Favor

Verb: treat (an injured limb) gently, not putting one's full weight on it.

Author's Notes: Howdy everyone. Things are going pretty good on this side of the screen, hope it's good on your side. Not much to mention here. Lots of reviewers are having fun imagining how the rest of the plot would change in this way or that way. Have fun, and if anyone wants to explore those changes on their own, go for it!

Beyond that, still haven't gotten over this Harley Quinn obsession. When the heck is the third season gonna start? Also, there is an ever increasing chance that I might try my hand at a Harlivey fic at some point. Just a forewarning there.

So, enjoy, as Lara and Harry indulge in a genuine date night!

Time: Post Cold Days

"Lara?" Harry asked, sounding detached. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Oh, you know," she called back, a purr in her voice. "You don't call, you don't write. Sometimes a girl has to take matters into her own hand."

"By showing up in a floating castle?" he asked. "How did you even have enough clearance to get over the reef?"

"Catamarans have much lower drafts than other vessels," she supplied helpfully from the fourth story of her yacht. It was a grand, luxurious vessel which she had purchased solely for the purpose of having this meeting. She had pulled it up next to a small set of buoys which constituted a dock. She doubted the structure would be sufficient for securing her ship, and had already dropped anchor.

The December weather was cold and windy, but despite that she had chosen to wear the battle dress of her people: a simple white sundress, wide brimmed hat, laced sandals, and nothing else.

With easy grace, she stepped off the deck and with a practiced summersault landed easily on the dock in front of the wizard. There were no humans around, so she did not bother to conceal her inhumanity. (She was very aware of just how much the summersault both did and did not display. She had practiced the maneuver many times for optimal results)

With slow, deliberate, swaying steps, she approached her wizard.

"Er, Lara," Harry began, looking uneasy. "Are you perhaps really upset right now?"

"For what reason would I have to be upset?" she asked with an easy smile. "For your suicidal attempt at renegading a contract? For your failure to contact me upon your return? For your continued lack of contact even after that? Why, whatever would I have to be upset for?"

"Well, I had reasons," he began, but she was before him at this point.

"I'm certain they must be good ones," she really wasn't. She presented her hand to him imperiously, palm down.

She could understand his disappearance. Such things happened sometimes, and he had ever growing responsibilities, many of them to demanding powers, that might call on him.

She could even understand his initial lack of contact: his reappearance had been on behalf of his Queen and considering it resulted in the death of TWO Ladies of the Sidhe Courts, it was no doubt one which had demanded his attention.

But it had been over a month now, and he still had not made any of their regular appointments.

He must be punished for this neglect, that much was certain. However, as she was magnanimous, she will only dole out a meager punishment, before her graceful forgiveness. Just enough to remind him not to do it again.

Dutifully, he took her hand and bowed over it. He had often used this method when it came to earning her forgiveness, and she waited for the bow to complete so she could…

She paused, genuinely surprised when instead of a simple bow, she felt him give a brief shiver and then his lips touched her hand. Never before had he been willing to go to such lengths. She took a breath in further surprise when she felt the tension suddenly flood his body.

He looked up at her, from above her hand, and the sight of the raw need in his eyes shocked her. She could see from his gaze, from the rigidness of his body, the clenching of his teeth that he was a man on the edge of his control of both his violence and his lust. A low growl came from his throat, and Lara was suddenly confronted with the mental image of him simply lifting her up, pinning her by her back to the hull of her yacht and taking her harshly, violently, right there and then.

Her Hunger came, uncontrollably, undeniably. She had been holding it back with iron concentration, however it was pointless: it would not be denied. It tried to feed from him despite his protection…

Which wasn't there (Lara had heard what occurred at the knighting ceremony, and that it had been broadcasted throughout Nevernever. She had tried, fruitlessly, to get a copy. Alas, psychic projections were harder to find than VHS tapes these days), and for the first time, Lara was able to truly taste her wizard.

The arousal couldn't be stopped, and she felt her nipples peaking, her breath shortening, and her eyes whitening. Her wizard was heady, potent, powerful. If feeding on a normal mortal was like taking a sip of water, than he was like a thick milkshake, the kind that was chewed not drank. Just the tiny bit she was able to sample from their minute contact was enough to make her heady, unbalanced.

Suddenly, the image in her head wasn't what he would do to her, but how she should simply shove him backwards, rip off anything between the two of them, and take HIM instead.

She almost couldn't remember WHY that was a bad idea, as she reflectively tried to take more from him, to take all of him, which was wrong, which she shouldn't, why shouldn't she, because she had given her word that…!

With a strangled screech, Lara threw herself backwards, pulling free of the contact but losing her balance and falling backwards. At the same time, she heard Harry choke, and he too lost control of himself with the force that he pulled away from her.

Their eyes met, from the several feet separating them. Confusion, arousal, shame, and regret were shared by both of them. Lara swallowed.

"Reasons?" she asked weakly.

"Reasons," he confirmed, just as weakly.

*Scene Break*

"Ser Knight," Lara acknowledged, as she sipped her coffee.

They were seated on the porch on the third story of her yacht. She had some chairs and a table, as well as a coffee set stored away. When she had begun taking them out, Harry had insisted that he do the heavy lifting, an act which she had allowed as she still considered his chivalry to be one of his attractive traits. She had smiled when he had held the chair for her, and offered to pour as well.

"Your majesty," he returned as he did the same. Then he sighed. "You know, all those years ago, when you started calling me that, I never really thought it would come true."

Lara felt a wave of nostalgia for their meeting. "In truth, back when you called me that, I also never considered it a possibility. Though, I did have hopes of one day getting you to call me 'Queen'."

"You didn't?" Harry asked, purposefully ignoring her add on. "Why not? You were ambitious, even back then."

"Not that ambitious. Back then, I still thought my father invincible," she admitted. "I'd seen too many times what he did to those who tried to usurp him. I had resigned myself to never being more than his agent. Even worse, his best agent. The one he could rely on to accomplish his mission, but most often had to discipline to ensure I did not think above my station."

"The reward for work well done is more work, and incestual dominance displays?"

"Quite so."

"Screw him."

"Also, quite so."

"Eww."

Lara laughed softly as he stuck out his tongue and made a face. "And now, look at us," she mused. "The de-facto Queen of the White Court, and the Winter Knight."

"At least one of us came out ahead," he muttered. She nodded.

"Yes, but some day my control will be unquestionable and I can take my throne publicly, and I will be able to catch up," she told him, and he gave her a dry look.

"Not what I meant," he muttered.

"Any regrets?"

"Too many to count," he sighed.

"Such as holding a door open to a hungry porn star?" she asked with dry amusement.

"Strangely enough," he said slowly, studying her carefully, "that's not one of them."

"Really?" she had made the statement partially as a joke, but also with an undercurrent of unfamiliar worry. To hear his answer gave her chest a slight twinge.

"Oh you're an arrogant vampire," he admitted easily. "A relentless tease, too. Also incredibly high maintenance. And a pretentious dresser. Poor taste in entertainment. With questionable taste in music."

"I resent one of those statements," she interrupted, giving him a dark look as he kept digging. "I am not a tease: when one has the intention of carrying through, it's considered flirting."

"But you're also still the brave, talented, gorgeous, tough as nails woman now as you were back then," he went on. "Over the years you've been there for some of my worst. You always tried to help, in your own twisty vampire way. It hasn't always been a bed of roses, but I don't regret it."

"Also, a refusal to LARP isn't considered poor taste," she added, "and someone who's preference in music never aged past Santana is not allowed to judge progress."

She hid a small smile at his words behind the cup held before her face, though she did have to point out some of his errors. Though the delivery was lackluster, the sentiment made that twinge in her chest a little tighter.

"Nothing to say about the maintenance or dressing?" he prompted.

"I am self-aware, Harry," she admitted.

"How about yourself?" he asked.

She considered it for several moments.

"No," she finally shook her head. "Where I am now is the results of all of my actions. As they have led me to this point, I do not regret them."

"How very Confucius."

"Marlon Brando, actually."

"How progressive."

"Thank you."

They both spent several minutes in silence. The warmth of the coffee was bracing in the cold weather.

"Why have you remained on this island?" Lara finally asked. It had surprised her when she had learned that he had taken up a hermitage on Lake Michigan. It seemed unlike him, to remove himself from the world, especially when the world was so dangerous right now. She had thought he would rush back and begin another crusade against the Fomor, or some other threat to his city.

"I…" he began, and then sighed, deflating. "I'm just not ready."

"And may I ask why you are not?" she probed delicately. "Why you haven't gone home?"

"Home?" he snorted viciously. "My home burnt down, and now a scumbag gangster imported a castle on it. The White Council has been treating me like a bomb. I'm juggling borderline homicidal tendencies and even I don't know what's going to set me off, or how. And my friends…" He shuddered.

"They grow quiet?" she asked gently. "They whisper?"

"Everything is so much more complicated, these days," Harry didn't answer her. "Things are so much bigger than they used to be. So much scarier than they used to be. I step up, I try, but when I see just how much is at stake, and know that I'm still just me…"

Lara reached out to place her hand on his, but stopped halfway through. Harry saw the movement, saw how it came to an end, and flinched. Lara realized how it appeared, and instead shifted her hand from his clear one to the one he still wore his glove on.

"Ah, it is not that, Harry," Lara hurried to explain. With a pained smile she continued. "Right now, you are without protection. I have promised that I will not feed on you, but my Hunger is… strong right now. I do not wish to break my word to you."

He nodded, relaxing slightly, and gave a little half smile. "Thanks. I understand." He turned his gloved hand around so he could hold hers. He did give her a peculiar look. "I thought you could control when you fed?"

"We can always choose to feed," Lara explained very carefully. "But we cannot always choose when not to feed."

She couldn't quite read the look he gave her, but it made her uncomfortable. Hurriedly, she continued on.

"I cannot solve your problems, Harry," she told him. "Even if it was within my power, you would not let me, I know this." He nodded to both her statements. "But perhaps I can offer perspective on some of them that might help you with dealing with them?"

"Shoot," he told her. "Doesn't cost me anything to listen."

"You have always been a creature of habit, my wizard," she told him. "A home, is one of those habits. You have never lived anywhere else, but there are many other places to live. Whatever happened to your previous one, in the end your reluctance to simply find a new home is simply a reluctance you haven't bothered to get over yet. You will make a new home, easily.

"And you are mistaken in several matters. The first is in believing that things are more complicated now. You are wrong: they have always been as such, you were simply ignorant of it. As your strength, your experience, and your knowledge grow it is not the world that changes, simply your ability to understand it.

"You are still very young. And it is true that you have accomplished much so far. What you have accomplished in a few decades outpaces the many more decades it took for me to accomplish as much. However, even with the disparity, I still have many, many more decades than you. It is experience that causes me to counsel you: it will never become simpler because it never was simple. Rather, you must take solace in the knowledge that as your experience and strength grows, you become more and more capable to deal with what the widening of your perception has revealed to you.

"In the end, it is better to know than to not know."

"I feel like I've had to give that speech before," Harry commented with a tight smile. "I think yours was better though."

"I've had more experience giving it," Lara nodded. "Now, as for your friends, what is it they do now?"

"It's the looks," he grunted. "They try to keep it in, but you can tell that they're nervous, like they're looking at me as though I've changed."

"Harry, wizard mine," Lara sighed. "That is because you have changed."

"I'm still me," he snapped. Lara held out her hand to placate him.

"You are," she confirmed, "but you are also the you who has had to kill the woman he loved to save their daughter. You're the you who has spent a not inconsiderate amount of time in the Winter Court, and who now bares their mantle. To think you haven't changed is more foolish. They are most likely trying to see how you've changed."

He looked away; jaw tight. But the hand holding hers tightened.

"You simply need to spend time with them, let them determine how much you have changed, and if they can abide with what has changed."

She paused, considering. "Especially with Ms. Murphy."

"Are you still trying to hook the two of us up?" Harry stared at her. "Even though you just proved I don't have protection anymore?"

"You two would make a cute couple," Lara asserted.

"I'm not even going to try to attempt to understand your logic. You use it wrong."

"There are rules against poaching that I will not break. Nonetheless," she continued with great aplomb. "It may perhaps be easier to do so off this island."

"What's wrong with my island?" Harry asked, confused and perhaps a trifle defensively. Lara noted with some amusement that apparently he had decided to establish a long term claim on this abandoned island. It was true, that no one else seemed to have a claim on it, but she doubted that validated his.

"I have… many fond memories from this place of my time with Madeline," she began slowly, and Harry shuddered. "However, this island… is unpleasant. There is something about it which I cannot describe as anything other than abhorrent."

"Ahhh," Harry seemed to understand something as she elaborated. She raised an eyebrow, but he shook his head. "There's a reason it is that way. Please, leave it at that."

She paused, but nodded her assent to his request.

"As for the White Council," she shrugged. "Screw 'em."

"Screw 'em?" he repeated. "Lara, context. Are you being literal or metaphorical here?"

"Metaphorical," she clarified. She surrendered the point: for her, the distinction did need to be made. "The White Council is archaic, stagnant, and it is suffering for it. It hasn't changed with the times fast enough, and it risks being left behind for it. It preaches moral imperatives without recognizing shifting paradigms. The opinions made of you already will remain for far longer than someone capable of adjusting to change would hold them.

"You could either seek to engage on a campaign to change their opinions, which is somewhat more… politic than I believe you prefer," she concluded, "or you can simply to continue as you wish, and let them adjust on their own time."

"That sounded half way between something I would expect in a board room and a self-help seminar in a hotel convention room, complete with buzzwords," Harry noted detachedly. "And I can't help but notice a distinctly negative opinion for them."

"The White Council as a whole is lacking enough in terms of ambition to make them mostly useless as an ally," Lara shrugged. "Their entire purpose is mainly to act as a regulatory organization to its members, and de-facto voice of mortals in the supernatural world. They are effectively neutralized if they are treated as a neutral power and left unprovoked."

"Gee, if only I was the unprovoking type," Harry muttered.

"The perils of being self-aware," she reminded him with a flash of dimples.

A cold wind blew strongly, and Lara paused to hold her wide brimmed hat from flying away. She ignored its temperature despite the chill. She noted the way that Ser Knight, clad only in a thin tee shirt and jeans also paid it no mind.

"As for your new… instincts," she continued slowly. "I am afraid I know little save the stories. If I may, what is it like?"

Lara had never met a Winter Knight before. Her father's longstanding policy was that they were too mercurial to be properly manipulated, and the political danger of potentially interfering with the Winter Courts outweighed most normal gains. Consequentially, when he had needed to deal with one he would usually deploy disposable assets against them.

It was something which secretly relieved her at the time, though now she regretted the lack of insight.

Harry was silent for a moment, considering. She wondered if he would answer her question at all.

"They're sudden," he finally sighed, speaking slowly. "Most of the time I don't feel them at all, or at least, I don't think that I do. But there are triggers, things which cause them to flair. If something threatening happens, suddenly all I can think about is how to destroy it. If someone is rude, or insulting, all I can think of is putting them in their place, of making them afraid. And if I see suddenly see someone attractive…"

"Why thank you," Lara purred. She suspected as much, from his earlier reaction. "It's nice to hear that, sometimes."

"Like you don't already know it," Harry rolled his eyes. True, but it was nice to hear anyway. "It's all hind brain, lizard thinking. But it's only aggressive. It's like someone took my 'fight or flight', dialed it up to a hundred, and removed 'flight' from the options. It feels…"

"…predatory," Lara finished for him. He glanced at her, and she gave a small, resigned smile. "Would you believe me if I told you I knew what it was like?"

"You know," he said slowly. "I think I would."

"Well, you have a new predatory instinct, and you're having trouble controlling it," she summed up, leaning backwards and folding her legs. She took her cup with her, sipping it with great aplomb as she smiled. "If only there was someone out there, someone with their own predatory instincts. Why, someone like that might be able to provide a wellspring of advice based on their own experience."

"Hmmm," he sat back as well, raising an eyebrow. "If only I knew someone like that… if only there was someone I could call upon… Thomas should be coming around soon, maybe him…"

Lara narrowed her eyes at him. Instantly, he raised his hand in surrender, laughing quietly.

"Well?" she asked pointedly.

"Won't you please teach me, Professor Lara?" he immediately asked. She nodded, before pausing.

"Though, since I am going to be teaching you, as though you are an apprentice, I do believe that the proper form of address should be…"

"I'm not calling you Mistress," he interrupted. She sighed, and snapped her fingers.

Drat.

*Scene Break*

"The first step, is to determine what your instincts want," Lara began her explanation. They had refreshed their coffee, and Lara had brought out some appropriate snacks to go with them.

"Got it," he grunted, biting into a La Madeline au Truffle as though it were a donut. "Make friends with my inner monster."

"No," she corrected. "To make friends with it is to indulge it. There are some among my court who do so, but unless you wish to take Madeline as an example…"

"Ew," Harry scrunched his face up. She appreciated the disgust the thought generated in him.

"Rather, you need to know what will cause the instincts to rise up. For instance earlier, if it had simply been my effervescent beauty that brought out your instincts, you would have been smitten by me the moment of my arrival," she pointed out.

"You're right, it must have been when I had a chance to witness your compelling modesty." Despite his quip, he rubbed his chin seriously. "You're saying I have to find my new triggers."

"It is similar when a member of my Court comes into theirs. Not everyone has the same inclination to proclivities as others," she compared.

"So I have to learn my monster's fetishes? So I can know they're coming and stop them?"

"You will not always want or be able to stop them," she did enjoy his paraphrasing, but continued onto the point. "There will be times when violence is precisely what is called for, and your instincts may be what you need to survive. And there will be times when the instinct is simply too strong for you to suppress."

Her Hunger boiled in her, a low steady roiling as she looked at him. It wasn't as fierce as it had been earlier, but she found she couldn't dismiss it completely even after she had time to compose herself.

"Rather," she continued, as much to herself as to him. "You must have determined what you will allow your instincts to do, and train them with practice. Your first response should be to suppress them when you are capable, however, if you are unable to do so immediately, you must ensure that the action you take is one which is acceptable to you."

"What do you mean?" he asked, leaning forward.

"For instance, if you're instinct is to attack something, than rather than allowing your instincts to compel you to strike immediately, if your response is instead to draw your staff or blasting rod, the act itself can buy you time to regain yourself and simultaneously leave you prepared for your own response."

"Yeah," he nodded, taking her words seriously as his gaze went unfocused in thought. "No, that makes a lot of sense."

"It will take time, though. As you are now, you still don't know what will evoke your instincts. So you must identify them and catalogue them. Then you must determine what is the response you would not regret coming about if you are slow to stop yourself. After that, you must practice until it is instinctive."

It had taken her decades to fully master her Hunger, and still there were times like these where it felt as though those decades had been a lie.

"It's not that different from other wizard preparations," Harry said more to himself. Lara honestly didn't know much about how wizards prepared, but she nodded anyway.

Then Harry sighed.

"So basically I have to expose myself to a variety of situations to find one that screws me up, not screw up when I find one, than figure out how to not screw them up in the future, and practice until not screwing up is practical?" He swore softly under his breath. "Alright, it's not like you were expecting this to be easy, Harry."

"It is a task one can spend their lifetime pursuing," Lara confirmed. "Though you must be prepared for the most important part. Trying again once you fail."

"Well, I've never been afraid of putting my shoulder to the wheel," Harry began, but Lara leaned forward, grasping his hand again to quiet him. He looked surprised at her seriousness.

"You must understand that you will fail," she continued. "It is inevitable. When that happens, the hardest part is continuing as though you haven't. It's easy to think that since you failed once, it is natural to fail again. To accept that failure as natural, and let it become acceptable. If you truly want to master your instincts, than every time you must recommit yourself to never doing so again, even when you know that you will again someday."

She'd seen it so often. It was how her father had trained her siblings. Putting them into positions where they would fail, consoling them to accept it, then watching them come to accept it as natural. Eventually, they came to see it as normal, just an aspect of what they were. Some came to see it as a mark of pride.

Even Lara, whatever she had been before, was comfortable being a monster. But she still had things she would not accept from her Hunger.

She was so lost in her thoughts, that she didn't notice when Harry had brought his other hand over hers. His ungloved one. Her Hunger eagerly latched onto him, taking again from his rich well.

She snatched her hand back.

One of the things she would not accept from her Hunger was for it to make her break her word.

She realized Harry had reached out to her when she pulled back, but had stopped halfway. He looked as though he had remembered her earlier concern about coming into uncovered contact with him. The look he was giving her was intense, searching…

And concerned. Worried. Compassionate. Resigned.

She realized that he had come a step closer to where she stood. He had begun to understand her, even more than he already had started to over the years.

Now, they had one more thing in common.

Her breath felt a little short again. She blamed it all on her Hunger.

Harry studied her for a moment, before he sighed.

"Does it ever get easier?" he asked.

"No," she shook her head, a sigh of her own coming with it. "But you become used to it."

Silence reigned over the table.

"I want to get drunk right now," he finally declared. He slumped over the table. "Do you have any idea how long it's been since I got hammered? I mean, fall down, forget everything drunk?"

Lara laughed quietly, before standing.

"I have a bar on the top floor," she told him. "And I raided Mac's profusely to stock it."

He stared at her before collapsing on the table in relief.

"Lara, you're beautiful and I love you," he moaned in joy.

She was glad he wasn't looking at her as a shiver ran down her spine at his words. Her Hunger thrummed in her like a plucked guitar string.

Suddenly, SHE really wanted a drink too.

*Scene Break*

Lara laid face down on her bed. She had discarded her dress, as the room felt too hot. Deliberately, she picked up one of the pillows, put it over her head and pressed it down.

Than she swore, quite slurred even to her own ears, and kicked her feet furiously.

The outrage! The indignity! This slight will never be forgiven! She will have vengeance! Tomorrow! Once the room stopped spinning!

To think, this horrid day had come. She had never truly believed it, yet the cold, terrible truth confronted her.

Her wizard had actually out drunk her! How dare he!

The day had started promising. They had begun on the boat, and made good headway into intoxication. After they had been going for several hours, she had the idea to demand a tour of the island.

With a mini-cooler in tow.

They had continued to drink as he showed her around, but problems had begun when she had thrown one of the bottles she had finished away, and he had scolded her for littering on his island.

How dare he call her to task for something so innocuous! To prove a point, she began to hide the bottles so he wouldn't be able to see where she left them behind.

But he knew! How had he known? It was impossible! Also, it felt like the island was judging her, just like the dog! How could an ISLAND even judge?!

So naturally, she had to drink more, so she would have more bottles so that she could beat him!

When he proved too deceitful (for he must have been cheating somehow) she had demanded that they go skinny-dipping to make it up to her. He had resisted, but she had used all her fierce wiles and imperious command to compel him to join her.

(She had promised him a favor, and made up some excuse about testing his powers. Though it wasn't dangerous, the water had been quite cold [something which had an advantageous biological reaction for both her, physically, and Harry who she definitely caught looking] and soon dotted with icebergs due to his experimentation, one of which she claimed as her own island and demanded he make large enough to challenge his.

The dullard had refused! She had required more beer at that point to forgive him for his refusal to establish island parity.)

With a restocked cooler and the sun setting, they had established a large bonfire, upon which Harry forced her to join him for smores (he had cashed in the favor from the skinny-dipping, and she jumped on it as she realized if she didn't let him use it up he might try to compel her to one of those roleplaying sessions he was obsessed with). She had borne the indignity which was melted chocolate and burnt marshmallows (attempting to roast them over magical flame had SEEMED like a good idea at the time, and if nothing else the experiment had shown that they should never attempt to do so again) and for conversation she attempted to explain her Court's rules on poaching, as it seemed he had never quite figured them out on his own.

After which (and another cooler restock) it had been discovered that Harry had a guitar and was adequately skilled enough to hold a tune. At that point it was obvious that dancing was required.

She hadn't realized quite how much to drink she had throughout the night. Normally she judged the night finished once her wizard was insensate. She had neglected to account for how the mantle of Winter's Knight might have affected his tolerance.

And so, (after an hour or so of dancing through all of her wizard's repertoire while displaying only a portion of the dances she had acquired over the years, which ended with her finally nearly stumbling into the fire) she found herself being carried ingloriously back to her yacht and deposited on her bed (Harry had even taken the keys to her boat, promising to return them in the morning when she was sober).

Pulling the pillow off her head, she rolled on to her side, imagined it was Harry, and began punching it.

Infuriating! Uncalled for provocation! Unreasonable affront!

Her mind flashed to the points throughout the day when she had brushed against him, and how she could not stop herself from feeding on him.

Her punching slowed.

She thought of the way he would blush when they were swimming. The way he would stare at her with undisguised need before he caught himself.

Her punching tapered.

Their laughter, when they had seen each other's faces, smudged with chocolate.

The punching stopped.

His face as she danced for him, with all the skill a century of practice had granted her. The joy she had gotten putting that expression there.

She hugged the pillow, wrapping her legs and arms around it as she cradled it.

The shiver that had gone through her, when he had said, even in jest, that he loved her.

With a mind hazy with drink, confusion, and fear, she fell asleep embracing the pillow.

Lore Check:

I have no idea if Lara's floating palace would actually have been able to make it to Demonreach. It's noted that there's a stone reef surrounding the island that keeps most boats out, and that they have go over a certain point in order to keep their boats from sinking. A boat as big as Lara would require to display her wealth and travel in suitable aplomb genuinely might not be able to make it. Hopefully that isn't the sticking point for any of the readers.

This was probably my favorite chapter of the series. I like the way the conversation goes between Harry and Lara, and think it is a successful demonstration of just how their relationship has evolved over the years. They both know each other well enough to anticipate the others actions, how they can identify the unspoken queues of the others, the trust they have in the other's opinion, and the support they provide each other. I really think this is the part of the story where it shows how well the two of them have clicked over the years.

As for the lore points, couple of aspects. For one, I have no idea just how much Lara knows about Demonreach. It's true nature is so secretive that even the Summer Lady had no idea what it truly was (from Cold Days where she thought it was just a source of evil tht needed to be destroyed). I think there's a genuine chance that Lara really has no idea, but than again I also think she would have gone out of her way to try and find out about secrets like that. She is a member of the Oblivion Wars, after all, so she has her fingers in some pretty obscure pots. In Peace Talks, Lara has no idea why Harry is bringing Thomas there, and is outraged (murderously so) when Harry uses it to keep Thomas from dying. Frankly, I think it can go either way, so for the sake of the story I'm having her be unaware. If it turns out otherwise, oops?

Same, as I have no idea if Lara has ever met a Winter Knight before. Her history is blank, so I'm just choosing to have her not, for the sake of the conversation. Again, if its revealed otherwise, oops?

It's not really anything concerning with the Lore, but I also like the part where Lara and Harry have their Monster Bonding moment.

Finally, the date.

Man, I had so much fun writing that part. That whole 'refusing to establish island parity' had me giggling, and Harry using intellectus to keep Lara from littering? Teehee for days. Lara is out of character here, for Canon. However, I like to think that I've established her character for the story enough to support her actions here. She's with someone she trusts implicitily, a hundred miles away from any potential witnesses, and has a fully stocked bar. It's not often she has a chance to really cut loose, especially after she took control of the White Court.

Thus, all the hashtags return! #LaraClosetPartyGirl! #EmbarassedLaraTsundere!

I kind of want to combine Lara and Adorable as well, but am not quite sure which would be the best portmanteau. #aLarable? #Laradorable?

And for someone who claims to be self aware, she still just can't admit her feelings, amirite? Her throwing a tantrum on her bed and all!