Rio shrugged. "There is too much to tell."
"I have time."
"How much will you give me?"
"As much as I have."
Rio sensed his hesitation and asked, "But…?"
"But… I should return to Sandy in an hour or so."
"Ah," Rio said then. "I guess that will have to do."
At that, Eric nipped her gently on the breast and Rio smacked his head. They both laughed, and he snuggled down next to her like he was waiting for a bedtime story. "Once upon a time," Rio began, with a smile, "there was a fairy princess…
"She ran away from home so she could play guitar for boozed-up patrons in a bar in Nevada." Eric flashed her an evil grin, before slipping his hand up her skirt. "What else did she do?" he asked, waggling his eyebrows at her.
She grinned back and responded, "Nevada was a rough and tumble kind of place, so she found herself a big, bad vampire—who also happened to look like a god—to protect her and make mad, passionate love with her." She waggled her eyebrows back at him.
Eric looked at her in disbelief, "Surely not! You are making this up!" to which Rio placed her hand over her heart and said, "I swear on my mother's grave, I tell the truth!"
"Your mother has no grave," Eric huffed.
"Mmm," Rio responded, aware that his playful mood had shifted. Her own face grew serious.
He said, "I am sorry I interrupted you. I do want to learn more about your upbringing."
"Northman, I know vampires are not necessarily up on fairy politics and survival issues"—Eric had spoken almost those exact words to her mother on the night he took her to meet Niall, and he told Rio so. She sighed uncertainly and continued, "So excuse me if I repeat things you already know." Eric assured her with a touch that he would not mind.
He sensed Rio gathering herself, and when she spoke, it was from deep inside herself. "The power of the fae is stored in elemental forces of the earth; earth is in fact one of those forces—mountains, metals, desert, rock are all connected to earth's force. Water is another—oceans, rivers, rain, tears are all part of the water element. Air is a third—wind, storms, breath are a part of this element. Fire is the final element—heat, flame, volcanic eruptions all fall to this force."
Eric nodded his understanding, not wanting to interrupt her to tell her that much of his Viking heritage and belief system followed the presence of the same forces. He had seen a millennium of those forces at work and knew their power.
"For the fae," Rio continued, "there is a more elemental force than all of these—one which all rely on for being: love and sex." Eric felt his eyes widen. Rio was entering territory he had often wandered himself, during those rare times he had experienced love. "Sex for the fae is the ultimate act of creation. From sex comes all things. There would be no stars, planets, trees, fish, fairies, vampires"—and here she paused to smile at him, recognizing how very much vampires love sex—"nothing in the universe would be created if not for sex.
"For the fae, there is no sex without love, no love without sex; these two experiences are inextricably linked. The idea that these two activities could be separate, as humans think they are, would not 'be on the radar,' as the old expression goes. Sex for the fae is both very simple and pure, and very complex and revered. For the sake of brevity, let's just say that sexuality is the core of all fae.
"As the world has changed, the very heart of creation—the sex and the love of it—has weakened and faded, taking the fae with it. The ways of the world, and in particular humankind's impact on it, has made it all but impossible for the fae to reproduce."
Rio stopped. She looked at Eric, but he could feel her mind was far away. He wanted so much to touch her, but he did not want her to stop talking; he could listen to her low, melodic voice forever. She sighed and spoke, "Niall has known of this danger to the fae for a long time. For more years than there are minutes in a day, he has sought a queen who could reverse the damages done to the forces of the world by its careless residents." She stopped again, and Eric could not help but ask, "A queen? I have read of fairy queens."
Rio nodded. "The fae call her the Fairest. She is healer, procreator, teacher, leader. In many ways, she holds all the power there is, and in others, she… well, she is powerless." She looked at Eric, her eyes asking something of him. He shook his head, saying, "I don't understand."
"The Fairest connects all the elemental forces inside her, bringing all of them to join with her in the creation of the fae. All fae in essence would be her children. And she would have many, many children. She would be the ruler and the mother of a new kingdom of fairy people.
"But the making of so many children would keep her bound to her nest. Her body would be worn out and eventually destroyed by the giving of life to others. Once she was used up, the forces of creation would be set free, for fae men and women to have children—families of their own—for the first time in centuries.
"So the Fairest is everything, and ultimately nothing."
Eric mused, "Like in a bee hive." Rio nodded. "Did Niall succeed in finding his Fairest?" Eric asked.
Rio's eyes clouded over and darkened to the green of the sea bottom. "There is no 'finding' her. She must be made."
Here Rio looked at Eric, as if she was flowing into him through the connection of that shared look. He watched the world turn from night to day in her eyes, saw the sun rise, saw the moon move through its cycles of waxing and waning—he had no idea how much time passed, minutes or years of being lost in her eyes, before he truly heard what she had said.
"The Fairest… must be… made?" Her eyes dilated until they were completely black, and Eric knew then. And the knowledge was like a thousand mirrors shattering, waves pounding rocks to sand, mountains uprooting trees, and rivers carving stone to nothingness.
"You?" he barely spoke. "You are the Fairest?"