Once Upon a Utopia

Part II

.

.

Author's Note: this is part 2 of Once Upon a Utopia, a short alternative Once ficlet. Someone left a message asking me to update it. Originally I hadn't planned to, but then I got an idea, muahaha.

Trigger Warning: this chapter contains blood, self-harming, mental illness, angst, and mentions of war, death, and suicide. Reader discretion is advised.

.

If he'd been stronger, less of a weakling, less of a coward, perhaps the silver king of Bethmoora could have kept away from the sprawling manse in the middle of the Royal Forest. Perhaps he would not have been dragged back there by dreams and twisted hope. Likely it would have been better – for her, if not for him. Better that she forget the loss of her brother, the loss of her kind. Better not to see the lucidity and damnation in her eyes.

Jack and Jill went up the hill but Jack fell down and broke his crown. The blood-eyed king slew all Jill's kin so that Jack would never breathe again…

But Nuada Silverlance was craven, and he could not stay away.

He was careful to skirt the marigolds, and his guards were, as well. They all remembered the last time. Nuada sometimes woke in the night to the memory of those horrific, throat-tearing screams.

The mind-healers he'd brought to this place, Maeve and Fiann, were nearly beside themselves when he finally came to the door and stepped into the front hall. Their voices bounced against the high vaulted ceiling and crashed against the king's ears. They babbled at him, frantic to explain that they'd looked away from the queen for only a moment, Sire, truly, and they'd tried everything but the queen wouldn't listen—

Nuada pushed past both healers and strode down the corridor, his boot-steps echoing against the goldenwood paneling. His long stride lengthened further as thoughts crowded into his mind – only looked away for a second but the last time they'd looked away, the last time someone had risked taking their eyes off her, she'd grabbed the roses in her soft, vulnerable hands and the thorns had drunk so deep of all that blood – and then he was running, racing, a wind of midnight and moonlight and dread.

He hadn't even bothered to ask where in the grand sanctuary Dylan was; he knew, because of the day, the time, the slicing curve of the moon, the season with its chill winds and threat of snow. He knew her, knew her mind, even broken. The knowing of her was like a shard of cold iron lodged in his heart, bleeding him whenever Dylan's vague smile failed to reach her eyes, whenever her ragged nails ripped furrows in bruised mortal flesh, whenever lucidity came back into her gaze and she kissed him while his blood ran hot over his skin.

He found her; he'd been right, of course. She'd locked the door, but he finessed it easily. In four-thousand years, he'd picked up tricks aplenty. Now she hunched in the sunken black marble tub in the large bathing chamber, running a shredded thumbnail from wrist to the mound of death-white scar tissue at the fold of her elbow with cold deliberation, mumbling under her breath. A human could not have heard the words, but Nuada was not human.

"He loves me," she breathed as her raw skin beaded with scarlet in the wake of the nail, and he shuddered, "he loves me not. He loves me false, he loves me true…but the shadows on the hill grew. He hates my blood and loves my bones and that's why we're both all alone. He loves me, he loves me not."

Her name was a ghost of sound on his lips; he couldn't find any breath. He should stop her, distract her, give her something else to think about but the blood welling up with every pass of her thumbnail. How deep had she cut? But he couldn't move.

She hadn't even noticed him. Or at least he thought not, until the eerie sing-song suddenly changed.

"Do you love me false or love me true?" She lifted her head and looked at him, eyes burning with a terrible clarity. "You hate my blood," Dylan crooned. More of that blood dripped down her arm. It was so hideously red and the iron and salt of it practically blistered the air. "You hate my blood, but I'll spill it all for you. Red as roses and bright as gold, will you love me when I'm cold?"

Nuada didn't know what made him say it, what he thought it would accomplish, but he whispered, "I love you now, Dylan. I love you always and I love you forever."

The ever-scratching nail stopped. She pulled her bloody arm tight to her chest and cocked her head at him. Studying him with the bright, curious eyes of a bird.

She loves me, he reminded himself. She forgave me. But by the thirteen hells and the shades of Annwn, did it matter when he'd broken her like this? Every drop of her blood that fell, plip!, to the black marble was another sin carved into his heart.

"Always?" She echoed, voice frail with the weight of hope. "Forever?"

"Yes, of course," he said. "Always. Forever. I love you."

His words seemed to satisfy her; she stopped slicing into her arm and let the blood-smeared limb hang at her side. The drip-drip of the blood trickling from her fingertips into the marble tub seemed impossibly, hideously loud.

Dylan smiled at him. "I love you, too, Nuada."

Bear up, he commanded himself, and held out a hand that should have trembled. He blinked the damp, stinging heat from his eyes. Bear up, damn you. You did this. You did. This is what you owe her.

Oh, gods, Dylan, I'm so sorry.

When the mortal set her hand in his, the blood smearing her skin stung his fingers. The salt and iron in it chewed at his skin like tiny, invisible ants. The king of Bethmoora ignored it. After he'd driven his blade into his father's chest, after the Golden Crown had been set on his head and the Golden Army had risen to his battle-cry, he'd lost the weaknesses kingship among his people negated – rowan wood and berries, salt, iron, lead, the boundaries of the threshold, and all mortal toxins and pollutions.

But his queen...with magic in her veins and madness in her skull, his beloved queen was still human and somehow, despite the throne upon which he sat and the crown which he wore, her blood and tears still burned him with their iron and salt.

She was his bane and his beloved, and he had damned himself once to love her, twice when he wed her, thrice when he lost her, and a final time when he broke her.

Nuada helped Dylan out of the tub and guided her to a velvet stool in front of the black marble vanity. She said nothing, only watched him tend the long, ragged slice along her arm. She'd made no effort to follow the vein that ran under the skin. Harm, then, but not attempted suicide, thank the Fates. At least, he prayed not.

He washed away the blood with a soft cloth and smoothed clear, green salve over the length of the wound.

"You must be more careful, Dylan" Nuada said gently, though he knew "care" didn't factor into it. But he didn't know what else to say, except, "It hurts me to see you bleed."

Dylan blinked and cocked her head. She stared down at her arm as Nuada pressed gauze to the cleaned cut and bandaged it. Then her eyes cleared for just a moment, and she said, "Oh. Okay."

When he'd finished clearing away bloody rags and healing supplies, he held out his hand to her. She took it without hesitation, and followed him out of the bathing room.

Maeve and Fiann curtsied when they saw their king and queen, but Nuada saw them both turn an almost corpsely blue when they took in the bandage on Dylan's forearm. Nathan offered them a nod – he could not bring himself to smile just now – because it wasn't their fault. It had happened even when Nuada himself had been there before; how could he blame them when he was just as guilty, if not more so?

"We are going to the greenhouse," the king said. The two healers bowed their heads. But then Fiann raised hers again and moved as if to stay him.

"Majesty, there is something–"

But when he'd mentioned the greenhouse, Dylan had stopped being a complacent doll and become a delighted child. She grabbed Nuada's hand with a sweet, happy laugh and pulled him down the corridor.

"Later," Nuada called over his shoulder.

"But, Sire, the queen is…" And then they were outside, the doors of the manse swinging shut behind them, and Nathan didn't hear the rest of what Healer Fiann had been trying to tell him. The queen was...what? In need of rest after the bloodletting? No doubt, but she also needed sun and fresh air and something pretty to look at somewhere warm. The queen was in need of food? Doubtless. Dylan so rarely remember to eat when he wasn't there, and the needs of their kingdom meant he couldn't visit nearly as often as he desired.

Fiann didn't follow after him. Whatever she'd wanted to say, it hadn't been important enough to intrude on the monarchs' privacy, which meant it could wait until he returned to the main building with his wife.

Dylan's laughter filled the cool, crisp spring air as she wandered barefoot down the path toward the greenhouse. It wasn't a greenhouse as humans thought of it, a squat building made of mortal glass and filled with delicate, out of season flowers. Elven indoor gardens – indeed, fae indoor gardens of any kind – were kept in long halls when possible, with earthen floors and vaulted roofs plastered with nature magic to allow rain and sun and wind to touch whatever grew there. It was a practice that had come from the kingdom of Nyame, and most royal and noble families had at least one such garden.

Dylan had called it the greenhouse as a pun – it served the same basic function as a human greenhouse, and the walls were fashioned of the lightest pearlescent green marble Nuada had been able to find. It was one of her favorite places – in her saner moments.

Dylan flitted along the path, running her fingertips along the velvet petals of late winter flowers and early spring blooms, bright as a butterfly in her sky-blue dress, chilling as a graveyard with her skirt splattered in places by blood. Knowing Maeve and Fiann, there would be clothes waiting at the greenhouse. Nuada need only glamour Dylan to give her some privacy to change.

Sure enough, a fresh dress. A simple, periwinkle-blue leine with silver laces. It took scarcely any coaxing at all to convince Dylan to discard the blood-stained dress for a clean one.

She's put on a little weight, he thought with some relief. Not much, nowhere near enough, but some. Her hip bones no longer jutted against her bruised skin like blades. Her breasts and belly had filled out a little. It was so difficult for the healers to get her to eat, and he'd sworn never to force-feed her, but over the two years of his reign, she'd begun to waste away and he'd been so afraid…

"What do you think?" The bright questions splintered his thoughts and he blinked, dragged back to the present.

"Of what?" The king blurted.

Dylan laughed and spun in a quick circle, arms outstretched. The leine's skirts flared out around her a little and she laughed again.

"Of my dress, silly!"

He forced his lips to curve into a smile when he said, "It's lovely. You're lovely." And then, as if the ghost of his princely self had reared up and commandeered his tongue, he added, "You take my very breath away, mo duinne. Always."

Dylan's smile slipped away. Something flickered in her suddenly shadowed eyes. Nuada dared not look at it too closely. He had no idea what might happen if he did, and the thought turned his guts to lead.

She reached up and cupped his cheek. Her fingertips just grazed the whorl at his temple, a mimic of an old caress. Nuada bit down on his tongue, hard. The fey sweetness of his own blood flooded his mouth and pain blazed through his tongue. The blood and the pain drove back the sudden, nearly overwhelming urge to fall at her feet and plead for forgiveness. Instead, he let the pain throb through his mouth while that impossibly sweet touch whispered over his face like a ghost.

"Don't cry, Nuada," Dylan whispered.

Was he crying? He didn't think so. His eyes stung but his vision remained clear. If he wept, it was inside where Dylan should not have been able to see.

"Don't be sad," she added. She reached up with her other hand and framed his face. He trembled to behold the terrible, brutal clarity in her gaze. Oh, gods, she was lucid. Completely lucid. Something he'd said? Something he done? How long would it last?

"Dylan, I…" His tongue had grown clumsy and thick. The dull pain made it even worse. She was looking at him. She was. Not her madness, not the delusions, but her, oh gods...She was here, if only for a few moments. "Dylan, I'm sorry, I'm so very sorry, I didn't have a choice, I never meant to hurt you like this. Oh, gods, Dylan, come back to me, please, I–"

She kissed him. Her lips were still soft, but he tasted blood, coppery with humanity, where she'd bitten her lower lip. She tasted his blood, too, ambrosia-sweet with magic. Dylan kissed him, gentle but hungry. She was sweetness and fire, tenderness and teeth. Beloved and bane. He bit back a groan, half of desire and half of despair, and pulled her tight to his chest. Her arms twined about his neck.

It hurt to kiss her this way, as if nothing had happened, as if neither of them had suffered or been broken. But it soothed him, too.

The kiss ended slowly, reluctantly. He hated to let it go but would ask for nothing his beloved did not offer him freely. He tasted human blood on his lips when it was over, and the faintest hint of chocolate and Dylan's mouth. It was fitting. Fitting, too, that her kiss should burn him and make him burn for her. It was so very, very fitting that even in her mercy, he tasted torment.

It was what he deserved, after all.

Her eyes were still clear and blue and sane when she gazed up at him, licked her lips, and said, "I love you."

His will broke enough to allow a single tear and a strangled sob in the back of his throat. Dylan brushed the tear away, gently. She took his hand in hers.

"Let's go see the flowers, hmmm?"

The king of Bethmoora followed after his mortal queen like a faithful hound.

.

Sometimes Nuada wondered if it was he who had gone mad and not Dylan. If killing his father had broken his mind. If his memories of ruling Bethmoora day after day were mere delusion and he in fact lived out his days in this tiny bit of utopia while Dylan acted as queen to their people. But madmen didn't suspect or know they were mad, did they?

Dylan would have been able to tell him. She had been the mind healer. He could scarcely stand the thought of asking any other. But he did not know what she would tell him.

The lucidity in Dylan's eyes faded as they walked along, as she cooed at thornless, wild Irish roses and bright blue forget-me-nots. Nuada yearned to bring it back, to have her back for a few more precious moments, but he didn't know how. So he let her pluck the edible flowers from their stems – day-lily buds and Elven dandelions and clover blossoms, things he'd often made snacks of as a child. Listened to Dylan tell him little stories of her own childhood. The tales rang slightly hollow, because she never spoke of John. Perhaps he no longer existed in her mind. Nuada had no idea, and was terrified to mention the mortal he'd loved as a brother. Sometimes speaking of John did nothing but elicit a blank look from Dylan. Other times it dredged up truth and memory and Dylan would begin to scream and scream, and weep until she ran dry of tears.

Dylan flopped onto a soft patch of grass and clover and tugged Nuada down with her, then half-crawled onto his lap. With a small, contented sigh, she nuzzled her face against his thigh. Sheer force of will prevented his hand from shaking as he lightly stroked her tangled curls. He'd have to brush her hair tonight before he tucked her into bed; once the tangles grew this thick, she wouldn't abide her attendants trying to comb them out.

"Nuada," she murmured. His hand stilled. "I'm so happy, Nuada."

He forced himself not to flinch. "And why is that, dearest?"

Dylan laughed, rolling onto her back to look up into his carefully smiling face. When she raised a hand to brush fingertips over his lips, her sleeve slid back to show the bandage covering her forearm.

"Guess why," she said with another laugh.

"Because you love your garden so," he offered.

She giggled. "I guess that's one reason, but nope! Try again."

Nuada caught her hand in his and kissed the back of it. A brush of his lips sent a small, slow wave of soothing magic into the bruises and scrapes marring her skin. Against her raw-scraped Knuckles, he said, "Because I am here with you and there are no shadows to assail us."

It wasn't true of course, but the shadows came from within now, and she didn't notice them, and there was nothing he could do about them.

Dylan sighed happily. "That is a very good reason, but I have another one. I made Maeve and Fiann promise not to tell you before I could. Guess again, please?"

He couldn't think of anything else that might make her so happy, and he confessed as much. Especially something that the healers would know, unless it was something she had confided in them during one of her dreamy times when every thought fell from her lips like a secret. Dylan laughed at him – not unkindly – and rolled off his legs to sit on the grass next to him. He wanted to force his mouth into a grin that matched her own beaming smile, but it felt as if his face would crack in half like a glass plate.

She kissed the tip of his nose. "Silly Prince Charming," she murmured. "You've made my dream come true. That's why I'm so happy. Now come on," she added, pushing to her feet. "I'm hungry. Can we go get food?"

She was...hungry? Dylan was so rarely hungry, so rarely in touch with the world and her body enough to notice its needs, that a real smile spread across his face. She was hungry. Thank the Fates, the stars, the gods, whatever. This was a good thing. A very, very good thing.

"Of course, beloved." He got to his feet and offered her his arm. She took it with a smile and snuggled close, and for a moment it was like those long-ago days before the war, before his kingship. "Let us hunt down something to eat, shall we?"

It was only when they stepped out of the greenhouse and into the cooler spring air that Nuada remembered what else she had said.

You've made my dream come true.

For some reason, the words filled him with a sudden sense of foreboding. What dream did she mean? Because normally when she spoke of dreams, she only spoke of terrible nightmares. Memories of blood-soaked streets and corpses in the gutters, of giant golden monsters belching steam and dripping human blood. Because he hadn't done anything that he knew of to make her happy. Not really. And because he could only think of one true dream, the dearest wish of her heart, but she couldn't mean that dream because there would have been signs, surely, and Maeve and Fiann would have informed him…

But Sire, the queen is...The queen was what? Needing clean clothes, a meal, rest, comfort? Mad, despondent, unpredictable? Lucid, insane, condemning, forgiving? Any and all of those things?

Or something else? Something wonderful and terrible, something hoped for and dreaded?

Sire, the queen is…

Could it be the queen, his mad, mortal beloved...was with child?

.

.

.

Author's Note: so...what did you guys think?