Sorry it took so long to add the next chapter. It's been busy at school. Thank you for your patience, and reviews. They are truly appreciated.

Sunlight washed over the cold floor, warming it gently. Pale light filtered through the heavy curtains that surrounded Aisling's bed, lightening it to a mere degree. The Princess was, however, spared the effort of waking up on her own volition, by a sudden increase in light, and a shrill voice in her ear.

"Wake up you lazy-bones! No more lyin' abed for you!" Jumping violently, the Princess did a very un-princess-like thing, such as falling out of the bed and cursing. Hissing, she shaded her eyes from the light, and looked up at the very satisfied Mrs.Mcquillan.

"In lieu of the Christian hell, I get you!" Aisling growled, picking herself up, along with her remaining shards of dignity.

"I' faith Child! If you sleep away the day, you shant retrieve what you've missed." Mrs. Mqcuillain laughed, a smirk playing across her harsh features. Snarling and muttering about how she would rather have not missed her sleep, the Princess waved away the outspoken maid.

Aisling had a brisk bath in lukewarm water; for it had been brought while she was still abed, and got dressed. Pulling a kirtle over her tousled hair, and dragging a comb through the resentful locks, the Princess prepared herself for a rough day.

She wasn't too far off either. The minute she left her room, things went wrong. Stumbling over a lump in the carpet, which turned out to be a mouse, Aisling tore a hole in her skirt, and flailing to regain her balance, fell flat on her face. To add to the embarrassment, servants had been milling about, trying to hide the grin on their visage.

"Must I order you to complete your tasks?" Aisling demanded, her distemper evident in the cold briskness of her voice, contrasting with her flushed face. The servants resumed their busy paces, seeming faster then before, none wishing to be noticed by the irate Princess.

'Today will be very bad for my self-esteem.' She mourned, as she returned to her room, to replace her torn dress, leaving it on her bed for a servant to collect. In a much more plain dress, she ventured forth once more, her eyes wide open, on the floor, praying she would catch any other errant mice hiding beneath the runner, before she met the same fate as the rug. Running in a straight line and then turning sharply to the left, Aisling opened a door to a rather plain room, painted in suitably calming colours. The colours were equaled only by the suitably uncomfortable wooden chairs.

Everything in the room was approved and proper for a suitable young woman. Fighting the urge to turn tail and run, Aisling took her place in the seventh chair, and was soon joined by ten other women, going from twelve to eighteen.

Shea, the eldest, was tall, and a fair as the morning sun. Skin pale and creamy, she was to be married in the springtime, to a handsome noble from Citrien.

Erika, the second in line, was seventeen, and two months. Erika had wild red hair, adored by many. It seemed a flashing flag, heralding victory. Erika; however well mannered, was resentful that she was to marry a mere merchant from Re'en. Erika had two sisters, one dark haired and fair, and the other dark haired, with tanned skin. Their names were Karin and Loraen.

Karin and Loraen followed Erika in marriages, each to their own respective estates. After them, came Mary, named for her religious mother. For all her faith, Mary was the bastard child of the king, and the daughter of his minister. Though, she was not considered to be 'royal', by the standards of society, Mary fit right in, with the sisters. Always the first to offer forgiveness, or condemn, Mary had chosen to go into a convent if she was not married by twenty. Evelyn, her twin sister, was her polar opposite. Obsessed with every new Knight and page that entered the castle, the two pale blonde haired sisters made living together an entertainment, one always a bane to the other.

Next was Aisling, the seventh daughter to the family. After her came her brother Jacinth, and following him came her little sister, Rea. Rea would be a beauty, Aisling thought, when she grew older. With hair, black as night, and rosy checks, she already had interested suitors, though she was only twelve, and most of the men in their late twenties.

"I heard you were caught reading that nonsense again." Smirking, Erika reminded the younger girl of her unfortunate exposure.

"Hush Erika, you leave her be." Shea calmly insisted, as she executed a particularly hard double stitch.

"It's her fault she got caught." Erika pouted, thrusting her lips out, in a decidedly pretty manner. Aisling was envious of Erika's ability to make even her surliest moods look gorgeous. She never managed such a thing. The best she could do when she was angry, or contrite, was keep her mouth closed.

"It's her own business what she reads. Soon enough, she'll be with some noble husband, and she'll be expected to be perfect. Let her be while she still can." The mild Mary spoke up, voicing her thoughts for once. Sharing a kind smile with Aisling, she returned to her cross-stitch. Grinning wickedly, Evelyn echoed her sentiments, but added on, "She'll be too busy on her back, to be reading anyway." All the women in the room gasped, but for Rea, who did not understand what her older sister was getting at. Biting her tongue, to keep from laughing and growling at the same time, Aisling concentrated on unknotting her snarled thread. Karin and Lorean giggled behind their own projects, sheep to Erika's flock. Retreating into herself, Aisling merely frowned, and soon enough, the talk moved onto more courtly things, like fashion, and who was courting whom.

A brief pardon from her sisters, Aisling and the others abjured for their own midday meal, and a change of shifts. Her solitude was not to be hers however, as her father joined her for her meal.

Murmuring her welcome, and keeping her eyes demurely on the floor, she thanked the Goddess that she had hidden her book

"To what do I owe the pleasure of your joining me?" Aisling asked, her breath held. The king, as Aisling mostly thought of him, deigned to look down at her before sniffing.

"I wanted to follow up on the note you received last night." He enlightened, as the Princess's heart sank. She bolted down her food the moment it was brought, knowing she wouldn't have an appetite when he was finished.

"An expansion if you will," 'Goddess preserve me, if he doesn't expand and take the whole world with him' Aisling thought in rebellion.

"You will not be allowed to attend the ball, not only because you have disgraced our family, and religion with your nonsense, but you will be meeting in a month's time, with your possible suitors." 'Suitors? Please your Lordship anything but that!' Sarcastically, Aisling finished her first course, but already, she could feel the effect of her Fathers presence sink in, and eat away her desire to eat. With a melancholy air, she waved away the next course, and gazed in yearning at the voracious King, as he devoured all that was put in front of him, while still talking. Wincing as food fell from his mouth, the King made violent gesticulations, and loud noises, with which Aisling was content to ignore. 'I got it your Highness. Dishonour, no ball for you, dishonour, useless noise.'

Finally, what seemed and eternity later, to Aisling, her father finished his rant. Leading him to the door, she curtsied, and shut the door hastily. Leaning on it, she took a deep breath. Repeating this several times, she opened her eyes, and for a moment, was at peace.

This was broken by a rapping on her door, and the voice of her dance teacher shrill, and commanding. Groaning, Aisling opened the door, and was whisked away to her dancing lesson. She soon escaped it, after she trod on her teachers foot for the tenth time in twenty turns. Banished, Aisling kept the pretense of disgrace, until she was out of earshot, and then broke down into a fit of laughter.

Pleading a headache, she was able to be absent from her arithmetic lesson, and she returned gratefully back to her room. This time, there was no King awaiting her, and even Mrs. Mquillan has arranged to be busy. So, locking her rooms, and awaiting nightfall, Aisling satisfied herself in reading her fairy tales.

At the turn of Ten, Aisling had opened her writing desk, and happily re-wrote the endings to many of her favoured tales. It had been a pastime of hers, ever since her mother had told her her very first story.

"In the green hills of Ir'aen," She would begin, her voice low and sweet." There lived a man named Aiden, of the fiery hair. One day he went a walking in the many hills, and came to a strange forest. He entered it, and upon doing so, a beautiful maiden was made plain to his sight. 'Well come Aiden of the Fiery hair', she said to the lad. Aiden, had fallen in love with the maiden the minute he had seen her, and her voice, to him was the most beautiful he had ever heard. 'Greetings fair maid. Where have I wandered?' Aiden asked.

'To the ends of the earth, where the shadows never fall.' The Woman replied."

Aisling always laughed when her mother changed voices to match the character. Curling up closer to her mother, the child-Princess would lay her head on her chest, and hear the beating of the woman's heart, and the vibrations of her voice.

"Everyday, Aiden visited the maiden in the woods, until one day, she asked him to come with her back to her home. Having known for a while, that the beautiful woman was in truth, a Fae, Aiden agreed. 'How long will I be gone?' He inquired.

'Forever and a day.' She replied.

The minute Aiden had agreed to accompany her, a pair of steeds, made from sun, galloped behind the Fae silently. Mounting up, they rode into yesterdays, and dreams, to finally arrive in the realm of the Faeries. For a life and a day, they danced and sung, and feasted, and Aiden never grew old. Then, one day, the Maiden, named Ianna told Aiden he must return to the world of mortals.

'I have loved you for a lifetime and a day, and now you must return. You are not of our world, but when you return, you will not be part of theirs either." The queen smiled sadly at this, and shook her head. Then she continued.

"Aiden returned home to his village, to find that time had moved on without him. He became known as the old man who lived at the edge of the village, and everyone went to see him, regarding visions. For the world of the Fae left their mark on him forever. It had taken from him, his sight, and given him another. Able to tell the future and the past, and read into life, he spent twenty years never changing, with the words of his Faerie love telling him 'I will return for you.' People grew old and died, while he remained old, but never passed. Children grew up, and into their mid thirties, knowing him. Then one day he was gone, and the entire village talked."

"Why did the village talk? Did they have nothing to talk about before?" Aisling asked her mother, her eyes wide.

"They talked because no matter where they looked, none could remember if he had said anything about leaving." Her mother replied, scowling slightly. "Now let me finish."

"In fact, in a while, the village could remember very little about the man at all. Children who had called him old man, who grew old, calling him old man, slowly forgot him. In time, no one remembered him at all, but for a passing wind, which would smell of crushed mint and basil. Then they would think, 'Ah- I know this smell…of an old man long ago…' All that was ever found of him was his walking stick, near the forest. Whispers said he was bewitched, but some believe his love finally came for him."

Aisling's mother would then stand and stretch, as the tiny princess lay staring off into space.

"I don't want her to come back for him…" She murmured her dark eyes wide.

"Why not?" Her mother would ask.

"Because…he should see the world. Or find his love. Not mope about waiting. I want him to find someone else at least. Who will let him live in her world." Aisling would explain. Conversations such as these were always imminent after a tale orated by her mother.

Of all the people Aisling missed the most, the one at the top of her list was her mother. It was not that she was dead, or even far away, but that she was distant. She never came by her apartments anymore. There were no sweet sprigs of lavender tucked beneath her pillow. If she had been dead or far away, it might have been easier.

'I might have been able to forgive her.' Aisling thought bitterly, shoving her writing desk off her lap, hating that it reminded her so much of her mother.

Laughter and chatter rang through the halls outside her room.

" 'You will not be attending the Gala held tomorrow night.' " Aisling mimicked, her mouth turned down, with a frown on her countenance.

Contriving to sit still for an hour, finally the Princess could take it no more. A foolish idea came to her mind, and walking with leisure to her wardrobe, she took down her gown for the evening's ball. It took longer then normal, to put it on, her hands shaking with repressed laughter at herself. She stood in front of the mirror, admiring the way the silvery dress caught the candles light, and winked at her from the gems sewn into its cloth. She then slipped the dainty slippers on, and as a final touch, grabbed a butterfly shaped face mask. If she could not go to the ball hosted by her father, she would hold her own.

A Shadow slinked across the courtyard, unnoticed by the tosspot stable hands, and the bustling, rosy cheeked maids.
'I do not want to risk saddling my mare. It would be too conspicuous…' Aisling calculated, as she slid past the garden wall, and over the rustic drawbridge. The forest was not too far away, and she could take her time.

Her hands were sweating, and she kept loosing her grip on the delicate mask. She had dropped it twice previous, and with mild cursing, she had managed to not damage it.

The darkness clung to her gown, and pale figure, as if it were midnight ink. The moon was hidden behind ominous clouds, and with a dark cloak thrown over her dress, the Princess was able to escape the castle, and leave it as an illuminated tower, in the distance. Meanwhile, the forest was becoming increasing closer, the vague shapes of trees and leaves shifting to be more distinct.

Slipping her hood from her brown hair breathlessly, Aisling crossed the boundary between the forest, and the field, and immediately felt something strange. A shudder passed through her body.
Frightened and excited, Aisling pressed on, her steps measured and silent.
Faint at first, then gradually becoming louder, the sound of rain falling on glass met her ears. It wasn't until she drew ever closer, did she realize it was laughter.

Light blossomed in the middle of the dark murky forest, and it was not until the girl was almost right inside it, did she realize it was a clearing.

'A clearing with people dancing…' Aisling corrected herself, even as she watched in awe as the people twirled and bowed gracefully. Dipping lightly, and swishing gaily. Their gowns seemed sumptuous and full, the skirts made of the finest lace, and cloud, while the male figures looked striking in black and white dress suits. It was to her added benefit that every graceful dancer held a mask in one hand, affixed to their face with only will power.

'I may not be invited, but I am here, and I am dressed, if somewhat shabbily.' With conviction, she stepped into the midst of the dancing, and immediately she felt a strong pair of arms around her. They spun her around, and then released her, as another pair of arms led her around the forest floor.

The fact that her presence wasn't even questioned, felt reassuring. The long winded song drew to a close, and all the women curtsied, whilst the men bowed.

The congregations of dancers broke up, and drifted. With relief, Aisling caught sight of refreshments, and immediately descended on it, taking care to eat only enough to fill her, and drinking enough of whatever was in the pitcher, to slake her thirst.

Then, when a much more formal ballroom waltz was picked up by the…

'Where are the musicians?' Looking about, Aisling realized the music was coming from nowhere.

'I knew this was strange the minute I stumbled upon it…but what in the mother's sweet name, is it?'

"May I claim you for this dance?" A strange man asked, from behind a wolf mask. Nodding her assent, Aisling let herself be led onto the forests center once again, and with a low curtsey, began their dance. It was going well; the music lulling her into a hypnotic state of peace, when the stranger said something that made her heart lurch.

"You are not Fae. Leave while you still can." The wolf-masked man hissed into her ear, bending close enough to stir the hair on her neck.

"She could kill you for even being here."