I just finished my first midterm, have nothing else due until next week, so I'm feeling pretty happy about things. Happy enough to update. These are all dreams, I tried to keep them as IC as humanly possible, but being dreams they allow for fantasy and glossing over of negative traits, although not always. All parings featured within this story are normative canon, and I hope portrayed true to what we have last seen of them.

Glad you're all enjoying it, I really hope you continue to. Rogue Witch-the girls of Evo are more sensible than running around giggling and spouting off dirty sex jokes, especially considering I doubt several of them have gotten past kissing. And I refuse to believe that in a house with two telepaths and Wolverine that the guys wouldn't get caught.

And without further ado, the birthday girl.

Within Tower Walls

Katherine hated the tower and her lonely life. All she knew of people was the enchantress who came to her by day and would climb her long, silken brown hair to get up to her. While she knew the enchantress cared for her dearly it was not enough. She longed for more companionship, someone else to enter her lonely world.

Her song was interrupted by the ever familiar cry of, "Katherine, Katherine, let down your long hair."

With a sigh Katherine took her long braid and tossed it out the window. She braced herself against the window, waiting for the weight. For some reason the weight was heavier tonight than it had ever been. She wondered if possibly the enchantress had brought something extra. It was also strange that the enchantress was coming now, she rarely came when the sun had begun to set.

As soon as she heard footsteps within the tower walls, she began to pull up her braid and asked "What has made you return to the tower? I thought you had quitted for the day."

"Your song is what makes me return to the tower."

Startled by the unusual gruffness of the voice, Katherine's head snapped up. Standing in her chamber was a man. She had never seen one up close but remembered spying a few when she had been much younger and free of the tower. He was tall with brown hair to his shoulders and deep brown eyes. While he was attractive he was not supposed to be here.

All of the things the enchantress had warned her of when it came to men entered her head. "Wh-who are you?" She stood and tried to get away from him but found that she was already against the wall. "What are you doing here?"

"My name is Lance, I am prince in this land. I had to see the girl whose voice was so haunting and sad."

She steeled herself against the smile he had thrown at her the second his hand reached out to touch the forelocks that fell out of her braid. She turned from him and strode away. "Throw yourself out of this tower, sir, as I want nothing to do with you."

"You don't even know me," he reminded her as he followed her across the room. "How can you know that you want nothing to do with me?"

Katherine spun on him, furious. "You tricked me into letting you up, how do I know that you are not lying to me about the rest. You may have wished to kidnap me for the aid of the enchantress."

"I assure you I came for you and you alone." He realized that did not come out the way he had planned when her eyes widened and she backed away from him. "No harm will come to you while I'm here. I have no reason to lie to you Katherine."

His hand streached out to touch her face and she quickly slapped it away. "How dare you be so forward?"

"I used your name to enter the tower and I have given you my name." he said, his defenses going up. "There is nothing wrong."

"Everything is wrong," she insisted as she sat rather ungracefully on the edge of her bed and covered her face with her hands. "You are not supposed to be here."

Lance took one of her hands and pride it away from her face. "Sing for me once and I shall leave if you still wish it."

She looked up at his face and his expression seemed to be earnest, but she could not be entirely sure. "Alright, if you swear that you will leave afterwards when I ask."

Obviously pleased with himself, Lance grinned. "If you ask." He lifted a funny wooden object off of his back and sat in the chair by the fireplace as he moved his fingers over the strings that lay across it.

Her retort about his cocky reply was soon lost as Kitty's interest was captured with the object he held in his hands. "What is that?" she asked curious.

It took Lance a moment before he realized that she was talking about the instrument in his hands. "It's a lute. I was going to accompany you. I believe I have the tune figured out."

"You figured it out. After how long?"

"I have been coming a few nights now." He seemed to realize that he said something wrong because his hands came up and he insisted, "Just to sit and listen."

"It's indecent to spy on a lady and not let her know you are there."

He looked at her incredulously. "How was I supposed to let you know when you were up here? And I have let you know now. It is not as if I could see you, not that I would have minded."

She turned away from him, considering heavily revoking her agreement to sing. "You claim to be a prince but you are quite uncouth. What kind of kingdom do you come from?"

He smiled softly and took her hand in his. "One where the rules are not so strict as yours. Sit Pretty Kitty and make music with me awhile. Maybe one day I will ask for more but tonight, just to play."

So she sat and began to sing and he strummed his fingers across the lute strings. The blended sound was unlike anything that Katherine had ever heard, but it sounded so perfect. Her singing became more sure as they continued, and she insisted on trying several songs. He would usually catch the tune eventually and sometimes he would create something new.

As he had predicted she did not ask him to leave but instead she became intrigued by him. If he could do that with a funny looking instrument she wondered what else he could do.

"Tell me," she said, inching slightly closer to him. "What is life beyond the forest like?"

He looked at her confused. "It is life," he said simply. "We do all the same things as you."

"But Lance, you get to see things, do things. I am trapped like a bird in a cage. I want to know of the world. Please?"

"Alright Kitty," he said, setting back against the tower wall. "I live in a grand castle with towers much larger than yours, with doorways and stairs," he teased. "I have to say I envy you for within the walls of the castle one is never alone. People come in and out to and fro, soldiers line the walls and the lists although I do go and parry with them from time to time. Merchants come to sell their wares as do villagers with things to sell. There are fields filled with food ripe for harvest and knolls that are covered in grass which children and lovers oft enjoy. It is life."

She could nearly picture all of the people running around. There were so many more questions that were running around in her brain, mostly for the people she could imagine. "It sounds so lovely."

"You'll see all of it one day," he promised her. He stood and put his lute on his back again. "Well, I better get going. My father would not be pleased if I were not in my bed in the morning."

Kitty was horrified to find her first instinct was to say no. Eventually she found her voice. "Alright. Will you come back?" The second the words came out of her mouth she wanted to clap her hands over her mouth.

He grinned at her. "Sure. I'll return tomorrow night. Sleep well, Kitty."

And so the young Kitty as he came to call her and her prince met nightly after the old enchantress would quit the tower and speak of music and their lives. He would tell her of the outside world and she longed to join him, while she would not be so bold as to say so. It was too indecent.

His company abated the loneliness and made her wish for more. The world beyond the forest with it's lakes and streams, castles and villages, and people of all ages and sizes. He told her of all of the knowledge that was out there, that she longed for, and he told her that he would be more than willing to have her take his lessons.

They continued to play music, and it always made Kitty feel as if she contributed something to the relationship. He would tell her that she was enough all by herself.

"Kitty, Kitty, lend me your hair," he called up to her.

Her hair fell down as always, but when he reached the top the expression of the girl waiting for him was not the one he was used to.

"You are late," she said with a disdainful air. She turned away so that her back was to him.

He caught her around the waist from behind and pulled her too him. "I did not know you had a way to mind the time up here," he teased. "Are you hiding a wind-watch in your skirts?"

She glared at him, not amused by his attempt at a joke. "I can tell by the length of shadows and then the darkening of the wood."

"I had an important errand," he answered finally.

"What is more important than this?"

"Nothing," he said, sounding exasperated.

"Then why would you dare to be late?" Tears began to gather within her eyes. "I was worried about you. What if the enchantress had--"

He clamped a hand over her mouth. "I have come to ask you to be my lady wife; I had to entreat my father for it to be binding."

Tears sprung from her eyes and she turned away from him. Lance watched her as she collapsed onto her bed with her head buried within her hands.

The bird sitting out side the window watched as the prince hovered over the girl on the bed. He looked as if he didn't know what to do. Eventually his hands touched her shoulders. "Don't cry Kitty, please. I thought this would make you happy."

Kitty spun around to look at Lance. The concern in his eyes was palatable and it made her soften towards him. "I am trapped here. I want nothing more than to be able to quit this tower with you and see the world that you tell me of." God how she wanted this. It felt so unfair that she would get the offer she wanted and had no way to accept it. "But Lance, the enchantress she will never let me go. She has bound me to this tower and none but she can release me."

"We will find a way to be together," he told her as he took her face in his large hands. "My father has decreed it a valid and true marriage if you only wish it. And if you are not convinced of its righteousness we can have it blessed by a priest when you come with me to my kingdom. I will see that the enchantress gives you to me if I have to destroy this tower to do so."

She stared at the ring he held out on the palm of his hand. It was real, the offer, the promise. He really wanted her to be his.

"Please Kit."

Kitty looked up again and saw the uncertainty that was mixed with love. "I do wish it so." She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and held on for dear life. "I love you Lance. Swear to me that we will be together in truth someday."

He pulled her back and the grin he sent her was a wicked one. "We may be together in truth now."

Kitty whacked him in the shoulder. "That is not what I meant and you know it. A normal existence with me as your queen."

He had taken her hand without her noticing and had slipped the ring on her finger. "I would die before anything else came to pass."

He sealed the promise with a fevered kiss. And that night in her maiden's bed he made her his lady wife in truth. With another kiss of promise he left her before the dawn came.

~*~

Katherine was pacing the length of her tower room weeks later as she waited for her lover and husband to come to her at night. After what seemed like ages the familiar call came to her and she dropped her long braid out the window for him to climb up.

Once she was free of his weight and he was inside, Kitty began pacing again at a furious pace. She could feel his eyes on her, but she couldn't force herself to stop. She knew what it was she had to say to Lance, but she couldn't figure out how to get the words out.

Eventually he aided her by taking her by the shoulders and turning her towards him. "Kit, what's wrong?"

She bit her lip for a second before plunging into what she had been trying to form words for what seemed like too long. "The only way I shall ever be free of this wretched tower is to tell the enchantress the truth."

A look of fear and panic came into his eyes as his hands framed her face. She knew he hated thinking of anything happening to her that he couldn't stop. "It is too dangerous. She will punish you for this. Let me stay and handle her. We'll figure out a way to get you out safely first."

Lance's love and worry was comforting. She nuzzled her face into one of his palms and lifted her hands to hold his. "You would not last against her, I cannot let you die to save me. Besides she will know anyways," she murmured softly, anticipating his reaction to what she was about to say. "I am with child."

His hands fell away for a moment in shock, before they came around her waist pulling her flush against him, burying his head in her hair. "Kitty."

She felt so comfortable, so loved, it had been what she was hoping for. Kitty had never been loved the way he loved her. The enchantress bound her to the tower, to herself, not allowing Kitty to grow up and spread her wings.

She pushed away so that could look up at him. "In the morn you shall leave me to tell her." He looked as if he wanted to interrupt but she wouldn't let him. "She will be forced to release me. And when you come we shall return to your kingdom and live out the rest of our years."

"How can you be sure?"

"I can't, but it is all we have."

They spent the night together, talking and touching, taking every moment they possibly could. There was no way to be sure that there would really be a tomorrow for them, only hope. Before the sun rose Lance slipped out of the tower and left her alone to

~*~

Unfortunately the morning did come, and the truth was not anything the enchantress wanted to hear. Katherine made her case passionately, but it fell upon deaf ears. The enchantress was focused only on her own wants and needs.

"You ungrateful, spiteful child, I have raised you, protected you from the outside world and this is how you repay me? By falling in love with some ruffian from the woods, ruining yourself on him."

"He is not some ruffian!" she shouted back. "He is a prince and my husband and he will take me to his castle."

The smirk that crossed her captor's face was vicious. "Foolish child," she crooned patronizingly. "The world is full of liars and beggars. I have no doubt he is nothing more than this. I would allow you to stay and to find that life as your penance, but instead I shall banish you from this tower as you and it are now tainted."

"No!" Kitty cried out, terrified at the thought that things could go so wrong. "If I am tainted as you say, if he will only bring me heartache than leave me here with that as my penance."

"Nay," the old woman said, a vicious look upon her face. "I shall leave you with the questions of what never will be. First I will take a souvenir."

The enchantress took out a sharp knife and grabbed the end of Katherine's hair. She instantly began to hack at her charge's hair with malicious glee. As soon as it done Katherine was cast out to a nearly barren desert where she was forced to set up her life. The local villagers allowed her a hut and treated her as a lesser being as most women, especially those alone, were treated there.

While there, she bore her missing husband a pair of children, a boy and a girl. Some of the women of the village aided her with her troubles and for that she was thankful, but she wanted to see her husband and to have him take her and their children back to his palace.

A year had gone by and he had still not come for her.

Katherine walked down to the group well and began to sing as she had in the tower. For some reason it made her feel closer to her lost husband. Maybe she would have to sing to her children more. It might give them something.

"Kitty?"

Her head whipped around to look behind her as the sound of her husband's nickname for her, but Katherine saw nothing. There was no one there. She took a ladle and spooned up a drink of water from the bucket she had lifted to pour into her jug. It had to be the heat that was getting to her. It had been a long year.

Once again she resumed her singing as she worked ever diligently to transfer .

"Kitty?" The voice came to her again. "Please don't let me be crazy."

That time she was certain she had heard the voice of her husband, and now she spotted him. His hair was longer than hers now. "Lance!" She threw her arms around his neck and fell upon him. Tears were streaming down her face as she buried her head in his neck. "Oh Lance, what did she do to you?"

"God is it really you?" his hoarse voice asked.

"Of course it is. Who else…" her voice trailed off as she saw the blank stare of his open eyes. "Your eyes!" she cried out and the tears came again.

Lance's hand awkwardly began to stroke her shorn hair as he held her close. "It's going to be alright now," he promised, giving of a small laugh. "She wasn't exactly wrong. She said I would never see you again, but that's not the same as never having you again."

"It's been so long. There is so much I need to tell you."

His hands traveled down to her belly and he turned his face towards her, worry etched upon it. "The baby?" he asked uncertainly.

Trembling fingers that had a moment ago been wiping at her tears stroked over his face. "There are two. And currently they are being watched by a young maid in the community here that has taken me in. We'll have to get you home."

"Home." The smile that graced his features was one she had missed. "It sounds so nice. When we do, you must send a missive to my family."

"I will."

Kitty wrapped an arm around her husband's waist and his came around her shoulder, pulling her close. She carefully guided him towards the hut she inhabited while he carried the water jug. It was comforting just to have him back, to be in his company again. She suspected that Lance no longer felt that he had much to offer her; he had always been proud. What he didn't know was that he had more to offer her than he could ever imagine.

She instantly set to writing the missive to his family. They would want to hear of his health, of his family. Kitty could only hope that they would accept her as a wife for their son, a mother of their grandchildren, as a future queen.

"They're still as blue."

Lances voice jolted her out of the train of thought she was using to write the letter. "What are?"

"Your eyes."

"Lance?" His deep brown eyes were focused once again, staring at her, more specifically in her eyes. Her breath caught in her throat. Just a few minutes ago she thought his eyes would forever be sightless, and now they were burning with the same intensity she remembered from the first time he had looked at her. "How?"

"I don't know. A miracle of the day," he stretched out a hand for her to take, "one of many."

She allowed him to pull her to a standing position. "Then you shall write the missive yourself. But first, my lord, you must lay your eyes upon your children."

~*~

A.N.-By medieval/early renaissance marriage laws, the consent of the two parties involved would be all that was necessary for the church. Lance getting his father's permission (because Dream Lance is so lucky) makes it more so.

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