going to soothe his savage soul just at this moment in time. All good and valid questions. All I'll say about this chapter is...THE PLOT THICKENS...
Rye thoughts aren't good thoughts, boys
Rye love isn't good love, boys
Have I ever told you 'bout the time
I took it and took her for granted
OH BOY
So let's take some
And take them all for granted
OH BOY
~ from "Rye Whiskey" Punch Brothers
Drinking makes such fools of people, and people are such fools to begin with, that it's compounding a felony.
~Robert Benchley
I.
As Irial and Amy disappeared into the ballroom, the Doctor continued to sit where she'd shoved him. He didn't trust himself to do anything else just then. The storm of emotions raging inside him demanded too many different actions, and all of them were things the last remaining shreds of his control knew without a shadow of doubt that he'd regret later.
Let her go. Let him go. Even let them go, if that's what's happening. Because if you get up right now, and if you go after them...
He lay back on the pale stone, put the heels of his hands into his eyes, pressed hard.
A total screwup. Not what I'd intended at all. How do I keep doing this with Amy?
A short time later, a soft rustling of fabric across stone whispered to him, and he cringed internally. He recognized the presence that accompanied it.
Áinfean. Bloody hell. I am not in the mood for coquettish flirtation. I don't even think I can drag up basic politesse right now. Go away little faerie. I'm of half a mind to rip off your wings...
He did not move, did not remove his hands from his eyes. He heard her settle on the stone wall beside him.
"Your mate? She will suffer no lasting effects?" Her voice was soft, somehow strangely subdued.
"No. I think not. She should be fine in the morning." He took his hands down, folded them across his chest to stare up at the unfamiliar constellations. He focused his concentration on figuring out what stars, what worlds were whirling above him. It was an exercise in control.
"She left with Irial." It was not a question.
He closed his eyes briefly, the fingers on his hands flexing lightly. "Yes. He was...kind enough...to escort her upstairs." He knew he didn't keep the strain out of his voice, but since what he wanted to do was smash the furniture, pull down the Citadel stone-by-stone, he thought he was doing remarkably well, really.
Áinfean rose, walked over to the table, picked up the overturned glass, poured a measure of the golden wine into it, brought it back, held it out. For long moments, he simply lay looking at her.
"Drink it, Doctor. Your tolerances are as ours to Lunacy. And while I can understand that you find my offering of it to you at the present time possibly in poor taste, it strikes me that you could use something just now."
She can feel it radiating off me like heat from a cast-iron stove, can't she? His lips quirked in a sardonic, slightly bitter twist, and he sat up. He took the cup from her hand, and he looked at it, looked at the light liquid that shimmered inside and then back at the concerned eyes of the Rishellian Queen who stood beside him.
"'What's drinking?/A mere pause from thinking,'" he quoted, and he downed the cup in a swallow and held it out to her again.
II.
By the time she got to the Fighter and the Fool, Amy was leaning heavily on Irial.
"Milady.."
"Please don't call me that," she panted. "Makes me feel like I should be wearing one of those pointy hats with the scarf on it..."
He laughed softly. "As you wish it. Amy, then?"
"Yeah...that."
He hesitated, still, the use of her first name clearly going against his ingrained behavior, and perhaps, meaning something more to him than she had at first thought about. "Amy...Amy, do you wish me simply to lift you and carry you upstairs? It would be the most expedient way."
They had paused between the massive statues and she looked at the great pale curving expanse of stairs that remained between her and her bedroom. Her legs were trembling already, and she felt so tired that just the thought of climbing one of those wide stairs made her want to weep.
Pride, Pond. Pride. Chin up. You're tough. You can do stairs. There's no reason to be ridiculous about all this.
She took a deep breath, tightened her grip on Irial's arm and looked up into his concerned silver gaze.
"No. I'll be alright. I can do it. Let's just go very slowly, okay?"
They crept up the first rise as if she were an eighty-year-old with a broken hip. The second was even harder. By the time it came time to attempt the fifth, the clutched weakly at his arm. He arched a brow in question.
"You know how you asked me a minute ago about the carrying? And I said no?"
He nodded.
"Yeah. I think I might have gotten just a wee bit ahead of myself."
Her knees gave out, and he caught her up in his arms as though she weighed nothing, shaking his head, carrying her up the remaining stairs quickly and nimbly. Above them the glowing blade of the Fighter and the illuminated globe of the Fool lit their way. The two massive stone figures impassively looked down on their passage.
III.
Áinfean refused to give the Doctor any more Lunacy after his fifth glass.
"Even for a Rishellian, that is far more than enough. In fact, my Lord Doctor, even a Rishellian would be facedown in a flowerbed by now, truth be told. Your stamina is most impressive."
He grinned slyly. "Not Rishellian, though, am I? Gallifreyan. Dual-hearts. Respiratory-bypass system. All sorts of gadgets and odds and ends you don't have, my pretty little Faerie Queen."
They were sitting at one of the tables now. She had a glass of her own, one that had been Irial's, and she was sipping from it slowly, watching him with amusement.
"La, sir. No one has called the Empress of Rishell by that title and been allowed to live for ten centuries or more."
He threw back his head and laughed. "What? With those wings? You're the embodiment of the Faerie Queen if ever there was one. Answer me this. Just why does that title always make you Rishellians twitch and squirm? I never understood that."
She tilted her head, staring out over the night-dark countryside. "It is...a name of despair for us. It goes to a time in our past when we had a certain glory...and then we lost it. So now to be called 'elf' or 'faerie' is a painful reminder of a past triumph turned to ash." She looked at him directly, placed her hand over his, fingers squeezing tightly for a moment, and her voice grew intent. "Someday, though, Doctor, someday soon, I think we are going to reclaim that birthright. And on that day, I will be proud to have you stand beside me and call me the Faerie Queen again."
He looked at her, narrowing his eyes, trying to get his befuddled brain to wrap around her words. There was something in them, something he should be remembering about the history of Rishell, about ...about...
The Lunacy would not let it come. The glittering of the stars distracted him, the sound of the night creatures, of the wind in the trees, of the music the planet turning beneath him spinning through space and time, made him sigh as he felt it all washing through him gently.
"And now, Doctor, I think it's time to take you upstairs." Her voice held vast amusement, endless secrets.
He grinned. "Sure. I just bet Pond is wondering what's happened to me."
Áinfean took his hand in her own and pulled him toward the stairs. He did not see the cat-satisfied smile on her face as they went.
IV.
Irial had carried her to her room, but she remembered very little of the trip. She found herself coming back to consciousness as someone was laying her on her bed with strong gentle hands. The hands tucked covers around her, smoothed the hair off her forehead gently.
"Doctor?" she murmured sleepily.
The hands paused minutely, withdrew.
"Nay, Amy. I am sorry. He is...not here."
Her eyes flew open, startled. Irial. I'm in my nightie, in my bed, and that's Irial... She clutched the covers closer.
He smiled that small smile, that quirking of his lips. "You need not fear, milady. Your privacy has not been invaded, I swear it. The servants attended to your...personal needs. I returned only just now to assist them with getting you into the bed for sleeping. You see they are efficient, but not terribly strong, and they did not wish to disturb you in getting you into the bed properly."
Amy remembered being herded into the bath, hands propping her up in a shower. She vaguely remembered a couple of someones helping her into these clean clothes, holding her upright on a stool long enough to brush out her long hair. There had been a great deal of chattering around her, some hissing, some noises that sounded like other languages, hands that had not been hands, all gentle as they prepared her.
She turned her head on the pillow, felt tears form despite her intention to fight them. "Where..." her voice broke, and she licked her lips. Irial brought a glass of water to her and she sipped some. "Where is he?" she asked when she could speak.
He looked at her a long moment, tilted his head slightly. "Do you not know? Can you not find him through your bond?"
She felt embarrassment heating her cheeks and she shook her head. "I...don't...I don't know how to do that."
"Ah." His face became totally unreadable, and he looked away toward the night-darkened window. "I see. I do not know how the bonds of the Lords of Time function, Lady Amelia, but ... a Rishellian would find his bondmate by concentrating on her. That would allow the bond between them to give direction, like a strong tugging so the searcher could find."
She thought back to the way she'd found the Doctor in the TARDIS when she'd wanted him before. The feelings sounded very similar. Interesting... Why hasn't the Doctor ever taken the time to tell me these things?
She tried it, got a vague and hazy impression of open space, stars, stone... Still the terrace, then...
"Irial?"
"Yes, Amy?"
"Do you have a bondmate?"
His mouth twisted, and she feared she'd stepped into that forbidden pool of protocol again.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ask something that's rude...I..."
He held up his hand to forestall her questions.
"Nay, Amy. You need not fear offending. Remember what I told you earlier? Nay. I have no bondmate, nor am I permitted any. I am the Raven Lord."
She looked at him in puzzlement. "Okay, Irial. Pretend I'm not from Rishell and that I don't get that for a minute."
Real amusement flashed for a moment, disappeared. "Forgive me. It is forbidden for the Raven Lord to take a mate to himself. It is part of the price of his office. I am to be unbiased in my seeing for the Empire. Even as the Empress is of all the Houses and of None, so, too, must the Raven Lord be. Eventually, though, Áinfean will be allowed to carry on our family line, take a mate and companion if she so chooses."
A missing piece clicked into place for her. "Áinfean is your sister. She's your sister."
"Yes. Of course. My birth twin. Most Rishellians are born twinned. It is rare not to have such a one who shares your birth. Did you not know this?"
Amy had noticed several similar-looking Rishellians walking the Citadel halls, but then again, the Rishellians were all so striking that after awhile, they dazzled the eyes. She'd begun to think the similarities she was noticing were all in her head.
She kept coming back to Irial and the bondmates, though...
"Irial, you will truly never be allowed to have a bondmate? That seems so...cruel..."
He shook his head. "I think on your Earth there is a custom of religious people forswearing the taking of mates to strengthen their devotion and their focus, is there not?"
She nodded, unsure at this interpretation, but deciding it was close enough.
"This, then, is approximately the same thing." He hesitated, reached out, ran one fingertip down her cheek, tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "Do not be so sad for me, Amy. It is the life I have chosen, and it is a life with many rich and wonderful compensations, I assure you."
Liar, she thought.
He smiled again, that flicker of quicksilver amusement darting over his features.
Does he hear me? Her heartrate increased. He shouldn't be able to hear me...
His face settled into a calm, still slightly smiling mask, and he met her eyes tranquilly.
"Come and see the Raven House tomorrow when you are feeling better, Amy. I would delight in showing it to you. Then you will be able to see for yourself that I am no lonely old black bird sitting up in my tower."
She smiled. "I might do that." She felt the weariness begin to take her over again.
He rose, bowed, lifted her hand, pressed a light kiss to her fingers, and said, "Until then, milady."
And he turned to go.
V.
The Doctor blindly followed Áinfean. He was much too much caught up in the beauty of the Lunacy, the wonder of the night that sang around him like a delicate symphony to pay attention to where she was leading him. He fully expected at every moment to see the corridor that held his room, fully expected at every moment to be able to go in and tell Pond all about the magic that was flowing through his veins. He wanted to see Pond just now more than anything.
'Cause I bet... I'll just bet...she's even more lovely just at this very second than she's ever been before. I bet her strawberry mouth is at its most perfectly ripe in this moonlight. Oh, how I want strawberries and moonlight tonight...
So it was perhaps understandable that he was a bit confused when the chamber he wound up in was vast, echoing, flooded with moonlight through soaring windows, and not his own. The bed in the center was round, draped in slick white silk like a field of enticing ice, and he walked unsteadily towards it in puzzlement.
"Áinfean, I say, Áinfean," he called, "I think you've put me in the wrong room. This isn't where I was before..." His voice echoed slightly off the high arched carved ceilings of the chamber. There was something so familiar about this room, about the way water was reflecting against that ceiling from the fountain on the small terrace outside... Only last time, wasn't this room done in bolder hues, something...red and gold, maybe?
"Nay, Doctor. This is exactly the right place for you to be right now. You need care only I can give you. Trust me," her voice was a throaty purr coming from just behind him. He turned around to find her lush and naked, black hair tumbling around her shoulders and opal wings. She ran her hands up his lapels and slid them into his hair to pull him down for a kiss.
The Doctor's drinking quote is from Byron.