FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The light went out in his world.

Not as it had before, not a trick of the fae. Not a manipulation of magic beyond his ken. The light went out of his world. Colors dimmed. Warmth left. The cold, bitter chill crept back in.

Gram had never been a warm person, not before, and not after he had met her. But what embers that glowed within him had been carefully tended and stoked by the hands of one Little Redcap.

Then just like that, snuffed out.

Gram was cold again.

The motionless hand of his betrothed dangled limply before the hideous gullet swallowed that too, The insane faerie queen’s body jerking and convulsing in a mixture of laughter and agony before she simply seemed to go slack, falling totally limp, only the strands of the queer red banners holding her a lot, like a puppet left slack on its strings.

Then, the sky began to bleed.

The lights fell, the red light of the throne darkened to that of blood, the skies above and beyond shooting through, the eternal spring suddenly becoming cold, dead air. All had stopped, even the distant globes hung still in the sky.

Seelie was dying with its Queen.

Bedlam broke out, and Gram struggled against the brute that held him, a million hurts screamed at him, broken bones and worse, the towering fae shoved him lower, snarling in anger as the mob of sidhe clamored and chattered. Gram gave a hoarse gagging sound. The cold rage welled in him.

He only cared to punish them. He had a duty, and he would see it off. He struggled more, only being struck again, another stunning blow to the temple, sending him slack anew, Split-Jaw turning his head to bark something Gram’s ringing ears couldn’t discern. His vision lolled.

A familiar trill caught his attention, his half-blind sight turned to the side.

Tirrah.

The tiny fomori had made herself scarce after his heart-stopping fall, and only now she reappeared, tucked in the shadow of his leg, hidden from Split-Jaw’s sight. She skittered close to him, raising her tiny hands to touch his wounded face with concern, looking back to where Lidia had… been. She gave a tiny concerned trill.

Gram just shook his head. A single tear ran, red and bloody, down his face.

Tirrah’s face fell.

She skittered forward, her little brow knitted in consternation, blue antennae twitching in the anger bubbling up on her tiny doll-like features as she swung herself up onto the patches of silk still left on his armor. Climbing his sash, she grabbed onto the cloth lining of his helmet and swung herself up close to his face. She gave a soothing little chirrup, and swung her abdomen forwards, cupping one of her tiny hands beneath.

The wicked stinger gleamed, and from it welled a glistening, sparkling dollop of the Amber Dew. Gram’s one good eye widened as she cupped the dewdrop, perhaps the size of a particularly plump berry. She gave him a soothing chirp, and gently parted his lips — and laid that golden drop on his tongue.

Fire ignited within him. Gram’s blood immediately boiled in his every vein, his ever hair stood on end all at once, and his body folded in on itself with violent spasms. The pain was intense, but also euphoric, it roared through him, burning away everything else in its path. His lungs filled, cracked ribs mending, his ruined eye blinked open, no longer swollen shut.

Vitality surged within him, strength boiled from his limbs, and every emotion he had burned away in the golden fire as it seared his soul, cauterized his wounds and fed manic power to his limbs.

All but the rage.

His lips parted again, this time in a scream. It began, and it didn’t end, it built and swelled with the tide of fire that washed through him, blinding him to the pain, blinding him to all else.

The scream only carried, growing louder as he lashed up from the ground, sudden, inhuman strength surprising Split-Jaw as he twisted free with a roll of his shoulders, rounding on the brute with murder in his eyes, still screaming.

He screamed still as he leapt upon him, simply shouting his anger, rage and agony down the sidhe’s throat as he grasped him, climbing aboard and assailing him with slamming fists, steel raining down on him in a mad fury.

Gram never stopped screaming.

Split-Jaw flailed, trying to peel the Dew-addled soldier off him but only earning a headbutt and two more short one-two jabs to his face, each backed by the steely gauntlets and the bite of the Bane. The Sidhe slammed him about, trying to pull him from his face as Gram simply brutalized him to no avail, still screaming. Gram hammered his face in to more savage driving straights that snapped the sidhe man’s head back to full extension, the fury still building — he lunged forward with a renewed roar, grasping that bifurcated jaw with both hands, twisting with a renewed fervor to the scream, seemingly never needing to draw breath as his Dew-ridden muscles surged and his eyes dilated to pure pinpoints of mad fury.

Split-Jaw wailed in agony. There was a sickening sound of tearing, rending meat.

Gram’s arms snapped out wide in a sudden, violet motion — ribbons of azure gore following their arc — both halves of Split-Jaw’s eponymous mandible in either hand, the seelie’s agonized screams cutting off in a wet gurgle, gore drowning his agony as Gram whipped the jagged edges of the still-wet bones down into his eyes, both gruesomely splattering beneath the improvised stakes.

Which Gram then slammed brutally home with the heel of his hand.

The sound of the seelie’s brainpan crunching was loud, even as the furious cavalier continued his rampage. Snapping his hand down, he whipped his saber out of its scabbard, and kicked away from the towering sidhe’s swaying corpse, already running before it hit the ground, soundly, phenomenally dead.

Tirrah’s tiny form appeared on his collar, clinging fast to his sash as he slapped his dented visor closed, Gram rounded on the rest of the mob, chest heaving, actual, literal steam blasting from his mouthpiece, wafting from his armor as his body roiled within the dew’s seemingly endless flame. In his madness, his rage, and his sorrow — he remembered the words of a divine said to a better man.

Burn bright.

“COME THEN, SHOW ME WHAT PASSES FOR FURY AMONG YOUR MISBEGOTTEN BROOD!”

Mordred’s form loomed up at the far end of the mob, nearest to where Morgana lie comatose. His face twisted in revulsion, fury as their eyes met, with a hissing sneer the sidhe lord responded.

“Kill him!”

Fear ruled the air, fear of the Bane, fear of the uncertain, fear of Mordred and his authority. It stank like rot, the scent of blood and burning flesh mixing into a heady perfume of terror.

None of it was Gram’s. He set forward in a dread stalk — there was a wall of the unholy and unclean between him and the grave of his beloved. He would rest beside her. It was a long walk.

Best to get started.

The slow stalk became a dead sprint as the first of the rush pressed forwards. The Dew screamed in his blood, a scream he answered with a battle cry. He jerked hard to the side, sliding offline and swinging his saber with the force of every single drop of blood in his body screaming along for retribution. The steel cut the air like a thunder stroke, and a head went flying, blue gore splattering the air, sizzling on steel as he didn’t even slow down. Past and already in the next cut before the spindly seelie’s decapitated frame hit the ground.

He whirled his blade into a tight moulinet, stepping along side as he parried through another scything limb, kicking down and stomping the four-armed monster’s instep, crushing its foot into gory paste under his Dew-enhanced strength, connecting his helmet to the monster’s face with a sudden snap that caved in its skull and sent it crumpling, but again — he was already gone.

Ducks, dodges, slashes, cuts. He felled one for every motion, severed limbs and loose heads followed behind him, but not without cost. Blows landed, a heavy clubbing strike battered him to one knee, only to be returned as he lashed up in a whirl of steel, disemboweling the aggressor as he felt the Dew rage inside of him, mending broken ribs and battered flesh on the fly. He was flying apart, the fae toxin shredding him asunder and rebuilding him just as fast. He felt his mind unraveling as he experienced mortal wounds again and again and rolled back from them. A sidhe slid past his parry and he felt the strange lance-like blade it used for its arm twist and writhe around his blade — driving home between the gaps in his armor. He felt it hit a vital area, near his heart, but the Dew would not be denied, his simple mortal body trivial for the complex concoction to reassemble — and he’d surged back from the impaling blow, laying open the wasp-like Sidhe’s belly and kicking him backwards into the oncoming crowd, spilling azure organs and blue blood all over as they frenzied, and all but tore him apart themselves trying to get to Gram.

Yet he was already gone again, wound already closing, his pace slowed but not halting.

The bigger, more dangerous sidhe pressured him now, and he found himself frustrated, he didn’t have enough time to kill them all, his blade was far too light for the task, a fact that lead him to snarl in frustration and rage out-loud as he barreled into the first of the burly second line, fouling its swiping swing at him with massive hooked talons by stepping inside of the swing, and simply raising both his arms defensively. The blow landed in the upraised steel plates, and Gram set his heels, pressing the Bane into the bare flesh of the sidhe brute’s arm. It belted out a sudden panicked howl of agony as Anathema took a bloody mouthful out of him, smoke and steam billowing off the place where the armor literally boiled away his flesh, exposing pale bone. Gram kicked the inside of the fae’s knee and it tumbled over with a scream, clutching its ruined arm — the hideous black streaks the Bane left snaking up its arm, poisoning its blood even as it writhed and screamed, Gram stepping over it in his rush.

Only to go flying back right after, hitting the ground in a heavy clatter before bouncing and rolling deftly, finding his feet and spitting a mouthful of blood through the slits of his Visor, Tirrah gave a shrill cry, and she climbed up his arm, baring her stinger with a tiny war cry. He snarled behind his visor and took his blade in hand.

A line of actual soldiers stood now, each wore some kind of similar sash and living armor-like flesh, like the strange green set of living harness spied before. They stood between he and Mordred, and Gram’s ice blue eyes locked onto the burning gaze of the Lord of the Gnash. Mordred stared him down, his soldiers all advancing in a careful, synced line towards him as the wounded and dead behind him cooled in the dimming air. Gram felt his heart only hammering harder, the Dew was not done with him yet.

“Capitán!”

Gram’s head whipped around, and he saw Dagonet standing with Dearg at the rear of the group, far away from the madness and melee, an object came spinning through the air, first and foremost, Lidia’s pack, and then following it another and by pure instinct he recognized the slender shape, snatching it from the air.

With familiarity born of years of practice, he snapped his offhand straight, and with a clack and scrape of steel — he flipped Lidia’s saber free of its scabbard, raising both arms out to his sides as he advanced on the menacing Seelie soldiers, whirling the two blades in either hand with expert precision. He had not fought in the traditional Steppefolk style in many years, but he’d learned it. He’d learned it all. His gaze snapped back around, looping his betrothed’s satchel over his chest, Tirrah climbing aboard it like a game little deckhand, he raised both blades held aloft — and locked eyes with Mordred again.

“I am coming for you, cur.”

The Sidhe Lord spread his arms invitingly, clicking down his strange chitinous feet with authority, sending the chitinous soldiers forward.

Each of them shined a different color, their carapace gleaming. Each carried weapons born out of their bones and flesh, he curled his lips at that — what petty abominations they needed to emulate what a swordsmen did with mere purpose. He was a cavalryman at heart, and he knew how to handle a line of hard targets, darting ahead — he struck the furthest edge first, launching himself at the far edge of their line, at a clanking abomination with one arm ending in a massive, horn-like spear. There was no sound as they clashed, his sabers whirled in perfect sync as he drove at him, winding his blades into the thrusts of the dread spear, driving them to either side as he harried his flanks with cuts. His allies shifted to try to encircle the Darrowmite solider, but were only answered with a snap of blades, the tall man’s lunging reach was tremendous, and each attack snapped out like a whip, carrying with it it the teeth of Anathema.

He twisted around him, slashing and parrying, whirling his blades independently in tight twists and moulinets, he remembered the training. Avalov’s voice finding its way past the screaming rage as he set his steel to work:

A fool wields two sabers for more power, a free hand is better, a single point cuts deepest. No son, a canny warrior carries two blades to control space, when a spear is not at hand, and time is short — a second blade is a second thought for an opponent trying for your back.

He exercised that point with aplomb as they folded around him again and he once again made of himself a hard target, he had no horse but he was fleet of foot and the Dew demanded he burn its bounty or burn himself. Stick and move, he pressed himself ever deeper towards Mordred, each exchange a flurry of flashing blades and glossy chitin — followed by the screams and cries of the wounded and dying. They pressured him greatly, but where they had to strike to kill, he needed to but maim — the Bane cut eagerly, it sheared their chitin like lambskin, poisoned their blood, burned them to even touch. His twin weapons controlled the space with gusto, the snapping cuts and lunging darts from any angle replicating much of the whirling, rending style that Reiklander Bodyguards were so famous, any who came close enough to strike risked being struck instead themselves.

Their physical superiority was their undoing, as they had allowed Anathema to the Heart of Seelie, and its bearer was a man of little mercy. None of the exchanges left without blood hitting the stones — red human blood and azure seelie ichor the same, Gram grunting and screaming through battering strikes and hewing cuts that found the soft places of his field plate. The Dew would not release him so easily, his body like clay beneath skilled but uncaring hands as he shrugged off surely disabling, mortal wounds and returned them in kind.

He felt everything. Every cracked bone, slashed tendon, every mended wound, and stopped-up bleed. There was no anesthetic quality to the Dew. It did not dull the pain, it simply paired it with endless energy, endless euphoria. He screamed because there was no other expression for the exquisite agony. He was dying. He would live forever.

The clash ran the length of the corridor beneath Mordred’s hateful glare, the Lord of the Gnash seemed content to watch his prey walk to him, and Gram was making good time. Two more of the carapace-clad soldiers fell as they both committed to thrusts simultaneously, Gram twisting around one, parrying the other, and taking an impaling thrust through his thigh. He screamed anew and whirled his blades opposite of each other.

A head flew one way, an arm another. One fell screaming, the other simply fell.

He staggered, dropping his saber to wrench the still-impaling limb from his leg, having skipped around the tassets to the back. The wound was already closing around the stabbing spear-like horn, so eager was the Dew for its work. Another blow lashed in, and he set his teeth and was up again.

Steel rang on bone and talon, and Gram’s progress was steadily accelerating, every clash thinned their forces, the Darrowmite's human frame burning itself for fuel practically, his hoarse cries were met with gouts of steam as his body struggled to cool the sheer heat of its unnatural strength, his mind swirled. This was killing him only slightly slower than it was putting him back together.

A furious exchange brought another sidhe low with a quick back and forth, this one wielding its own dueling weapons, meeting Gram blow for blow in a rapid flurry of attacks, beat parries driving each other wide and apart even as Gram was forced to rotate furiously offline again and again to meet the remaining combat-ready soldier, only two of them now. Mordred’s face was a mask of contempt, but his eyes were alive with furious anticipation.

Lidia’s saber was the key to it all, as he harried the first target, he snapped her blade in and out defensively, even now back in his hands — it was hers still. It wove in and out of combat with his main weapon like she did with him, it covered his weak points, guarded his heart. It was like her hand was still there, guiding him forwards.

A thrust missed its mark, Gram wound his blade with his opponent’s and twisted it to the floor, stomping down on it with a roar of fury — the horn-and-chitin weapon snapping in half — Lidia’s saber finding his throat in a cut so quick and brutal the blade cracked the air like a whip. Gore fountained and Gram followed the motion through, parrying a series of blows from its partner before simply stepping in to the last one and swinging his fists twice, the knucklebow of each blade ramming into either side of the side’s helmet-like skull with bone crunching force in a quick staccato before his main-hand found its heart with a fierce thrust.

The last one fell, sliding off Gram’s blade as he locked eyes with Mordred, steam poured off him, gore sizzling off his armor and blades alike, erupting out of his mouth through his visor like the breath of some ancient dragon, roused and firing his heart with its passions.

Gram had lived cold. He would die burning.

Mordred surveyed the carnage with a dispassionate expression as Gram continued to advance on him, unimpeded now.

“An engaging show, I have enjoyed watching you work while Seelie dies around us, but I am afraid I cannot let you go further.”

“Then stop me.”

There were no other words, Gram simply lunged.

Mordred welcomed him with a mad-eyed smile and wide arms. In this oblivion, they were brothers.

~ ~ ~

Being dead wasn’t so bad. Nothing hurt. There was a whole lot of that, nothing. She thought it was strange that Nothing was in fact, Something. Something she could remark on, be aware of.

That… didn’t seem right. She shouldn’t be able to think at all, should she? She’s dead. Dead, and far as she knew — Changelings didn’t go to Godhome, did they? She’d been scared to ask directly, everyone had reassured her God would want her, but would he really?

Nothing was a real disappointment, she realized. Other sensations crept in, things a dead girl shouldn’t be able to detect. She smelled something, something familiar. Dead girls didn’t smell things.

The nutty, fatty scent of linseed oil. The subtle, fresh scent of ash wood.

She opened her eyes. Dead girls couldn’t do that.

Before her spread, nothing. Her eyes regarded a space bereft of dimension or depth, an endless void. If it had not been empty white space, she might have assumed her eyes had never opened at all. She was as she had been, blood, torn clothes and bruises. She remembered the sensations of her demise, eyes widening in remembered panic as she ran her hands over herself — over the place she had felt her spine crush and snap. She felt the tear in her shirt where it had happened, it was wet. The blood was red. She shuddered at the memory. How could she remember that? Maybe she was dead. The dead don’t wander around with their wounds in Heaven, right? She was whole.

Whole and intact, save for the grit and grime of battle and her… alterations.

She tottered from her feet, the white emptiness offering her little to look at other than her newly-alien limbs. She ran her hand down her leg, over the now elongated heel, to the smooth, ivory hooves… they were not ugly. Not objectively, she flexed her hooves, wiggling them like toes a bit. She shuddered — how easy it was! Like she’d grown up with them, such a thing made her queasy. She had been remade easy as Richart might have restarted a sketch on the page.

Oh, Richart. Her heart ached, he would never know what happened to her. She curled her knees to her chest, a shuddering breath drawing in with the limbs. She promised him she’d come back, she’d keep his boy safe. She’d failed them both. She couldn’t save anything. Dead girls couldn’t save people.

A tear rolled down her cheek the wrong way. She realized she was laying on her side. Up and down barely seeming to have a meaning. She closed her eyes, seeking the darkness and finding in it only the accusatory faces of everyone she’d let down. She clenched her teeth.

“Nae ‘supposed tae feel guilty when yer dead.” She moaned, and she spoke. Dead girls don’t speak. Her voice was mute, too quiet. Seeming to carry nowhere and die inches beyond her lips. Was this Hell? They said to be condemned was to be cast adrift forever, is this what it was? Was she in hell?

“Would nae surprise me,” she sighed, touching her belly and looking down, eyes barely open. “Nae was a real girl er’er, was I? Jus’ a corrupt, creepy lil’ monster…” She sucked in another breath, closing her eyes tightly. Tears squeezed out.

“Jus’ a monster, pretendin’.”

It came again then, in the tears. The scent. Linseed oil. Ash wood. She gnashed her teeth, fingers tearing into her hair as she shook her head.

“Why?! There’s nothin’ there!” She spat at the void. She could smell it still. Fresh ash chips, the smoke of a fire… leaves, pine. Wet grass and wildflowers. She shook her head, clenching her eyes shut.

“Nae, nae, dinnae tease me… I know it’s nae…” she opened her eyes.

“… Home.”

The void was gone. Her face was in dew-wet grass. Her tears drew in the fluttering wings of a butterfly, landing and licking her with their ticklish tongues. The void crept away as her eyes panned instead over… home.

She scrambled to her feet, familiar grasses, she stumbled on a root and caught herself on its matching tree. A thousand memories of tripping on that same root, catching herself on that same trunk bubbled up at once. She turned her wide eyes beyond and her voice cracked in a wordless sound of shock.

A little cottage. Tucked back behind the trees, with its well-carved columns, deep-scored stump out front, and ever-present stack of logs awaiting splitting. Fresh wax gleaming on the handle of the axe buried in the middle. It was Home, as she saw it in her mind’s eye. As she had when she was a little girl, too small to reach the doorknob — and yet she was grown now. Grown as she’d ever be. Dead girls didn’t grow old.

The grass felt nice under her hooves, and idly she wondered if that’s what Cithara felt, her mind following that rogue thought a moment, peering down at the ivory hoofhorn. They’d have a bit more in common then at least. The smell of woodsmoke banished The Lady’s radiant face from her mind, and she looked up from her feet to the familiar door. She peered down at the familiar carvings, brushing a bit of detritus away from one.

The little mouse peered back at her, with his hand-carved wedge of cheese.

She covered her mouth with her hands, gently hopping back a step from that door. It couldn’t be… but it was. If this wasn’t Godhome, it was a weird sort of Hell.

Her ears twitched. A voice. Her eyes dilated to slits of black on green. A deep, basso voice with its Midlander Brogue, her hands clawed up towards her eyes, lips trembled in a mix of horror and hope. A familiar song, almost wordless in the old tongue. About beautiful eyes in the deep, dark wood. Her hands shook as she took the door in hand, pulling it open with the familiar resistance, it was all too perfect. Too real.

Her eyes felt as if they might fall from her head were they to grow any wider. Linseed oil, fresh in the air with its odd, nutty funk. Ash wood, from a heavy block in one corner, chips hither and yon along the floor and workbench. A pipe smoldered nearby, the spicy scent of a favorite blend of pipeweed she’d always favored and now remembered why.

“… Papa?”

The rolling basso died away, and the shape at the bench resolved itself into a form so familiar, so in-place there at that seat, she’d not even seen him at first. Strong hands leaned on the arm of the heavy, well-made chair, the familiar carpet of red shaggy hair running back up its knuckles and the bare forearm. He was big as she remembered, thick, solid, but not ‘big’. He wasn’t the towering obelisk of Rashid, or the heroic bulk of Big Brother Bart, but he was just comfortably large, built bigger, a bigness of large bones and rangy, working-man muscle. He wore that familiar green jerkin, no sleeves, checkered shoulders and laces twice-mended with knots. He turned to her and she knew who he was, even though, she couldn’t quite make out his face. It was obscured from her by a hanging bundle of herbs over the hearth, and her heart fell.

She still couldn’t remember his face.

She turned herself this way and that, something seemed to always be in the way. He stood there like that a moment, not speaking as she tried to focus on him, frustration building on her face.

“Nae, nae fookin’ fair, yer nae real, jus’ more tricks an’ traps o’ this fookin’ cursed body, cursed, fake, miserable damn shell, cannae even die right!” she shrieked, and dug her fingers into her hair as a deep, resonant pain echoed out in her. A loneliness that gnawed at her, promised her an eternity of the same without relief. This was hell after all.

“Now then, that’s me daughter yer talkin’ about, I cannae take lightly to such slander.”

A strong hand took hers, and she froze. The light glared in her eyes as she looked up, obscuring his face again and she bared her teeth at him.

“Dinnae lie tae me, fookin’ mist and foxfire, nothi-” she was cut off by a hand laying a thick, calloused finger over her lips.

“Ye always were impatient.”

She stared upwards at the glare, her eyes misted with tears and then… it resolved. Like coming out of a deep sleep, bleary-eyed and dim, the glow and blurred images resolved. He was a humble man, a thick, wealth of red curls spilled down from his shoulders, soft and gleaming like coils of copper wire, dragged back from his face in a purely utilitarian way with a leather thong. His beard matched, chopped off in a rough square around his jaw, framing his careworn face and its broad, flat nose perfectly. Hazel eyes looked back with a fondness that could not be anything but real, and her legs came nearly out from under her as two, strong calloused hands cupped her face. He smiled so easily, it lit up his face, his teeth, all straight and even save for that one snaggle-toothed fang that made that smile just a bit crooked — the same crooked smile she had.

“There we are… even more beautiful then th’ day I lost ye…”

Her tears fell, she remembered him now. Remembered his face, his smile. His laugh, those hazel eyes turning up at her as he swung her ‘round and ‘round. No phantom, no trick, no ghost of her mind. Dead girls didn’t see their fathers again.

“Papa…”

“Aye, lassie. Aye.”

Lachlan Shaw was a big man. Bigness of long bone and heavy muscle. A bigness of hands and of heart. He was her Papa, And he was here, before her. He was real.

She made a sound that defined all description beyond ‘girlish glee’ and leapt forwards, blood-stains, torn clothing and all she leapt into his arms and he laughed, grabbing her about the middle and giving her a little spin. She laughed, and there was a true joy to it like she hadn’t felt since she was a girl. Dead girls didn’t laugh.

“God and all his angels, ye look a treat, Sprite.” He said, stroking her face and suddenly the word hit her like a bolt from clear sky. Memories flooded in with that word, like ink flowing across a page, coloring, seeping into every empty and loose crack and cranny of her mind. All of the empty spots filled, the bare patches blossomed. A touch of hands, a tousle of hair, all a thousand times in a thousand places.

“God, nae been called that since ye…” she swallowed, and he smoothed her hair, kissing her brow as he squeezed.

“It’s ok lassie, ye can say it.”

“Ye died.”

“I died.”

The words echoed with a quiet agreement, he held her there and she took a deep breath, trying to memorize again the scent of him, of wood, oil, and linen. Of her father, of home.

“So ye know yer…”

“Aye, I’m aware. I died.” He said, leaning back against one of the heavy, carved pillars. Inscribed on it a small chart of her growth, each year deeply engraved and wrought in fingers and spans with chisel and rasp. She found herself in much the same pose opposite of him, shifting her new hooves uncertainly. “Did ye expect me tae be livin’ in ignorance?”

“I did, tellin’ truth,” she admitted with a shrug, looking at him and he shook his head.

“No, sidhe cannae lie. Ye know that, serves to this as well.” He said, looking around briefly. “She could ‘ave, no word of a lie. Blinded me tae the whole o’ it, but she didn’t.” he shrugged once more, smiling at her.

“Worse ways tae be dead. She likes me as I was, an’ I find that suits me fine.”

“Ye’d live in the wood forever, jus’ choppin’ and carvin’ iffin’ ye ‘ad th’ chance.” Lidia said bemusedly, the words not hers, echoed from a thousand mouths, her mother’s included. He grinned that crooked grin at her.

“Aye, and so I did. There was someone that needed me there, ye were doin’ just fine.”

“Papa I killed ye.”

“No ye didn’t.”

The words and rebuttal landed like hammers, Lidia’s eyes bulging as he turned an eyebrow on her. Her own furrowed as she stepped towards him.

“Papa, I… I killed ye, wit’ th’ bits o’ me like mum, drank ye dry.” She said, and he snorted at her, stepping forward to cup her face.

“Aye, that’s what killed me, but ye weren’t the one doin’ it.”

Lidia’s heart soared but her guts fell through the hole it left, her mouth falling open in disbelief as he simply closed it, “Aye, your mother. Our arrangement was always a taxin’ one, I knew it’d take me, sooner or later.”

“She ne’er said anythin’.” Lidia responded dully, her hands slapping to her sides limply and her father smirking and leaning down to kiss her brow.

“Sounds like yer mother, I’m sure were I tae ask she’d give me the bit about ‘Tis an important lesson for one who would be Sidhe’” he said, eyes going wide and affecting a cheesy version of her mother’s stately voice. She laughed.

“Oh God, she was wasn’t she…” Lidia breathed, hands folding over her heart as memories she didn’t remember losing warmed her. The quiet domestic bliss of her early life, not robbed from her by Seelie magic, just… tragedy. She had forgotten them the way any normal human would have to hide from pain. His eyes cast down her body, eyebrows climbing as his gaze went lower. Lidia found herself self-conscious, curling her new, alien limbs behind one another, turning away from his gaze as she drew the torn hem of her long shirt down lower. Much of her clothing was ruined, torn and shredded by the violent transformation she’d been put through, but it was enough to keep her modest… with some effort.

“That has the look o’ one o’ such lessons.” He said in a mild tone, and Lidia avoided his gaze, pulling her hood about herself.

“Somethin’ like that,” she hedged. His hand caught one of the trailing tails of the garment.

“I may nae remember hooves or a tail, but I remember this.”

She smiled in spite of herself as her father leaned over her, taking the ends of that ever-present red hood in his hands, looking at the years of wear and adventure on the garment.

“Ye grew into it.”

“Ye, an’ then some,” she answered, touching the garment fondly, “Mended, washed, an’ mended again a hundred times at th’ least. Ne’er let it go.” He smiled at that.

“Ye always did like th’ color, both o’ ye. We saw this one hangin’ at a stall and you went a-titter,” He mused, and she realized something as a familiar scent wafted to her nose again. Hibiscus. She turned her head, the flowers themselves were everywhere, so common she’d been blind to them, but here — they peeked in the windows, grew in between a few mossy planks, and had been all around the grasses as she walked in. Red Hibiscus.

“… It was th’ same color as Mum’s favorite flower.”

“Ye were always tryin’ tae be like her, it pleased her even if she nae said so.”

She closed her eyes, the smell of the flowers washing over her. She’d not remembered, so much of her life forgotten, bricked-up behind enchantment and trauma. In this place, this frozen moment of her first home, she remembered. A thousand things as she cast her eyes about, her father at the hearth, stirring dinner as mother sat nearby, singing songs. Her mother mending her clothes with needle, thread and preternatural speed. Her father and mother dancing together across the floor in the late of night, when they thought her sleeping. It was all here, it had always been here. Waiting for her.

Yet… this wasn’t home anymore. Home was a keep on the borderlands full of good men with good hearts. This was a ghost of another life. She closed her eyes and for once in this grand adventure of misery, she could not find anymore tears to shed.

“This isn’t real, is it Papa?”

She didn’t see his face, but the sigh he gave was enough.

“I supposed that depend on what ye consider real.”

“Dinnae hedge at me, Papa.” She objected, opening her eyes tiredly at her father. “I’ve waited a whole lifetime tae see ye again, I’ve cried me tears over ye… but, I’m nae dead, am I?”

His mouth pressed into a hard line, she frowned, and pressed forward herself.

“I died, I felt it. It all went cold an’ black… but I’m nae dead, am I?” she asked a bit softer, turning to show the rent in her shirt, the gush of blood staining it. “I felt that, Papa. She… she ate me.”

He made a face at that, he turned away.

“Nae, nae, dinnae do that,” she whispered desperately, halting the man. “Dinnae leave me alone again, I’ll nae forgive it twice.”

Those words struck him, they physically hit him like thrown stones, flinching under their weight. He drew himself up, smoothing his hands through his hair.

“Ye… are an’ ye aren’t.” He stated and turned to her, his face weary but not unhappy. An inevitability sat about him as he returned to his chair, facing her as he sat. “Ye may ‘ave died but… yer her creature, same as I am.”

“So what, we’re in her belly?” She asked and he laughed.

“Oh, that’s an image,” he chuckled and shook his head, “Nae in so many words though, we’re in the part o’ Seelie that is hers and hers alone… she seems tae ‘ave been a bit more obvious when she collected ye,” he added with a shrug. “I was dead, I dinnae know what she did.” Lidia frowned, her eyes searching the middle distance as she shuddered. She knew where she was now.

“We’re in her demesne,” she said, meeting her dad’s eyes as he nodded in return.

“Aye, ye know o’ th’ ways of fae?”

She smiled sadly, the image of another man, another father filling her mind… and her heart. Oh, Richart… She met her father’s eyes.

“Aye, a good man told me o’ them.”

He smiled at that, folding his fingers across his chest with a heavy sigh; “’Tis good, will make the rest o’ this easier and quicker besides.”

Lidia leaned back against the pillar, straight against the chart of her heights, framing her intense green eyes as she folded her arms across her chest, and crossed her hooves at the ankle. She blinked at that, just once. Too used to it already by half. Lachlan didn’t waste much time.

“Yer right, ye died.” He began bluntly, and she shuddered, but nodded. Of all the experiences, that one would linger. “Like I said, ye are her creature, same as I,” he continued, leaning forwards on his knees, eyes serious. “When ye died, she captured yer soul same as yer body, thus th’ whole…” He gestured vaguely at her shredded clothing and bloodied flesh.

“So I’m dead, an’ I ain’t?”

He paused there and his eyes drifted away from hers, “We’re both her creature… but we are not the same sort o’ creature o’ hers.”

“What’s that mean?” She asked, leaning forwards, her eyes seeking his, “Papa, what’s that mean?”

He sighed and lowered his gaze, shaking his head, “All th’ time in th’ world and nae a moment tae spare…” he said in a quiet rueful tone, raising his face to her.

“I’m but a man, Sprite. This ‘tis me spirit, me soul.” He tapped his chest and gave her a smile, “I’m not but seeming and spiderwebs away from this place, yer mother keeps me here close tae her heart…” his smile faded a bit, turning sad.

“But ye…?” He swallowed, “She made ye, lassie. Tenon tae mortise.”

Lidia furrowed her brow, folding her arms tighter as her father closed his eyes. Taking a breath, he laid it out for her.

“Yer real here, Sprite. Ye died… and she put ye back together.”

Lidia’s eyes slowly drew back up to her father, and he smiled at her weakly, nodding.

“I’m… nae dead.”

“No, yer not.”

Her eyes shot wide and she clutched suddenly at her chest.

“Gram.”

The Woodcutter’s eyebrows quirked and she took a breath, looking at him with a mix of horror and of all things a smile, “Oh… Papa, I’m in love… there’s a man out there, a fine man o’ the surest quality, an’ he’s fightin’ fer me, I know it.” She laid her hand over her heart, feeling it hammering. “He saw me die. I know he’s fightin’.”

It was Lachlan’s turn to be shocked, his eyes widened and he came to his feet, “What do ye mean fightin’ lassie?”

She blinked, gobsmacked and spread her hands at her whole tableaux, shredded clothing, calloused hands, scars and all, her head tilting with incredulity; “Did ye think I got this way in a wee little spat wit’ mum?!”

“Well ye said she ate ye… I figured ye’d come tae blows.” He said, and she screwed up her face in sudden rage.

“An’ ye’re just FINE wit’ that?! With mum fookin’ murderin’ me on th’ spot?!”

“I always sort o’ figured that was how it would go.” He answered quietly, his face sad. Lidia balked at him, and he shook his head. “She told me as much, Sprite. Ye’d come home an’ have tae make a choice, the wide world — or her.” He said and tucked his lower lip in tight, his face a mask of surety as he met her gaze hard.

“An’ I knew ye’d fight. An’ I knew she’d win.”

Lidia’s eyes flashed, and she came away from the pillar with a clack of hooves on floorboards, “Oh dinnae ye think she won jus’ yet Papa, iffin’ there’s even a chance fine as sand that me loverboy is fightin’ for me I’m not done by half.”

Lachlan shrank away from her, eyes wide as he looked her over, really seeming to see her now. The scars, the kit, the hard-bitten look to her eyes, the hard-won muscles on her body. He blinked a bit, and tears sprang to his eyes. He covered his mouth, his voice a harsh whisper.

“Oh. Oh nae… me wee girl’s a warrior.”

“Aye, a fighter, an’ a thief, an’ second-story girl besides, I was lots o’ things Papa, I had tae be.” She threw her arms wide, letting him have a good look at her, at what she had become. “Nae pretty wee doll tae make ye happy anymore, am I? I wanted tae be, so, so bad — but nae, world went tae smash.” Sudden, fresh tears matched his and she shook her head.

“Lachheim’s gone, papa. Burned tae ash.”

That hit him like a blow, He sat back heavily, steadying himself on his workbench. Lidia pressed on, “All o’ it. I was there, I saw it.” she said and her eyes flashed, “I fought th’ ones who did it. I saw ‘em dead for it.”

“She nae told me any o’ this, never said.”

“O’ course she dinnae say a word.” Lidia snapped, anger rising in her along with a growing panic, her eyes casting about before she gnashed her teeth, rounding on her father.

“Ye left me an’ she made me fer ye.” She said, bitterness coloring the words with accusation. “I wasn’t made fer the world, papa! I was made jus’ fer ye, an’ then ye cast me loose!” Her bright fangs flashed as her pupils narrowed to predatory slits, “She made me tae be loved, an’ then ye sent me in tae a place full o’ hate all by me lonesome!”

Closing her eyes — she took a deep breath, smoothing back her hair and winding her fingers in her hood as she worked her jaw silently around the words several times before finally finding the voice for it.

“I’d jus’ found someone tae love me like I was made for, ready tae lay it all aside, nae more knives, nae more swords, jus’ a fine man an’ as many babies as I could manage.” She opened her eyes, pulling her hood up until they were all that was visible as she looked on at this man who gave her life, this first true pain she’d experienced at his loss. “Then, she tried tae take him, too… and here I am.” She said simply, spreading her arms.

“How?” He asked suddenly, eyes fierce and full of worry. Her papa was there again, not that pale shade of her mother’s influence. She made a face and laid her hands over her heart.

“She… made me that way. Th’ way she drank from ye…” she frowned bitterly, the words foul in her mouth now, “Th’ first man I fell for, I drank from him too. My loverboy, supped and sipped ‘em dry, she made me that way. Cannae control it. Iffin’ I touch him with love, I nip off another bit o’ his essence.”

She folded her hands over her belly with a sick expression; “I… can still feel the bits I nipped by accident, when he’s nae with me.” She said, and her eyes went wide. If she could feel that tug still… it meant he was alive, didn’t it? Didn’t it?!

Lachlan’s face was a thundercloud, his emotions had been a journey of their own as she’d explained it, starting with confusion, then morphing slowly through fatherly agony before darkening into a cold sort of anger. She fell very still. She had never seen her father angry before, not like that. It was an alien expression on a face she only just now remembered, and he stood from his chair, suddenly seeming far too large for the small cottage.

“She ne’er said a word.” He said, his voice a low, raspy thing like a blade shaving timber. “Years an’ years together and YE NE’ER SAID A THING!”

The final words left his voice in a roar, Lidia felt herself tiny suddenly, cowering away from him reflexively, some part of her made to do that still… but his words were not directed at her. His eyes were fixated on the cubby where he had slept — where she had last seen him, lying dead. He advanced on the curtained-off bed with a step so heavy it felt like he shook the very demesne with his footfalls. He tore the curtain aside, nearly off the moorings in the wall…

… And there lay her mother, quite still.

She was not as she had been at the Throne, or totally as she had been in her Seeming, but somewhere between, somewhere more solid. Her hair flowed in black tresses made of gossamer, and her skin was pale as fresh milk, but it was a thing of form and substance. None of the flowing, living shadow nor flesh like wet clay. The strange seams and separations of her flesh were welded together, forming deep-creasing lines across her body where they had become whole.

“How is she here?!” Lidia hissed in surprise, shock, and more than a little anger — anger mirrored by her father as he stalked forwards, kneeling over the towering fae woman, hands shaking as he composed himself.

“She’s always here, lass.” He said in a measured tone, laying a hand on the fae queen’s sleeping face, closing his eyes in a pained expression. “She slumbers like this, when she’s away. Out in th’ world. I dinnae think time passes quite right here…” he shook his head, and his hands slid from her face to grasp her shoulders, the softness leaving them as they gripped her tightly. “Always here… and ne’er a single word.”

“Wake up,” he pleaded at first, giving her a shake. A strange expression rippled across his face as Lidia watched the care leave him, and those hands that had never been raised in anger once in her life shook her mother, veins standing out on their knuckles as he almost throttled her.

“Years an’ years Morgan, years and years we’ve been here in this little lovenest an’ ye ne’er told me me daughter was sufferin’, ye spoke none o’ the curse ye laid on her!” His voice didn’t raise, it lowered, it lowered into a cold place that carried in it little love, and nothing resembling understanding. “I love ye, ye old monster… how could ye do this to my girl?”

She lie still a moment longer, her chest rising and falling, her face contorted in her sleep.

She then began to scream.

There were no words in the sound, it held none of the killing power of the Keening from before, no… this was pure, mortal agony. She writhed and her body arched, her talon-like fingers tore into her hair. All the while she wailed.

“Morgan, MORGAN!” Lachlan bellowed, catching her raking hands by the wrists, his powerful arms somehow only able to barely match her preternatural strength as he strained and struggled to drag her limbs away.

“What’s th’ fookin’ matter wit’ her?!” Lidia all but screamed, Lachlan shook his head, looking up with wild eyes.

“I’m a carpenter nae a fookin’ Sidhe Lord, what are you askin’ me for?!” He barked in response, and the sharpness of the words drew her up short. Resentment boiled up in her, as she saw the man wrestle and struggle with her. Watched her mother overpower her father yet again in her mindless state. A monster, grief-stricken or no. How dare she be vulnerable now, how dare she pretend like this — living a dreamy existence while she cried alone in alleys and storm tunnels for a Papa that would never come. How dare she receive that succor now, now of all times when she had not?

Resentment turned to bitter, bitter gall. Her alarm morphed into a sudden, irrational need to act.

She grabbed onto that desperately in the sea of emotions, driving forwards. He arm moved without thinking, the storm of feelings buffeting her on all sides, and there was only one way to go.

The slap rang out with a crack like thunder, the storm within her boiling outwards.

The fae queen reeled back, even her great preternatural strength seemingly cowed by the sudden, sharp blow as her child struck her like an equal, falling to the sheets limply, whimpering and writhing… seemingly unable to wake, making only soft, indiscernible mewling sounds of misery.

Lachlan stared at her. She drew herself up, eyes dilating to slits. Her humanity bleeding away in her ire.

“She deserves worse for what she did, for darin’ tae make me love her.”

She stared into her father’s eyes like that, knelt over her mother’s writhing form, the haunted look that stood there. What did he see now? Did he see his daughter, all grown-up and fierce? Or did he see another sidhe like all the others, wrathful and inhuman. Her fury broke under that gaze, and she along with it. “I… I dinnae…” she suddenly had no words, what was there to say? Sorry Papa, I’m a monster, just like mum? Her teeth ground and a sound of wordless pain left her, and she slid away, stumbling until she caught herself on the windowsill.

“I’m… jus’ as bad. I made him love me, I took it. Stole it. Stole him from a proper woman wit’ proper parts.” She breathed, screwing her eyes shut as she tried to banish the last sight of her loverboy from her mind, the last glimpse of his face before the blackness took her. She would never seen that beautiful face again, and the last time she did — it was wracked with grief. Grief was a common currency here.

“I jus’ want tae see him one more time…” she said to no one in particular, her father’s haunted gaze unwavering, his voice still silent. She wanted someone’s eyes who had never looked at her like a monster.

Gram never had. Not once.

The tears wanted to fall but there was none left, the grief had wrung her dry. She had nothing left to shed but blood.

The slam of her fist into the old wood was loud, and her father shrank from it, cradling Morgana’s still-mewling form in his arms. This… stranger that called herself his daughter no doubt a disappointment. What did he see? Those eyes were full of fear. She slammed her fists down again, wordless woe and fury escaping her as she buried her face in her hands, leaning her brow against the cool glass of the window… a luxury her father had added for her mother, so she could watch the rain. Her teeth grit together and she raised her face to the window. She only wanted to see his…

… Eyes.

She froze. His eyes. They were there. Staring back at her from the reflection, hazy and translucent — but it was Gram’s eyes. They were wide and dilated to pinpoints, bloodshot, and focused. Fixated. Determined. A sound escaped her throat that was girlish and undignified, and she pulled away… and the image vanished. Her hand trembled.

“How’d ye do that?”

Lachlan’s voice came up to her, and his eyes were wide — not with fear and worry, but alarm and wonder, glorious wonder. She looked around and shrugged, eyes wild as she lacked words. The woodcutter put his writhing bride gently aside, reaching out to touch the window. It remained as it was beneath his gnarled palm, simple glass. He looked to her.

“She’d touch the window, an’ show me wonders. Places far away, call up their image beyond th’ glass as if it were just outside.” His eyes widened as he realized what he was saying, he folded Morgan’s hands on her chest and rose to his feet.

“Do it again.” He said, stepping close to her, his presence familiar, warm, wanted even now as her heart tore in two. “Touch it, an’ think whatever ye were thinking before.”

She reached a hand out again, touching the cool pane of glass. She thought of only one thing, she drew up every want, every glance of icy blue eyes, every tiny smile just for her. She took a breath, and heard a gasp behind her as she opened her eyes, wide as she saw exactly what she wished for. A single word left her in breathless hope.

“Gram.”

~ ~ ~

The clash of steel and fang was loud, a ringing symphony of violence that sang in time with the dying realm around them. Gram’s teeth were set in a rictus of determination, every iota of his being focused — and required — to fence with the Pale Prince.

Yet by God’s Blood he was doing it.

He snapped his blades with fury against the saw-edged limbs of the Lord of the Gnash, Mordred’s eyes alight with murderous glee as they clashed again, hitters and takers ringing at impossible angles, each warrior wielding every one of their limbs in total warfare, blades, limbs, feet, and teeth.

So many teeth.

“Impressive!” The Sidhe snarled as they rang against each other again, no stopping in binds, no slowing for discussion — Gram drove at him straight, the fae meeting him in kind. “I almost wish you had a chance to survive this.”

“It was never about survival.” Gram answered hotly, eyes gleaming like blue fire behind his visor as he threw himself at the monster anew, seeking his heart with the steely bane — forcing the Sidhe Lord back again as it voided a slice that would have laid his belly open.

“It was about making sure you did not.”

The joy left the fae’s eyes as he set his teeth, dashing back several steps. It seemed he wasn’t having fun anymore.

Pity.

Tirrah’s voice rang out in his ear, a warning trilling as she leapt to attention. The soldier raised his weapons with a snap as Mordred raised one foot with a snarl, his inhuman frame bending grotesquely as he roared — and stomped that foot down. Out from it like a ripple on a pond — the bridge remade itself. Crackling and swirling it rose around them, toothy maws snapping and yawning from every angle as the Lord of the Gnash brought his full power to bear on the mortal.

Gram threw himself into it, the Dew burned in him, refused to let him be still. It tasked him, and he reveled in it. He had a singular purpose — to kill this monster. He would meet Lidia in Godhome with Mordred’s head in his hands.

What glorious purpose.

Tirrah screamed again and he ducked by pure reflex — a pillar of teeth and stone blasted past him like a ballista bolt. Clipping his shoulder by a hair, it raised a shower of sparks as it ground against the steel of his pauldron. Gram drove forwards again, had he hesitated for a second his armor wouldn’t have mattered — the sheer mass of the stone would have smeared him across the inside of it. The little Fomori screamed again, and once more he threw himself to the side, narrowly avoiding another strike — Mordred’s arms raising and directing each toothy projectile like the conductor of a choir, his own voice spitting curses and epithets he felt more than understood. The little fae on his shoulder was somehow in tune with the realm, she felt it before he saw it. He spared her a glance and she nodded fiercely, and he did so in return. They both set their eyes on the Pale Prince.

“Why won’t you just DIE?!” Mordred howled, wrenching his arms upwards in fury, the very stones tearing themselves apart into a pair of massive, undulating pillars of the seething, fleshy stone. Each in turn snapped open at their ends into a pair of jagged maws so overstuffed with teeth they crowded and broke free each time they clacked and crunched with an eager desire to worry and crush. Tirrah gave a cry but Gram was already moving, running flat out at the still retreating Lord of Seelie, both of them just as rapidly running out of ground. The Throne’s entrance loomed above them again.

Mordred snarled and thrust his arms forwards one after another — the twin snaking maws of stone and hate lunging forward, twisting together in a helix of murder, Gram felt the Dew burning even hotter, and a gout of steam blasted out of his visor as he gave a roar and leapt right at them.

Two maws lunged at him, and the Dew-ridden warrior twisted, the world seemed to move in slow motion as he drove one boot down on one stony maw — kicking forwards, rolling his shoulder along the second. He lost his footing for a moment as both gnashing mouths snapped on naught but empty air, the soldier’s desperate dive seeming fated to drop him straight back into their recoiling jaws — but Tirrah’s tiny voice rang out again. Her tiny hands worked in a blur, anchoring herself to the top of one of the twisting pillars of stone and grabbing onto the strap of Lidia’s satchel — still slung around Gram’s shoulders. With a scream of agony and an audible crack of carapace even to Gram’s ears, she pulled.

It was just enough.

Gram’s hobnailed boots found scantest purchase on the second pillar, and he wasted no time, scrabbling and scurrying as he swooped down and scooped up the tiny fae. She swung herself up onto his sash, oozing blue gore from cracks in her shell but her eyes were focused with furious intent as Gram straight-out ran across the pillar, sprinting in a mad scramble straight at Mordred.

Possessed by the fury at the sheer impudence of the mortal challenging him as an equal —the Lord of the Gnash threw his arms wide. There was a hideous sound of flesh and bone tearing as his entire chest rent itself open — the lines and creases that had hinted at such a thing proving it true — unfolding to a massive, snarling maw of teeth within teeth, jaws within jaws. His very core a crushing, gnashing blind gut into a seeming infinity of fangs. That horrid toothed cowl snapped back over his face, shedding any aspect of humanity as he bellowed a roar with four maws — the snapping scissors of his arms flaring wide as he stomped forward to meet his opponent.

Gram and Tirrah leapt to meet him, Gram drawing his beloved’s blade up, the promise of the glittering steel thrumming in his hand with his hatred of the monster before him, the blood-streaked little Fomori’s brow creasing in determination.

“Gram.”

He froze, so did Tirrah — and even Mordred’s monstrous form halted as Gram’s blue eyes went wide beneath his visor. They had all heard it.

“LIDIA!”

~ ~ ~

“GRAM!”

Lidia’s voice was ragged, clawing at the window as she watched her beloved barely avoid death time and again, fighting with every fiber of his being. Fighting for her.

“What manner o’ demon is that?” Lachlan breathed as he watched Gram move and clash against Mordred, and Lidia knew in her heart he wasn’t talking about her erstwhile brother, a fierce grin split her features.

“That’s me loverboy, an’ he’s scarier than anythin’ in all o’ Seelie.”

Her grin faltered as she heard her own name back, her head whipping back to the window, both Mordred and Gram had stopped. Her breath caught.

“He heard me.”

She looked at her father, who’s face was just as shocked. She drew back away from the window suddenly, looking at her hands. Her mind raced as she whirled on her father; “What is this? I dinnae know what tae do!”

“It’s your blood.” He said with realization, taking his daughter's hand in his, those great, big, gnarled hands. Still rough, still gentle. He looked at her with a little wonder then back at Morgan. “She ne’er brought anyone else here, ‘twas I and I alone…”

Lidia followed his gaze down, and things started to fall into place. “I’m nae supposed tae be here…”

“Ye are made o’ the same stuff as she, same blood, same flesh…” he looked around, “I cannae do… anythin’ with this, it’s naught but stone and timber as it should be…” his eyes lowered back to his little girl and he smiled with a burst of pride.

“… But ye can.”

Lidia’s eyes went wide, flicking to and fro in tight motions as her mind raced with the possibilities, she… she could control the demesne, like her mother could. She was whole here, whole and made of the same stuff. She pulled away from him, spreading her hands out in a matter-of-fact manner.

“We need a plan, I dinnae know a fookin’ thing about this sort o’ thi-” she trailed off as she realized right then she was lying through her sidhe-given teeth. She had known a thing or two about this sort of thing. She’d spoken with Naima, been to The Empty Queen’s hellish realm, God’s Teeth she knew The Lady in White! On an impulse, she turned to the hearth, cold and stacked with wood for the evening chill yet to come, she focused on that and lacking any other way to express her desire — she just pointed at it.

It sprang into merry, crackling flame.

“Lady’s Teats!” Lachlan gushed, and Lidia set her teeth to her lip and began pacing the room. Her new hooves clicked authoritatively along with her as she looked at the walls of the cottage, Lachlan followed her with his eyes, “That easy was it?”

“I’ve ‘ad a few good teachers,” she answered absently, eyes elsewhere. She couldn’t feel anything different, it was like the fire just should be there. Grasping onto that she looked again to the window… so that is how it worked…

“Papa, ye said time dinnae seem tae spin proper here,” she ventured, the big man raising a brow and he nodded.

“Yer mother would come and go sometimes, in what would be the same day tae me, she’d come and speak o’ functions across two,” he answered, raising his thumb and forefinger together, “Sometimes shorter, sometimes a wee bit longer.”

“Like iffin’ time stopped when she was here,” she said and then squinted “Or… more iffin’ she were steppin’ out o’ time fer a bit.” Her eyes widened and she turned back to her father, who’s face mirrored her expression as they spoke at once.

“Gram.”

“Yer boyo.”

She snapped her fingers at him and they both rushed back to the window, Lidia doing calculations in her head rapidly, “Iffin’ it works like I think, then it thinks I’m ‘her’ so it’s slowin’ time here fer me down, like…” she held up a finger, “like it’s squeezin’ the moments in here between th’ moments out there.”

“One long moment.” Lachlan said, and Lidia nodded, the carpenter beamed. “Ye got me head for figures.”

“Ye I did,” she said with a little smile… that meant they had a little time, didn’t it. “It kept me safe, Papa. Served me well, made me useful. Made me special.”

“Then I didn’t die a failure.”

The words left him with such casual ease that Lidia’s silence stunned him more than anything, he looked back at her and his eyes were tired. “I… have tae be honest with ye, Sprite,” he said, putting a hand on her arm, staying it back from the window. His face fell, crumbled into ruin as he drew her along with him to her mother’s side, sitting by her, taking her hand in his as well.

“She ne’er kept anything from me… not like ye think,” he said with a misery on his face that she had only seen matched on the faces of the dying. “… she ne’er told me ye were sufferin’… ‘cause I ne’er asked.”

Lidia’s face fell to a careful mask, even as the bottom fell out of her stomach, he squeeze her hand as she began to pull away.

“Wait a spell, Sprite.” He said, still not meeting her eyes. “Please.”

“Alright Papa,” she said in a small voice, sinking down next to her mother’s bedside, the sidhe woman tossed and wailed again, her father soothing her again, the wails returning to mewling whimpers. “Alright… I’ll listen one more time.”

He nodded and took a breath, raising his eyes to the ceiling, his throat working around unsaid words for a long moment.

“I… asked once. I asked her iffin’ ye were safe. If ye were cared for. She told me yes.” He said, swallowing hard as his throat caught on the words. “Only just that. Yes,” he continued and his eyes closed.

“And I accepted just that.”

Lidia’s face may have been made of stone for all it moved in response, but her eyes were hard and full of boiling resentment. She raised her chin at him, and he nodded, continuing.

“I reckoned iffin’ anything truly bad happened tae ye, ye’d end up… well,” he looked around the room, shaking his head. “She snatched me up, fresh as th’ day I died… so I took her word. I ne’er asked questions, ne’er probed tae hard. She said ye were safe, and ye were cared for.”

“Papa I was all alone.”

He looked startled at that, “She cannae lie.”

Lidia’s face turned bleak, “Nae she cannae at all, but she also cannae understand th’ way people do. I told ye Papa, I was a thief. A proper one, runnin’ in th’ gangs o’ Lachheim, runnin’ one o’ me own even.” She said and shook her head, hugging herself and closing her eyes tight.

“Ye I bet I looked cared fer tae her blood-suckin’ eyes. Favorite cutpurse o’ the guildmaster o’ thieves, surrounded by fookin’ no-neck toughs an’ cutters,” she turned back to him, eyes flashing like emerald daggers as she met his gaze again — forced him to look in her eyes.

“Just like a pack o’ murderous sidhe.”

He closed his eyes, but only after a good long look. He said nothing for a while, turning his gaze to Morgan and her twisting, writhing form.

“… Aye, and I knew that I think. Deep in me heart, that she was tellin’ me what I wanted tae hear, in some way.” He smiled ruefully, shaking his head. “She cannae lie, but Lady’s Teats can she make the truth sweet as honey.”

“What do ye want from me Papa.”

The words were a demand, not a question. Lidia’s heart ached in places old and well-trod. Lachlan squeezed her hand.

“Nothin’ Sprite. Only tae say I am sorry. I was a coward.” He raised his chin at her, his chest swelled, “And I claim nothin’ on what ye became, nae because I’m nae proud o’ ye, but ye did it in spite o’ me blunders.” His hand tightened around hers.

“I ne’er wanted this life fer ye, nae father wishes tae see his wee lass under arms, cut tae bits and tough in place she should be soft,” he said and he brought her hand against his face, his eyes were intense and tears glimmered there anew.

“But God’s Blood me girl, I am so damnedably proud o’ ye. Ye’re a heroine from th’ tales. Ye’re in love. Ye’re loved.

She clenched her teeth, she wanted so desperately to be mad, so very, very mad.

“I needed ye Papa an’ ye weren’t there.”

“I know, Sprite, but I’m here now,” he said and he took a deep breath, “And I’m going to make that count.”

She stared at him with empty eyes, she wanted to believe. She did so terribly… but her heart hurt, it hurt so bad. She shook her head.

“Why Papa?” She asked, and the tears finally fell. Such a crybaby, she had no light in her eyes, “Why Mum? Why ‘ave me? Why stay ‘ere, all this time, trapped… it’s been years Papa, I’m grown up. You can’t come back… I buried ye, I buried ye twice.” She shook her head again, eyes unblinking.

“Jus’ tell me why.”

Lachlan didn’t have an answer for her, not immediately. Even his eyes were as empty and lightless as hers, both of them realizing what this conversation really meant. He turned his eyes to the slumbering, tossing, fitful Queen of Summer. He reached a hand out to her, stroking the line of her jaw down to her soft, bow-like mouth.

“I love her, Sprite.” He breathed. “I wanted tae save her. She was mortal once, so long ago I nae can really understand it. She’s beautiful inside, even wit’ all o’ the wrongness — there’s still part o’ what she was inside. Here.”

He held up his hands to the cottage, and Lidia’s heart dropped. She understood.

“This… is what’s left o’ whatever woman was your mother, all those lifetimes ago.” He explained quietly; “I dinnae understand it entirely… I ‘ave a head for figures, nae for mysticism. Whatever the Sidhe were before, she was somthin’ quite like us, Sprite.” It was his turn to weep.

“Lost… ‘fore our planet was dust an’ echoes, ‘fore God hung the sun in the sky and the Lady lit the stars in the heavens.” He pulled her close to him, and she reflexively buried her too-large head in the nape of his neck, never would she have believed she would have seen the Queen of Blood and Darkness as… vulnerable. Tears streamed down her face and his alike… somehow, she knew as well.

“… I couldn’t leave her alone here. I had to save her.”

Lidia wiped her eyes. She understood… the way he looked at her, that look. She’d seen it before.

Gram looked at her like that.

“I’m sorry, Papa.”

“Dinnae be, Sprite. I made my choices.”

Silence ruled for a time, she looked to the window as her father held her mother’s trembling, insensate form. She could… stay here maybe, fix things. Would it be so bad? Her eyes cast back to her mother, could she fix her? To have a mother and father, to be home again…

She reached out a hand to her mother, she hesitated a moment. She had struck her before… and she’d quieted… what if…

The fingers gently found her mother’s, tangling together around her too-large hands, wrapping around her thumb like she had as a child. Her hands were warm. She remembered warm hands like that, holding her…

Morgan took a breath, murmuring something… and Lidia’s eyes went wide.

You will know when is the proper time.

“Mum… Moira… Moira wake up.”

There was a hush, the very whole of reality seemed to grow still. The planks ceased creaking, the wind ceased blowing. There was a collective gasp that seemed to come from all three and the air itself at once.

Moira’s eyes opened. Brilliant, beautiful green eyes. Slitted eyes. Sidhe eyes.

Her eyes.

Lachlan caught his beloved, his own face dumbfounded as he said the name; “Moira, Moira my darlin’ dear one I thought I’d lost ye…” he gasped, crushing her in his arms in a tight embrace, he turned to Lidia… “I… I forgot her name. I dinnae even realize it.”

“I… took it from you.” Came a soft, gentle voice. Moira’s voice. Mum’s voice. She sat up slowly, touching Lachlan’s face with a smile that was soft, and carried little of the familiar predation she was used to seeing there. “I knew if I didn’t… you would try to stop me.” She smiled sadly then, and turned to face her daughter.

“Hello Lidia.”

That froze the little changeling in place, her… name. She’d said her name. It hadn’t rang her like a bell, it had… sounded right. Just right.

“Hello… Mum.”

“I know you have many questions, I’m afraid the answers are unfortunately simple and few.” She began, stroking Lachlan’s arm idly, turning to his face, her eyes filling with a devotion she’d only seen once before… when Cithara had looked into Bart’s eyes on their wedding day.

“My love… to see your face again, just one last time… to know your name, I cannot tell you Lachlan Shaw, how much you have given me. My one, true, and only love.” Her eyes turned sorrowful, and Lidia felt an anguish she could not place. She watched beauty cry.

“I needed her here… I needed to say goodbye.”

“What d’ye mean, goodbye?” He asked… but there was no pain in his voice, he didn’t seem surprised, merely confused.

“To you, my dearest love.” She breathed softly, “My memories of you were fragmented, taken and given to our child so she would know that she was loved, deep in her heart, only leaving me with precious few… so precious they drove me quite mad.” She sobbed, leaning her head forward to touch Lachlan’s.

“That’s… why I forgot ‘is face…” Lidia said, and Moira nodded, closing those bright green eyes.

“My greater self reclaimed them when you strayed into our old home. You were within our demesne every so slightly, she — I — knew you would visit there. I planted the thought myself.” She smiled sadly “Our home will stand as long as the wood does, even if reclaimed ever slightly, for I have stretched the furthest corner of my deepest inner realm to wrap it tightly.” She turned her face back to Lachlan’s

“It will be a monument. To the only time I was happy.”

She turned to them both, wiping her eyes with six-fingered hands shaking… she looked so vulnerable, so… human.

“Lidia, oh Stars and Darkness Lidia…” she said, reaching out and cupping her daughter’s face, her touch made the girl’s body sing in concert, as their same flesh and blood called to one another, “Oh the sorrows I have caused you, the apologies I owe you… I wish we had enough time in this moment forever but…” she smiled sadly; “I am dying, out there. My greater self… she is fading,” she turned her eyes to Lachlan, and he closed his.

“I’m killin’ ye.”

She nodded. Fresh tears fell.

“How?” Lidia begged, and Lachlan answered.

“I’m dead, Sprite… this is my spirit… but it ain’t really me.”

“No, no it isn’t.” She breathed, even as she caressed his face. “You are my memories of you, wrapped and pressed into that bit of you that lingers because it won’t let me go.”

“Yer my wife… ye needed me…”

“We did a great evil to you, my greater self and I… we wanted to love you… we wanted to know what that was, you were so…” her head tilted and tears formed. “Happy, when you laid eyes upon me, you were full of joy… I wanted to give that back to you. To love you…” tears streamed down her face, the Queen of Blood and Darkness wept openly.

“I now know it is something I cannot do.”

She lifted her face to Lidia, her eyes wide and frightened, “My greater self… she is Sidhe, and she is the linchpin of Seelie, the realm lives and dies with its Queen. She is tearing apart out there, your father’s memories are poison for she cannot escape them, and the love they carry winnows and worries her apart for she — I — cannot love you as you need…” her voice trailed off into a small thing, quiet. Desperate. Terrified.

“… But I cannot stop either.”

There was a long moment of silence, none needed to be told what the next step was. Lachlan drew her closer, and she hugged him tightly, burying her face in his chest as sobs escaped her again, seemingly trying to press herself through his chest, as if she could simply hide in his heart from the pain.

“Mum ye… ye said ye loved me, when ye told me yer name… but you cannae lie…” Lidia said, and the sobbing Sidhe nodded.

“I do love you Lidia… but it is to be only as a Sidhe can… I am afraid this bit of me…” she touched Lachlan’s face, “It won’t last long without you here… I’ll rejoin my greater self totally, and… you will be the last eyes to see this being I was, so long ago.”

The little changeling’s hands drew up to her mouth, and the Sidhe woman smiled.

“No… don’t cry for me, I don’t deserve your tears. I hurt you, I hurt you for a selfish purpose, brought you here just to be a tool… and that is a truly monstrous thing I will carry even as Dame Morgana. It will stay my step and pause my hand towards you in all ways, for even when I am gone, what is Seelie will know the wrong I did you.” She raised her jaw proudly.

“It will not forget. I will not allow it.”

Lidia drew back, wiping her eyes. She nodded and drew closer.

“May I… jus’…” Lidia’s body shivered and her voice grew quiet. “Mum… please, will you jus’ hold me for a while?” She asked, her voice tiny. She was a child again. “Please… I want tae remember ye.”

The Sidhe woman nodded, extending her arms. Lidia pushed her way into her mother’s arms, and she couldn’t hold the tears back again as her Father’s arms joined the hug.

Lidia cried for a long while. She was not alone in the tears, or the need for them.

Reality would only wait so long however. Lidia wiped her eyes, sitting up and pulling away from the two.

“I need tae know what tae do… I love you both but…” she looked to the window. Her parents smiled.

“I need a… shock, to my greater self. Her entire being is fixated on her impossible task of understanding… love.” She explained, wiping her own eyes and taking Lachlan’s hand. “If we break that catatonia… You can break free from this place, whole and hale. I’ll make sure of that.”

Lidia’s heart soared, she leapt to her feet, hooves clattering as she did. Solemn as the mood was — she could get back, whole and hale! “What d’ye need?”

“Pain.” Her mother stated simply. “Overwhelming, Impossible pain.” She tilted her head curiously, and a knowing smile spread across her face.

Lidia’s eyes lit up and she looked at the window. Her mother’s eyes glittered like a hunting cat.

They both smiled the exact same smile.

~ ~ ~

The sound of a saber’s ringing blade was all the warning Mordred got.

The cut came fast and hard, gashing down across the Fae’s supernatural carapace, slicing a hot line of azure ichor across that strange, fleshy cowl, snapping them both out of the moment’s distraction. The Sidhe Lord flinched back and snapped a kick out at Gram, catching the soldier full in the chest once more, kicking him backwards away from him as he danced back a few more steps, coming up back against the hall leading to the throne room. Behind him, the Queen’s form writhed visibly, tangled in the velarium’s folds like a maniacal puppet.

Gram didn’t even feel the kick, he rolled with the impact, the Dew mended the cracked bones and bruised flesh as the soldier came deftly to his feet in a rush. His plans had changed.

She lived.

The headlong rush had purpose now. He had to get past this thing. Killing him was optional, but vastly preferred. He was not so quick to forget his debts. Mordred seemed inclined to seek restitution on similar grounds, squaring up in the narrow threshold of the final stretch, his immense chest-maw chattering as he raised one of his overlong limbs in a slow, deliberate gesture.

He beckoned Gram forwards. Two motions, just his fingers.

Gram indulged him.

Seelie crumbled around them as the soldier closed the gap, terraces and balconies cracked and shattered, tilting and falling into the infinite below. Debris rained down around them as that middle distance vanished in the flash of a blade.

They struck each other in concert, the rabid beat of blade and tooth moving like the frantic tempo of a marching drum. Single-tempo, each strike itself a parry. They moved ahead in a dance back and forth, driving slashes met by beats and stomps. Gram parried a series of savage kicks from the needle-like legs of the sidhe lord with both several of his own, the Dew driving him to newer heights, never seeming to fade — it only climbed higher the faster his heart beat. They clashed again, Mordred’s every motion unraveled reality around it, assailing Gram with shrapnel of fangs and maws lunging from every shadow, beating him from angles impossible and yet he persisted. Iron within, iron without. The toothy old Hag had his number, he squared his shoulders against what assaults he could — the steel held, his footwork danced and forward yet still he drove. He felt himself coming apart, steam was pouring constantly from every gap in his armor now, his heart was a screaming furnace of glorious purpose and it refused to quit even as his muscles burned and his flesh tore.

Blood spattered the hall as they met again and again, red and blue gore complimenting one another in phantasmagorical horror across the crumbling canvas of fleshy white stone.

And yet he persisted.

Mordred’s screams were outraged and yet elated. Every furious parry beaten drove new snarls and cackles from him as he returned openings with strikes, paid pain for pain, blood for blood. They were nigh-evenly matched, save for the Bane — and God’s glorious purpose in his heart.

Inch by inch Gram gained ground, darting offline to attempt to simply skip past his larger opponent only to be stymied by a thrown limb or warped, snapping maw emerging from the very stones. Mordred’s cackling assault was determined to keep them locked in mortal, intimate combat, and with a roar and a fresh blast of steam, Gram rose to give him everything he could ever want.

Blades lashed out, single-tempo the rule of law in the duel — to fully fail a parry on either side was to die, and yet narrow misses made their way through as Gram drove forward in a series of whirling moulinets — turning his entire body into a corkscrew of steel. He drove the tempo by necessity of his stomping rhythm, driving back and forth across the center line, harassing Mordred at the hamstrings. Harrying him like a Hound.

Mordred’s response was even more unhinged, lunging at Gram with all four maws, his entire combat style shifting as he fell upon Gram like a wild thing, lunging at him with snapping maw, yawning gut, and the scythe snaps of the shearing fangs of each impossible arm. Gram immediately was on the back foot as there suddenly were no strikes to parry or blows to deflect — every attack became a snatching, snapping champ of enameled death, threatening to simply lop limbs or head clean off. Gram’s only advantage was The Bane.

Two shearing maws lunged down at him, somehow the barely-bipedal monster still keeping to the tempo as Gram swatted one limb to the ground, but was caught up in the second snapping motion. The shearing limb clamped around his middle, hoisting him off the ground in a rush that stole several feet of progress from the warrior as he gave a frustrated roar, his armor screaming in protest but holding against the sawing, gnawing fangs of the shears as their hideous muscles bulged at the base — Mordred attempting to simply snip him in half. Gram screamed, more in outrage than pain and drove his armored first down on the fleshy outside of the arm, the Bane taking a bite from the Sidhe lord. Mordred spat a curse and slammed him into the pavestones, his free hand snapping it’s shears wide and levering at his head — his armor proving too stout for even the great shears to cut, he opted instead to simply remove his head.

Gram barely got his arms up in time as the molar-filled shears darted for his throat — catching the killing scissors on the outer plates of his vambraces with a snarl, his eyes flashing behind his visor. Mordred’s toothed cowl twisted in a hideous mockery of a grin as he leaned forward, the muscles at the other end of the shearing limb bulging, the saw-like line of teeth chattering and worrying against his armor, even as they smoked and sizzled beneath the Bane’s hungry bite. Gram’s body strained beneath the sheer mass of the larger being as he pressed down on him, teeth spreading in a gnashing snarl of anticipation. The press was inexorable, even as the Dew screamed through him in defiance, he felt his arms beginning to buckle.

“So it ends. It was a merry dance, Hound — but alas, the music dies.”

Gram spat at him through the slats of his visor. Mordred’s response was but a snarl.

“GRAM!”

Time froze once more. Gram’s heart surged, hammering with purpose, glorious purpose as he recognized the voice once more. Lidia. His Little Redcap, Mordred’s toothy cowl snarled all the more intensely at the disjointed voice.

“Ye ‘ave tae get tae Mum! She needs a mighty shock an’ I can fix it! Do what ye do best loverboy!”

Gram’s eyes hardened to agates behind his visor. His heart sang the glorious purpose for which it was made. Mordred’s voice spat wordless disbelief as the soldier's arms locked — and held. Muscles bulged and fire blazed through him as that veil of steam rose up beneath his armor. The Lord of the Gnash forced his way down, pouring on every ounce of strength he had — but it seemed unable to even budge the Dew-ridden soldier. Gram’s eyes didn’t waver nor blink as he twisted his arms and rolled his wrists.

He still was holding his blades.

The moulinet action was so essential to saber-fighting that nearly all forms and techniques bridged into or out from it. So fundamental, he could do them in his sleep. He slackened his arms for just enough space to snap out the motion, two little windmills cutting neat arcs. The blades bit into the inside of Mordred’s bizarre scissor-arm, digging at the soft palate between its hideous saw-like teeth and not slowing down as Gram’s Dew-ridden body poured out every ounce of strength it had. The sabers hit full extension with an audible crack, an arching ribbon of azure gore following each out as Gram neatly bisected the arm attempting to do the very same to his neck. Mordred howled — and there was more outrage in his voice than pain.

The recoiling Sidhe slackened his grip just enough, and that was all the Darrowmite needed, twisting his hips, he forced his foot up between the gap of the other pinning pair of shears, and with a furious thrust of his legs and body, drove himself free of the pinning claw, lunging upwards to smash his helmeted face into the snarling maw of Mordred’s cowl. He heard teeth crunch. The two fighters tore apart at that, the ringing impact a bell tolling the end of their intimate clash. Mordred’s torn limbs clung to Gram a moment, and the strap of the satchel caught, and with a jerk — ripped free, spilling its contents. The flashpaper package hung in the air between the shreds of leather and alchemical bric-a-brac.

She needs a mighty shock.

Gram’s eyes locked onto the sachet of powder, and before it had even fully begun falling, he’d lunged forwards. Snatching it from the air in his offhand, he tore off at a dead sprint. Mordred lay stunned, his ruined arm pumping blue ichor onto the floor as Gram scrambled over top him and pelted down the hallway. The Sidhe Lord snarled something inaudible and vile at the mortal soldier and twisted to gather himself, but Gram was already gone past. The Dew sang to him in his ears, his heart pounding the counterpoint to its intoxicating music as he ran with the will of a man possessed.

Seelie continued its collapse all around them, accelerating it seemed as he charged forwards past the crumbling statues, a series of cracks and shattering failures of flagstone following him in a domino effect of shattering sidhe faces at either side of him. The fae drugs screamed and so did he as he felt his muscles starting to tear apart under the stresses. Never had he run so hard, never so fast. Stones threatened to crush him, debris fell into his path, ricocheted off his armor, and in all of it he never wavered, never stopped. The Queen’s form swayed into view as he crested the faint arch in the hallway, sifting dust and shredded stone giving the air a thick radiance from the downward pouring light that made the distance feel all the further, as if he were running through soup at half speed, rather than pelting across giant-scale stones at speeds that would have made Bayard blush. He merely need cross the threshold and there she would be.

He heard the sound before he felt any of it. That thought would linger with him for the rest of his day as an idle curiosity.

A loud tinny clack, almost musical. Like someone clamping shut a great beartrap made of solid steel. His motion arrested next, and he dragged his heels against a sudden, impossible force stopping him, dragging him backwards. Backwards and to the right. He drove in his heels, just at the threshold of the throne room, the Queen’s veil-tangled form convulsing and writhing before him, he only needed to get a bit further… what had been that sound?

The pain hit then. Gram screamed, and much like Mordred, it was more in frustration than agony.

He twisted around and there he was, Mordred. The wounded arm had already begun to regrow, the powerful Sidhe Lord not immune to the bite of The Bane, but seemed to recover from it faster than even the nobles of the court had. He had bitten him. Gram’s arm, saber and all, had vanished bicep-deep into the blind gut that was Mordred’s strange, cavernous torso, its saw-toothed maw clamped lockjaw tight onto his steely plate, the fangs puncturing the steel — and the flesh within — in a dozen places. He was dimly aware of the screaming agony of his arm being chewed apart as the Dew tried valiantly to put it back together. Mordred’s cowl yawned wide again, peeling back unevenly from Mordred’s face in way of the sneer he wore as he leaned in close.

“All of this theater, this spirit in service of what?” He spat at him across that intimate distance, Gram straining against the impossible, stone-like grip of the Lord of the Gnash. “A last stand for our friend Dagonet to sing of? A chance to spit in the eye of power?” he accused, smoke rising from them to twist and join Gram’s now ever-present mantle of steam — the Bane chewing into Mordred even as he held him tight.

“Why fight me? Seelie dies about us!” Gram bellowed back, ever-straining, never once yielding even as he felt his armor give anew, Mordred’s jaws crushing down further, grinding harder. “Your charges die! Your throne crumbles!”

“Let it burn.”

Mordred’s answer was a ferocious hiss, a dagger spat at Gram’s face. He raised his good arm, curling his fingers into furious talons both literal and figurative.

“Let it burn, for it is mine charge and mine loathing to tend to it. Let it be but ash and soot, so I may finally pursue my glorious purpose!” He carried on, yellow eyes wild with zeal as he leaned closer. “I was made to conquer, not play steward to a walled garden. So I will follow my purpose, and in slaying you, intruder. I will defend my realm from the Steel-bearing invader who so killed and maimed his way across our court.” his lips curled back into a savage smile. “Pity the Queen died of her own hubris while I was busy dispatching you — we will march on your kingdoms in her memory.”

Gram listened to the mad faerie’s manifesto with wide, staring eyes. At his collar a weak clatter came, and Tirrah pulled herself straight. Battered, beaten, and clearly quite grievously injured, she met Gram’s eyes, staying carefully out of sight behind his pauldron, clinging to her silken mounts there. She gave a fierce little nod, and he tilted his visor just so. Mordred took a deep breath, and with an exhultant exhale — leaned down close to Gram again, his jaws clamped tighter, drawing out a grunt of pain from the cavalier.

“Tell me Hound compared to that — what is she worth, this girl-doll made for a dead man?”

Gram looked up at the sky, at the blackening cosmos and crumbling skies, then back down at the sachet in his fist. He’d dropped Lidia’s saber in the grasping of it, so singularly focused he hadn’t noticed. He set his teeth and curled his fist carefully around that precious cargo. Inside, he forced his slightly numb fingers to move, let go of the saber hilt, feel around… His eyes met Mordred’s again and they were two chips of clear, purposeful blue ice.

“Everything.”

Gram’s hand grabbed hold of something. He twisted, hard. He felt the Bane bite into flesh. Mordred’s jaws slammed shut on his arm, and the steel shrieked its final protests as Gram simply ignored it as he felt the saw-edged teeth tear through his armor, into the hollow of his elbow.

Tirrah joined the fray, one last time.

Gathering one last burst of energy, the littlest Knight of Seelie leapt from her place hiding on Gram’s sash with a ferocious little battle cry. She collided with Mordred’s face in a flurry of clawing, snapping motions, spitting a mouthful of her web directly into his eyes.

More debris fell. Gram looked desperately at the writhing form of Dame Morgana, then back at his ruined arm. Gritting his teeth, he shifted his weight and put his eyes dead ahead on his target. His heart pounded. A scream split the air, not one of pain or anger. Sheer, unfettered will poured out of the Darrowmite in a wall of sound and a column of steam as he simply pulled. The sound of tearing meat was loud in the sudden stillness left in wake of that cry.

Gram advanced a step. Mordred and Tirrah grappled. Mordred set his feet.

Gram gave another scream. There was a tinny ring of rending plates, a column of steam burst forth from his visor, filling the area around him in a humid mist that made his armor gleam. He set his shoulder, grit his teeth. From the corner of his eye, he saw Mordred grasp hold of Tirrah. She screamed.

He pulled.

In a shower of rent plates, split rivets and bright, vital gore — Gram simply tore his own arm off, harness, gambeson, gauntlet and all. Off and with only a stumble, he was away. The Dew blasted through him, trying gamely to keep him alive as he scrambled forwards.

Mordred stumbled with the sudden release of tension, Tirrah tore free of his grip and leapt straight at his face, stinger leading. A trilling cry was all she gave as the littlest Knight of Seelie drove her lance straight into Mordred’s brow. Her abdomen pumped, for what little she held in reserve — there was enough.

The Lord of the Gnash didn’t even manage to scream before he staggered, and fell limp. Quite alive. Quite paralyzed. His massive frame crashed to the ground, breathing raggedly, staring off at Gram as he struggled forward with murder in his burning, unwanted yellow eyes.

“Tirrah?” Gram called back raggedly, grasping his arm, the stump was only oozing blood now. The Dew even now rebuilding him as it dulled none of the agony of the wound, married it only with that glorious, thrumming drumbeat of purpose. He got no response.

“Tirrah.” Gram said a bit more forcefully, like one might to a stubborn cadet. As if he might command her to live.

A beat of silence. Then… a faint chirp. A single blue antennae popped up above Mordred’s supine form, followed by the other — now a bit crooked. Limping, beaten, bloodied and nearly missing two of her four legs — Tirrah, littlest Knight of Seelie — stood at attention.

“Come on then, we’ll go greet her together.”

She chirped weakly, and slowly made her way to Gram’s side. Clambering up, she chittered worriedly over the savaged stump of his arm, still losing blood even as the Dew blazed to replace it. Her tiny hands blurred between her mandibles, and she webbed off the mangled end of his arm, her little fingers working like tiny sewing needles, the pricks were uncomfortable but the pain at this point like all else — was distant. Over there. She gave a little sigh and a trill, pulling her webbing tight, staunching the bleeding with a mix of sticky web and woven thread, her body smeared in red along with her own blue ichor, he nodded to her. She nodded back.

They plodded to the Queen’s writhing form. Slack in the long winding shawls of the velarium, she hung like a puppet abandoned mid-play, twisting and writhing, further tangling herself with her thrashing in the pulsing, red material. Debris scattered around them, falling now and again in distance, slow-motion catastrophes. That didn’t matter. His eyes focused on the task ahead, his heart hadn’t slowed, pounding and thundering against his chest like a dog rattling the bars of its kennel. He swam in the Dew now, no longer burning the energy at-speed — it chewed and worried at him, tearing him apart at the seams. There would be time enough for that when his duty was done.

He swung his wounded body up onto the twisted, writhing form of the Queen of Blood and Darkness as she struggled against her ever-tightening bonds like a fly trapped in a web. Pain lanced through him as he did, the Dew poured on ecstasy to match, the two twining together in a drone of overwhelming sensation that blotted out his body’s natural signals to scream, to panic. Instead, there was naught but glorious purpose. Tirrah helped him here and there, but mostly hung on as the maimed soldier braced himself in the tangled threads of the Velarium, and took that packet in hand, he wadded it up in a twist and took a moment to regard Dame Morgana.

Her eyes were glazed and distant, her jaws worked in silent screams as she writhed and wound. Tears poured down her cheeks. He felt nothing as he looked upon her, he had expected to have anger, resentment, perhaps a bit of smug superiority as he stood over her entangled, helpless form. He didn’t feel much of anything but the driving, drumming beat of his heart. He had a duty. He had a purpose. Little else was needed beyond that. He stuffed the packet into the mess of limbs and tangled, pulsating red fibers, just over her heart, he turned his gaze to Tirrah.

“One last time, please.” He croaked, and she chirped, clattering down his arm, he turned his hand up to hold her as she pulled the scuffed flint out of her slapdash sling. One, two, three strikes of her now blackened stinger, and the sparks caught, the firepaper flaring with a blinding flash. Gram pushed away from the conflagration, his missing arm troubling him into more falling than anything as he and Tirrah collapsed in a heap at the feet of the writhing Queen.

The little packet burned oh-so-brightly… and then, a new sun was born.

The firepaper caught the mixture inside, and it suddenly blazed so hot and so true that Gram was forced to turn his gaze away. The cavalier pushed away with his heels as the searing star in her breast began to lick out white-hot sparks that seared and burrowed down into the soft flesh-like stone of the throneroom. Streamers of white smoke and searing cinders fountained out of the hole the packet had begun to burn through the twisted lines of red fabric — until it at last, found purchase on her flesh. She suddenly began to scream, terrible, agonized sounds that were by no means human, and wherever she had been before was sudden gone, tearing at her bindings — the Queen of Blood and Darkness erupted in a sudden, very present state of panic.

The little packet, so modest, suddenly reached a critical state, and Dame Morgana, screaming, shrieking, everything but keening — burst open from the inside in a blinding flare that turned the world before Gram’s eyes to white, Tirrah’s own frightened cries adding to the din.

Gram lay back and stared at the skies. It was hard to breathe now, his heart seemed like it would tear free from his chest. He smiled behind his visor as he felt his armor settling around him with a clatter. The Dew sang to him now, no longer was it a screaming demand — but now glorious, narcotic song. His duty dispensed, he could now rest.

What glorious purpose.