Once Upon a Time

by LA Knight

Wolves in human skin. A Beast and a lost maiden. A sanctuary in a storm. A prince of Elven blood. Sacrifices, debts, honor, & oaths. Ten long, beautiful years, and all the stories that fall within. A collected fic series; currently on book 13. Updates when I can because hey it's a pandemic. Early access available on Patreon.

124. Take a Break

Author's Note: I know it's a little early but check out the dedication to find out why. I love you all and let me know what you think of this chapter, okay? Reviews are love! They also let me know what I'm doing right. I'd love to know if you guys have a favorite part in this chapter, or if there are any other fae we haven't met yet that you want to see.

Chapter dedication: this chapter is up early for Dangerouslywingedphilosopher, who has a broken jaw and is good enough to nag me about popping out my chapters. So say thank you to them, everybody! :)

Last Time on Once Upon a Time: Dylan texted her cousin Renee, who has a PhD in medieval Irish law, in the hopes she could come to Faerie to help deal with both Shaohao's bargain and the treaty. Master mac Éssit asked Dylan's permission to join her retinue and King Balor was further delayed on his journey to Lallybroch by a second skunk attack (which may or may not have been brought about by Uilliam, Nuada's new half-fae vassal and the grandson of Sreng mac Umhor). The old king still believes he will have to execute a half-insane Nuada upon his arrival in the village, but he prays this isn't so. Nuada has agreed to take Dylan out for a short holiday in a unicorn grove, where he and Dylan received a warning that a time of personal darkness would be coming. They also met a strawberry fairy named Ailin. Our story picks up in the unicorn glade, empty now but for our prince and his lady and a small visitor...

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Chapter One-Hundred-Twenty-Four
Take a Break
that is
A Short Tale of Grass, an Anthem, Loyalty, History, Anguish, Gold, Loss, Guilt, a Nap, Flowers, Landscaping, Beans, Cows, Foxes, Dreams, a Cute Trick, Oaks and Acorns, White in the Sky, Desperation, and Gratitude

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Dylan stretched out on her stomach on the wool blanket, chin resting on her hands pressed flat to the ground, smiling at the tiny, green-faced faerie no bigger than her fingernail peeking at her from behind a blade of grass. Relishing the freedom of movement she'd gained since Shaohao had healed her, she swung her upraised legs back and forth, humming to herself. The little faerie cocked its head and studied her.

"What are you looking at, mo duinne?" Nuada asked, coming back from the stream. He carried a quartet of silvery salmon spitted on a whittled spike of wood. He'd left her to enjoy the sunshine and unseasonal warmth due to her healing back.

"I don't know," she said. When she beamed at the tiny fairy, it flashed her a smile. The little teeth were the black of grass seeds, the same color as its eyes. "A grass faerie? I think?"

Nuada set the fish on a pile of clean oak leaves and knelt to study the fairy. He held out a finger and the green thing clambered onto the tip of his index finger, offering a deep bow. Its limbs were as thin as needles, and the pale green shirt and trews seemed to have been spun from spidersilk and dandelion fluff. To Dylan's surprise it drew a miniscule sword fashioned from an impossibly thin thorn, knelt in the center of Nuada's finger, and saluted him.

The prince smiled. "Our friend here is a pietalan," he murmured. "One of the grass-folk. Their name is…" The pietalan made a soft but shrill whistling sound, like a grass-whistle. Nuada raised an eyebrow. "Their name is that sound."

"Oh. Does that mean something?"

"The first part means sharp-blades-that-prick-bare-feet," Nuada said. "A warrior's name among the pietalan. The second means of-the-sacred-glades. Our friend is a captain among their ranger corp, assigned to guard unicorn glades. This," he added, gesturing to her, "is my betrothed, Lady Dylan." The pietalan rose to his feet and swept a low bow before sheathing his thorn-sword.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Captain."

The captain whistled again and Nuada said, "They say you may call them Captain Sharp Blades."

Dylan grinned. "That's a bit easier, thank you. 'They?'"

"Pietalan are living plants. Though many plant-fae are referred to as 'she,' pietalan specifically are referred to as 'they.' Did you know the pietalan were once used as spies for the Bethmooran army? Yes," he added when she blinked at him. "They travel quite swiftly despite their size."

"How?" Dylan asked, directing her question to the diminutive fae. "How do you travel so quickly?"

The captain grinned and gave a higher, shriller whistle. The grass rustled slightly and a small speck rose from a few away to flit over and land on Nuada's a palm. A ladybug. To something as small as the pietalan, the ladybug was the size of a small horse. Captain Sharp Blades patted the ladybug's bright red back, then trilled at the prince.

Nuada raised his eyebrows. "Indeed? Now?" He glanced at Dylan. "I think she would enjoy that immensely, in fact."

"What?"

Dark lips quirked into a little-boy smile and something warm and pleasant fizzed in Dylan's stomach. Nuada gestured for her to wait a moment and inclined his head to Captain Sharp Blades. The pietalan leapt upon the ladybug's back and gave a short, sharp whistle. The wings unfurled from beneath the shell and the ladybug zipped into the air.

Her prince stretched out his hand and laid his palm flat to the grass. Drawing a deep breath, he closed his eyes.

The air hummed with restrained power as the forest slowly fell silent. The trees seemed to lean in, holding a collective breath, watching the Elven prince whose very magic tied to the life of the land. Nuada's fingertips dug into the rich, dark earth and he gave a long, slow sigh as if breathing life into the world.

Next to Dylan's hand, a dandelion shoot pushed up through the earth, unfurled a green bud in fast-forward, and spread golden petals to the sun. In seconds each petal dropped away and wisps of white popped up in their place until in a mere twenty seconds the dandelion had transformed into a dandelion puff. Dylan stared at the diaphanous weed before glancing around the meadow. Hundreds of dandelion puffs dotted the grass with their soft, white fluff.

"What's going on?" Dylan asked Nuada.

Nuada offered a small smile and actually winked at her. "Just wait. This takes a little time to prepare."

Rustling filled the air, like wind through the grass, as the sea of green closest to the burbling creek rippled with hidden movement. Dylan tensed, but realized no cold warning chilled her heart and Nuada was still smiling. The ripples in the grass spread out from the water like cresting waves before suddenly stilling, all movement gone.

Warm firegold eyes flicked briefly toward the sun peeking out from behind the fluffy, white clouds over head before Nuada turned to Captain Sharp Blades, still hovering on the back of his ladybug several feet in the air. From this distance, Dylan could barely make out the little fairy's bow before a shrill whistle split the air.

The wind kicked up, a sudden gust through the glade that blew stray curls in Dylan's eyes. She squeaked at the sudden brisk chill, then gasped as the dandelion puffs released their bits of downy white into the air.

Hanging to each white stem was a pietalan, as small as Dylan's thumbnail, their skin and clothing green as emeralds. With one hand they clung to the dandelion puff-stems, and with the other they cradled something that caught the sunshine and reflected it like light through a thousand tiny crystals. Miniature rainbows scattered across Dylan's hands and face. The dandelions swirled around her in a loose cyclone of wispy white and jewel-like colors.

Then the pietalan began to sing. Jaunty, cheerful whistling filled the glade, the bright notes humming along Dylan's skin and tugging her mouth into a broad grin. She glanced at Nuada, who shot her an answering grin as light as any she'd ever seen from him before.

"You arranged all this just this morning?" She asked. He canted his head, offering a smile of pure, male satisfaction. "What's this song?"

"It is my country's anthem," he said. Her eyes widened. "Would you like to hear the words?"

"Yeah!"

The prince cleared his throat, cocking his head to listen to the pietalan's song. He tapped one finger against his thigh in time with the rhythm before smiling, lifting his chin, and beginning to sing.

"Bold and bonny soldiers are we,
Whose lives are pledged to Bethmoora.

"Some have come from a land
Beyond the cresting sea,
Sworn to be free from bondage,
No more our ancient sireland,
Shall shelter despots who would see us slaves.

"Tonight we man the battlefield,
Tonight we brandish silver and bronze,
For love of the Fae, come woe or death,
'Mid the army's roar and bard-bells' peal,
We'll chant a soldier's song.

"A soldier's song, a soldier's song,
As the stars shine o'er Bethmoora's children…"

Nuada's smile abruptly faded and shadows darkened amber eyes to xanthous gray. He turned his face from the sun, from the jubilant pietalan still holding tight to their bits of blown-about dandelion fluff, but he kept singing.

"A song to honor the fire in our hearts,
And the Crown we love—
We will sing a soldier's battle song,

"For bold and bonny soldiers are we,
Whose lives are pledged to Bethmoora."

Nuada swallowed hard, fists clenched so tight his knuckles burned white as bone against the grayish hue of his skin. Dylan ached to reach out, to lay her hand on his, but without the empathic link that had once connected them, she had no idea if the touch would be welcome. Slowly the wind died and the dandelion fluff dropped back to the earth, all the pietalan save Captain Sharp Blades returning to where the captain's whistle had called them from.

Dylan cleared her throat. "Nuada?"

He heaved a sigh that seemed to drag at his very bones. "I have no right to sing that song. My people deserve far better than what the Crown deigns to give them. I have no right to ask them to—"

A sharp whistle jerked Nuada's attention to the pietalan captain astride his ladybug. The tiny fairy guided his even tinier mount to hover in front of the prince's face. Captain Sharp Blades whistled again, shrill and firm. Nuada blinked, brows furrowing. The pietalan folded their arms and nodded once, a sharp jerk. A small smile tugged at Nuada's mouth.

"You humble me, Captain. Bethmoora is served well by the strength of your loyalty and heart."

Captain Sharp Blades drew his thorn-sword again, saluting the prince and bowing his tiny head. With a final soft, chirruping whistle, the pietalan flitted away, leaving the Elf and the mortal alone once more.

"Are they all gone?"

Nuada nodded and dropped to his back on the grass with another sigh. "All of them. Back to their homes to afford us a bit of privacy. And I've glamoured us again, to ensure we're left alone." He glanced at her, pained, before closing his eyes. "I do not deserve such loyalty as they offer."

Dylan pillowed her cheek on her arms. "Isn't that for our people to decide, Nuada?"

He ran a hand over his face. Trained his eyes on the wisps of ivory cloud threading through the sky. "The people who still look to me for hope, for some succor from this crawling decay, expect me to deliver it at the point of a sword on a field turned to charnel house mud by the slaughter of your race." His hands, resting on his chest, flexed. "I have abandoned that path, as I have abandoned them. By what right do I continue to accept their fealty, their love, when I have no means of—"

The brush of her fingers against his shoulder silenced him. He turned to her, anguish smoldering in his eyes. Her smile almost seemed to hurt him. "You would never abandon the fae. Your people. Our people. You know that. They know that."

"If war comes, how are we to fight it without the Golden Army?"

"The what?"

Star-blond brows furrowed sharply before relaxing. "I never explained, I'd forgotten. I told you of my plans for your race. War. Genocide." The words came soft and bitter with regret. She nodded. "I never told you how. I…it ties so closely with so much that is dark in my past. So much I never wished to burden you with. The last war, my father's betrayal, my exile. I…Gods, I do not even know how to…"

She reached out, slipping her fingers around his hand, and drew it from his chest to her lips. She kissed his knuckles, a silent promise. There would be no condemnation here. Not in this place and not with her

Nuada stared at her for a long moment, weighing and considering. He blew out a long, slow breath and surged to his feet. When she moved to rise, too, he motioned for her to stay, to give him a moment. He strode to the deeper part of the creek and stood for the long time on the bank, listening to the burbling song, watching the sunlight dance on the water. Nodded as if to himself and finally called her name. She came to him, noting the tension etched into every line of his tall frame.

"Wars between the fae and the humans waged for centuries," he began softly without looking at her, "from the time I was a small boy until just before my twentieth century. Every decade or so, the human kings would petition my father for peace or my father and the other fae monarchs would call truce with them. Back and forth, back and forth, like some political dance across the bones of our soldiers. As a child I didn't understand, but as I grew older I realized what an affront it was to the memories of our fallen that we should continue to step back and back and further back from the humans that continued to break their word to us. Because always—always—when a treaty was broken, the humans were the betrayers."

"You're certain?" Dylan asked gently, taking his hand again. It was a testament, she thought, to all that was between them that Nuada didn't even glare at her question. He simply nodded, never taking his eyes from the silver minnows darting beneath the water.

"I still remember those times a neighboring human king sent emissaries dragging one of my people behind him, claiming they had committed some crime. My sister…" Nuada's free hand knotted into a fist. "My sister's gift of mind-touch proved quite useful in ferreting out the truth from the lies. Whenever a guilty fae was sentenced, my father made certain their punishment was public and brutal, to avoid a repeat of the offense. When our people broke the treaties—even nobles—they were punished. But not so with the humans. And then my mother died, and my father weakened. And I knew I had to become stronger, bolder, to protect my people where my father would not. And so I did…but then the last war came."

He fell silent, throat working convulsively as if he worked very hard not to be sick. The healthy golden color of his skin bleached to bluish gray as he stared off into the distance, despair darkening his gaze. The shadows around his eyes deepened to cold midnight.

Licking her lips, suddenly nervous, Dylan took his hand in both of hers. He rarely spoke of his time in the wars. She knew he'd been captured twice, tortured horribly, pushed to the point that he'd contemplated suicide because he feared breaking underneath his enemies' twisted talents. He'd lived centuries by then but by Elven standards he'd still been only a boy, fourteen the first time, barely sixteen the second.

Nuada took a few measured breaths. Extricating his hand from hers, he curled his fingers into white-knuckled fists.

"I didn't tell you…" He paused. Closed his eyes. A muscle flexed in his jaw. "I did not tell you of the third time I was taken prisoner by the humans. During the final war. They didn't bother trying to extract information from me this time. They tortured me for sport, nothing more. I knew nothing they needed to learn."

"What do you mean?" A third time? He'd been taken, captured, tortured for a third time? Just before his twentieth century, so physically and emotionally nineteen…She could barely process the thought. "You're the crown prince, I mean, you had to know something—"

"They were killing us." The whispered words stole her voice. "Murdering us in droves. They didn't need information. They were winning. Slaughtering entire villages, laying siege to our cities, laying waste to our armies and executing our soldiers, dropping their corpses in hundreds of mass graves…The final war was no true war. It was a massacre. Genocide. They wanted to grind my people into the mud and bury the bodies beneath ash and blood and broken oaths.

"So they captured me…" He swallowed. Stared at nothing, gaze turned inward toward memory. She wanted to turn him to her, look him full in the face, but now she didn't dare. "And they burned me with ensorcelled iron and poisoned me with salt, shattered my bones and left me to go mad in the pit of my own agony."

Dylan's hands crept up to cover her mouth.

He didn't see her anymore, didn't see anything but the past carved into his bones. "And they dragged me along with them to every village, every city, giving me just enough food and water to live, using their own twisted, stolen magic to stave off the death creeping up on me, gnawing at my wounds. They hauled my carcass up to lie broken before their false thrones and forced me to watch as they butchered my people.

"There was an Elf." Nuada licked his lips and drew a breath that sounded as if it hurt. "He was old. My father's age at the time, maybe sixty centuries, perhaps a few more. Too old to have done any fighting in this last conflict. Frail. He was an artisan, a woodcarver. The humans claimed he'd used his skill to weave spells of dark magic upon the innocents of their kind when he sold them his wares. They dragged him to the executioner's platform and broke his hands as punishment.

"Then they threw him down and gutted him in front of his wife and children and grandchildren. His grandson was…maybe 'Sa'ti's age. And the child saw me lying there in front of the human general and he screamed for me, begging me to save his grandfather. But I couldn't. It took that old man hours to die. His children tried to save him, and they were cut down like rabid dogs. The grandchildren…they were so small, but the humans didn't spare them, either. And afterward, after millions of deaths just like those, their king spat on their corpses and signed a treaty written in their blood."

She could only stare at him for what felt like an eternity before she asked, "Does your father know any of this?"

Another hard, quick swallow. A sharply drawn breath. "I tried to tell him. When he told me of the final truce. He said…He said it didn't matter. That too much blood had been spilled and this time we would have peace or die. No more war. After the Battle of Scarlet and Gold, there could be no more wars ever again."

Wondering at her own daring, she reached out and laid her fingertips against one fist. His hand twitched and then suddenly he grabbed her hand and squeezed—not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough that she realized he was trembling. He wasn't trying to stop her from touching him; instead he clung to her like a small child clinging to a favored toy, desperate for some semblance of comfort.

She wanted to ask about the Battle of Scarlet and Gold, but she didn't. Didn't dare. Nuada had transformed into a statue of brittle glass housing a thousand cruel memories and she had no clue what might shatter him.

"But before the truce…before our shame…I was rescued from my bondage by a pack of goblin Fianna. They saved me and brought me to the sister of their captain, a blacksmith of impossible skill, and her husband—a healer of great renown. He saved me before rot could infect my wounds and finish me.

"I lost time then. I have a vague memory of sunrises as red as blood and sunsets gray with the smoke of funerary fires. I don't know how much time passed as they sweated the sickness out of me and pieced me back together. But then the blacksmith came to me and knelt in the doorway.

"I remember," he said distantly, dreamily, gaze horrifyingly empty, "how I hated her for kneeling. For calling me her lord. I was no one's lord, no one's prince, no one's savior. I was nothing. I was a waste of flesh and blood, too weak to save the ones I'd sworn to protect. I deserved nothing but condemnation and merciless death. I wished for it, ached for it, the need for it pulsing through me with my pain. I was naught but an oathbreaker and a coward. But then she spoke seven words that shattered my grief and gave me such bittersweet hope.

"'I know how to protect the Fae.'"

And he told Dylan then of everything he hadn't said before—how the blacksmith, a master of her craft and revered among the goblins for her skill, had fashioned seventy-times-seventy clockwork soldiers of royal Elven gold to defend Bethmoora. How a magical clockwork crown had accompanied the gift, the means of controlling the Golden Army. How Balor had been persuaded by Nuala and Nuada and Polunochnaya and Na'koma and Wink and Lord Iriáll the chamberlain and the Lord Steward and the rest of the Bethmooran council to accept the gift, though every one of them had first been swayed by the prince's impassioned plea.

"Perhaps I was mad then," he whispered. "Insane with the need to give justice to all those who'd been butchered. The need to prevent another slaughter."

Dylan cupped her hand in his. "Mad? Perhaps. Perhaps your enemies made you that way."

A bitter laugh. "Perhaps they did."

"Then what happened?"

He told her that, too. The king had accepted the gift, desperate for some way to stop the genocide of his people, and then he'd given what in Dylan's opinion was the absolutely stupidest command any leader of any armed force to ever breathe could have ever given.

Kill the humans.

And so they had. Towering golden automatons empowered by goblin magic had plowed through the advancing human armies, cutting down cavalry, literally ripping men limb from limb. Unstoppable, indestructible, merciless. And they'd continued on past the attacking warriors, killing every human thing in their path, even the soldiers and officers and armies that tried to surrender.

When there were no armies left, they'd moved into human villages, human cities, killing civilians, killing anything human. Even before they'd reached the civilians, Nuada had tried to stop these unstoppable creatures. He'd lost half his army in the attempt. Wink had lost his arm. Nuada had been forced to pull his warriors back before they were all slaughtered, so he'd sent his fastest riders back to the capital—which, at the time, had not been Findias—to tell the king to use the magic of the crown and stop the Army. And even then, it hadn't been soon enough. Over twenty hamlets and villages and three cities had been razed to the ground before the end.

"In the final village, the last one before my father's new orders came through, we tried to stop them again. We'd ridden ahead of the Army at every turn, trying to give at least a couple days' warning to the next township, but this time we found a town wrapped around an army outpost. They refused to leave. Swore the human soldiers living there would return and fight for them. We were going to leave them to it, to at least save our own, but…" Nuada pressed his lips together. Closed his eyes.

"There were these…half-human children. A boy and a girl, with their young sister. The little one walked like a drunkard, she was so small, so unsteady on her feet. Despite the war, despite the deaths between our people's, there was no hate in them. My soldiers were hungry and tired. These children took us to their parents, orchard-keepers. A human man and his greenwoman wife. They gave us what they could, let us water our horses. Fed us, sheltered us, despite the ruin we had brought on them. Their mother asked me to take the three of them away from the village, to keep them safe from the Army. I swore I would see it done. But I and others of my company stayed behind, to try and give the humans time to evacuate when the Army came; we could not simply abandon them, not when some of their own had aided us.

"The children got away from their minders when the screaming started, ran back to the village. They wanted to find their parents…"

Dylan took his other hand and shifted to catch his gaze. He almost seemed to be pleading with her. Begging silently for something.

"They died," she said. It wasn't a question, but he nodded. "All three of them?"

Another nod. "The littlest one…Gwynlia. I saw her during the evacuation. With her brother and sister. She was so afraid. She'd hidden underneath an apple cart. Perhaps her brother and sister hid her there; their bodies had been trampled into the mud a finger's breadth from her hiding place. I tried to get to them, tried to push through the crush of people. My blade was out, as if I could defend them against the Golden Army. I…I don't know what I thought I could do with a mere sword, even the sacred sword of Bethmoora. Not against death and not against my father's clockwork soldiers.

"A human saw me, one of the returning warriors drawn back too late by the screaming. He thought I meant to harm Gwynlia, I think. He got in my way. He wouldn't move. It took me precious moments to disarm him, and he tried to cover Gwynlia with his body, to protect her—from me. I told him to move, to run, and I reached for them, to make them move…And a golden sword plunged into his back a mere breath from my fingertips. He screamed and she screamed and the sword…

"I looked up and saw it. The Golden Warrior. There was no mercy in its face, no heart. No soul. Only the determination to carry out its orders. It belched steam hot enough to blister my skin. The sword flashed in front of my face like a golden wind, like an executioner's axe. The screaming stopped in seconds and suddenly it was so very quiet. All I could hear was my heartbeat."

A single tear escaped his control to trickle down his cheek. Dylan gently squeezed his fingers. No judgment. I'm here. I'm listening. Had the king offered him the same thing? A chance to cleanse his heart just a little of its shadows? Any sympathy at all for the agony twisting him up? Somehow, she doubted it.

He cleared his throat.

"I attacked the Golden Warrior. I don't know why, don't know what I thought I could accomplish. But I simply…had to. It didn't care that I was fae, that I was Elven, that I was Prince Nuada. It only cared that I was trying to thwart it completing my father's order. It backhanded me, this slab of scalding-hot gold and gears, and I…I do not remember what happened after that. I blacked out, I think.

"I woke in the mud—the healers said I'd crawled back to Gwynlia, they found her in my arms. Her blood was all over me, the same color as the mud. The company my father sent to stop the Golden Army, to stop me, found me there, in the middle of the street, surrounded by bodies. They dragged me away from her. They just left her there, and her brother and sister, my father's men left them in the mud like trash—"

His teeth snapped shut with a harsh click as Dylan pulled him against her, holding tight to him, pressing her forehead against his shoulder. He trembled as he laid his cheek against the top of her head and gripped her tightly, sucking in a breath. Shuddered hard enough she feared he might shake apart.

He'd never told anyone this. She knew it with the same certainty she knew her own name. He'd kept this not just from the king, but from Nuala, from Wink, from any of them. Maybe he'd assumed his comrades understood. Maybe he'd been afraid of burdening them with his grief when he was supposed to be their rallying point, their general. Or maybe it was simply that every time he'd ever tried to grieve with someone he trusted, someone he was certain could understand, he'd been viciously silenced by his father.

But now the words spilled from him, raw and soaked in the memory of blood, a festering would lanced by the unicorn and cleansed now because for the first time, he was with someone he felt wouldn't hate him to learn these things about his past. So she held him, held him together while his memories threatened to shatter him, cradled him in her arms while her love and sorrow cradled the heart bleeding in his chest.

"I should have helped them," he choked out. "I should have done something. Fought harder. Been faster. I was supposed to protect them. All of them. And I couldn't do it. I couldn't...I couldn't do it. They died and I was helpless…"

And Nuada broke, weeping against her throat while he squeezed her hard enough that it almost, almost hurt. And he whispered heartbroken words of pain, loss, self-loathing, despair soaked in tears and the memory of blood. Murmured fragmented confessions of when he'd wandered alone through abandoned battlefields, the recriminations of his father, his people's grief, their newfound disgust aimed like a knife at his heart, the wall of ice and iron between himself and his sister, the long nights in his enemies' grasp when he'd sought in vain for the means to take his own life.

But all the while, whenever he paused long enough that she feared he would never speak again, Dylan whispered to him, "I'm here. I'm right here."

Slowly, oh so agonizingly slowly, the words dried up and the tremors eased. He drew a deep breath. Let it out. Another. Let it out. His grip relaxed bit by bit. She didn't let him go. Simply held him tight while the most poisonous of his pain bled out of him.

"I'm here," she whispered. He tightened his grip again, just a fraction, when she spoke. "I'm not going anywhere, I promise you." She would never, ever abandon him. "I'm right here, Nuada. Always."

After a long while, he rasped, "I'm sorry. This is not why I brought you here. I wanted to bring you some joy, some relief—"

"I am relieved," she said. Pulling back, she gazed up at him, at the shadows of his face. "You needed to talk about this. To tell someone. You've carried this for two-thousand years. You needed to share it. And you have. That fills me with relief. And you chose me to talk to. That is a great honor to me, that you trust me so much. You've done nothing wrong." He started to look away, eyes shuttering to blankness. She forced his gaze back to her. "My lord," she whispered, and his eyes widened. "My love. You've done nothing wrong."

"To weep like some helpless child—"

"You have every right. Do you hear me? You have every right to mourn, to hurt. Every right to feel torn apart by pain and sorrow. There is no shame in crying. You have every right to your tears."

"I am a man grown—"

"It doesn't matter," she whispered. "There's nothing shameful about tears. When you cry, you cry as a real man does—because your heart aches. Because you have compassion. Because you grieve for those you love, for those you have lost, and for the young man you used to be. You have every right to cry, Nuada. You've done nothing wrong."

Finally, after agonizing silence, he nodded. Swallowed. "I feel…strange."

"A little tired?" She suggested. He nodded again, brow furrowed. "That's normal," she replied, smoothing her thumbs over the trails left on his cheeks by his tears. "Talking about this sort of thing can really take it out of you."

He stared at her. "You have done this. Shared such things. Your time in the institution."

"Yeah."

"What do you do afterward? To shake off this…feeling of weakness?"

She smiled and brushed her fingers over the scar gracing his cheek. "Usually I sleep for a little bit and then when I get up I go and do something fun." She slipped her arms up, draping them on his shoulders and clasping her hands loosely behind his neck. "You should sleep a little. We'll be safe here."

But Nuada shook his head. "I brought you here to make you happy, not to finagle a day of coddling—"

Her finger against his lips silenced him.

"You call it coddling. I call it self-care, and it's important. You've begun something very important here, and it needs to continue. So we should start it off on the right foot. You constantly flog your body when you think it fails you. You force yourself to your absolute limits but even you need rest. Will you trust me?"

Firegold eyes burned into hers, searching for something. Dylan cocked her head. At last, he canted his head and offered her a small smile. "As you say. You know better than I."

They went back to the wool blanket and Dylan picked up her discarded overdress, folding it into a pillow for the prince. Relishing her ability to sit like a normal thirty-year-old for once, she tucked her feet beneath her at an angle and handed the impromptu pillow to Nuada. Without a word or a pause, he laid the pillow on Dylan's lap and carefully dropped his head to it. One hand reached up to rest on her knee. Dylan hesitated for a fraction of a second before laying her palm against Nuada's hair and gently brushing the silken strands back from his face. He sighed and the tension eased out of him.

She had no idea how long they sat that way, her back against a fallen tree, his head pillowed on her lap. She didn't bother keeping track. Just hummed tunelessly under her breath and kept running her fingertips over Nuada's hair as he slowly went boneless with the exhaustion always dogging his steps.

"Dylan?"

"Hmmm?"

He whispered, so softly she almost didn't hear him, "Thank you."

Her fingers stilled against his hair for a second as her eyes stung. She blinked back the threat of tears, fairly sure he wouldn't understand, and said, "You're welcome, mo airgeadach." She started humming again.

"S'lovely," he mumbled. She smiled. "Don't stop."

Never, she thought. Never, ever.

When he actually began to snore ever so faintly, Dylan tipped her head back to look up at the sky. The soft spring blue reminded her of the jewels Nuada had gifted her with on her birthday, and the stream they'd gone swimming in that day in the Royal Forest with the glory of unicorns. Easier times, brighter days.

His heart is broken like mine, Heavenly Father, she thought. Not quite the planned, structured prayer she offered when getting up for the day or going to bed, but in this moment, the wildflowers turning the air to sweet spring perfume and the sunshine bathing her face, nothing could've silenced the prayer in her heart. We really are perfect for each other, despite everything—aren't we? All this time, through all my darkness and pain, this gift from Thee was waiting. I thank Thee, Heavenly Father, for this joy. It comes with pain, but I wouldn't trade Nuada in my life for anything. I've found a way to start healing again, and I think he has, too. So I thank Thee, my Lord, my God, for these gifts. For all the blessings Thou hast bestowed upon me. For Nuada. I thank Thee.

Carefully leaning back fully against the fallen tree, she sighed, utterly content. Her eyes lit on a cluster of daisies and clover rustling faintly in the breeze. Slipping the borrowed twin-knife Nuada had given her from its sheath inside her boot, Dylan plucked a daisy, careful to leave behind the root, and got to work.

.

Nuada awoke with spring-warm noontime sun kissing his face and Dylan's careful fingertips smoothing over his hair. He felt…rested, truly rested, for the first time in a long time. He'd shared some of his darkest memories with Dylan, his gravest sins—the deaths of the Fae he could not save, the cowardice he'd shown in wishing for death to escape his people's plight, allowing his father to misuse the Golden Army—yet here she was even now, with him, unafraid and without reserve.

He rolled onto his back to look up at her, the brilliant turquoise sky framing that lovely, wounded face. Her eyes warmed when they met his and she smiled, so impossibly bright.

"How did I ever survive without you?" He asked without thinking.

She grinned. "Sheer princely stubbornness, I think." Her grin widened when he laughed and sat up, careful not to bump his head against her. "So, how do you feel?"

The prince considered. "Better. Lighter. Your handiwork and the unicorn's, I expect." He drew a deep breath of the sweet air saturating the unicorns' glade and smiled for her. Noticed a circle of green, white, and gold in her hands. "What's that you have there?"

"For you." She carefully set a woven daisy-and-clover crown on his head and grinned when he laughed again. "You like it?"

The look he offered was soft as spring rain and sweet as summer roses. "This is quite well-made. I shall treasure it always." Lifting it from his head, he drew a deep breath, held it for a moment, then breathed long and slow upon the circle of white and yellow blossoms. The air around the flowers shimmered and the chain slowly shrank to the size of a bracelet. Sunlight refracted off the petals as if they were made of crystal. When Dylan touched a daisy, she found it smooth as glass.

"Oh, my gosh," she breathed. "How did you do that? That's amazing."

He fought not to preen under the warmth of her praise. "Magic, of course. I can change it back just as easily, but this way I shall be able to keep it whole and safe, and look upon it whenever I wish to remember this day, and the elect lady that has blessed me with her favor." She has made this for him. It was such a simple thing, but…he couldn't remember the last person who'd given him such little things—little things that in truth weren't so little.

No…no, he realized, he could remember. For the first time, he could think of the last person to bestow such sentiment, such tenderness on him without having to shove her memory aside so sharply that he cut his heart open. He could picture that face—still familiar after nearly eight decades—and see the merriment in eyes dark as sloe berries, without feeling a part of himself wither beneath the icy pain still sharp in his heart. He could let himself think back, let himself remember eighty years ago, and two hundred years, and five hundred, and a thousand, all the way back to those happy days when he was still a youth with hope in his soul and a beautiful Elven maiden holding his heart.

He realized, suddenly, that he could think of all the women he'd loved before Dylan without having to cut the memory of them out of his heart at the first brush of the past against his mind. He hadn't let himself remember the ones he'd lost in any sort of real detail in a long time, save one. The pain had simply been too terrible. But now…it didn't threaten to burn the heart from him anymore. He could think of Yukihime, Vassa, Shina'kin, without darkness plunging a knife into him, if only for a few moments.

Nuada cupped Dylan's cheek, his thumb smoothing gently over a half-healed cut, infusing a little soothing magic into the caress. "You are a miracle I never thought to look for," he whispered. Her eyes widened and he smiled. "You have given me more than you could ever know, mo duinne, mo crídh, mo calman geal." He kissed her nose when she blushed. "Now—up you get, my love."

"Where are we going all of a sudden?" She asked with a soft laugh as she let him tug her to her feet. "You just woke up. Don't you want to maybe find out what time it is or—"

His kiss swallowed the rest of her words. She melted into his arms, limp as a sleepy kitten, while the warmth of his mouth moved over the delicious silk of hers. Whispers of Gaelic caressed her mouth with the heat of his breath as he pressed ever so gently against her lower back, urging her closer. He could easily drown in her—her nearness, her warmth, her scent. His lady. His love.

Her eyes were glassy when he finally pulled back. "Um…wow. You're in a really good mood."

An offhand shrug. "As I said, I feel lighter. And a crown from my lady's hand? What more could a bold Elf knight wish for?" He added, grinning. He slipped the shrunken crown over his wrist where it wouldn't be lost. "And this place…I wanted to show you my kingdom. And now I have a few hours to show you some of the beauty and wonder of which I am so proud. You have given me this gift, and such a gift it is. I scarcely knew the weight of my burden until some of it was lifted from me. I wish to give you one in return. Come with me."

Nuada led her to the center of the glade, a few feet from the singing stream running through it. He smiled and with a touch as light as gossamer, brushed Dylan's eyes closed. Golden eyes drifted over the grassy meadow dotted here and there with wild Irish roses and heather, the force-grown dandelions already curled up asleep beneath the earth once more. A field of palest cream and purple and green spread around him and his lady, but Bethmoora could do better than that.

Closing his eyes, he dropped the glamour that had shielded the two of them from sight and turned his thoughts, his very self inward toward the shimmering starfire of his heart, his magic. It had grown so fierce and so bright since he'd allowed himself to love her. The joy of it, of her presence in his life, fueled it as nothing had for nearly eighty years. That ensorcelled star flared and danced within him. When he touched his magic—the magic of the crown prince, of the Golden Throne's heir—the sweet perfume of bellflower and clover and love-in-a-mist blossoms filled his nose and the silvery tones of a Gaelic harp drifted just within hearing. He breathed the magic in, tasting it like clover-honey and mist, and tugged at the bond connecting his magic to the magic of the land.

He'd done this earlier, in miniature, with something easy. Dandelions demanded to grow practically anywhere; a useful tool for a hungry boy who didn't want to stop playing long enough to rush off to the kitchens for a snack. He'd been able to force-grow dandelions since he could walk. But this was different.

Grow? The prince asked. He would not command. Not for this. I ask that you grow for me. Flourish.

Magic sank tiny tendrils into his heart as the seeds deep in the earth split, slender green threads pushing out of their seed-casings into the rich, dark earth already ripe with the power of unicorn glory. Growing things broke through the surface of the soil and reached for the sunlight.

Directing his attention to the soft chattering of the brook, he called, Do you hear the voice of your prince? Will you change for me? Will you become what I wish you to be? He held the image of what he wanted firmly in his mind, never wavering, and waited.

The bubbling gurgles of the rushing water slowly morphed, the music changing. Transforming. Hushed giggling told him the water-folk of the brook had heard his request and relished the benign little trick of it all.

Lastly, he petitioned the trees. Some still slumbered beneath blankets of snow and ice, but some stood close enough to the bubble of springtime governing the glade that they could rouse at his request, giving themselves over to the coaxing of his power. Their branches stretched long limbs toward the clearing. Their dryads and ghillies and other guardians stirred from their sleep long enough to send waves of green magic through their trees, calling forth viridian buds that swelled and unfurled, warmed by royal and green magic.

Nuada studied the glade for a quick moment and grinned. "Open your eyes, Dylan."

She obeyed him and gasped. She pulled her hands from his, spinning in a slow circle to take it all in.

A riot of rainbow flowers spread across the glade, high enough to brush the tops of Dylan's ankles as she took a hesitant step through the carpet of blooms. Black butterflies hovered over several of the flowers. Nuada grinned when Dylan gasped again; she'd noticed the miniscule points of white, blue, and violet celestial fire glinting against the velvety blackness of the butterflies' wings. With every sweep of the dark gossamer wings, stardust like powdered diamond drifted down to glitter like dewdrops against the petals.

A splash dragged her gaze to the brook, which had run straight and smooth through the clearing; now it gushed from a small waterfall maybe four feet high at the edge of the glade, singing like crystal chimes as it poured over the smooth river rocks the water-folk had piled there. Magic forced the water over the rocks to tumble back down again in a sparkling waterfall, and in the water Dylan glimpsed small, translucent creatures with pearlescent blue skin and diaphanous silver tails, diving and swishing and swirling around each other in playful circles and figure-eights. One leapt from the water, twisting in the air like a ribbon of silver, before splashing back down into the stream. Another made a sound like the crystal wind chimes as she lashed a slender rope of waterweed around a sleek, shimmering rainbow trout and let it drag her through the water.

Now, Nuada sent the request to the trees, and they offered up their tithe of flowers. Pink and white and cream and yellow petals broke off from the blossoms to drift on a sudden gentle breeze. The soft colors rippled and danced on the air, spinning around and around Dylan in a loose cyclone of shreds of pastel silk. Each petal brushed against her outstretched fingertips, her cheeks, her nose, the tips of her ears. A few caught in the long, dark cascade of her hair.

With a laugh as exuberant as any child's, she flung out her arms and spun in a circle, head thrown back and eyes closed as she basked in the shower of petals catching in her hair and kissing her face.

Nuada bowed his head and sent out a soft, slow pulse of magic through the land. He didn't know if any would come—he didn't know if any could hear him, with winter so heavy and the snow falling beyond this unicorn-blessed glade—but he hoped some did. He wanted to show her wonder. Show her miracles. Any bright spot of joy he could give her before they returned to the sorrows of Lallybroch.

Dylan continued to spin, enraptured by the swirling blossoms drifting through the air all around her. And that was how the faeries of the forest, the Wee Folk, the fae beasts, found her—their future princess, hopefully their future queen, relishing the beauty and magic of the glade.

First came a small calf as white as milk, the nubs of golden horns poking up from its head. Falcon's eyes as blue as jewels glittered in its skull. Its silver hooves rang like bells when it stepped across the grass toward the prince and the smiling mortal who had stopped spinning now and stood with her eyes closed, face tilted up to drink in the sun. On the calf's back rode a dark-skinned faerie boy with wings made of twisting, twining bean vines. His hazel eyes twinkled. He trilled a note on a thin reed pipe just as Nuada reached for Dylan's hand.

.

She opened her eyes at the sound of clear, high piping. Her mouth fell open at the sight of a faerie riding a small cow, but she shut it quickly when Nuada took her hand and she curtsied.

"My lady," Nuada said, "this is Eoin Spriggin. Sir Eoin, my Lady Dylan of…" Nuada rattled off her various new holdings, which made Dylan feel a bit silly, but the little faerie boy riding the milk-white calf seemed to take it in stride. He smiled and untied a large sack of woven vines, offering it to her. She hesitated, but the boy nodded for her to take the pouch. It fit in the palm of Dylan's hand. When she pulled the oddly silky string, the pouch came open, revealing a handful of opalescent, jewel-like beans.

She grinned.

"Thank you," she said in Gaelic.

He spoke then, and his voice came shockingly deep from such a small creature. "We felt the call of the prince's power." He bowed to Nuada, who canted his head. "He wished to show his people to his future bride. So here we are. A gift for you, my lady—plant a bean, and it shall offer you a wish. A small wish, for I am no lord, but I saw your joy in our simple magic. I think it will serve."

"Thank you," she said again. "So much." The calf lowed at her and Dylan smiled. "May I pet…her?" The tiny bean faerie nodded and Dylan brushed her palm over the cow's silky, white head. It closed its odd, sapphire falcon's eyes and gave a little "moo" of pleasure as she rubbed between the golden horns. "Does she have a name?"

"I simply call her Hedley," he said.

Dylan's petting faltered for only an instant before continuing on again, smooth as cream. For the first time she noted the tail sprouting from the calf's rump—a thick, ivory snake exhaling a cloud of glittering, blue gas.

"She's beautiful," was all Dylan said. But so very dangerous if angered. Like all the fae.

Her compliment seemed to surprise the bean faerie. Probably because most people didn't say venomous cows were beautiful. For some reason, he glanced at the prince. Nuada frowned and raised both eyebrows, and the bean faerie jerked his chin over his shoulder before nodding at Dylan. The prince's brows shot higher. After a moment of pursed lips and a strangely intent study of the calf, he nodded. The prince caught the hand Dylan used to pet the cow and lifted it to his lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles.

She frowned. "Everything okay?"

Nuada inclined his head. "Sir Eoin wishes to give you a second gift. Something special to his kind. A great honor."

"But I fear it will take some preparation," the spriggin replied. The vines of his wings coiled and flexed, and a single white flower the size of a pinhead blossomed at the tip of one wing. "I shall return to give this gift at your wedding, Your Highness, if it pleases you."

A regal nod from the prince, both acceptance and dismissal. Eoin steered Hedley around and the calf ambled toward the edge of the glade when Dylan called to them and they halted.

She didn't know if it was instinct or the promptings of the Spirit that made her ask, "If I may…why would you give me a second gift?"

Eoin's grin flashed white against his dark skin. "Because, milady, you knew exactly what Hedley was, and yet you complimented her anyway. I'm quite fond of my wee milking girl and I thank you on her behalf." The snake-tail flicked out a long, dark purple tongue at her. "Good day to you, milady."

"Good day…"

When he was out of earshot, Nuada asked, "Have you ever seen one of those before?"

"A hedley cow? Nope." She shrugged. "But I've heard of them. I wanted to say she was cute but I wasn't sure if he'd be offended or not and I didn't want her to bite me, so I went with 'beautiful.' How did he know we were here?"

"I sensed some of our people nearby, forest-dwellers, solitary fae. I thought perhaps you might like to meet some of them and sent out a call to see who might answer...such as this fine lady."

Nuada nodded to a russet-red vixen with the emerald eyes of a cat and a pair of copper wings sweeping up from her shoulders, who stepped out of the brush as soon as the calf and her rider had vanished. A half-dozen kits with downy wings the color of new pennies trailed behind her, their wings hanging down to brush the grass. In her mouth the vixen carried a large, waxy leaf folded in half, which she carefully set upon the very edge of the wool blanket. Then she sat barely two feet from Nuada's boots and yawned before licking a dainty paw and bowing her head to the prince.

The kits crept up to Dylan's toes, sniffing curiously. One of them bumped its nose against her shoe, jerked back, and sneezed. Tiny ruby and teal sparks shot out of its nose in a cloud of pale lilac smoke. It licked its nose and shook itself before scurrying back to its mother. A second kit pounced on a third, tussling in the grass and squeaking as they nipped and kicked each other. The fourth moved on to investigate Nuada's feet. The last two kits stretched up on their hind legs and set their paws against Dylan's knees like eager puppies, little ears twitching, making little barking sounds.

"You can play with them if you like," Nuada said. "They're dream-foxes. Fae beasts. They're rather fond of people with kind hearts."

Dylan settled on the ground as the two kits that had stood up for her immediately clambered into her lap. Dylan froze, holding her breath, while the tiny foxes curled up into little, auburn balls, tucking their wings against their sides, and went to sleep. She barely managed to bite back a squeak.

Her prince laughed and sat beside her. He held out one hand to the vixen, who rubbed her head against his palm. She made an odd, ululating sound, like a purring cat trying to howl.

"What's a dream-fox?"

"They bring good dreams to little children," he said, stroking the vixen's ears. She continued to purr-howl. "They nest under lavender bushes and tend to stay close to where unicorns dwell, to help keep the dreams they collect sweet and happy. They need wings," he added, nodding to the elegant copper feathers, "in order to fly inside homes to deliver their dreams."

"So in Faerie, people's dreams are delivered by foxes?" She asked with a laugh.

He shrugged. "Only young children, typically, or those with the heart of a child, and only on special occasions. Solar festivals, holy days, birthdays, that sort of thing. Or if a child is in great need. It's a rare but very special thing. The dream-foxes catch night fantasies at sunset and store them in their dens, to be delivered to the right child when it is the proper time. In Faerie," he added, "the darkest and the sweetest dreams take tangible form. Didn't you know that?"

She shook her head. "I've never seen them. If they're tangible, you'd think it would be easier to stop people from having nightmares."

"One would think, but alas, it isn't so. Though dream-foxes will destroy nightmares when they come across them. They don't develop the ability to harness dreamfire until past kit-hood, though. Until then, they have only sparks, as you saw."

"So that's what that was! I wondered. Oh, they're so sweet," she cooed as the kits tumbled on the grass. One flopped off its sibling and rolled across the grass to bump into her knee. It leapt to its feet, rearing up on hind legs, and tumbled backward when it lost its balance. With a flash and flutter of wings, it popped back on its feet again and scampered over to pounce on a flower.

Nuada reached out with his free hand to the large, folded leaf the vixen had deposited on the blanket. "I wonder…" He mused, unfolding the leaf. He grinned. "Ahhh."

Bits of forest detritus sat in a small pile in the middle of the leaf—a holey stone, a pair of twigs, a budding flower, a polished river rock, an acorn, and a goldfinch feather. But each object emitted a faint, shimmering glow of magic, each a different color.

Dylan's fingertips whispered across the surface of the river stone and the cloud of autumn-blue magic shifted and rippled. Wisps of magic twisted up into the air, morphing into mazarine clouds and a tiny sapphire moon. Between the clouds, a cobalt dragon wove a sinuous path through the clouds, a small figure on its back thrusting exuberant hands in the air. Dylan gasped and the image shattered into blue dust that drifted down to rejoin the haze of enchantment surrounding the stone.

Her eyes shot to Nuada's face, a silent question on her lips. Her prince nodded, smiling.

"They're dreams. They're for you—a gift."

Only young children, typically, or those with the heart of a child…

Dylan turned to the vixen. Her pleasure-chirring had silenced at the dream's manifesting, and now the emerald cat-eyes lifted to Dylan's face. She approached the mortal and bent her head to drag a small, velvety tongue across the bony part of Dylan's wrist. Her copper wings flared out before wrapping around Dylan's hand. Warmth flooded beneath her skin and a gasp caught in the mortal's throat.

The vixen pulled her wings away and Dylan stared at her fingers. They looked…different. Her nails seemed a touch thicker, healthier. Her skin seemed smoother. And the myriad shallow scrapes and nicks she'd picked up over the last several days had faded.

She stared at the fox. The fox blinked at her in acknowledgment before nosing the two kits in Dylan's lap. They yawned, heaved themselves to their feet, and slipped out of her lap to trot over to their siblings.

"Thank you," Dylan whispered. "For all of this. The dreams…bringing your kits…my hand. Thank you."

The vixen blinked once more and though Dylan couldn't quite figure out how, the fox smiled. With a nod to the prince and a rustling of those soft, silky wings, she went back to her kits, readying to herd them back into the forest, when one of them gave a little growling yip. The vixen cocked her head and chittered at the baby fox, but it scampered back over to Dylan, clambered up her arm, and sank its teeth into the collar of her tunic, tugging with little teeth before barking once at its mother.

Dylan laughed and picked up the foxling, setting it back on the ground. "Go on, now." The baby raced back up to perch on her shoulder and tug on her collar again. "What are you doing, little one?"

Two more kits—not the two that had enjoyed napping in her lap—followed their sibling, carefully climbing Dylan's back to stand, one on her shoulder and one on her bent neck, tugging at her collar.

Still laughing, Dylan asked, "What are they doing?"

"I think," Nuada said, "they want you to stand up."

Hands up to keep the fox kits from tumbling off her shoulders, Dylan slowly got to her feet. The moment she was standing straight, the kits fluttered their wings and went airborne, tiny balls of flying russet floof. They kept Dylan's collar clamped firmly between their teeth and as they rose into the air, Dylan did, too, slowly lifting until she hovered with the tips of her toes skimming the grass.

"What the…?"

"They're stronger than they look," Nuada mumbled. "I knew that, but…"

"Whoa," Dylan cried as the kits buzzed her closer to the stream in a path that was closer to a drunken squiggle. "Hang on a second—"

"Don't struggle," Nuada cautioned. He rose to his feet. "If you struggle, they may drop you. The water isn't deep, but it might hurt."

The vixen barked at her kits, who growled playfully back. The mother fox sighed and nudged her other three kits, who took to the air, flitting over to Dylan and grabbing mouthfuls of her collar. The drunken squiggle sobered up, turning straight as an arrow. As Dylan's toes skimmed the surface of the stream, a brilliant magenta light flared beneath the water.

Dylan frowned down at the glow in the water. She dragged an experimental toe across the water's surface and gasped as a line of cerulean light followed in her wake.

"Oh, my gosh!" She grinned as the kits purred and spun her in a slow circle. Luminous garnet lines etched across the top of the stream before splashing up through the water and surging into the air, weaving in spectral ribbons around Dylan and the dream-fox kits. "Whoa!" The glittering trails of garnet light swirled around her, brushing her cheeks and hands like affectionate cats, warm as sunlight, soft as silk. Stardust like powdered gemstones glinted on her skin in their wake.

The kits guided her, spinning her in figure-eights and spirals and curlicues that shot streams of silver and gold, emerald and sapphire, ruby and tourmaline into the air to dance around her before exploding in miniature showers of smokeless jeweled fire that left sparkling kisses of color on her face and in her hair.

When the glorious display dimmed, the fox kits tugged Dylan back to shore and set her firmly on the ground. They hovered and flitted like drunken bumblebees back to their mother and dropped to the grass, panting and purring at her, rolling across the grass and flowers and chittering, tiny tongues lolling from their mouths. The vixen nuzzled each of them in turn and gave them a lick across their muzzles before nudging them with her snout and herding them back into the forest.

"Thank you!" Dylan called. The kits barked back at her as they vanished into the brush. She whirled to Nuada. "Did you see that?"

He brushed a thumb across her cheek. It came away sparkling. "I did, indeed." He smiled wistfully. "You looked so happy."

"It was amazing!" Some of the sparkles on her lips slipped into her mouth and the taste of October moonlight, warm spiced cider, and roasted marshmallows flooded her tongue. "Oh, my gosh, it has a taste."

"Dreams often do," he said.

She blinked. "This is…dream…stuff?" Nuada nodded. She licked her lips. "It tastes like…like Halloween. Like autumn. That's so cool. Does it taste the same for everybody?"

"Let's see." He licked his thumb, which carried a smear of dream-stuff. Silvery blond brows inched upward. "Hmmm. Sparkling grape juice, snow, and starlight. Interesting."

Dylan bit her lip, eyeing her prince as an idea tugged at her brain. "Hey, we're alone right now…right? Nothing else come to see us?"

After a moment, he nodded. "Why?"

She sidled up to him, slipping her arms around his neck and pressing close. Peeking up at him from beneath her lashes, she caught the moment when eyes of honeyed amber shifted to gold-kissed ivory. His hands settled at her hips, fingers hot through the thin silk of her short leine.

"I had an idea."

He swallowed. "Oh?"

Somehow stifling a grin, she nodded. "It's such a nice day. And we're enjoying ourselves, right?" He nodded. "So I thought maybe we could do something fun. You like having fun with me, right?"

"Of…of course."

To her delight, his voice caught on the last word. He was also pointedly staring at her mouth. Dylan traced the whorls carved into his temple before slipping her fingers along his cheek, over the scar etched across his face. She felt the breath catch in his throat when her fingertips brushed over his jaw.

"You want to have some fun with me now?"

He blinked. Swallowed again, hard. Cleared his throat before replying, "I…would be happy to indulge you…in anything you wish. What did you have in mind?"

Dylan let her smile unfurl, slow and wicked. The breath shuddered out of Nuada in a rush. His fingers flexed against her hips and he leaned in, eyes fastened on her mouth, hunger burning in their depths. She laid her palm against his pounding heart. His mouth hovered scant inches from hers, warm and inviting.

"Anything?" She breathed, one hand against his heart, the other caressing his jaw. "You promise?"

"I would do anything for you, mo duinne," he said. "Anything. Walk through Hell. Surrender my crown. Beg on my knees. Anything and everything for you and you alone." He closed his eyes as he began to close the distance between them.

"Tag," she whispered. "You're it." She tore herself out of his arms and raced across the glade. "Head start for me!"

"Treacherous woman!"

Dylan let out a whoop. "Sucker!" She glanced over her shoulder, hoping for a glimpse of her prince charging after her…but the grove was empty.

Before she could turn back around, she slammed into something with all the rock-steady heft of a small mountain and nearly tumbled to the ground. Strong arms and gentle hands caught her easily before she smacked into the earth, pulling her upright while she sucked in a breath.

"Ow. What are you made of?"

"Forgive me," Nuada replied, enfolding her in his arms. He nuzzled her hair before pressing a kiss to her temple. "Elves are made of rather stern stuff."

"Like what? Iron? Yeesh." She looked up into a grin sparking with mischief. "I'm a teensy bit afraid of that look."

The feral grin widened. "Oh, you should be." In a lightning-fast lunge, he caught her up and hauled her against his chest, cradling her like a bride. She squeaked, then squealed as he spun her in a quick circle. Elven speed and the whip of the spring-sweet wind and the blur of the world snatched the breath from her throat.

When Nuada stopped spinning her, he looked down at her as she laughed until she was breathless. Joy thrummed in her veins—joy in the freedom of the moment, joy in the beauty of the glade, joy in the reassuring pressure of his arms around her. Nuada waggled his eyebrows and Dylan giggled. Then he shifted, pushing her up and slinging her over his shoulder as the breath wheezed out of her. One arm snaked around her waist to hold her still.

And then he took off running with Elven swiftness. The flowers blurred beneath them in smears of color as Nuada hurtled across the unicorn grove and leapt, catching himself between the thick branches of an oak tree.

Dylan had enough time to drag in a trembling breath before Nuada surged upward, scaling the tree as nimbly as a squirrel. He dodged branches so deftly only cool leaves tickled Dylan's cheeks. Dewdrops dripped from the leaves to kiss her skin before plummeting to the earth in a shower of diamond-drops. An acorn snapped loose from its branch, just brushing her shoulder, and somehow Dylan caught it before it could hurtle to the earth below. When she uncurled the fingers clamped around it, she realized the acorn was made of white gold.

Magical hawthorn, ash, and rowan trees grew all over the Royal Forest; Nuada had told her about them. How magical were the oak trees, if they grew from golden acorns?

The branches thinned out, whippy lashes of green and brown studded with their shining gold acorns, until at last Nuada slowed and finally stopped. Ever so carefully he slid Dylan off his shoulder. One arm still around her to keep her from slipping, he helped her settle back against the trunk, nestled between two wide, forking branches thick enough to serve as a fairly comfortable, safe little cradle.

"It's so high up," she whispered, gazing down at the ground so very far below. The delineation between the winter of the forest and the high spring of the glade showed as a stark clash of white and pastels, the oak's trunk in the very center of the line.

Nuada sat on one of the thicker branches, back to the trunk of the tree. His arm just brushed Dylan's. He nodded. Drew a breath. "The air is so clear up here," he murmured. "My mother used to fret so often when I climbed trees as a boy. She was certain I would fall and break my neck. But my father…You see, my mother grew up on Cíocal's shores, but my father was a forest lad. He loved the greenwood…once. Before my mother's death.

"Sometimes he would climb the tallest trees in this forest, his guards stranded on the ground. He used to carry me and Nuala up into the branches, both of us clinging to his back, and when we reached the highest boughs, we would sit and eat a small meal while he taught us about the forest." A small sigh mixed with the cool wind. "Sometimes when I was a boy, and I had some trouble or other, my father would bring me high above the world, hidden between pine boughs or hawthorn branches, and I would tell him all that was in my heart, and he would counsel me. I always felt better afterward."

"It's beautiful up here," Dylan said. "I can see why he'd want to bring you up so high. I know I couldn't have made it on my own." Even with her knee newly healed by Shaohao, she couldn't have made a climb like that. "Here, look what I caught on the way up."

She opened her palm. Sunlight gleamed along the curve of the acorn.

Nuada made a sound of appreciation. "Hold onto that. Royal Elven acorns rarely fall, so they're good luck." He leaned his head back and stared up at the sky. Dylan followed his gaze. Oak leaves framed a patch of gorgeous blue overhead. As she watched, a large bird soared into view. Its wings shone gold in the sunshine as it glided across their little patch of sky and out of sight. "Dylan," Nuada asked suddenly. "Do you remember that song you sang in Roiben's sithen? About the birds?"

It took her a minute to remember. It felt like forever ago, though it had been less than two months. Honestly so much had happened in the last six months—Nuada coming back into her life after her time in the sanctuary, leaving again because of Eamonn, rescuing her prince from the king's punishment, their time in the mortal world both together and apart, and now the last month and a half in Findias. It was nice to be able to just breathe for once.

She nodded as the memory came into her mind: comforting Nuada in the dark of the night, moonlight and a mortal the only witnesses to his quiet tears in the wake of a nightmare of blood and death. He'd held her close, trembling, his tears running along her skin down her back to soak her top. "What about it?"

"One of the verses…spoke to me. I wondered who wrote the song. A fae musician, I imagine."

A smile flashed across her face. "Sorry, no. A human band." She laughed when he grimaced. "They're called Nightwish. They typically do symphonic metal. The song was a little outside their norm. Which verse?"

He hesitated a moment before clearing his throat.

"A hawk came to me, trembling afraid.
It broke the pieces of my heart.
I knew its strength, loved its soul,
And embraced ev'rything it was."

He glanced at her, offered a tentative smile. "For so long I despised confessing to any sort of weakness, any shade of fear. But when I thought you were lost to me, I realized I'd lost the only person who knew me wholly—or as wholly as I'd allowed you to. You'd peered more deeply into my soul than any other living creature, even Wink, even my sister. And I remembered that song, that moment when you sang me to sleep in the wake of such a brutal nightmare. Realized you'd been able to see me even then." He cleared his throat again and turned his gaze back to the sky. "The women I've loved before…some of them, too, were capable of seeing into me. But only a rare and precious few. It is a gift I've rarely been blessed with. I want to thank you, mo duinne. For knowing me. For having such faith in me."

Shifting carefully to make sure she didn't fall out of her perch, Dylan scootched a fraction closer and laid her head against his shoulder. "I'll always believe in you, Nuada." She ran her hand up and down his arm in a soothing caress. "Thank you for having such faith in me."

"I would have to be a fool to doubt you," he said.

"Awww. You're sweet."

An aggrieved sigh. "Must you always say that?"

Dylan laughed. "But it's true!" She hugged his arm. "That's why you're my love muffin."

Nuada huffed a laugh and shook his head. "I learn such interesting phrases from you. Emo-bear and evil twin goatee. Icky-ful and love muffin." She grinned up at him and he dropped a kiss to the tip of her crooked nose. "You've brought such light back into my life. What would I do without you?"

"We've talked about this. You'd be very, very boring."

He quirked an eyebrow. "If we were not a thousand feet in the air, you'd pay for that." She stuck out her tongue in retaliation. He snapped his teeth at it and she jerked back with a squeak. "But perhaps you're right. You are fun. I'd forgotten what it was like to have fun until you."

"Speaking of fun," Dylan said. "And fun things. Did you plan out this whole day?"

Dark lips curved into a smile. "I may have."

"For me?"

His eyes, warm honeyed amber, rested on her face and his smile turned tender. "If not for you, then who? You deserve some time out of the shadows. Besides," he added, scowling, "there are things I meant to show you on our honeymoon, but since that wretch Shaohao has forced us to postpone our wedding, I decided to show you some of them today."

"Ooh. Like what? Besides you're incredibly impressive crown prince magic?"

Smiling again, Nuada tilted his chin toward the oak-framed patch of sky. "Like the winter migration. Look."

Dylan followed the direction of his gaze and her mouth fell open as sunlight flashed off of some sinuous animal that twisted and danced across the sky. The sun shone against a long, thick body the gleamed like polished opals in the light. Its claws glittered like diamonds as it flexed its legs. And the massive, ivory wings flared out on either side of its body swept up and down with a ponderous weight. Every wing-beat sent a wash of chilly air swooshing down to rustle the treetops and kiss Dylan's skin.

As she gazed up at that spread of sky, another white beast soared into view, flapping huge alabaster wings that glittered like frosted glass, and another beast came, and another, and another, until the sky was full of white creatures winging their way northwards. When Dylan lifted a trembling hand to measure their size, she saw that from snout to tail, one of the beasts spanned the length of her hand from the base of her wrist to the tip of her middle finger. And they were so far away…Their true size was…impossible to fully comprehend. How enormous must those animals be?

No, not animals. The snowy wings and thick, ivory bodies deserved a name far more majestic than merely "animals." These beings, these great winged masters of sky and cloud…white as winter, shining in the sun like ice…

Nuada's breath caressed the shell of her ear when he whispered, "You know them. In your heart, you know them. Their power. Their majesty. They have flown high above this world since before your oldest ancestors painted their myths and legends on the walls of their caves. Now their migration time has come, and they leave the tallest peaks of the Barr Trí gCom Mountains to fly back to their home far, far to the north at the top of the world. The winter solstice has come and gone. The days grow longer now, the air warmer. Too warm for these northern queens.

"You know them," he repeated oh so softly. "In your heart. In your bones. In your soul. As old as the unicorns, and just as powerful, as precious and pure. The most ancient magic. You know them."

Dylan nodded. Staring up at the glittering vastness of the beautiful beasts overhead, she whispered, "Dragons. They…they're so beautiful. Like snow and diamonds come to life."

Her eyes stung. She couldn't have said why. Maybe because, up above the world, so close to the sky she could almost reach up and run her fingers through the cloud-kissed blue, the crisp air flooding her senses with the taste of the wind and the perfume of oak leaves and magic, Nuada beside her and dragons overhead…the ugliness of the last few days, the last few weeks, faded away for a few moments. All that was left in its wake was wonder. More wonder and awe than with the dream-foxes and the hedley cow and the pietalan. Here was something ancient and primal. Something that had been going on every year for millions of years.

A flight of dragons.

She sighed and leaned back against Nuada, tilting her head back to watch the swelling tide of dragons fly north in surges of alabaster and pearl and ivory. She lost track of time as the beautiful creatures filled the skies. She couldn't bear to look away from this piece of Faerie still untouched by darkness.

The mortal and the Elf didn't descend from their oaken perch until the last dragon had vanished beyond the line of the trees.

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Back on the ground and back in the glade, settled once more on the wool blanket, Dylan built a small fire while Nuada retrieved the spell-warded salmon he'd speared from the creek. Six cleaned and gutted salmon hung from the sharpened rowan stake in the prince's hands. He stopped to yank something up from the ground as Dylan sat back on her heels and studied the tidy little fire. It had been a long time since she'd started a fire without matches. She didn't bother trying to quash the little trill of proud pleasure in her chest.

"Would you fetch me that jug there, mo crídh?" Nuada gestured to the saddlebags they'd taken from their horses earlier than morning. Maeve and Lomán had cantered off into the woods and were busy enjoying horsy things. Dylan flipped back the leather flap and pulled a small wooden jug from the bag, handing it to her prince. "And that pan, if you would." She grabbed the copper skillet handle jutting up from the pack and handed that over, too.

Nuada sat on the grass near the fire and handed Dylan the spiked fish to hold. Then he set the skillet on top of two evenly spaced, very hot rocks. Plucking his twin-knife from his belt, he made quick work of the wild garlic he'd plucked from amidst the grass and flowers and dropped it into the skillet. Picking up the jug, he scooped water into it from the creek and then passed a hand over the jug's opening. When he hefted it and poured the contents into the skillet, instead of water, a froth of buttery, smooth, summer-golden cream spilled out. Then he shucked each cleaned salmon off the spike of rowan wood into the copper pan.

"Keep an eye on that for me?" He pushed to his feet again, scooping up the open wooden jug, and arrowed for a thick copse of trees at the far edge of the glade, trees that had grown tangled together with a dark mass of leaves and vines and branches at their center. As Dylan watched him, Nuada pulled off his shirt several yards from the tree and then crept slowly toward the tangle.

"What are you doing?"

He held up his free hand to quiet her. "Getting the last ingredient," he called back, voice soft although it still carried. "I need silence or this is going to hurt."

Hurt? She raised her eyebrows but didn't say anything. If he needed silence, he would get it. But with one eye on the skillet and one eye on her prince, Dylan couldn't stop herself from fidgeting a little. What was in that tangle of trees? All she could see from all the way over here was the branches rustling slightly in the light breeze and the shadows shifting over the twining branches.

Suddenly her eyes widened as a few wisps of shadow drifted up from the trees and flitted this way and that. Nuada kept walking, spine straight and eyes forward, never hesitating as a few more tiny bits of shadow took the air.

No. Not shadow. Those were bees.

What is he doing? Dylan's teeth sank into her lower lip and an ache shot through the half-healed cut there. He's going to get hurt…But he wouldn't risk getting stung by bees, wouldn't joke around and upset her, just to show off. Nuada didn't do that.

Somehow she managed to give half a thought to minding the salmon in the skillet while watching Nuada with bated breath. Ever so slowly, he reached with careful fingers into the dark tangled mass at the center of the stand of trees.

The hive, Dylan realized. Her heart thudded in her ears and she squeezed her twitching fingers together in an aching knot.

Nuada pulled a glob of glistening, gleaming something from the hive and dropped it into the open jug. He reached in again and withdrew more of the gleaming stuff, and more. He stopped at four pieces and turned away, moving back toward her. A few flecks of darkness crawled across his shoulders; the Elven warrior merely shrugged once and the handful of bees buzzed off back to their hive.

.

Dylan was breathing strangely when Nuada returned to their little camp after retrieving his discarded shirt. He dropped the shirt to the grass, set down the jug of honey and honeycomb, and sat down by the fire to check the salmon.

His truelove let out a high-pitched squeak.

The prince cocked his head. "Are you all right, mo mhuire?"

"You…could've been…stung! Swarmed…! How did you just…waltz up there and…I just…How…?"

He smiled as comprehension clicked into place in his mind. "I didn't mean to scare you. I was in no danger; it never occurred to me that you might worry for me. I've robbed beehives thousands of times. My father taught me."

Her eyebrows shot up. "Your dad taught you how to do that?"

A bright grin seemed to help ease some of the residual disquiet. Nuada allowed a trace of Irish mist and Gaelic lilt into his voice when he said, "Oh, aye. My father was a forest-child, right enough." A shadow of sadness passed over the prince's face and wrapped around his heart. "Right well did my father once ken all the ways and byways of this forest. The heart of the greenwood beat in time with his footsteps and the trees themselves did bow to him."

He blinked and shook his head, clearing his throat and banishing old memories of a time that was now dead. "My father taught me many things before my mother's death. Including how to make garlic-honey salmon." Seeing her delighted surprise, he added, "It's one of the only 'special' dishes I can make, as it's simple enough." As he spoke, he reached in and pulled out a piece of bright golden honeycomb. With deft flicks of his wrist, he drizzled the honey in spirals and loops across the salmon in the skillet. The delicious aroma of fried fish brushed his nose and Dylan closed her eyes, smiling appreciatively.

Nuada dropped the honeycomb back into the jug. He muttered, "Turn," in Old Gaelic and jerked his chin; the salmon flipped in the skillet so their other sides began to cook. He drizzled more honey onto the fish.

Golden eyes fixed on Dylan. "I thought whatever was left could be our dessert. Have you ever had honey straight from the comb before?"

Dylan shook her head. "My sisters have. A beekeeper came to their school once, but I was already…gone."

"There is a strangely pure richness to it. Here," he reached in and broke off a piece of the comb, oozing golden sweetness over the tips of his fingers. "Open your mouth."

She did, and he slipped the piece of honeycomb between her lips. All at once he was reminded of that moment perhaps a month ago in her cottage, when she'd taught him to make pumpkin cookies and he'd offered her a small piece held to her lips. Now, just as it had happened then, the tip of her tongue brushed the edge of his thumb once, twice, catching the drops of honey. A lick of heat caressed the Elven warrior's spine and he fought back a shiver.

Dylan chewed, swallowed. Licked the sticky golden drops from her lips. A low sound crawled out of Nuada's throat and with his clean hand he tunneled his fingers into her hair and drew her close, his forehead dropping to press against hers. The heat of her breath on his lips promised a sharper, hungrier fire if he tilted his head just so and kissed her.

She licked her lips again. He had to swallow a groan. He hadn't kissed her—truly kissed her, with all the desire still smoldering in his veins—since she'd returned to him, seemingly from the dead. He'd been afraid to kiss her the way he wished. She'd seen such terrible things. She needed time to come to grips with them. Needed to know he wouldn't pressure her to do anything she did not wish to do.

But now he could smell her, oak leaves and the sharp chill of early spring, clouds and stardust, lilies and summer roses and mortality and dreams still faintly sparkling on her cheeks. He was drowning in that scent. In her nearness, warm and welcoming. But this place, the easiness of it, the hopeful air and seclusion, made him hesitate. They were alone here, and he'd nearly lost her...

He still remembered the moment he'd felt their link tear open and fall away in psychic shreds. Still remembered the final tripping thumps of her weakening heart in her breast, echoing in his head. Those memories prowled through his skull like hungry beasts. He would never forget. When he'd lost his mother, and Shina'kin, and Vassa, there had been no mystic bond forged between them—and yet still, their ghosts whispered to him late, late at night when the darkness crawled over and around him, hungry for him. Their specters had long ago joined the ranks of the soldiers who'd died under his command.

When he'd lost Yukihime, the link between them had already taken root and begun to grow, but it hadn't been the same as with Dylan. Yukihime hadn't been entrenched in his soul yet. Only his own weakness, his own failure had resulted in the agony he'd felt in those moments when he'd foolishly attempted to atone for his sins against her by…

Dylan's fingertips grazed his jaw. The touch burned to the marrow, scalding him back to the present, out of his memories. He looked at her—so fragile, so mortal, so lovely—and pushed aside the memories that had begun whispering to him in that moment when the unicorn's horn had pierced his breast. There was only his lady. Only his love. Only Dylan.

"I love you," he whispered.

She smiled that soft, tender smile he adored. "I love you, too."

And she tipped up her chin and turned her head just so, and suddenly her lips were moving soft and hot against his mouth. He sucked in a breath nearly sharp enough to cut. Sighed against her mouth, a pleased groan rumbling in his chest when Dylan leaned in, framing his face between her hands. Her thumbs traced along the royal scar gracing his cheeks in a velvet caress.

Her name fell from his lips like a whisper of a prayer and then he was drinking her down, ravenous. She tasted so good, so sweet. And even now the shadow of her near-loss breathed against the back of his neck like a hungry beast.

Still mindful of the slick honey on the fingertips of one hand, he urged her closer, leaning her back so that her shoulders touched the soft wool blanket. He just wanted to bask in the warmth of her for a little while. Murmur soft, innocently seductive things in her ear just to see that lovely pink flush rise to her cheeks.

But somehow his lips whispered to the corner of her mouth, kissing softly so that her lips curved into a quick, involuntary grin that faded as he kissed her cheek, along her jaw, just beneath her ear.

"Nuada…" His name sighed from her lips and he shuddered.

It took immense concentration to remember how to properly respond to her saying his name.

"Huh?"

"Your hand is sticky."

He blinked and realized he'd accidently touched her with his sticky fingers, leaving a smear of honey on her cheek. Without thinking about the proper response or how his own actions could get them both into trouble, he flicked out his tongue and licked the sticky sweetness off her skin.

Dylan gasped, her head falling back and her eyes drifting shut. "Nuada…"

Shades of Annwn, he adored the way she said his name like that. But it was also trouble. Gods, so much trouble. He'd made her a promise, and brush with certain death or no, he would keep it. It wasn't fair of him to kiss her this way. But it wasn't fair of her to be so wonderful, so beautiful, to make him love her so…

At least, that was the white lie trying to worm its way into his thoughts. He pushed it aside and sat up. Shook his head to clear it. Out of habit he'd kept his weight off of her—no doubt the only thing that had saved them from taking things much too far—but it had still been too close for his comfort. Damn Shaohao for forcing them to postpone the wedding. He wasn't certain how much longer he could endure such temptation.

"Forgive me," he said. Dylan blinked as if being yanked out of a daze. Her eyes widened and she sat up. Color flooded her cheeks. "I was…overcome. I shall endeavor to ensure it doesn't happen again." A soft crackling sound got his attention and he glanced at the skillet he'd almost completely forgotten, still sizzling atop the fire. "I should see to our meal."

"Nuada?" She ventured after a few minutes of silence, filled only with him tending the frying fish. Now he stilled, waiting. "Thank you," she said.

He blinked at her. "For what, Dylan?"

"For stopping without me having to ask. For bringing me here. For all of this," she gestured with one hand to the unicorn glade. "Even if things got a little out of hand just now, I needed this. I needed to meet dream-foxes and smell fish frying and watch dragons migrate and climb oak trees. I was so close to…to…"

The Elven warrior shifted position, peering into her face. Shame had scrawled across her features. "To what, my love?"

She pushed at her hair. "Just…with everything that's happened, I was getting…desperate. I really wanted a drink," she added, and he jolted, remembering her history. "To just drink myself oblivious and then sleep for eternity. I needed to get away. And somehow you understood that. You get me. So thank you—for all of today."

"I will always give you what you need, Dylan. Always. It is my honor and my privilege. Thank you, for letting me arrange this day. For allowing me to bring you these moments of peace and happiness. And tonight, when we return, the villagers want to hold a small celebration in honor of the peace they've enjoyed these last days. I hoped you would accompany me and allow me the honor of escorting you."

A quick grin. "You mean like a date? Hmmm. I'll have to check my schedule." She tilted her head, making a face as if thinking things over. "Hmmm. Schedule's clear. I'd be honored." Nuada laughed and Dylan smiled, then flinched when the fat sizzling in the skillet shot out, a few scalding drops landing on her wrist.

"Ouch!"

"Are you all right?"

"Fine," she said with a laugh. She licked her wrist and tasted honey, buttery cream, garlic, and Irish salmon. The sting of heat faded quickly. "Mmmm. I'm delicious." Nuada made a noise like he'd been gut-punched and Dylan grinned. "Ha, sorry. You should make sure the food doesn't burn. I'll set up."

Shaking himself, Nuada focused once more on their meal. But he couldn't help smiling as Dylan pulled wooden dishes from the saddlebags, humming to herself. The tune was "The Skye Boat Song." The same song Nuada had sung to her the night before to help her sleep.

"Sing me a song of a lass that is gone…
Say, could that lass be mine?
Merry of soul, she sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye…

"Sing me a song of a lass that is gone...
Oh, aye, that lass is mine.
My bonny lass, come though what may,
I'll find thee at last in Skye."

And then a small, white ball of fur dropped out of the sky to land in Dylan's lap. She gasped as it bounced up into the air again. Somehow she managed to catch it. The ball uncurled itself to reveal a small, furry creature shaped like a small sack, with rabbit-like ears and a small, gray nose that twitched every so often, also like a rabbit's. Its dark, gray-green eyes fixed on Dylan's face and it gave a joyful little hop in her cupped hands.

"Hello," Dylan murmured. "Who are you?"

Nuada caught a glimpse of the large leaf the tiny creature carried like an umbrella over one shoulder. "A totoro," he said. "You're a long way from your trees and your master, little forest lord."

Dylan grinned at the creature, delighted. "I've never heard of a totoro."

"A forest spirit," he said. "They live in camphor trees. Originally they come from Onibi but I planted a few camphor trees here in the Royal Forest a several decades past." For Yukihime. She had loved them so. But he pushed that thought aside. "Totoro-sama and his entourage moved in once they'd taken root and grown tall. This little one is part of that group. Why have you come to see us today?"

The totoro bounced and squeaked, waving the leaf and pointing with one little claw at the clear blue sky overhead.

"Ah. I see. He says a rainstorm is coming – rather, it will begin snowing beyond the glade, and so here, it will rain. He wanted to warn us so that our holiday wasn't ruined. I can shield us from the rain."

"Oh!" Dylan smiled and offered the little forest fae her best approximation of a seated bow, dipping her head. "Thank you so much. That's so kind of you."

Nuada smiled. "Totoro-sama's retainers are always welcome in my camp. Would you care to join my lady and I for a meal?"

The little totoro squeaked and chirped, bouncing like a rubber ball in its excitement. Dylan laughed and Nuada's smile widened. It had been a long time since he'd seen any of the eternally young forest fae. If a little wasted magic and a bit of rain was the price for enjoying its company, he would gladly pay it.

Hopping off Dylan's hands to land with a tiny plop! on the blanket, the totoro clapped its little paws together and drew them apart. Five tiny black balls poofed up and dropped onto the wool blanket in front of it. Needle-thin arms sprouted from the balls and they blinked limpid, smoke-gray eyes up at Dylan before bowing before her.

"They're so cute!" Dylan cried as the soot sprites hopped into her hands. The totoro bounced and preened, looking quite pleased with itself. "Ohhh...Nuada, look at them. And they're so soft and fuzzy. Awww! They're adorable. What are they?"

"Soot sprites," Nuada muttered. Messy little creatures. They left ash and dust practically everywhere. There had to have been a fire at some point in the Royal Forest that burned down a camphor tree. It was the only way to explain the things being there now.

But Dylan liked them, so of course he was going to let them stay. Of course he was. Because it would make her happy, and that was all he could ever wish for.

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Author's Note: Hey everybody! *sings to the tune of "For the First Time in Forever" from Frozen* For the first time in forever, I finally formatted my chap! For the first time in forever, it has my original format! And I know it's totally crazy to hope for some reviews! But for the first time in forever, here's a prompt for you!

Because I love you all and want to know what you think because I value your opinions.

1) Who thinks there's more Nuada isn't telling Dylan about the Golden Army? And what do you guys think about the things he has told her?

2) Who thinks Nuada needs to go to some kind of therapy?

3) Where do you think Zhenjin is this whole time while our lovebirds are off in Loveland and what do you think he's doing?

4) Does anyone have any questions about anything mentioned in the chapter?

5) Who has had fresh-from-the-comb honey before?

6) What kind of dreams do you think are held inside the caught-dreams the vixen gave to Dylan?

7) What do you think Eoin Spriggin's wedding gift is going to be?

8) Since it's 10/9, can I have 7 favorite things as the answer to our 8th question?

Love you guys! Huggles for you all!

References Made in This Chapter:

1 – The pietalan are inspired by the petalars from ThunderCats 2011. Honestly, it was my favorite episode of the series.

2 – The Bethmooran national anthem is loosely based off of Ireland's actual national anthem.

3 – Gwynlia's name was inspired by a character from The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater.

4 – The "love muffin" comment was a throwback to an earlier chapter where Dylan refers to Nuada by this nickname.

5 – Totoro is copyrighted by Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, from the film My Neighbor Totoro.

6 – The song Nuada quotes from Nightwish is the same song mentioned in chapter 56, "Black Swan, White Raven"

7 – The song Dylan is humming is a modified version of "The Skye Boat Song," the opening theme to the show Outlander.