I'm sorry this chapter is so late; I needed to get a little distance between it and me so I could fix it up properly. Still not entirely satisfied, but, eh, when'm I ever? ;) Thanks for your patience and your reviews! And forgive the rather longer than usual notes, please....

Jenna, no, I don't believe you have reviewed before...and, trust me, I'd remember! Thank you so much for your feedback; all my hopes for this little story were caught in your words...thank you...and please, please review again! Black Knight 03, I'm glad you think the fairy tales are working together well; sometimes they feel so piecemeal when I'm writing...I hope you enjoy this chapter too. I think I've always been interested in fairy tales, JustAGirl4, not sure why. As for the fairy tales in this story, while I'd like to say I was being original using all these lesser known ones, really I picked 'em for the lessons Lizzie could gain from them...lotsa research involved. ;) Still, I have to admit even I was surprised by how the characters and lessons and story have spun themselves together independent of all my forethought. Elementals, y'know I didn't even think about that...although I do have to admit to imagining my life a fairy tale from time to time. 'M not sure which character I'd be, though...a mermaid, a bard, maybe a sorceress? :D swim6516, trust me...it's not effortless! But I'm glad it feels that way! :) As for criticism, when you've got it go right ahead and dish it, babe. Not that I'm complaining if you don't...nope, nope, nope. Yeah, Green-Queen's sorta nasty, pixievix, but comeuppance is coming, promise. ;D Ziny, sorry this chapter's so late, but I hope you like it...and ditto on the peace, love, and music!

Whew. Now, onto chapter 13. Just...don't hate me, 'kay?

Chapter 13: The Invitation

When Lizzie next opened her eyes, she was alone. Well, she amended, sitting up slowly, not entirely alone. In the pale violet pre-dawn, she could make out Arevhat some few feet away, lounging prettily asleep on grass the same shade as her dress. Wrinkling her nose, Lizzie turned away, eyes seeking a much more welcome figure.

There, at the top of one of the rising hills beside them, Gordo sat silhouetted against the glowing amethyst sky. Hand pressed against her still unhappy stomach, Lizzie quickly made her way to join him.

"Good morning," she whispered, settling cross-legged to his right.

He jumped. "Morning."

"Watching the sunrise?"

A nod. "I couldn't sleep any longer. You, on the other hand, didn't even move when I shoved you off of me. Talk about the sleep of the dead." He smiled at her. "Apparently, you needed it. Are you feeling any better?"

Wincing at a sick lurch below her ribs, she said, "Oh, I think that's negative."

"I'm sorry, Liz." One hand squeezed her knee, and Lizzie curled a quick, thankful pressure to his fingers.

"Me too." She laughed a little. "Just my luck. I haven't had the flu in years, and suddenly we're in a bubble universe and I can't find anything better to do with myself but get sick."

Gordo shook his head. "I don't think you're sick, Liz."

"What?"

"Well, I could be wrong, but I was thinking last night—after you'd gone to sleep and before Arevhat got back—and I wonder if maybe you're still recovering from that healing that, uh, Nadie did after our fall."

Blinking, Lizzie frowned. "But just about all I've been doing these past few days is sleep. Why would I be sick and you fine? Especially since you've been awake everyday flying the carpet."

"I'm not sure, Liz," he shrugged. "Maybe you were hurt worse than I was. Maybe your body still needs to catch up."

"I suppose that's possible," she conceded. "I just wish I didn't have to feel sick."

His hand found her knee again. "Hey. It'll go away. You'll get better. And in the meantime, maybe watching the sunrise will help you forget it for a while." Lizzie squeezed his fingers in another thank you, this time leaving them there as her eyes sought and settled on the faint ragged seam of the mountains to the east.

For a time, she did forget, lost in the blooming splendor of a fiery dawn. She could almost imagine this morning a gift: buds of plum, of magenta, of scarlet blossoming to ruby, apricot, saffron, unfurling pearly petals in a bouquet so radiant it stole her breath. When at last it ended, she had no notion how long she'd been sitting on the hilltop. Her legs were stiff, her skirts wet with dew, and Arevhat sat beside her, though Lizzie could not remember the woman joining them.

"An invitation," the princess announced, liquid voice loud in the delicate, lingering stillness.

Lizzie almost couldn't bring herself to respond; how could Arevhat not feel the intrusion of her speech? But at last she managed a nearly silent, "Invitation to what?"

"To journey to the mother of the Sun, of course." Those words were even louder, and something fragile and beautiful around them cracked a little.

It was even harder to ask this time. "You're going to guide us there?"

"Not 'us,'" Arevhat corrected, "just you." And the magic of the morning shattered to dust.

"What?!" Gordo and Lizzie shouted as one.

Unruffled, Arevhat repeated, "I am only to guide you," a nod to Lizzie. "You," a nod to Gordo, "are not welcome to come."

"He can't stay here!" Lizzie protested, Gordo's adamant, "We are not splitting up!" nearly drowning her words.

"I don't see that you have much choice in the matter." The princess smoothed a careful hand over a crease in her skirt. "The mother of the Sun has invited you—"

"For heaven's sake, her name's Lizzie!" Gordo cried.

"—and you shall either come or you shall not." Her eyes met Lizzie's impassively. "And if you come, you come without him." Another careful caress of emerald silk, embroidered, Lizzie noted absurdly, with thread a million shades of green—moss, sage, jade and loden, ivy, teal, peridot, aquamarine, malachite and seafoam. With a wrench, Lizzie dragged her gaze back to Arevhat's. "Be warned," the princess said, "if you do not come, you will not go home."

Gordo's fingers, still in Lizzie's grasp, twitched. "Lizzie," he murmured urgently. His eyes, when hers found them, were a grey thin with indecision.

"I know, Gordo," she whispered back, turning fully from Arevhat as though it would make the princess disappear. Leaning closer, she said, "You know the fairy tale. Is this mother of the Sun evil or what?"

"No," Gordo shook his head. "Just your standard goddess-type. Vindictive to those who threaten her, but moved by human pain. She cured Arevhat's hunter-guy, although she cursed him in the first place because he threatened to kill her son." He sighed. "You'd be safe with her, I think."

"But what about you?" Lizzie asked, brow folding. "What are you going to do here all alone? We know nothing about this place. There might be...I don't know...wolves or something."

His laugh surprised her. "Wolves," he chortled. "With our experience thus far, any wolves'd probably be preceded by a little girl in a red cape, which ought to provide me more than enough time to get the hell outta here." His thumb swept hers. "I think this mother of the Sun is the sort who'll provide safety for me as well. I'm just.... I just don't like the idea of separating."

Lizzie snorted. "Like I do?"

"No, of course not." Another sigh. "But what other choice do we have? Arevhat is obviously the guide the Black Snake sent us to find, and if the mother of the Sun only wants to see you, I don't think it's wise—or prudent—to disobey her. We need her help."

Silence stretched between them. Finally, Lizzie nodded. "Maybe it'll just be for a little while?"

Gordo's mouth tipped in a weak smile. "Maybe."

"Okay." Trying for an answering smile, she asked, "Help me up?"

Gordo's smile grew stronger. "My life's purpose, m'lady," he teased, standing to pull her up after him. But her legs were still stiff and instead of rising gracefully, she tripped over her skirts and landed slumped against him, her hands clenched painfully in the sleeves of his shirt.

"Thanks," she grinned, gingerly gaining her feet before releasing her death-grip.

"Life's purpose, all that," he drawled. "But, uh, while you're here, might as well hug me good-bye."

The words knotted her throat. Nodding mutely, she straightened just enough to shift her arms over his shoulders. Stomach queasy, mouth dry, eyes burning, she couldn't remember a time when she felt more miserable. Except maybe the night that started all this mess.

Tightening her arms, she dropped her head to his shoulder and swore inwardly. The Fight. She'd meant to apologize and talk about it, but feeling sick and all, she'd completely forgotten. Bloody hell. And now she wouldn't see him for who knew how long.

Clearing her throat, she ventured a tremulous, "Uh, Gordo?"

He drew away just enough to meet her gaze. "What?"

"I just, uh," aw, hell, she couldn't even meet his eyes, "I wanted to apologize for, um, you know, fighting with you. That night. You know? I was really terrible, and I didn't mean anything, and I wanted to—"

"Liz." The laughter in his voice killed her words. Hesitantly, she looked up at him. Yup, laughter there too. "Liz," he said again, "I'm not sure whether you're trying an eleventh hour confession or attempting to give us a conversation to finish so we'll see one another again. But both are completely unnecessary. We'll talk about this when we talk about it. Don't worry. Say good-bye and get going. Sooner you leave, sooner we see one another again, sooner we get home." He pulled her close for another hug. "See ya, Lizzie."

As much as she tried, all she could manage was a mouthed, "Bye," against his neck. And then he was gone and Arevhat was declaring—rather impatiently, in fact—that they needed to leave. Now. And then Lizzie was turning around and walking and trying desperately not to look back.

"You can't look back," Arevhat announced.

Wondering if she'd said anything aloud, Lizzie stammered a confused, "W-what?"

"You can't look back," the princess repeated. "We have begun a journey along a road not present in this place. If you look back, the road falls from below your feet. Do not look back." A chuff of air like laughter. "Besides, he is gone. Much like my own love." Lizzie's startled glance found sage eyes mocking her. There was Kate in those eyes, but a crueller, bitter woman owned them, and the...delight...in that woman infuriated Lizzie.

Precisely, careful not to look back and not to stop walking, Lizzie seized the princess's wrist in a grip steeled with rage. "How wretched you are!" she ground out, the words seeming to come from someone else, somewhere far away. Still, they spilled from her mouth, unbidden, unknown until she heard them in her own voice. "How terrible! What a monster you've become! Wallowing in others' losses like a sow in mud, eating others' pain, savoring their hurt and their agonies. You, gifted a hundred times over with good fortune and riches and love!

"Yet ever and again, you ignore the choices you've made. Who chose to marry the Dragon-Prince, Sun-Girl? Who chose to love the hunter? Who chose to seek the mother of the Sun? Who chose, Sun-Girl, to give her child away and then stay with a man she did not love? No one made those choices but you, and you revel in your agony, cursing fate, hating everyone around you, wishing them pain. Disgusting creature!"

The rage abruptly lifted; dizzy, caught in its wake, not to mention furious in her own right, Lizzie squeezed the wrist in her grip for emphasis and shouted, "Grow up, already!"

At least those words were her own. Shaken, mouth dry, she tried not to think too much about the other...foreign...words.

"I am sorry." Arevhat's whisper, shredded of all its music, startled Lizzie from her thoughts. Releasing the princess's arm, she looked up to find the sage eyes this time were utter pain and remorse. "I'm sorry," Arevhat said again, tears spilling down her nose—which was fast reddening in a very un-princesslike way. "I must be," she hiccupped, "I must be very horrible indeed for the mother of the Sun to speak to me so." Her tone registered Lizzie not at all, the quiet words merely a thought spoken aloud.

But Lizzie couldn't help responding. "The mother of the Sun?" she echoed. "Was that who was," she gulped, "speaking...with my voice?" And my mouth and, er, through me? Lizzie shuddered. Damn, that was creepy.

A hint of puzzlement marred Arevhat's brow. "This is her domain," she explained, as though it was obvious. "She has power over all creatures in this place." Fresh tears welled in her eyes. "Even so, she only uses such power in extreme—" Her voice fizzled away. "I must be horrible indeed," she croaked.

Lizzie rolled her eyes. Hel-lo! Just-possessed by the mother of the Sun, here! It'd be kinda nice to get a straight answer on whether that was likely to happen again anytime soon. Sheesh. Were all Kates so self-focused? "Yes," Lizzie said dryly, "I think we've established that. Horrible creature you are, blah, blah, blah. The mother of the Sun thinks so, you think so, I think so. There. We're all agreed. Now, before you sink once more into abject self-pity, d'you think you might tell me whether the mother of the Sun is going to keep on, eh, talking through me? You know, without my permission? 'Cuz I'm a little freaked out by that stuff."

Arevhat still looked puzzled. "As I said, the mother of the Sun only uses such power in extreme need. She shall probably not do so again. Not now that I am...aware...of her rebuke." And once more tears were coursing down the princess's face, her nose resuming its redness.

"Not exactly the most solid answer I could've wished for," Lizzie muttered, "but I guess it's better than nothing." Looking askance at the girl beside her, she added, "And I don't suppose you're exactly capable of anything more specific, huh?"

Immediately, Arevhat's quiet tears became loud, honking sobs, a stream of jumbled, indeterminate syllables pouring out with each hitching breath.

For crying out loud, Lizzie thought, blinking, her mouth hanging open. Surely her words hadn't hurt the princess that badly. All she'd meant was that Arevhat, not being a goddess herself, probably didn't know whether the Sun-Mother would be practicing the ventriloquist act again. She hadn't intended to imply that—okay, so maybe she had sort of intended to imply the princess was a bit of a moron. But after her treatment of Gordo last night....A particularly loud sob broke Lizzie's train of thought.

Bother.

"I'm sorry, Arevhat," Lizzie said, surprised to find she rather meant it. "Please stop crying. I shouldn't have said what I did. It wasn't very nice. And you're trying to help me—help us—"

"But I'm not!" Arevhat hiccupped, somewhat coherently. "I mean, I wasn't! I wasn't trying to help you at all. I mean, the mother of the Sun sent me to get you, but I didn't want to help. I wanted to be mean and cruel and s-so h-horrible—" Ah, back to that again. "Because I'm a terrible person. And I'm s-so unhappy. The mother of the Sun is right. I've made my own choices, every one, and I hate what's come of them. I hate my husband and I hate my home and I hate everyone around me." A swelling sob. "I hate myself." And the weeping resumed, too powerful to permit words.

It was comical, in a way. Who'd have ever thought she'd be walking with a hysterical, red-nosed Princess Kate in a bubble universe? Absurd. Ridiculous. And yet, Lizzie had to admit that part of the laughter stoppered in her chest arose out of pity and sympathy and a rather pressing desire to burst into tears, herself.

She was participating in a fairy tale, and somehow hearing those desperate words from a princess with gold-thread hair made Arevhat's situation that much more tragic. Princesses in fairy tales were supposed to live happily ever after. They might have rough times in the beginning—like Aurelia—but the ends were supposed to be good, to make up for all the difficult bits.

Uncertain, confused, swallowing the sick churn of her stomach and the tightness in her chest, Lizzie reached for the princess's hand. "How can you hate yourself?" she asked, unable to find anything else to say.

Arevhat's look was incredulous. "I am a coward!" burst on one breathless sob. "I am weak and foolish and cruel and hateful! I knew I could not love the Dragon-Prince, but when he came for me, I couldn't tell him so. And yet, it was so easy—so easy—to tell my love that I had to leave him, that he could take my son. He thought I wanted nothing to do with either of them. He thought I did not care, and it was so easy to let him leave believing that."

Lizzie shook her head. "I don't believe you. You must have been in agony. I don't believe you'd be in so much pain now if you didn't feel it then."

"Of course I felt it!" Arevhat glowered through her tears. "But I thought it was the only right decision. I had married a man, and I couldn't betray him...more than I already had! And so the only thing to do was go quietly. Of course I felt it! As though something tore inside me, but I let my love and my son leave without even a kind farewell. It was easier that way. Easier. Monstrous!"

Well, at least that sounded more like the old Arevhat. "Easier doesn't mean easy," Lizzie countered. "You said it yourself: you thought it was the right decision. It just took a while for you to figure out you were wrong. You can still fix it, you know. Make the right decision now. We're going to see the mother of the Sun, right? So ask her where your love and your child are and go after them."

The tears gave way before a loud, bitter laugh. "Go after them?" the princess mocked, mouth twisted in a disparaging smirk.

"Yeah," Lizzie smirked back, "and, uh, you're doing that whole horrible creature routine again. Since I don't particularly want to be possessed by the Sun-Mother yet another time, knock it off, huh?" Arevhat blinked in surprise, then nodded. "Now, why can't you go after them?"

It took a moment for the princess to reply. "He hates me," she whispered at last. "I'm sure he hates me. How could he not, after what I've done? I can be nothing to him." A pause, and Lizzie noted the other girl's eyes go distant. "He was so good. Kind, gentle. He made me laugh and he was so clever. I wondered, even then, how he could love me, why he would wish to stay with me, how I had deserved even his friendship. What would he want with me? Sometimes I couldn't believe that he really did love me. Even then, I thought that if one day he could leave, he would soon discover there were many other women better for him than I. How can I believe that now, after such a betrayal, he would ever want to see me again?"

Reassurance was called for. Lizzie knew that. But reassurance wouldn't come. Arevhat's words had met her like old friends, sinking her almost as deeply into uncertainty as the princess. Try as she might, Lizzie could not remember why such words felt so familiar. As if they were...her own...somehow. Shaking away the thought, she at last managed to say, "You can't. He might hate you. But if you don't try, you'll never know one way or the other. And wouldn't it be worth it, to at least see your son again?"

Arevhat didn't answer. Instead, she began walking more quickly, leaving Lizzie struggling with her skirts and her still-queasy stomach, those familiar words circling again and again in her head: What would he want with me? If one day he could leave, he would soon discover there were many other women better for him than I.

Was it silly she missed Gordo already?

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end of chapter 13