As you may imagine, I haven't got enough time to go through all the wonderful reviews and story alerts any more. It's too hard to keep track and copy them all down! But know that I am very grateful to everybody.

Playlist: 'You Failed Me Finn' and 'Journey To Fenland' from the SWATH soundtrack. Yay the real music!

7
In our madness
We burnt one hundred days
Time takes time to pass
And I still hold some ashes to me
An Occasional Dream

I dreamt of my father.
I dreamt that I was young, and that I was peering around the doorway into his chamber.

A knife stuck out from his rigid body. Thick scarlet sluiced and seeped over the sheets. But his eyes were still open, stretched so grotesquely wide, as though he were staring at something unutterably horrifying I couldn't see.

'You Failed Me Finn'.

I reeled backwards, until I realised that somebody was standing across the corridor from me, in the shadows.
A woman. A grown woman in lavish clothing, garments as bloody red as my father's bed covers.

My eyes were drawn even though I didn't want to look.

I couldn't help myself. I fell back against the wall and my mouth yawned open as wide and deep as the gulf of terror that consumed me, and from the gulf came the most awful, blood-curdling, monstrous scream.
It sounded as though I were dying.

And then, quite suddenly, I was looking at a ceiling in the bright golden hues of morning - and the screaming hadn't stopped.

"Princess." An iron-like grasp around my flailing forearms, the weight of restraint settling upon me as I convulsed where I lay. "Princess."
Air surged into my lungs as I gasped madly, and then I shrieked again, loud and incessant and piercing.

My head span, my veins ran icy cold, my heart hammered and my chest contracted sickeningly.
The absolute, undiluted horror of the moment filled my vision, my lungs, my bloodstream, my thoughts, my muscles. Images that would tangle themselves into nonsense later made complete, frightening sense now. The sense of nightmares.

It was impossible, but it was true, to me, in that moment.

"Snow White."
As I stopped struggling the pressure was removed from my wrists, and instead a warmth grazed my cheek, tender and rough as a man's touch always should be.

I concentrated on breathing in and out without the yelling in between. Harsh, painful at first, but as the soft grazing hand slipped over my forehead and smoothed back my hair, I started to feel steady again.

When I had finally gotten control of myself, felt that I could stand to acknowledge the person who had just witnessed my hysteria, I slowly let my stare slide from its resolute spot on the ceiling, and towards my bedside.

"Hello, there." his rolling accent lilted, in its deep tone like a lion's purr.
"Hello." I croaked.
"Are you done with the nightmares?"
"Just about."

"Do you want to tell me?"
Somehow I felt that I must be still dreaming. Yesterday's events were only just creeping back into memory. It all seemed very surreal. Very sudden.

And here he was, and we weren't in the middle of the forest, and he wasn't in the clothes he should be, and the duvet was too heavy and warm, and the air was too stifling and smelt of nothing.

"The night my father died." I answered flatly, the words soaking my limp body in chills again.
He nodded, but said nothing. He knew there was nothing to be said.

"And more." I found myself confessing, though I didn't want to say it aloud, I didn't want to admit the gut-wrenching truth of what I'd seen.
"Aye."
"On that night," my throat was dry and my voice was pathetic, "when I saw him there, I turned and saw her watching me. And I ran. But this was different."

I couldn't say it.

As I squeezed my eyelids shut, trying to blacken out the dregs of the picture, he moved.
A sturdy, certain arm slid between my shoulders and the mattress. It curled itself around me and swiftly scooped me up, my head rolling against his shoulder.

Quite suddenly I was sitting in the heated cradle of his embrace, pressed against his broad, protecting torso with his free arm now making up the circle around me. The soft velvety fabric of my father's surcoat caught the moisture from my cheek. He smelled of home, of the years gone by, but he felt like a whole new universe. This universe of a man.

His calloused palm cupped my neck as his thumb traced the line of my jaw with infinite gentleness.
"You are not going to be that Queen." he murmured, where his breath stirred against my head. "Don't you think on it, you silly lass."

'Journey To Fenland'.

"But it was me." I dared to open my eyes and the tears escaped haphazardly, but now I could see the tawny strands of his hair dangling, and the firm line of his shoulder, and the bulge of his sinewy arm around me, and the sight was more than comforting.

"I had his blood on my dress. Her dress."
"Just your mind playing tricks on you." He could speak so smoothly when he wanted to, like the ripple of water over slick stones, cool and inviting, "And no wonder. It has many dark places to take you. But not for long."

He curled his arms tighter around my shoulders, bending his head over me, shielding me from the whole world.
The extra pressure seemed to mend me, as though he were moulding my broken chest back into place.

How had he known what I saw?
Did it even matter? I had more to accomplish today than I had in my whole venture so far.
I shouldn't be worrying about things like uncanny telepathy when I had to read the minds of the whole kingdom myself, and somehow conjure up the answers to all of their problems.

It was incredibly pleasant, here in the sanctuary of my friend's embrace.
I wanted it to last just a little longer.

However, loud footsteps were echoing down the corridor, and the huntsman's head lifted from my own. His arms retreated, and he sat straight in his guard's chair, expression falling into blandness.

A lucky thing, for just then the door burst open, and William sprang through it like a frenzied hound, his arms raised stiffly as he clutched his loaded bow.
The arrow was trained immediately upon the only other person in the room who wasn't me. The huntsman.

"No!" I cried, throwing myself forwards until I was almost falling over the chair he sat in.

It took a few moments for William to decide not to shoot. Clearly the thought that I had been violated was raging in his mind - he had never much liked my rough-mannered friend and trusted him less. Now that showed through unmistakeably. I could feel the huntsman returning his scowl over my shoulder.

As I righted myself William finally lowered his weapon, and cleared his throat awkwardly.
He averted his eyes from my undergarments, choosing a respectfully distanced spot at the foot of the bed to concentrate on.

"Are you alright? Why did you scream?" he asked in a blunt, indifferent tone that didn't match the fierce blush of his cheeks.

That hurt. After the ordeal we had only just been through - after seeing me trekking dirty and dog-tired across the country, dressed in mail like a man, sweaty and flushed from battle - he couldn't look at me without embarrassment in my night clothes.

My heart leapt for him, though, knowing that it could only be out of respect for my virtue.
Soon that wouldn't be a barrier between us.

"I had a bad dream. Come and sit." I urged, lowering myself back into bed so I could throw the covers over my indecent self and ease his discomfort.
He looked as though he was about to refuse me, his eyes darting momentarily to the huntsman - something flashed there that I didn't recognise - but then he marched over and slumped onto the edge of the mattress.

I could see the relief on his face as his legs slackened, freed from his weight.
"You haven't been standing up all night, have you?" I fretted.

"Most of it."
"You shouldn't have. You need rest."
"Everyone needs rest, but duty comes first."

Duty meaning my protection. I felt horribly guilty, but he noticed my consternation and tried to pull up one corner of his mouth in a smile.

"I would rather you were safe, Snowdrop."
He said the last word with wonderfully sarcastic intonation.
His teasing, horrible name for me when we were just children. I used to hit him really hard when he called me that. It made me feel like a pathetic girl.

I'd proven him wrong at last yesterday, riding into war. But I still grimaced as I laughed, and threw a small, round cushion at him for good measure.
"When I'm Queen, I'll have you beaten for calling me that."

"I think you beat me enough times over the years. I've had my punishment. If anything I deserve a few more turns."
Another cushion sailed through the air and connected with his head.

He laughed, his lean, exhausted features lighting up and becoming beautiful.
The nightmare seemed like a passing fancy of thought, now. A harmless thing cast out by the sound of his brief joy.

"You must be horribly tired." I sympathised. His smile faded.
"We have a lot to do today."
"We have a lot of recovering to do first."

"But father said -"
"I know. I'll talk to him," I pacified, "Surely our priority today is to recover? And help the wounded? They won't have healed overnight."

"No, they haven't. But neither has the kingdom."
"Well. I'm sure I can afford you a few hours of sleep before discussions."

I turned to look at the huntsman, who I had utterly forgotten about for a moment.
"And you. You definitely need rest. Unless you sneaked some sleep into your watch last night." I grinned.

His returning stare was devoid of humour.
He didn't bother with a reply. He knew how guilty I already felt just from looking at him.

"You do need rest." I repeated, weakly, "William, will you go and call the girls to prepare rooms? I can't have you sleeping in the hallways."
"Of course." he muttered.

His dark grey halos were trained, like his arrow had been, upon the huntsman.
My friend, on the other hand, was glaring determinedly at the stone flags under his feet, brow furrowed, hands tense upon the chair arms.

All of the light-heartedness I had fleetingly been able to distract myself with was dampened under the weight of their cold stares.

William rose slowly, reluctantly.
"I'll send one of the maids in to help you dress, Princess." he commented, and it stung slightly, knowing that he intended some deeper meaning beneath it.

Then he turned on his heel and trudged out, looking worn and fragile even from behind.

"Well," my friend growled unnervingly, "We've a rough day ahead of us."
And, as always, he was right.