It was said that being born in the Scattered Hills made one thick skinned, ready for anything. Who ever said that didn't know the truth of the matter. Snow never once fell in the hills. It was never cold here, windy yes, cold never. Children went years without shoes. They weren't important. By the time one was old enough to leave one's yard, your feet were practiced at the art of the jabbing of each and every stone.

The Scattered Hills were a waste land. Three months out of the year, nothing grew. The stream died to a trickle. It was during those three months that they were required to pay taxes, to give wares and food to the emporer. They were lucky. But once a year because of the conditions they lived. Even the Quiet Tear paid more, and that land was the real waste land.

He shook his head, downing the rest of his lilac tea. Already the bell at the temple was ringing, reminding everyone that today was a worship day. In three hours, they had to flock there, fall to their knees and beg the great Titania for another month of charmed weather. That their children would never need shoes until they were old enough to venture out of the village. That their crops would somehow grow in the stony, thin ground.

The worship was something lost to him. True, he enjoyed the dark tan on his skin from hours of helping farmers in their fields. He enjoyed feeling the hot ground beneath bare feet. But they prayed for life... He knew nothing of that. When he was three, his father had been killed in the shop, an accident, ruled the gaurds. That was a lie. When would a blacksmith fall into the coals of his own kiln? The door was only so large, and his father had been broad shouldered and barrel chested. A true blacksmith. It was no accident.

His mother died not long after that. She died of a broken heart and overworking herself, trying to take the business on after her husband. She was built like him, leanly muscular...Only she'd been frail, unhealthy. It killed her with in two years. After that, his grandfather, though old and ready to depart this world as it was, trained him, showed him how to craft swords and horses, to make the weaponry needed to give the Emporer in their yearly tax along with the normal, every day thing that the village required. His grandfather taught him well until his twelfth year. He left for the Holy Realm in his sleep.

Now he ran the shop alone. Had been the better part of four years. People laughed at first, though him a fool with his mother's build. It was true, he certainly was his mother's child. Her build, her facial features, her eyes, her never ending smile, and her hair. Never once in her life had his mother cut her hair, taking an hour every three days to plait it, then wind the plate into a heavy coil in the back of her head. He loved watching her do that as a child, and now he had his own plait, the end tapping off of his knees.

The kiln was smoldering when he entered the kiln, pulling on his tough leather shirt and apron before stoking the coals, watching them come to life once more. He smiled a little, beginning his work. Grudeh, the mayor of their town, needed new horseshoes for his entire group. Twenty eight shoes in all. He hated making shoes. Tedious work, unnessacary tedious work, but someone had to do it.

"Boy!" The master called, his voice gruff with the wakening. Green eyes flashed as he leapt across the field to where they'd been sent, to where they awaited order diligently each day. He looked down into the cold, hard eyes of the master, golden hair blowing back as he rubbed his nose. His nose amused Boy. It looked so sharp, angular. Like an eagle. He had that same predatory look in his eye.

He waited for his orders, bowing his head mutely. "Take these clothes and wash them. This time do it right. I'll take care of the cooking." That last statement relieved Boy beyond understanding. He hated cooking. Cooking for his master meant meat, and meat meant...

The young man sat on the edge of the lake, reaching out to touch the doe's face with his hand. Her eyes were so gentle as she complied to his silent question, stepping forward. So gentlem, so beautiful. He smiled at her, stroking her soft nose as she looked at him with total trust. The Master stirred again, seeing the deer.

He pushed the muzzle, eyes wide. The doe looked at him, standing up straight and looking out. Her eyes flicked to the hunter, the Master. She understood, casting him one last sad and gentle glance before running into the shadows of the wood. A rare flicker of emotion crossed his eyes as he dipped the blood stained clothing into the water.

Washing was simple, rub the stains with a rough rock until they almost faded. Rub and rub and rub until Master called him over for breakfast. Boy sighed, looking up to the sky. He'd been a servant all his life...All the life that he could remember. Not all were kind. Not all took him outdoors. This Master was crueler than the rest, but he enjoyed Boy's company. The perfect servant. Seen but never heard.

Of course, a mute tends to have that ability.

The man glanced to her, Doubtful, "Child my wife is very ill. Roots are not what she needs. She needs this land's healer. Do you not have one?"

Her eyes narrowed, the looking much like the depths of the ocean when it froze for the winter. Part of her admonished herself for being angry. Part of her wanted to bash his head into the ground. He came to Osis for treatment from his wife. Osis was but a small town in the greater swell of kingdom. Everyone knew that only large towns, cities, had true healers. Here they had own thing, and one thing only. The temple of Oberon. The followers there were gifted in healing and other such medicinal things.

And she was the only available one today, the black priestess. The one that nobody cared to glance to. Yet she was the most talented. The Emporer called upon her twice in the Queen's pregnancy. And both times she'd been amptly rewarded, given money or jewels. Things that were hers to own, and not to give to Oberon.

The girl watched the huffing man storm towards his hotel, fists clenched tight 'round the roots. If he was not careful, the healing would slip right through his pudgy fingers. Pity that his wife would suffer her husband's ignorance. She sighed, slipping the shears back into her robes and stretching out into the warm sunlight, her long hair shimmering of pure gold as she watched the lazy clouds float by.

The other was female, her eyes the lightest green blue imaginable, pure and unfathomable as she turned another corner, smiling at her opponent with feline ease. Her advantage was in her feet. She wore simple, sturdy slippers while his were ornate, slipping and sliding every each way in the pursuit. She wore a flowing dress, slowing her down only a fraction, but not enough to let him win.

Her hand touched the pole first and she dropped to the ground, gasping for breath. Never had she needed to run like that. But she won against him. She won; he lost. His eyes were cold as he sized her up a moment, holding out his hand as the attendent ran to retrieve his fine clothing.

"Beat you. Finally." She smirked a little, tossing her amber hair to the wind, tourmaline eyes alight. "And the coin is now mine."

He growed low, thrusting a single, thick golden coin into her waiting palm, "You used magik."

"I did no such thing, Lord Chang. I beat you. Accept it." The wind blew their hair back, whispering of days gone past. A young girl and a young boy, growing up side by side in stately homes of stone. Families that hated eachother, forbid the children from one another.

But in the blind acceptance of childhood, they ignored it. They talked through holes in the stone fence, shared tears and had fights. Together, they'd found the coin she now held, every summer they raced for it. The winner kept the coin; the loser went home with sore feet.

They'd been together when her mother died birthing a babe. They'd shared tears when his father rode off with a concubine. They'd watched her father and brothers march off to war, his uncle leaving with them. They watched each messanger come with that horrid piece of parchment, tied in a black ribbon. Then there was no need for the fence.

The last time they'd been together was the day he found his mother hanging from the rafters, her scarf crafted into a noose. She'd held him as he had held her... That day he changed. He became cold....But for that short moment, tears had soaked her shoulder before they'd carried the body out into the backyard and buried her there, under the great tree that had broken part of the wall, where her mother lay.

That day he left to become a warrior and she a lady. He succeeded where she failed. She fell into the hands of a mage, a wealthy one at that, who sent her on errands. She knew a few, very few, spells and some protection charms. Her real power was in running. The mage had only one horse, a tired old nag who should have been put to pasture years ago. Her feet carried her faster than that horse could dream.

They had met here. their property was being sold; she was becoming a full time aprentice to the mage. He was preparing to settle down, start a family on this ancestral ground. The stone fence was gone when she'd arrived, a broad shouldered and gilded man standing where she'd once seen her childhood friend.

And he remembered. All those races, all that time ago, and he'd won every time. Now she was the victor, the coin heavy in her purse.

He smiled, the stern expression softening, "I wish to buy your land."

She nodded her head, "Of course."

"I wish you to come back one day, with your own husband, and live there."

"Of course..." Her face split into her grin. Underneath that hard shell and coal black eyes, there was that child. He'd gone away and become greatly admired for his skill. He was quite the legend. Men loved him for the grace he showed in battle; women loved him for his body, muscled and golden from the sun.

But to her, he would always be that little boy who cried on her shoulder.

"I have to get back now, Lord Chang." She smiled once more his way before taking off down the path, dust kicking up in her wake.

"Where are they?" His voice may have sounded of silk, but the rage beneath was unmistakable. "What have you done with them."

The man blinked, "I'd tell you to hold your temper, Trieze. I want nothing of them. They are safe, for now. I wish a favour from you."

There was a moment, the ruler's eyes wild in accusation, "What is it you want?"

A ball of mist swirled from the elder man's hands, "I wish a quest to the fae realm."

"It is forbidden by the gods for me to give you that. You know that." He frowned, shaking his head.

Tubarov laughed, "Ah, but I know the secrets... I just wish you to get it for me."

The mist distorted and changed, showing a tall young man, his body well tanned, well muscled as he leaned down over some children and their story book, listening as they read. A flash, and there was girl, her hair bound tight in two braids as she stuck her trowl into the dirt, sweat beaded to her brow. An angry snarl twisted her lips as she turned, looking to whomever was behidn her.

Another flash and a vision of two young men on a cart. One was broadshouldered, thick, with a stock of wheat coloured hair atop his head, beady dark eyes flashing. The other was calm, quiet, light brown hair styled simply, though a lock obscured one green eye as he listened to the other man speak. Flash. A girl running towards a hovel, her eyes bright with laughter and innocence. Final flash. A young man crouching near a withered tree, skilled fingers touching the soil as if for the first time.

"Bring these to me, bring them now. They are the only ones skilled enough to bring back the enchantments I need. Say You'll give them to men, and the child goes free. When they return, your wife is yours once more." His face pulled back in a truely hideous smile, more of a grimace than anything.

Trieze sighed, head bowed only slightly. The other man gloated.

"Of course not."

Laughter illuminated the hallways, "Leave me alone!!"

"Make me!"

"I mean it!!" There was a cry, a thud, and the man smiled, amused. His children...all of them, bundles of light and energy unfounded. Nothing could ever change the softness in their eyes when they laughed, the mirth that surrounded each othe them. All his children.

His beloved stood, walking down the stairs, her barely covered hips swaying in an hypnotic beat as she beckoned out to their one, true child. The girl stopped, looking to her mother with wide eyes, his ice-colour, but the coldness all but vanished.

"Take care of them..."

And his daughter nodded, grinning, "Of course, Titania. Of course."

Some one squealed with laughter as he forced the blade into water. A fine sword it was, strong and sturdy. It would never see a battle though. It was crafted of the daemon metal, the metal that no soldier could touch through fear of loosing the blessing of the gods. Pity though. Iron was such a strong metal, ready and willing to take heed to the master's commands and sliced through the armour they wore. He smiled as he looked at it again. It was his sword, to protect his smith from looters. A protector. The pixie that looters took with them to rate metals would be killed upon touching this sword, their shrill dying shriek enough to wake the gaurds in town himself.

He heard the squeal again, turning to the village children. A blond stood there, her dress tight around her curvy body, well endowed chest thrust forth in her corset. Rachel Tanthry, the mayor's niece. He tried not to frown as he pulled his smock off. The gasps of the children always amused him as they stared at the body blacksmithing would give you. Small scars littered his upper arms, but other than that...

A little boy puffed his chest out, trying to pretend he was the bronze-skinned Adonis with sweat illuminating his body. He never really did understand what the young children say in him after a day of work. He stunk of the shop and the hot, agrivating work. There was nothing appealing about that. He took a bucket of water one child offered to him and dumped it over his head, sighing in relief.

The laughter made him shake his head as he grinned to them, "I have to go get cleaned up. See you tommorrow, all right?" He went into his house before he had a chance to answer, stripping off his thick leather pants and heading into the back, to the little pool of water, clear and cold, to relieve him of the sweat soaking through him.

He heard the carriage easily from the pool of water, the wheels squeaking terribly as they suffered the terrain. The horses were panting fiercely, and the driver's voice gave the distinct impression that he was nervous, "Duo Maxwell. I need to find a Duo Maxwell. Does he live here?"

The young man sat up, frowning. Usually he enjoyed staying in the pool until his skin was wrinkled. Today he hadn't the time to even undo the braid and rinse his hair right. Sighing, he swung himself back over the side, grabbing a long piece of cloth and holding it round his middle as he searched for a pair of breeches.

Squeaking wheels stopped right outside his shop, a nasily voice crying out, "Master Maxwell, a word if you would. I have a summons from the Emporer himself."

The boy frowned, not liking the sound of that. The last member of the village to get a summons didn't come back until his baby son had been married to a girl ten years his junior. "There in a second." He grabbed simple cotton breeches, pulling them on and grabbing his belt as he thundered across the house, cursing as he stepped on a broken ale glass. "Hang on..."

"May I just come in, Master Maxwell?" The latch to his door lifted, door swinging open slowly, "Please?" He heard belled shoes in the main hall, jingling as they walked closer. He finished with his belt and jammed his feet into soft leather moccasins, pulling a shirt onto his shoulders as he raced to meet the messanger before he began to look through his things.

He flashed a grin, "Sorry about that. I was in the bath, you see...." He began to button his shirt up, casting a distainful look at the messanger. The boy was nary three years younger than him with a thatch of flaming red hair and freckles. He was tall and thin with a rather long nose and dressed in a green silk tunic and black silk stockings. "You are....?"

"Ron. Ron Goyle." He smiled a little, stuffing himself up a little as he unrolled the parchment he held in one hand, "The Emporer, Trieze Kushrenada, emplores that you, one Duo Maxwell of the Shattered Hills, make a presence at the palace in ten days time. You are to bring along with you: clothing, any weaponry that you can carry, provisions, and a horse if you own one. Return to the palace with the messanger to await further details."

Duo blinked, "So....what am I going to jail for?"

"You're not. It's a quest, Master Maxwell. Now, go and pack while I water the horses."

He watched the boy turn away, seeing the two panting animals through the door way and tossed a jar of pigs grease to Ron, "I refuse to ride to the palace listening to those wheels. I'll be ready soon."

For being the palace, the room was surprisingly barren, aside from the velvet wallhanging and the embroidered blankets. She'd been expecting silver bed with gold chamberpots. Or maybe there would be a pheonix lounging about. Nothing. Not even a view of the mythical garden that the royalty was said to gaurd. The gate to realm of the Fae.

Her door lurched open, a girl standing there in a modest robe of blue, eyes bright with questions as she laid the particularly heavy bag down onto the stone floor, several books and potions spilling out as she looked around, a smile slowly growing on her face, "This place....it's so...clean."

A snort escaped her lips as she raised a brow, putting her hands on her hips. She'd never been particularly flashy of dress, but next to the other girl, she looked like a queen. Standard Oberon clothing, a crimson tunic, opened to reveal the canary yellow silk bodice to show that she was merely a novice with the temple. Her hair was braided, crimson ribbon laced through it, and her skirt was yellow, hose patterned.

The girl blushed, looking down at her outfit, apparently seeing the same thing, "I'm Relena, apprentice of the great Draco Malfoy...." She twisted a single silver bracelet on her wrist, a serpent after closer inspection, and smiled again, "You work for the temple of Oberon, correct?"

The taller girl smiled, sticking out her hand, "Hai....Sally Po of Tremb Yrei. You were summoned as well."

Relena nodded, her long ashy hair bobbing as she tied it back from her neck, "They have not told me a thing so far....Have they told you?"

Shake of the head as she sank back onto the bed, drawing her knees to her chest, "Nothing."

"We're to get better aquainted, you and I. We're going on some quest for the Emporer or some riduculous thing of that nature. Next thing you know he's going to have us tossed off of the palace to test a Bounce potion." Relena put her hands to her hips for a moment, eyes snapping in anger. "Why do you think they chose you?"

"I'm a healer. I know good herbs from bad herbs. Things like that." A weak smile crossed her face, "I can heal a broken bone in a day with a solution that Oberon only trusts his most devoted followers with."

"Magik and potions, I suppose, are the reason they called me. Draco, my teacher, is too pale and frail to make this journey."

There was a knock at the door, knocking them into an alert stand. A handsomely dressed gaurd stuck his face in, smiling to them, teeth large and blindingly white, "The Emperor will see you now."

Another carriage pulled up, the door swinging open to reveal a smiling young man, his chesnut hair tied up nice and neat in a braid. Master sneered at the young man, grabbing tight of Boy's arm until his bones creaked, "You stay by my side at all times on this mission...One step out of line, and things will get *real* painful for you."

He dropped his eyes demurely, nodding before following the others to the gardens. Two woman had assembled there, one dressed in brilliant colours that signified her as a Healer, the other in a long, patched robe. Both smiled politely, a common thread of blonde hair and blue eyes betwixt them.

The taller one, the Healer, nodded her head at them, sky blue eyes flashing in emotions Boy could not read. Fear...maybe...or was that excitement, "My name is Sally."

His master spoke then, "Trowa Barton." Of the group, only his master seemed out of place. He was easily several years the elder of all of them, even Sally who appeared a good year above the rest. And his Master had no easy kindness to see. His eyes were hard and cold, mouth set in a thin, disproving line beneath his aqualine nose.

"Duo Maxwell from the Scattered Hills. Blacksmith extrodinaire." It was the braided one who spoke, his voice a welcome contrast to the Master's, and he smiled so easily, "Like it?" He motioned to the sword he carried, the blade darker than anything the emerald eyes could remember beholding. "Made it myself."

There was a moment of silence, the last two in the group having yet to speak, their eyes locked to each other's. The girl smiled first, putting one featherlight hand over her heart, "My name is Relena..."

Her counterpart, the proud warrior that had driven this far with them nodded curtly, looking at all of them, "Chang Wufei, former general."

They stood, watching eachother again, eyes flicking back and forth in a nervous pattern. He could feel the anxiety in all of them, feel their eyes staring at him, wondering why he had yet to speak. His palms were sweaty, nails digging into them as he bit his lip.

A new voice had never quite been so welcome, "Ah, good, you've all met."

Immediately, they all dropped to their knees, Master dragging him down much more savagely than Boy would deem nessecary. He shuddered a little. There were times when the Master scared him beyond all other things. His manner was too rough, even for Boy who loved all animals. The savageness was terrifying though the thin young man had already faced down beasts that would harm him more than the Master could ever dream.

He pushed his mustard brown bangs from his eyes, once more wishing he'd be allowed a knife to cut them, to look at the owner of the new voice. The man was dressed in rich blue, like the ocean, and he seemed kind with a simple smile and untied cinnamon hair. But there was a sadness to him, a deep wrenching sadness that Boy knew too well. He felt that same sadness everytime he watched the Master kill an animal that he had lured.

And suddenly he was very frightened of this mission.

"I have a quest for you, all of you, that requires you to venture to the Fae Realm. Between the six of you, you are the most capable and able-bodied to go into that forest and return alive. The quest is to retrieve these items for me. A lock of shiny elf hair, a vial of the Eternal Light, a Spring fae's tear, laughter of the banshee, a shaving from the horns of the Beast Keeper, and finally, one faerie." The man looked away, not seeing the clear green eyes centered to him and held up six thick leather pouches. "Each of you only needs to complete one of these tasks. Even you complete more, so be it. This is not to be easy. I will not kid you, and there is a chance that only one of you makes it from this forest untouched. But for your efforts, you will be rewarded with your greatest desire."

The Master looked up, "Anything?"

A nod of the head, voice ever docile, "Be it money or a wife, or..." His saphire eyes turned to the emerald ones watching him ever so carefully, "freedom."

There was a murmur of acceptance as the others rose, picking up their satchels and moving toward the gates in the garden. Beyond those gates was a road, and beyond that, a shadowed, forbidding forest. The young man shivered as he stood next to his master.

A man came beside them, eyes as beady and narrowed at the Master's, only he was colder, more chilling....evil. "See to it that when all six items are collected, that only you and your servant make it out of that realm...untouched." The smile on his old and wrinkled face gave the meaning of that 'untouched'. His eyes widened with alarm, but there was nothing he could do to warn the other questors...Sickness struck him when he realized who would be the one to make sure that their blood soaked the hard earth. Why would his master let himself be stained? Slaughter was the work of a servant.

"Of course." The Master nodded once before moving to the gate, eyes glinting with greed.

Duo frowned a little, looking ahead again. He'd heard stories about this place, terrible stories. Any mortal man who ventured to the Fae Realm came back two ways. Mad or Dead. The Fae, while peaceful and happy and just oh-so-helpful in the Mortal Realm, hated intruders that did not come to pay homage, and as he reviewed the list in his mind again, they were definetly going to be loathed in this dark place.

That in itself was a mystery. While Duo had never seen a faerie or elf or even an imp up close, the pictures always depicted them as being colourful, even their world was a maze of vibrant greens and blues and yellows. There was never so much as a cobweb in the paintings...But the shadows told a different story.

From the forest came a long, sweet song, warming the air around them as they stopped for a rest, not twenty paces from the enterance. He saw the Healer rub her arms, face an unreadable mask before stretching out in the grass. He yawned a little, beginning to lay down.

"Oh, don't do that!" A laughing voice called, "You fall alseep here and the veela will be having a barbeque tonight."

It came from the mists, the voice, and a dark form appeared, walking towards them with a lazy gait, arms crossed over its chest. Another few steps and the gentle curves of femininity became prounced. Finally, she emeraged, and Duo swallowed. She wasn't nearly as endowed as Sally, whose shirt left precious little to the imagination, but she was far from suffering a boyish look. And she dressed simple in a sleeveless over tunic with a ragged skirt at the bottom made of what appeared to be soft leather dyed a rich burgundy so dark it was nearly black, a peasant blouse, unforunately, cover what would have been exposed in due to lack of leather, tights similar in shade to the tunic, and black knee boots that to be made of the same leather her tunic was made.

Her face was a vision. Crystals of the lightest blue sparkled in mirth as she walked closer, the wind whipping her short ebony hair back from her face. She was as pale as she was thin, but walked with a definite bounce in her step. Her cheeks were tinted a light pink from the sun or wind, possibly both.

"Who are you?" Trowa leapt into the front of them, the reflection from his sword gleaming off of the golden straw he called hair. "Better yet, what are you?"

The girl didn't seem fazed, her hand reach back for the bow and quiver she had on her back, "I am Hirde...My father and I live in this forest. I want to know what it is *you* are doing here."

Wufei snorted, "Mortal girls cannot live in that forest."

Hirde slid her hands down to her hips, eyes sparkling in amusment, "If I wasn't a mortal girl, I would have left you to sleep a dreamless sleep while the veelas came and ate the men."

There was a beat, and the weapons were retracted, both soldiers standing up very straight. Relena took the liberty of introducing the five of them, once again, Duo was amused to see, leaving out the silent one with worried emerald eyes as they regathered their things, preparing to return to their duty and march into almost certain death.

"Would you need the services of a guide, holy travellers?" The girl walked ahead of them, her eyes trained on the forest, "You are...holy travellers, are you not?"

They looked at eachother, each of them shaking their heads, before Trowa laughed, stepping ahead of them, "Of course we're holy travellers, on a quest of sorts for the temple of Oberon being built in Que Choe. We need little things from some of the fae, and a hair from Oberon's head of course."

A dazzling smile struck onto Hirde's face, "Well then, I will help you along your journey, for ten pieces of gold a day."

"TEN!?" Relena screeched, tourmaline eyes wider than the moons above. Duo felt her pain. Ten pieces of gold was six months of work. Mages and Blacksmiths were traditionally paid in food or cloth, not gold.

Trowa, in his arrogant way that Duo was truly beginning to despise, "Fine, fine. We'll pay you at the end of this quest."

"Good then. Follow me." She walked into the forest, the mists beginning to swallow her alive. The silent one ran up ahead to be beside her. The flaxen haired soldier fell back, looking at them for a moment, his smile a twist of cruelty to his chiseled features.

"How exactly do you plan on paying her?" The Healer put her hands to her hips, eyes a hard blue, "I don't have gold to spare."

Wufei nodded, "Not for a long journey. Three days is all I can manage." He patted a woven bag on his belt, coins clanking together.

The smile on the older man's face only grew wider, "She'll get her payment at the end of the journey. Count on that."

But on the flip side, it was terrifying to her. She'd learned enough magik by now to be wary of the eyes peering from each shadow, the lack of laughter in the air. The Fae enjoyed their laughter; they craved it. And in its absence... Again, she shivered, drawing her cloak and robes closer to her body. They were angry, hateful. Trowa Barton could lie to a mortal girl, but never to the creatures of this forest. They were the masters of deciet. Stronger men than he had tried to come here and take what was not allowed to be touched, and the white path beneath their feet was their bones....Not shells as Hirde said. Never shells.

Wufei looked at her, his coal black eyes a reminder of the little boy she once knew as he reached for her hand, taking it in his own gloved one. Her nervousness melted away, head nodding in silent thanks as she turned her thoughts back to the quest at hand.

From her standpoint, these things were impossible to obtain. A lock of shinying elfen hair meant to things. One had to get the elf to stand still long enough to cut its hair. And secondly, one had to get close enough to the elf, and be allowed in its presence long enough, to comb the hair. It was proven that elves were solitary. They loathed interaction with other fae and were no more happier than when tormenting mortals.

The next item, from the Eternal Light, was a bigger challenge still. The Eternal Light was a shrine deep into the realm, where it was gaurded by a single maiden. The maiden was blindingly beautiful, according to the oldest legends. But she was as deadly as a cotton mouth snake. To get past her, one had to capture her greatest treasure and toss it to danger...and her greatest treasure was all but lost in the books Relena had read thus far.

As for the quest items ahead, her mind goggled. She could only guess by the worry etched into Sally's smooth face that they were harder than the two she knew of. The girl squeezed Wufei's hand, forcing herself to calm as she turned back to the coversation at hand.

"I heard that it's an impossible place to live. Lack of water, soil. How you managed there must be a miracle from the gods themselves!" Trowa clapped Duo on the back, a smile lighting his rugged features. "But you're strong. Must be to live there."

The younger man rolled his shoulder a little, knocking the hand, unwelcome by the way his violet eyes narrowed, askew, "You do not know life until you've spent a years time in the Scattered Hills. Don't knock it, okay?"

And he fell back to Sally, shaking his braided head just a little before glancing back at her and Wufei, cocking a brow, "You don't waste any time, do you, Wuffie. And you picked the cute one. How fair is that? What if I wanted a piece of her ass too?" She smirked a little, seeing the sparkle of mirth in him quickly while her friend's hand wrenched out of hers and his arms crossed over his chest. He never could take a joke.

"I will have you know that she and I knew each other as children. This is not a dishonourable exchange. Relena is little more than a sister to me, and where I come from, we do not take 'pieces of ass' from our sister...Though I have heard things of the Scattered Hills." The acidic smile on his tanned features was quite a marvel. Never in her life had she heard Wufei talk like that to anyone, not even a tax-collector.

"Can't anyone leave the Hills alone? They ain't a bad place to live. I've lived there all my life, and look how I turned out!" Duo rolled his eyes, then stopped, "Don't answer that."

Sally merely shook her head, "I know you both are desperately in love with me, but would you mind not defectling your frustrations to Relena and Duo's home. I'm more than enough woman to take you both to bed and make you scream before you even broke a sweat."

Relena leaned forward and swatted Sally's shoulder, "Bitch."

Wufei nodded beside her, his eyes taken to considering light as he looked over the woman before him, "You are a Healer, are you not?" Sally nodded, cocking a brow at him. "Healer's are forbidden by Law of Oberon to take anyone to their beds." At this he walked up close to the woman, lifting her chin to look him in the eye, his voice changed to a tone the mage had never heard, "Don't make offers you can't follow through with...They might just come back to haunt you."

The sky blue eyes were swirling with yet another look Relena had yet to place, or she had placed but she didn't want to think of the boy she considered a brother to be doing this before her, "My bed isn't in this forest, Chang. If you think you can take me, any time. Any place." With snap of her teeth, she turned, walking closer to the front.

"If you are all done flirting now, please feel free to stay closer to me," Hirde called, "Unless that creeping vines poison really does appeal to you." The three remaing laggers looked to the plant coming ever so closer and instantly moved into their pack.

As a child, he remembered the fantastic tales of this place, where a dream becomes reality, but will leave the body to madness. UnDoubtly, that is what happened to the girl before him, her laughter as loud as anything as the rumble of beasts untamed came from the belly of the grove. And try as they might, she would not stop, waving their concerns off as she danced...and brought the servant child, Trowa's Boy--a disgraceful name that showed lack of character on Trowa's part--to dance with her. And Boy joined, taking breaks to stop and cook their meal for them.

"He don't talk much, does he?" Duo asked, sipping the hip flask from his pouch. Hirde had been kind enough to show them which trees bled honey and nectar, a combination of which made a sweet liquor when combined. The result gave Duo a much looser tongue than normal. Wufei hadn't been able to bring himself to sip anything past that initial taste, not until they'd eaten of course.

"He's mute, you fool." Trowa snorted, his voice languid and slurred from his spot on the ground. He was too far gone to notice his servant carrying on in the glen with the tiny girl. "His name is Boy."

"Boy?" Sally snorted, on her fifth cup and yet to show a sign, "That's *real* creative. Why didn't you just call him Kid? Or Green-Eyed-Thing?"

"Kid-That-Needs-to-fix-his-hair." Relena supplied, sipping her own liquor thoughtfully. He was proud that she had yet to finish that first glass Hirde had given each of them. Showed that their upbringing had class, saving face for the mockery Trowa made of himself, trying to sneak glances up Hirde's painfully short skirt when ever she came near to snatch Boy for dancing, not that it was hard. It flew up in the air many times, revealing a tiny strip of doe skin with a string to keep it on her body.

"Little Bastard," Duo supplied, eyes flicking out towards the two at play. "Kid-With-More-Morals-Than-I. Quiet-Thing. Or maybe The-Only-One-To-Get-Lucky-Tonight. I think that sounds best." The bitterness in his voice spoke louder than any words could. He had taken a shine to the small girl...and she didn't seem willing to pass him along any information. Of all of them, she distrusted the blacksmith the most.

"Lucky Boy..." Relena sighed, looking up at the sky; the coal eyed boy turned green. "I wish I could get lucky."

Trowa sat up straight, leering at her. This time, onyx eyes burned with anger against his green face as his fingers twitched, then slowly crept for his sword. "Maybe I could help..."

"Please, Trowa, don't take this personally...but...er..." Relena managed to cough that much out around the sip of liquor she'd been intaking with his leer before setting her flask away.

"You are about as appealling as piles of dragon dung covered in the pit grease of a giant in heat." Duo smirked, proud of himself as the man slid back to the ground. The two dancers came back, Hirde pulling her tights back on quickly after catching sight of Trowa's wandering eyes. Had the man no shame?

Wufei sighed, poking at the soup Boy prepared and glancing at Sally, who darted her eyes away. Infruirating woman had yet to let him apologize for the comments passed in the forest. Amazing what a little bit of bored and a lot of annoyance will do to a person. Of course, she was a vision, her blonde hair plaited wonderfully and body hidden yet accentuated by the clothes she wore. Had he no honour, he might have truly accepted her offer, but to deflower a Healer meant death to them both, and all his possessions cast away for naught, including the home he kept for Relena.

Sally was watching him again, a bit of sadness in her eyes as she watched Relena slide closer to him, whispering about the twitching occuring in Barton's leather breeches. their hands brushed in the simple closeness and he looked to her, studying her face, her cascading hair. Sally looked a smidge like her, in hair colour and...he glanced down quickly, not really inspecting Relena much like this before...bustline. She was quite...pretty. And she was a mage-in-training. They were allowed pleasures of flesh, hell, a good mage could have pleasures of fur for all the emporer and gods cared.

He looked at her. Perhaps he could just pretend, just for this quest. Just for now. His hand closed over hers, a gentle touch that she would not question, and he looked away from the addition of confusion and pain to Sally's face. Her sky blue eyes only served to fuel his relentless mental tirade to himself for beginning a long dishonour and blight to the kinship he and Relena had held this long.

And as he rose, he heard it again, that intoxicating music that beckoned him to leave the camp behind, come dance forever in the shadows of the forest. He would be safe there, hidden amoungst the vines and flowers. Master could never beat him again. He wouldn't have to harbor the secret from the castle, wouldn't have to kill the rest of the travellers. Wouldn't have to kill Hirde. He would be free.

"Are you coming or not!?" Hirde whispered to his ear, eyes practically glowing in the building light. He nodded, following her from the tents and into the shadowed green world.

Only, it wasn't shadowed. In this forest he could see through all the night as easily as he could the clearest day. He could see every drop of dew on the tiniest flowers. He could see the faeries and pixies hidden amoungst those flowers, leaves drawn upon them as a human drew upon a blanket. They paid no heed to them as they walked deeper and deeper into the forest. The beat was unbearable. He didn't want to walk...It told him not to walk.

His hand shot out, taking hers. A grin flashed across her pale face before she began to run with him, her laughter ringing through the forest. And a laugh called back. Then another. The faeries sleeping moments before flew up to greet Hirde, smiling at her, touching her face. Animals ran out from their homes, jumping up and wiggling there arms as they came past. A faerie flew up to Boy, studying his face seriously as it swayed in the air, back and forth to the beat of the music.

The source of the music was a fat little man, his ears pointed and legs covered in thick, curling fur with hooves for feet. He smiled, pulling the flute from his lips to nod the two off to their journey. Hirde waved at him, smiling at Boy, "They won't hurt you. They like you. Only those they like can hear the songs..."

He nodded, swallowing a little as Hirde pulled him to a river, the water clear as glass so he could see the fish and the plants and even the green algae forming to the sand before a wave came and pushed it off. He slid into the cold, brisk liquid, sighing a little. The lakes out of this realm didn't feel anything like this. It was silk against his skin.

A head appeared in the water, silvery eyes and blue hair, a mermaid. He watched her come closer, reaching out to touch his face with a scaled hand. Master never told him legends or tales....but he knew. His hand touched her own wet cheek, and she smiled, nodding her head. Hirde laughed from the shore, her toes just barely hanging over into the water.

The mermaid smiled once more before swimming off to the collection of other blue haired head that he assumed were her family and he turned back to Hirde, raising a brow in question. Being silent was a vexing thing at times.

"You want to know why I brought you out here, right?" Her eyes sparkled as she dipped her hand into the foliage around the river, drawing the out around a ball of silvery fluff, "I want you to have this. And don't be afraid. They grow fast."

And she put it into his hands. He looked at it with considering eyes, the animal's one looking at him in wonder. And it began to grow, first a kitten in his lap. Then a juvenile, sliding down the front of his legs. Then an adult, head resting in his lap. He stared at it, touched the thick fringe of dark silver around its neck, confused but pleased. An animal. She gave him an animal.

"They have lions in the mortal world, right? I wouldn't know...I was still a baby when we came to this place." Hirde smiled, petting its mane with one hand as she stared into Boy's face, studying him. "Do you like him?"

Boy cocked his head to the side, staring at the silver lion at his feet and then nodded. Animals were the one thing in the world he could communicate with. They knew his thoughts; he theirs. And this lion pleased him greatly, even if it had grown in front his eyes at an alarming rate. It just made him all the more endearing and special. Perhaps the animals of this forest grew like that. He couldn't be sure; Hirde had yet to say anything about it.

"Boy, I want to tell you something."

He blinked, looking at the girl, at her wide blue eyes as she smiled, "I think you have a stalker."

His head swivelled in time to hear the faintest little meep, a pink and gold thing disappearing into the trees. He glanced back at her, raising a brow before moving to follow it. It was still there...He could almost hear its wings beating off one another as he stepped closer. And it was there, staring out with large aqua eyes from a leaf. His hand reached out to touch it, to grab it, but a bouquet of sweet smelling flowers appeared on his fingers, distacting him as the faerie flew out from the shadows and across the river. And he stared at the flowers, more confused than ever.

"Don't worry. It'll be back. You'd think it never saw a mortal the way it was staring." Hirde pulled him back, nodding to the direction of the camp. "Let's go...Before they get up and notice we left. Might think we're dancing with our clothes off or something." He nodded, breaking into a run, the lion at his side and Hirde behind him. He heard the beating of wings, his mind registering that the faerie from the river was following him again. He'd catch it yet.

When they reached the tents, no one had woken so far. The liquor drink from the night before had taken a heavy toll on the others apparently. He patted the lion's head before going to the edge of the forest to gather wood for a breakfast fire.

The emptying went quickly as she looked around, then grabbed a bag of grapes from her own pouch and placed one in each flask. The faerie who had watched Boy, the endlessly happy and hopelessly shy, flew up to her side, blinking, "A favour for you?" It asked in its sweet little voice. "You promise not to tease about him."

"I promise." She reached out and ruffled his hair with her index finger. "Can you make the grapes to endless wine?"

The little faerie boy smiled, his eyes very bright as he nodded, "'Tis an easy thing you ask of me." He waved his hand a little and she corked the six flasks. "Now you do a favour in return?"

"Besides not teasing you?" She put her finger out, letting him sit upon it. He nodded, beating his wings together.

"I find a mortal script, and I not know to read it." The tiny hands pulled a scrap of parchment from his pocket. "You are big like them, mayhap size play key to it? Like the speak you use not like my speak, and their read is their speak, and you speak their speak...so you read their read?"

Her fingers unrolled the parchment quickly, letters staring her in the face. She frowned a little, not knowing what they said. Learning to read the language was not a thing her parents had set to teach her, but his expectant face demanded an answer, "It says that the yellow haired male mortal is a weasel who cheats at Thimble."

The lie worked, the faerie beating his wings together once more in excitement, "Thank you! Call a favour when you need one. I not be far from this group." His eyes slid toward Boy, a moony looked crossing his features before he flew off, leaving a trail of sweet smelling flowers in his wake.

She grabbed a bucket, moving off for the river as the first traveller awoke screaming.

Then deeper, the pleasure ebbing away to pain as she placed her other hand on that thigh, raking her nails in deep. His blood was hot as it leeked down onto the grass. Her mouth pulled away from him, and she smiled, eyes taken to an insane light before her teeth sunk into his torn flesh, tongue lapping at his warm rich blood, revelling in the taste with a growl. He cried out, pushing on her head, trying to force that tiny raven head to leave him, but it broadened, the hair becoming shorter yet coarse, the bone more dense.

His eyes cleared, and he looked around. He was not in the middle of the glen with their guide. He was in his tent...or what remained of his tent was a few feet from where he lay now. And biting on his leg was a great beast of silver. He cried out again, beating on it as he tried to pull away. There was commotion, people coming to see what was wrong with him. He was well aware that his pants were tenting themselves over his punishment for that dream, but to get this beast away.

One of the girl's screamed, Relena he guess, as he shoved it again. He could hear Trowa's grumbling from his tent, then felt Wufei strike at the beast with his sword. The blade cut the skin, blood splattering on Duo, mixing with his own. And it burned as if his entire leg had been caught ablaze. The mauling felt ever so pleasant in retrospect, his teeth together, clenched hard as the sword clanged down again, cutting to wear the beasts heart should have been. But it didn't fall, the original wound closing before his eyes.

The lion turned, and Duo could see Boy there, his emerald eyes wide as he looked from the beast, a lion from what Relena was screeching, to Duo's torn leg. He wagged his finger, striking the great cat across the muzzle. And it bowed its head to Duo's surprise, slinking off to the forest with its tail between his legs.

Not that he cared about the servant. He wanted nothing more than to see Boy ripped apart, to show him the agony of what Duo felt at the smiles and stolen glances Hirde gave so readily to the green eyed boy. To make up for the dancing in the field, the laughter and bliss carved to the young faces as he sat and watched, drinking himself stupid on Hirde's fae liquor or whatever it really was. Why was he placed higher on her scale? What was it about the servant that made the blue eyes twinkle with happiness, but when they looked to his own violet, they were like glass. Nothing to be told in those depths.

Sally was at his side, inspecting the wound. From the dark look to her eyes, this was not good. He was as good as dead...the blood. Something was wrong with it. "Get me themlo root and herpshoot. Relena, do you know what they look like? We passed them on the way here, last night." The other girl stopped screeching for Hirde long another to nod, running off.

The small woman appeared a moment later, carrying a bucket of cold water. It was cold, he knew, because she dropped it when she saw him, the bucket itself making a distinctive sound against the ground. "Tell me that you didn't cut it."

Wufei, helping Sally with what herbs she had on her, looked over his shoulder, "How else was I supposed to get the beast away from Duo? It meant to kill him."

"You just as well killed him. Nothing can stop the poison in that lion's blood." She stopped, her eyes cold for a moment, "Are your intentions true, or do you lie to me? I want to know. I want to know now. Fae lions attack those who mean harm to its people."

Trowa came from his tent, adjusting his britches a little. His sword glittered in the sun as he grabbed Hirde's arm, twisting it and ignoring her shout of pain, "I don't think your little fae friends quite understand that we are holy travellors. Duo is the muscle of our group, not really here to do anything but carry the tents. And if I hear about these things coming here and attacking *my* group, and I will cut that pretty head of yours off." Her eyes glowed with anger and indignance as she ripped her arm back.

There was a hissing in the forest, and it took a moment to realize that it was the wind. Everything has fallen silence, and he had the feeling of being watched as Relena returned, dumping the plants at Sally's feet. The Healer shook her head, "You are a fool, Trowa Barton, to threaten a friend of the fae on their home ground. If anyone will not see the end of this journey, it will be you. Hirde can no more control these creatures than you can the sun. Now let the girl go and pack camp while I heal him." She smiled at the younger woman, "I know the blood is toxic, but we've washed it from his wounds. Don't worry. He'll live."

If he meant to protest, the silver head of the lion in the edge of the grove stopped him. Duo smiled a little at Hirde, trying his best to seem reassuring before sliding into a deep hole of black velvet. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The events had shaken them all up, except for Hirde, who just went onto cheerfully lead them through the forest. She was helpful to Sally, pointing out herbs that could be used for healing when the time was right, offering an ear of understanding when the woman related her frustrations with Wufei and Relena, who were lagging behind again, only this time with their arms around eachother, his mouth whispering god knows what to her ear.

"Men are all pigs." Hirde smiled, patting Sally's shoulder, "Trowa and Duo were both giving my looks. So I wasn't wearing tights. Underthings are a must when you live in a place with satyrs. They make men like Trowa look cute and sweet as a Spring Faerie."

The woman shook her head. "I think it's Relena. She's a slut. You didn't hear her last night!"

"Duo told me. She's a virgin, so I don't think that qualifies her for anything other than being very...in need of a man's attention." The impish grin she wore made the Healer laugh a little, "Besides, having sex here is kinda ridiculous. You'd have to loved being watched. These guys love a good show."

"But Wufei and Relena--"

"It's okay, Sally. Really." Hirde stopped, shaking her a little. "Nothing will happen here. They're just being stupid. They don't understand what's happening. This place makes what you feel come so much quicker. You can fall in and out of love in a day, and never know the difference. Sucks to be mortal, eh?"

"Oh..." She put her through her hair, glancing back at the young dragon lord and his friend. He was sinfully handsome with his long black hair and matching eyes with his chisled muscles and lean face. He often looked stern, angry, but with people whom he cared about...he looked like a puppy, his great eyes soft with random mushy feelings. She smiled, sliding a piece of hair behind her ear.

His dark eyes centered on hers, a kindling of feeling there. His arm loosened on Relena's shoulders for a moment as their eyes smoldered onto each others. Her face grew hot but she refused to look away first. His throat moved, swallowing. Oh...so he was nervous, was he?

"Hirde, I do declare," she said loudly, breaking contact long enough to smile at the smaller woman, "This forest is like a sauna." And she pulled the thick crimson tunic from her body, leaving her in a very clingy, very thin, very see-through in all the right places, yellow shirt that barely covered her arms.

She glanced back at Wufei, who's eyes looked to be Doubled in size. His arm came off of Relena in a heart beat, and the tourmaline eyes flew between the two of them before she rolled her eyes, shrugging. Trowa grinned at her as Wufei left the mage-in-trainings side to pull Sally to his.

But she still didn't like being shoved away when Sally decided to show some skin. Her eyes drifted down to her patched and fraying robe, a sense of doom falling over her. Here she was on this mission, which would result very likely in six very dead travellers, and all the guys were mooning over someone else...or not worth the effort in courting. She sighed a little, blowing the thick bangs she wore off her face.

Duo sat down on the log next to her, scraping mud from his boots as he watched her, "It's not fair, eh?"

Relena blinked a little, watching him toss murderous glances at Boy. Poor guy. There was an air of mystery around the servant that Duo just didn't have. Sure, one was built like a willow reed, quick, agile. And the blacksmith was tanned with muscles evident through the loose cream shirt he wore. He was handsome in his own way, face still boyish, bangs a little too long, hiding his eyes slightly. Maybe they just weren't long enough for Hirde.

"No...But I really wasn't interested in Wufei that much either. I've seen him naked a couple of times. Not much to look at." She grinned, kicking back and sipping from the bucket of water. "Sally can have him."

He laughed, shaking his head as he put the brush back into his bag, boots cleared of the gunk that had marred their beauty when he ran to the sand, sinking to toss the rope to Wufei. Relena shuddered a little. He'd made it out allright, Wufei just barely. It had taken her magik and Trowa's strength to accomplish the task of getting the shorter man from the sinking sand. Duo had pulled himself out on a branch. Sally had been screaming; Boy trying to help his master.

Hirde did nothing.

She shook her head, clearing those thoughts. Hirde was tiny, fragile. She possessed no magik to speak of, and her help might have kill Wufei. Her calmness to the situation was warranted. Very, very warranted. Of course, she knew the fae, could have screamed for their help.... Again she shook her head. Hirde grew up here. She knew this place.

"Yeah..." He grinned at her, reaching over to push bangs from her eyes. "You should really cut these. Your eyes are really very pretty. Interesting shade of blue...like topaz."

The girl flushed a little, "Duo...I know about Hirde and everything..."

He shrugged, kissing her brow, "Yeah...It's not worth it, eh?"

"Maybe if things were different...If you weren't..." He waved her off a little, chuckling.

"I think there's amphrodisiac in this wine she gave us..." He looked off as Hirde stood, looking around again.

"We should get going. We're in the way of the manticore heard's hunting grounds...And they have quite a taste for all things human..." Relena looked at Duo. Hirde and Boy were holding hands, smiling at each other as Sally and Wufei lifted their packs, making for the forest, Trowa right behind them.

"Hey, maybe tonight he will get lucky..." Duo smirked, shaking his head before grabbing their packs. "Carry your bags, princess?"

She shoved him a little, "Sure. Break your back for all I care."

His aqua eyes narrowed slightly, snickering at their ignorance as the brown haired man tripped over a tree's root, the pack of the mage girl spilling out. And they had to stop. All the better.

The faerie took the moment of chaos to fly to Hirde's shoulder and then stare at the boy she had taken under her wing. So beautiful, more beautiful than any mortal standard with his glowing emerald eyes. And his hair, falling to his eye to viel thoughts, dreams, hopes. He was perfect. Built perfect...and were he not so tall...

"Feel ill, my friend?" Hirde looked at him, her large face looming over his. Pity of her face. She would be pretty were she not so big. He said nothing, seating himself on the strap of her mortal clothing, the strap that held her "tunic" onto her body. "Something bothering you...Yes, I see very well with this mortal eye. Tell me what it is." Still he was silent. Her eyes flashed angrily, "Quatre of the Spring, tell what ails your good soul."

He squeaked, flying straight up into the air like lightening had come down and struck his backside, "Hirde, don't say that aloud." A full faerie name could be siezed and used to bow them to a mortal's every perverted whim. It was their undoing....and he was bound to speak the truth to her now, "The mortal beside you..."

"You fancy him." She smiled, shaking her head a little as his cheeks grew hot and he played with his pink tunic. Titania's rule of season fae were to wear a colour marking them as summer, spring, winter, or autumn. He wished he could be so gifted as to wear the golden brown of autumn or the vivid green of summer. But no, he got pink...at least it was better than the gold and silver mockering made for the winter fae.

"I-I do." He chewed his lip a little, settling back down to her shoulder, "But he is mortal."

"There is nothing against striking fancy to a mortal, only a law against taking a mortal to your bed...And Boy be a bit big to drag into the bed of ye."

At that he pouted a little, "I know...But with the Beast Keeper gone missing for these past two decades, I'm...bored and my bed is cold."

Then he noticed all the mortals were watching them, the pieces picked up from the floor. There was a tinge of colour to the mortal beauty's ears, and Quatre was dismayed. They had heard everyword, hadn't they? They heard him, and the emerald eyed servant of the mortal Trowa knew his intentions. He squeeked again, moving to fly away before a piercing pain hit his wing.

"Are you daft to kill him!?" Hirde screeched, cradling his form in his hand. She lifted something from his wing between to fingers in a pained grimace. A mortal iron nail. Her eyes burned as she placed him into her pocket. "Iron is a poison, Maxwell. Be not so stupid as to kill a fae in their forest."

Quatre shivered a little, picking up the piece of parchment she'd shoved into the same pocket the night before and covered herself with it, letting himself to sleep until the wing healed.

There was little Doubt in Relena when she saw Hirde's face as dinner, her angry, pinched expression as she stabbed the noodles with her fork, every so often looking up at them. She thought them murderers. Of course, she had good reason. Trowa had taken an iron nail from his bag--they all had iron nails, she learned later--to stop the faeries. As Hirde sat with Boy, their self-appointed leader revealled his true intentions about the faerie.

"He's going to help us where the girl can't. A kind of...bait." The brown eyes twinkled, and he was obviously proud of himself. The disgust on Sally's, and Duo's, faces imprinted themselves to Relena's mind. Wufei was a warrior; his visage gave nothing, but the twist of the side of his mouth was enough. He thought Trowa a fool.

The other woman shook her head, blonde hair plastered to her head with sweat, "What good can he do us? I can't even understand him."

"But Hirde can. And Boy could, from the way he was looking at it. If you're close enough, it will make sense...And it matches this." He held a piece of parchment up, giving it to Wufei.

The man's onyx eyes snapped over it quickly, "Golden hair and robes of rose, this is the Spring Faerie of lover's prose. Baka rhyme...You don't think..."

"I do think." His eyes turned to Relena, "Tonight, when we are safe away from the manticores and the serpents, I need you to steal that fae from her pocket. With a little prodding, we should be able to get it to cry. And once that's done, it will show us the way to the other five items we need. Brilliant, I'm sure."

Duo looked at him, shaking his head as his shoulders should with silent laughter, "Look, Trowa, did you ever think that maybe it will be healed by the time night comes? And Hirde's going to let it go. Even if it doesn't heal in time, Hirde would leave us for doing that to her little faerie friends. And then we'll be stuck out here. Dead."

"Maybe we should wait and make sure the faerie is allright before we try anything that could result in getting us stranded. I want out of this forest as much as you do, Trowa." Relena put her hand on the man's arms, trying her best not to laugh at the utter ego fueling his scheme, "Besides, we're not totally convinced that it is a spring faerie. Just because a *mortal* prose said it was doesn't mean anything."

Sally nodded, mimicking Relena's appeal of placing a hand to his arm, "She's right. I always thought that a mortal, male or female, virgin or slut, were forbidden in this realm...But Hirde would not help us were she not mortal."

At that, the mage in training stepped back. She had heard tales of mortals in this realm many a time from Draco, but her feelings toward the raven-haired girl had changed in the time since the attack on the faerie. She'd led them into straight danger quite a few times, vines and thorns trying to choke them, little trolls beating at their ankles with heavy clubs, satyrs offering money for Relena or Sally then throwing stones when their offered was refused. The incident with the quicksand played back to mind.

Hirde had been closest to Wufei at that moment, just before he fell in. Sally was putting herbs in her pouch. Duo had been teasing Boy, holding his bag above his head while Trowa just laughed. And Wufei had been asking Hirde about that lion, showing her his sword to see if the blood was damaging to it. And then he'd fallen into quicksand...But not just fallen, he'd been almost thrown to the middle, a good bit too far for them just to reach him. Had Hirde done something?

"If you're quite done," The girl in question was standing a bit aways from them, her voice cold and sneering, "I don't feel like being eaten tonight. I'm leaving with the servant in a minute. If you want to stay alive through the night, come with me."

Something in the way she said stay alive made Relena's stomach sink down to her feet.

"We have to get past the elf." Her hand flew up to motion to the little hovel-house near the river. "One of you has to go ask it permission to pass. I'll come with you, of course."

They turned, looking at each other with wide, questioning eyes for a long moment and began to murmur amoungst themselves, "It has to be some one who can speak!" Boy wouldn't work...not that she needed to ask any permission of that elf, but they were getting on her nerves. Had to remind them what this place was. She leaned down, her hand clasping around a wiggling earth worm.

Relena came out of the group, "I'll go, to watch you." She glanced back, nodding to the others. So, they didn't even trust her that much, eh? Oh well...their loss.

"Sure. Just remember, he's not very personable." They walked in silence the whole ten feet, and Hirde stooped to knock on the door, motioning for Relena to do the same as she very slowly raised her other arm to a free spot on Relena's neck. Elves hated people...and they hated loud noises....

The little blue eyed fae appear, his tousled dark hair wafting in the wind as Relena smiled at him, opening her mouth to speak to him when the worm hit her and she shrieked, the high pitched sound echoing back through the clearing. The elf's eyes grew wide. His little, gnarled stick of a wand whipped out.

There was a crack of sound, the shriek dying out as Relena's robes fluttered to the ground. She was gone. Hirde raised a brow at the elf, who only smirked as the traveller's ran up, paying through the robes.

"What did he do to her!?" Duo demanded, pawing through the garment wildly, looking for her. Wufei grabbed the elf and shoved him into his bag, looking at Hirde with an exasperated expression.

"What happened?"

"Did kill her?"

Hirde shook her head, shooing Duo away and lifting the robes high in the air, "He wasn't going to let you go through...and when Relena protested..." A girl, no more taller than Quatre or the elf clung to the hem of the robe, naked as the day she was born and tourmaline eyes wide with fright. "He shrunk her."

Hirde's eyes narrowed considerably, "You all have to be the biggest bunch of fools I've ever had the displeasure of seeing! So far, *today*, the fae have sicked a lion on Duo that dare not attack anyone without prompting, thrown you into quicksand, tried to kill Duo with vines after he assisted the saving of Wufei, Relena's been pelted with ShelSharb eggs, which are toxic if a yolk were to make it into her mouth, and finally, she'd been transformed into a six inch meeping human. Oh, yes, boil iron and kill the elf. I can't wait to see what they do with you then."

But, as usual to his style, Trowa ignored her, pulling the elf from the bag Wufei was trying to beat off a fallen log. He looked at the defiant creature, which Duo had to admit in Hirde's defense, looked around like he had no idea what he had done wrong. He'd been defending his turf, a normal instinct. But the blond man didn't see it that way, pushing the skien of fine dark metal around him until his arms were pinned to his sides, face in a pain grimace.

"Tell me his name, Hirde." The man barked, tightening the knot, features alight with a sick pleasure for being in power over it. The girl said nothing, mouth pressed to a thin line. And Trowa drew out a nail, placing it over the elf's heart, the point beginning to enter his skin. "The name."

The elf said something, some squeaked little command, and from the panic in Hirde's blue eyes, he said not to let Barton know. And Duo acted, drawing out his thick sword, careful to not hit a tree or any other possible fae as he jabbed the older man in the back with it.

"Back off, Barton. Iron kills humans, too."

Surprisingly, he did, though he did't remove the iron bindings and grabbed a twig, this little gnarled bit of wood no longer than Duo's fingernail, and put it into his pocket, "You don't have any power here, elf. No wand; and that iron keeps other fae from rescuing you. You fix Relena, and then we'll talk about helping you with this problem with your wand...Oh, and one last little thing." Trowa pulled a comb from the same pocket, raking it roughly through the fae's dirty brown locks until they shone like silk and sliced the long back off, sticking the hair into a glass container.

Sally sighed, "I guess some good came of this...Though I think holding him here is against policy with Hirde. Are you sure that doesn't hurt him?"

"Positive." The elf was thrown back into Wufei's bag, and Duo glanced over at Relena, who sighed and followed the fae, despite Wufei's protests. Hirde grabbed the robes and Relena's bags, tossing them over her shoulder. Face hard. If she hadn't hated them before, in light of what they were doing, she certainly loathed them now...and he couldn't blame her in the slightest.

But still she crawled out and watched the fire for a moment. Hirde had fallen asleep against a long, her hands laying in the dirt. Boy had his head in her lap, face glistening with tears. So he wept...what did he weep for? Did Hirde comfort him while she thought of new ways to torture them, make them wish that they'd never been so stupid as to agree to this quest? Evil little bitch.

Her thoughts were disturbed by the sound of crying, not from Boy, soft to even her ears. And she crept towards it, eyes straining in the waning darkness to see what could be there. And a pair of aqua eyes turned to hers. The faerie that Trowa had injured. He was awake, moving around, and his cheeks were lined with tears as she came even closer, flushing a little when he stared at her lack of clothing.

"You're not a fae, are you?" He asked, sniffing a little, wiping his eyes on the hem of his pink outfit. "You're one of the big mortals. I saw you before."

"I am..." She admitted, coming closer slowly, "But I think Trowa was an ass for doing that to your wing. Does it hurt still?"

He eyed her warily a moment, standing. He was a good five centimeters taller than she, something that made considerable difference given their hieghts. Obviously, he didn't see her as a threat, coming close enough to let her stare at his handsome, boyish face. He looked remarkably human save for his glowing aqua eyes and the points of his ears, and of course his wings. "I don't like mortals much. They took the Beast Keeper from the forest."

"What?" Her eyes widened, heart beating like a drum. They needed that stupid Beast Keeper. They were stuck in this stupid forest, with that maniacal little girl, until they got a scraping from his horn. She sighed, slumping to the ground. "What happened to the Beast Keeper?"

The faerie sighed, tears starting again. Relena grabbed the lid to a hip flask, handing it to him, "Thanks..." His tears dripped down into the cap slowly. "We had a fight, me and him...And he stormed out of the forest, out of those gates by the mortal stone house--"

"It's called a palace, if you mean the gates at the end of the road."

"Yes!" He nodded empatically, "The palace. Evil, evil palace. There was a mortal, and he hit him with something. The black metal, and my Beast Keeper fell down, silent. To kill a fae is to invite death...but that mortal never got his reward for taking him away from us." More tears slid down his little flushed face. "It's all my fault! If we'd never gotten into a fight, he'd be here, with me. And I wouldn't be moony over some...some...mortal." He spit the word out as if it tasted bad, then looked at Relena, eyes wide, "Sorry."

She smiled, patting his arm. Of course the only faerie that wanted to pay attention to her was a fairy faerie, but other than that.... "It's all right, really. I understand. They took your lover. What was his name?"

His eyes grew wide, a squeak coming out of him, "I can't tell you that!! You'll use it against him! All mortals do."

"Beg pardon?" She blinked, cocking her head to the side. "If he's dead--" The faerie broke off into a wail of despair. "Er...Sorry. But, if he's...no longer with you, what's the harm in giving his name?"

"His sister. I can't let you get control of her." He sighed, handing her the lid to the hipflask, more than half full of his tears. "I have to get back in Hirde's pocket before one of these buffoons steps on me on the way to relieve themselves. I'd suggest you do the same." She nodded, carrying the lid carefully as she stepped inside of the bag, pouring the tears into a vial Wufei carried.

"What is that?" A voice asked her, low and cold. She didn't look up, teeth grinding together. He would be just as judgemental to her as that faerie or Hirde. This was their lives at stake here, not just some stupid little quest. The sooner they achieved the next four items, they would be gone from the forest...and out of the lives of the mortal girl and the rest of the fae.

She laid down against the soft fabric Wufei had placed in here especially for her, wrapping it around her body for warmth. In the dark bag, she could still see the elf, his skin glowing against the dark iron that held him. He looked almost as if she could feel sorry for him like that, his face pinched, "Do they hurt you?"

"Does what hurt me?" He lookedd away quickly, mouth drawn in a thin line.

"The iron..."

He snorted, glaring at her with the glowing prussian blue eyes, "Iron can kill a fae, and you ask me if these hurt. Of course they hurt!" The elf struggled once more, vehmently, and his aura faded slowly, breathing in rasps. She leapt to his side, shaking him.

"Stop it!...Stop..." Her hands touched the iron bonds, blood coming off and staining her hands. And she felt a cold shiver down her spine. Fae do not die...and they should never bleed. Without thinking, she pulled on the iron bonds, feeling them give under her pull.

And then they were lifted from the ground, the bag moving. They were talking, pacing around as the camp was broken up. The two clattered around the bag. She was able to grab the stitching, weaving her fingers between the threads as they were jostled more, then squished between two legs. Wufei greeting Sally. Her mouth pressed into a line, trying to find time to breathe...and they were still pinned...The elf looked about, confused from his upside down postion...And Relena sincerely hoped that he was trapped between Sally and the hilt of the man's sword. If not, well, she *really* felt bad for him...She shifted again. Just how long did it take to greet some one in the morning?

Finally, the kiss ended, and they were free, though still bouncing off Wufei's side with every other step. The elf bounced onto her, face landing squarely between her breasts. The girl squealed, pushing him off quickly and cursed Wufei for not being more awake in the morning before grabbing her unforunate travelling partner by the iron laced ropes and made quick work of them.

And he stopped, stretching his slightly bloodied limbs, testing them. His glow had come back full force, and she thought he was beautiful now...even though he was looking at her with absolute hatred to his eyes. He was tanned beneath the aura, naked from the chest up with assests beneath a dark brown leather loin cloth. His hair was wild looking, though half of it had been combed, and he smelled...not unappealing. Like leather, though not of the bag, and of a wild sort of magik, different from anything. Then she blinked, realizing the extremely angry elf was atop her. And his lips met with hers, bruising force.

She cocked a brow as his lips, open and unexperienced, continued this almost innocent assault, opening her own slightly and sliding her tongue into his mouth, gently pushing to his own. And he jumped, almost surprised as she did this, his hands tentative as they moved onto her shoulders, moving his body to lay directly against hers. their mouths fought each other, each wanting the role of dominance, but niether exactly sure what would lead from this kiss.

His desires were in his eyes, a slight bit of fright but the most stunning glow in them. She broke the kiss, pulling back from him. The elf said nothing, dipping his head, wanting of her. And she kissed him again, lightly, her hands sliding down his muscled back, avoiding the rapidly healing wounds that the iron had placed. His tongue pushed to her mouth, one hand leaving her shoulder to rest on her arm. She almost had to laugh at his seeming innocence.

Of her kind of people, she was innocent. She'd been kissed twice in her life, both by Wufei, who never put feeling behind them. Tongues sliding in and out of each other's mouths was insane. Dishonourable. But with this elf, things were different. He needed her, wanted to touch her and marvel at the sensation of her skin, his fingers as unpracticed as her own. She pitied him a little. Gods knew how old he was, and she had been complaing only two days before about being a virgin. He'd spent much more time in that state. You couldn't convince her that the tentative touches he gave to her were anything less than virginal.

Her hand laid over the one on his arm, guiding it to her breast as she moved her lips away from his, "Touch me...please. I'll like it."

And he said nothing in returning, but his fingers spoke for him, massaging her breasts before he pulled her nipples, watching them with steady eyes as they grew hard and erect, the skin flushing around them. Her own hands were far less innocent, diving directly for that leather strip round his middle, squeezing it playfully. It grew in her hand, attempting to escape the tight confines, and he groaned in the back of his throat, looked down at her hand. She smirked a little, pulling the loin cloth off with a flick of some laces and staring at him. He was large by her standards...given that she'd never actually seen an aroused man and that she was also no bigger than one of her usual size hands.

His own hands came down lower to part her naked thighs, exploring between them. Relena shivered at the first soft touch between her legs as if she'd been dumped into a glass of ice water. But instead of being cold, she was very warm, her flush growing down from her teased breasts to between her legs, where a warmth had always existed, wanting to come to surface, and now that the opportunity had arisen, it was a dull ache, the warmth settling in her stomach. She leaned against his hard stomach, clutching his shaft in her hands as she moaned with delight, trying to force his hands deeper inside of her.

They drew away far too quickly, his body laying hers down to the base of the leather bag, onto the soft cloth. He reached between her legs again, a finger entering her as they kissed, passionate and playful all in one. She ran a hand through his hair, touching the points of his ears, pinching one lightly. An experiment. He groaned deeply... Her eyes snapped open, a grin forcing its way into the kiss as she did it again, feeling his body tighten. So that old book on fae had been telling one truth.

Her grin turned to a moan as another finger joined his first, opening her wider, thumb stroking against her clit. She kissed her way over to the side of his face, up into his hair and bit down, lightly, on that ear. In an instant, his fingers were gone. The elf entered her in a quick thrust of his hips. The pain was immense as her viriginity tore, and her teeth clenched around his ear, nails driving into his back. "Move, damnit..." She managed, trying to ignore the pain and thrust his hips.

He listened, moving away and slamming back into her, quickly. The pain died quickly, the ache growing her. Her body moved to time with his, breasts pressed against his hard, smooth chest. The wounds were gone, and his breath came in short gasps. Relena pulled back, kissing his lips quickly, eyes on his. She felt his hand move back to her clit, squeezing it between two fingers as his climax crashed down onto them, the added pressure to her sensitive area bringing her to orgasm only seconds behind.

The elf lay on her, stroking a piece of hair that had stuck to her cheek in sweat, "My name is Heero."

She blinked, smiling, "Relena."

"How long until they stop to feed you?" There was something to his eyes as he said that, a hope.

A smirk split her face, "At least another hour."

"Good." And he kissed her again.

And when Boy looked to the faerie, he wanted to give the lion the permission, to eat Master and Duo and Relena and Wufei and all the rest. Those thoughts scared him more than anything...and they had been happening more and more. When he'd awoken this morning, watching Master sleep... He envisioned wrapping his hands around that muscular neck and squeezing. Squeezing until he couldn't do anything cruel again; making him pay for the evils he'd done in this forest.

He wanted to poison them this morning, with some berries to their wine. Berries that he'd never seen before, dark green and overly ripe. Juicy, plump... And poison. Hirde had pointed them out to him, noticing his stare before climbing the tree and giving these berries to the faerie in her pocket. More than enough for one faerie... He could have pointed that out to his group, warned them with his gestures that she had poison...

But if he did...he'd could be saving their lives. He just didn't want to do that anymore.

Hirde smiled at him from the corner of her eye, walking just enough ahead to avoid the crude comments of Master. He wanted to see them in heat, the Master had told Boy, he wanted to see them 'fuck like dogs'. He'd been promised an afternoon off. His blood had boiled to hear those words, hands clenching to his sides. But why was he angry to hear that? Master was crude. He had always been that way, and Boy wasn't new to the weird fetishes that he exhibited. He didn't like them then...but now...

His head hurt. The dark thoughts were terrible, awful. But he looked at the pale drawn face of the faerie, touching its little hands. Then he turned his eyes to Hirde's. She sighed, "A wing wound to a faerie such as this is like an arrow barely missing a mortal heart. He's weak...Drawn. And he cried last night." The girl's eyes were kind as she touched Boy's face, understanding in them. "He wasn't the only one...But a faerie like him is to feel only happiness. Poor thing."

He took the little body from her hands, cradling it like it was the finest crystal. The sight was touchingly sad to him, heart tightening painfully inside his chest. She said nothing as he held the frail form, watching each breath come in and out of the body. Hatred filled him again.

Faeries were beautiful, happy creatures. They were like unicorns...And to kill a unicorn was to be condemned to a painful, everlasting life. The Biting Faeries, little four legged hairy things that weren't reallly faeries at all, would cover one's entire body, eating flesh and drinking blood that would only regrow in a slow, immortal way. And a Biting Faerie was only as tall as a real faerie, their jaws lined with rows of metal fangs. And they took small nibbles, enjoying the screams of their victimes.

But that was for the murder of a unicorn. A faerie was different. There were many faeries. If you were caught in the acting of killing, death was your punishment. But many had gotten off with out a consequence. His master would not be so lucky. Boy slid the little body into his shirt pocket, patting it. He would be safe there, warm there... And when Duo Maxwell jumped Hirde for teasing him when she had no intention of acting on the feelings the braided man held, the faerie would be safe.

There was a part of her, a whole of her, that wished to remain her with Wufei until their deaths. In the real world, he would go find a bride, a blushing beauty whom could share his bed and give him children. She was for Oberon, a Healer in his greatness. A Healer's powers were rare and said to hindge on the hymen. She wondered more than once if that was just another load of bull being shoved down their throats, readily, to keep them in the temple. Only Oberon himself knew.

She mused, not for the first time, about meeting the fae king, to ask him if she would be allowed to leave her position in his temple and share her life, heart, body, bed with the handsome warrior frowning not ten feet from her. Another part of her, an intergral part she thought at times, wished for a child. Any child, not needing to be of her blood...but a child to raise and care for. She cared for children in the temple, took them in and fed them...But their eyes were only for those who raised them. And they would never look to her with that same look of utter...everything. She snorted a little. Silly, stupid wishes. A child meant an unbelievable amount of work for an undisclosed amount of time. The babe could live to be a month old, the pain of birth for naught. Or it could live to be one hundred and three, and depend on her for everything....

The Healer shook herself, trying to divert her attentions. Wufei's leather pouch caught her eye as it hopped on the ground, a mufffled squeak coming from it. Her brow raised, the squeaks becoming louder and longer until one great one came, long and high pitched enough to hurt her ears. What was Relena doing in there?

"Duo...Come here." She whispered. He had been sitting by the fire, looking at the iron sword he carried. Hirde wanted to pitch it out of the forest, and she could tell that Duo heartily agreed, but the sword could be important in another attack. Nevertheless, he came over quickly.

"Hai?" She pointed to the pouch, beckoning him silent. It hopped on the ground again, a different kind of squeak coming. Lower pitched, almost manly in a chipmunk sort of way.

"What is she doing in there?"

A slow grin spread on his face, violet eyes twinkling, "Hey....Wufei..."

At that, dark eyes snapped up, the warrior crossing the distance and lifting his bag from the ground. And he dropped it even quicker when the bag was opened, eyes wide and face twisted in disgust, "Stop that. Both of you know better than to be doing....that...in *MY* bag. You're not married, and you dishonour my bag by carrying on in there...Get that out of your mouth, Relena! Have you no...shame?"

Hirde ran over, eyes worried, "Hee...er...kun! What are you doing with that mortal! You know the laws! Get off...Don't let her do that!!" She turned, looking at Duo with an appealing expression. "Make them stop, please??"

"Um...I don't think I want to do that, babe...I mean...Let them have their fun. What else can you do when you're locked away in a leather bag?" His eyes twinkled with merriment as she began to pound her little fists on his chest, calling him every name Sally had ever heard, and then some new ones to be stored for later. Had to give the little girl props for originality and imagery.

Trowa got tired of the chess board and picked up Wufei's bag, staring at the two inside, who by now had finished wahtever they were doing, "What the hell are you doing out of those ropes, elf boy? What did you say his name was, Hirde? Heekun?"

She stopped beating on Duo long enough to smirk, "You are an idiot. It's a nickname, a normal mortal nickname."

The man frowned at her, eyes narrow as he grabbed the pair from the bottom of the bag, tying the elf once more in the iron laced rope and tossed them to Duo, who caught them effortlessly, eyes snapping in anger, "You carry them for awhile."

"Be careful with them! You don't know how easy it is to kill them." Duo spat at him, before untying the elf and setting he and Relena into his own leather bag. "Just keep the squeaks to a minimum, all right?"

"You can't keep them together! Mortal and fae cannot sleep together! It's against the laws! Give the girl to me; I'll carry her." Hirde, who had given the man a considering look when he pulled the iron from Heekun, was now livid, blue eyes narrow and icy. He waved her off, shaking his head.

"Let them have their fun." And that's all the more Duo was inclined to talk about that.

Her anger stemmed from Heero, she supposed. As an elf, it was his job to keep trash like Relena from getting half way through the forest. And there he was in Duo's leather satchel, fucking the mortal's brains out. And did any of these idiots care about their little friend? No, because she'd obtained tears from Quatre and Heero hair had been raped with that...comb for a lock of shining elfen hair. Both of things on the list of "holy" items were dangerous to the fae that they'd been obtained from.

And she'd listened in many a time when they discussed the other things needed. Trowa Barton, for all his incompetence, knew a frightening amount of ways to possess a faerie. He even had a plan to get the vial of Eternal Light. He knew how to get a faerie to come from the forest. He knew about the names...He knew and he planned to use it against this place.

But Hirde could not let that happen.

A gnarled tree marked the path she chose for the resting spot, a cool place with a river not ten paces away, but no bugs. The grass was thick and soft, perfect for a bed and already there was a pit for a fire. And the travellers agreed, the lot of them weather and brow beaten from the hot weather. They didn't seem to care that it was unnaturally cool hear as Duo and Wufei set up the chess board. Sally and Boy sat on either side, watching the game.

The cornsilk blue eyes watched Duo carefully. He was quite...beautiful, all things considered. Violet eyes were not uncommon in this forest, but the dark purple was. And on a mortal, they were even more intriguing. She'd never really seen men, other than her father and the male fae, before the travellers came into this forest. Trowa was thick and broad, dense as an ox half the time. Wufei was sleek like a panther, eyes wild and controlled at the same time. Boy was...well...Boy was like a fae in a mortals body, frail looking and unnaturally beautiful with an eerie sense of grace. And Duo was loud, boisterous, smiling. He was beautiful, like Boy, but in a very mortal way. His eyes didn't glow in the dim light. He was clumsy at times, tripping and spilling logs everywhere. But his eyes...They wouldn't lie, like a fae's could.

She shook herself. He was an outsider, unwelcome here. And he would die for the evils taking place; They all would die. The shadows moved as Trowa Barton went into his tent, boozed from too much wine, and she grinned, skipping off to watch the chess game and keep the attention of them all on the game while those shadows did their work.

"Hello..." Her voice was thick and husky, sending the man in the tent from deep sleep as she crawled over him, pressing her breasts to his body as she did. He smiled at her in simpering, half sleep.

"Hello there yourself." She chuckled, seeing the twitch of his brow in attempt to look sexy. Pathetic really. She ran her tongue over her teeth, fingers ripping open his shirt. He grinned, pulling her gauzy dress from her body, leaving her naked under his eyes.

"Pleasure me first, Trowa Barton...And I will pleasure you. Have you ever been loved by a fae?" He shook his head, dipping his head low to kiss her breasts, suckling her like a starving babe. His hardness lay exposed against her thigh as he rammed a hand over her sex, teasing her. And finding her already wet.

Another smile crossed his face as he entered her, hard and forceful, a rape-play. She rolled her eyes a little, moving her thighs harder, lower body bruising his as he moaned into her ear how tight she was. How he needed her. She said nothing, the movement of her hips becoming faster, lightening speed. His face contorted strangely, her muscles tightening around him, tighter, squeazing down like a vice.

He tried to remain in control of this situation, forcing her against the ground roughly, trying to pull out, but she wouldn't let him, flipping them so it was she riding him, her hips a blur of constant motion as pain and terror struck his face, mouth trying to open in a scream for help, but she covered it with one delicate hand, a smiling lighting her soulless blue eyes. Her white teeth glinted in the darkness, long and sharp.

"You came into our forest, Trowa Barton. You came into the home of the fae without understanding the true power here. Fae means faerie, elf, brownie. But it also means something else." He was sweating cold sweat, skin pale. Were it not for her powers over him, he would have gone flacid from fear. But she couldn't get what she desired from a flacid man...So hard he had to stay, getting harder by the moment. "Fae means manticore, veela. Boggarts and balisik snakes..." Her ruby lips were inches from his as she pulled her hand away. "It also means succubus." And her mouth slammed over his as she climaxed, commanding his body the same.

Sally awoke next, looking at Hirde in the water and grabbing her bag. He found himself watching her peel the clothing from her body and folding beside the river, showing her large breasts to him, then her sex, and finally her beautiful backside as she turned and jumped into the cold blue water. The man frowned, shaking himself. He was not to look at anything as holy as a Healer unclothed, if not at a temple. She was bathing, and laughing.

Duo came out of his tent, grabbing the sack of cornmeal and measuring some out. He glanced at Boy's sleeping face, "What's wrong with him? He didn't get us up at the crack of dawn like usual."

"He can take the morning off just as easily as you do. Trowa is being lazy, and I will get him up for breakfast...I suppose." The other man was watching the bathing women, his tongue pratically hanging from his mouth as he did, hands clenched on his sides. "If you are looking at Sally, kindly put that tongue back into your mouth and help me with this monstrosity called food." Duo didn't look away. In the corner of his eyes, Wufei could see Hirde getting out of the water, shaking herself off while digging through her bags for another, cleaner, outfit.

He sighed, rolling his eyes. Maxwell was a hopeless voyeur when it came to that girl. He watched her more often than Wufei watched Sally, knew her every mannerism. The man talked about it constantly to Wufei, his words there to cover a growing uneasiness in the violet eyes, an uneasiness amoung them all. Hirde was slowly leaving their trust. Sally and Duo still held her in high regard, refusing to even listen to thoughts about the fact that the girl might be helping the fae see that they never make it from the forest. It had been awful convient.

But unlike Relena, he would not admit outloud to not trusting the girl. If he did, the chances of him surviving the day were slim. He'd spoken to the mage-in-training at one of their breakfasts. And on that very same day, Wufei was tossed into a sand pit when Hirde stood next to him. And the girl had been almost poisoned, then shrunk to the size of her elfen lover. He was not about to end up in another sand pit because of his distrust. If need be, he had his sword to run through her heart, and the markings of the path that they had taken thus far. He could get out of this forest.

Hirde and Sally sat down across from he and Duo, talking and laughing like old friends. Sally was in a Healer's uniform still, the crimson and yellow, though this time the shirt was a loose red, sheer silk and the pants, molded to her every curve, were yellow. She still wore the ribbons, though used them now to keep the hair off her neck and from her eyes. And the girl beside her looked more appealing that Wufei could remember, clad in a simply, form fitting black shirt that covered only her breasts and shoulders and a short skirt made of braided leather, barely hiding the white underthings she wore beneath her skirts. Appealing and dangerous now, a warrior look to her instead of innocence.

He smiled across the fire at Sally, her eyes twinkling as she returned it. The flirtation was maddening between them, a kiss or two, but nothing more. The ease with which Relena took the elf to her hurt Wufei more than it had shocked him. He could close his eyes and pretend to have that closeness to Sally, to feel the swell of her breasts on his chest as he moved in and out of her or perhaps the taste of her sex or what it would be like to have the over ripe lips around his manhood, suckling it. Normal desires from a man...yet they made him feel like a fool, an idiot.

There was a part of him that laughed this all off, confiding to him that there was no reason he couldn't have this with her. They would never return to the mortal realm anyway, and it was better to die without regrets. To haunt a fae realm would be without a single Doubt the downfall of his honour, duty. His coal black eyes considered her, the way which she smiled at him, a curious smile. Perhaps she did want this from him after all. Did she sense death closing in around them as well?

Duo stood up, diving into the river and whooping loudly at the coldness. Hirde laughed at him, running to the edge of the water to call him an ass, taunting that she hoped a water nymph came and bit him on the behind. Would serve him right. He got up, sitting down beside the woman as she stirred the cornmeal, her face a mask of uncertainity.

But when he was settled, she dropped her spoon, mouth sliding onto his quickly, a hand in his hair, feeling the fine strands, weaving them around his fingers as his tongue parted her lips. He groaned a little, pulling at her tight pants. Hell with the shirt. He wanted her suddenly, needed her. Between her legs was sopping, years of the simple denial of this pleasure, a man's touch (hell, a woman's touch for that matter) so alien. He stroked a finger against her clit, her opening, mouth on her neck, biting the smooth flesh.

A cold rush of water stopped them, a majority of the water on his own body, hair plastered to the sides of his face. Duo stood over him, holding the drinking bucket, "Tripped."

Sally pulled her pants back up, "Like hell you did."

The man's grin only widened, "Look, we're going to be eating in a few minutes here. I don't want my breakfast burning because some pair of assholes decided for a little oral pleasures before it was time for the most important meal of the day."

He grumbled, standing as Duo went for his own tent, "Sal, mind waking Trowa while I get Relena and Heekun out to enjoy this fine grub?"

And when she pulled back the door, nausea struck her immediately. He was laying there, his pants hanging down around his knees, shirt pushed open. But that wasn't what made her nauseaous. It wasn't liprouge marks on his face, on his lips. It was the snell. She'd smelled sex before, at a ceremony to Oberon, when a virgin was given to a Priest to take in the name of the Lord Oberon. She knew that smell, and it was here, though faint.

This smell was different, sickening. She stared at Trowa more, noticing for the first time that his eyes were open wide. Open wide and very glossy. A look of pain was on his features, not the ecstasy the others always claimed came with sex. And a moment passed again before she realized that he wasn't moving. His skin was grey, chest still. Even his blond hair looked...flat. Trowa Barton, the asshole leader of their group....That smell, she finally recognized it. Death.

He was dead. And he had been dead for several hours, maybe more. She called for the others, calmouring back. There was something unnatural about this. Wrong. She wracked her brain, trying to locate the name of this attack...It escaped her, but the others were there in record time, all of them. Relena and the elf in Duo's safe hands as she pointed into the tent, hand to her mouth. "He's dead."

Wufei paled, "He can't be...dead..." He pushed his head inside, then reeled back. "What killed him then, if he's dead?"

Hirde pulled the curtain back, gagging as the smell hit her. Boy caught her as she wavered on her feet, his face stone in the loss of his Master. She shook it off, resting on a log, "Succubus."

"What?!" Duo jumped back, looking around the forest, suddently seeming ever so much more pale. Sally looked at him, the name striking a light bell in her mind, but nothing too familiar. Wufei didn't say anything, brows drawn together. He didn't know either. Relena squeaked an answer, nodding her head, trying to say something. Anything. Heekun put his hands on her arms, shaking his head as if to say don't bother.

Wufei said it before she could find the words, "A succubus...?"

The girl in Boy's arms nodded, standing slowly, "A female daemon that comes in the night and preys upon sleeping males, using dreams of sex to begin intercourse, and then drains the men at their climax."

"And it could have killed any of us....Hirde, you're supposed to tell us and keep us away from the daemon fae in this forest! How could you have been so stupid?" Wufei sighed, running a hand through his loose, wet hair.

"I didn't know they nested near here!" Hirde's eyes flashed in anger. "The succubae move around...I'm sorry...If I had known, I wouldn't have let him sleep here, this far away....I'm really very sorry about Trowa." She wrapped her arms around herself, shaking a little. "We have to get to the Temple before nightfall now, to be safe from the succubae. They know we're here, and they'll send more of their kind during the night."

"We have to give him a burial first."

"There isn't time, and this is sacred ground. Leave the body. Something will come along for it sooner or later." Hirde put her hands to her hips, glaring at them before going into the tent and pulling out his bags. "We should take these though....And this..." She took something from the body, a tiny piece of wood, and pushed it to her pocket. "Anything else?"

Duo frowned, "We *have* to bury the body."

"This is *sacred* ground. Throw him into a ditch and let's be done with it."

Here...their eyes were dry, but faces grim. There was an urgency to the way they dug, eyes turning to the sun every few moments, trying to ascertain whether or not anything had, in fact, changed in the hours. She prepared them lunch, a simple combination of greens for healing wounds. The food was more for Quatre than them, but did they honestly need to know that? Of course not. Let them think she cared for them enough to give them strength in the hot sun.

Part of her was glad that Sally and Duo both had taken in so much of that "liquor" on the first night. They trusted her because of it, and they would trust her until it had entirely left their systems. Wufei and Relena were different. They hadn't gotten themselves piss drunk, and thus, they weren't so complete in their trust of her. They were the wary ones, the ones that watched her every move.

They moved the body into the shallow hole and she stood, feeling as though they wanted her there. Duo took her hand into his own as Boy stood over the body, laying face down and stripped of everything but his bloomers, and nodded his head, "What's he doing?"

"Boy will deliver the best eulogy of us all. He might actually have something nice to say."

But Boy merely stood there, hands fists at his sides and glared at his master's body. Quatre shifted on her shoulder, watching the mortal carefully, his hands cold. Did he wonder if the servant was angered for losing the Master who had taken him off the streets? Was he happy that his master was gone? A moment later the answer came as the mute spit down upon the blond hair, turning heel and going to pack up the tents.

"Like I said, he had the nicest way of putting things." Duo began kicking dirt over the body as Sally went to the emerald eyed servant, putting her arms around him in a mothering fashion. Again she was out of the loop, too uncaring to help them cover the decaying corpse, but unwilling to help with the labour. And for once, it didn't quite feel right to leave the travellers boggled down with everything. She wanted to do something, look less useless.

If they cared, they said nothing, prepared to move from Trowa's burial ground an hour before sun down. She shivered a little, a familiar stench in the forest as they walked, brisk and silent. She knew the smell very, very well, years of hiding from the owners to the smell before her.

In the years after the Beast Keepers death, the centaurs had split into two groups. One was made of the centaurs that the wood sprite had loved, the astrologers who talked of destinies written in the stars. They were a clean people, peaceful and calm. A fae could ride the back of one of these for exachange of perhaps a pint of ale, berries from the highest trees that no half-horse could grab. She herself had gotten one or two from a tight spot. their feet would carry one as fast as the wings of a pixie.

But the stench belonged to the centaurs that refused to remain peaceful, the ones that had hated the Beast Keeper for his calm ways. Those that celebrated the day of his death with loud music and veela, the silver haired daemons, who, unlike their succubae cousins, could not be allowed into the mortal realm, the diet of mortal flesh more noticable than that of just a man's missing life. The Beast Keeper forbade them from ever leaving, and in the twenty years since he left, the charm he'd used to keep the veela and the centaurs and the rest of the creatures that would take the mortal realm into their fist and crush it had worn down enough for them to partol the path leading the forest to the palace and back, though only when mortal eyes could not see them.

And they were dangerous. A centaur wanted two things in life. Power and pleasure. And his pleasure could come from a woman or from spilling blood. If this group met with them, they were doomed. She and Sally would be taken as fuck toys, Quatre, Heero, and Relena would be killed, stomped down with iron horseshoes -- as these centaurs, going against Oberon's laws were no longer fae --, and Wufei, Boy, and Duo would meet their ends on the wrong end of a spear. Or perhaps in a veela's homemade stew. Her stomach lurched at the thought before she broke into a run. There was little time to reach the temple now. The centaurs were watching.

The others followed behind her, asking questions as her tiny feet flew over muddy terrain and sharp rocks, almost not touching the ground as she moved, frightened and panting. The stench was still there, more prominent, more...They were *at* the temple. They wanted the keeper of the Eternal Light, Catherine of the Blooming Oak. Everything fell into place in her mind. To spill her blood on the wards, on the gaurding that kept them trapped in this forest, meant the spells and charms would fade. And the Light in the temple, the life force of the fae realm, would slowly fall dull and then fade away completely without Catherine's daily watch and prayer.

She stopped, resting against a tree, hanging her head a little, "Which death would you prefer?"

Wufei stopped short first, "Excuse me?" Her ears pricked as he reached for his sword, ready to prod the answers from her with his weapon.

Duo stepped between them, "What do you mean?"

Blue eyes looked up to kind violet, and her shoulders sagged down slowly, "If we don't go to the temple, the succubae will return, but if we go to the temple, the centaurs will kill us all. Well, not all of us, but I don't fancy being raped by a half horse man, especially if his raping half is horse." She shuddered a little at the thought, "Which ever path you want, we'll take. We're a day's journey yet from the resting ground of the Banshee, who both succubae and centaur fear. My home is further still."

There was a moment of eye communication between the three before Sally shook her head, "Hirde, we can't let you do this. You...With Trowa gone, we can't afford to pay you for leading us. So, just point us in the nearest cave, and we'll be on our way." The men nodded, agreeing with Sally's every word. She blinked, pointing off to the hills a moment before beginning to pick her way through the grove, feeling the eyes of Boy and Duo on her.

"I'm going to regret this...but...I'll take Boy as full payment instead of gold." She looked back at them. "Boy or everything you own, and tell the centaurs where to find you."

The emerald eyes widened, looked up at the fae on her shoulder before he nodded, eyes lowered submissively to her. Duo looked angered, as if he didn't care for her rather ingenious way of removing them from her debt. But experience had taught her not to care what the mortal boy felt, even if he was sexier than anything when he was angered. "Which way would you suggest?" Wufei brought her from her reverie.

There was a moment before she climbed the nearest tree, pulling a ball of wax from a bee's nest and handing it to the men of her group, "We can't fight the succubae other than keeping you awake all night, and even then, a veela might catch your scent. If we go against the centaur, we have an equal chance of dying, but at least we can fight back. That wax you hold will block away the veela's song."

They looked at her, then nodded, preparing for the battle ahead of them.

Boy cast the first stone, hitting the leader, a broad centaur with curling dark hair and a sneer on his lips, in the eyes. He cried out, slipping back and pointing at them. Sally carried Trowa's broadsword, holding it over her head as she charged down, mouth in a snarl. Relena, Heero, and Quatre clung to Hirde as she made a break for the temple. Wufei and Duo were armed with their own swords, cutting through.

And many more fled, frightened and confused. Here were prey animals, attacking them. One carried an iron blade. Though it wasn't lethal, it still stung their blood and each cut was agony. He didn't stop, this mortal, defending the raven haired one as she stumbled down onto the steps of the temple, shaking them from her hair. The blonde girl, delicate and tiny, looked at her with confusion as the two male fae steadied themselves, the elf with his wand and the faerie's hands glowing a dull glow. She smiled at them both, grabbing a large stick from the side of the building and standing over the fallen priestess, eyes afire.

The other woman, dressed in muddy finery, sliced through a young centaur, his hot blood staining her clothing as another grabbed for her, trying to pull her up long enough to gallop off. And the male warrior with fine black hair attacked, his thin sword fast as furious, cutting through the tendons and then necks as they fell to the ground, helpless. Wufei stumbled once as an arrow imbedded itself in his side, grinding his teeth before continuing the attack, his life leaving him every moment.

Duo was doing poorly himself, arrows sticking from his back as he brought down another centaur. Hirde gaurded the priestess, and he gaurded her, his sword flashing in the dying sunlight as he took yet another life for her. She screamed despite his efforts, a centaur yanking her up from her feet, smiling at her.

"Aren't you a pretty thing..." A wave of digust hit her as she struggled, looking to Duo for help. He moved to kill the beast that held her, another jumping into his path and knocking him to the mud, a spear crushing into his shoulder. And Hirde screamed anew, struggling. He could see her shadow as she did, her fists beating on the centaur's burly arms, futile and flurried. She stopped screaming then, and began to sob.

The sound cut through him as he tried to rise, trying to get to her. From the corner of his eye, there was a swift movement and an explosion of light. One moment there was a tiny being, the next all Duo could see were the ends of very muscular legs. There was another flash, and the centaur was gone, pushed back into a tree. The legs caught Hirde effortlessly, holding her close for a long moment.

Something crashed down onto them, another spear. Hirde fell onto the mud. A new strength filled him when he saw her, the white cloth that had modestly covered her sex from view torn off and her skirt hanging from one fastener. The man who helped her, a tanned guy with a lack of clothing, pulled the spear from his throat, disgusted as he yanked Hirde up, pushing her back to the temple. And then a centaur, the leader than Boy had stopped, stepped over the priestess, grabbing her roughly from the mud and forcing his lips onto hers, laughing as she screamed.

Another body fell to the ground beside him, Wufei. Blood seeped from his forehead as he tried to force himself up. One of th e things grabbed Sally by the arm, swinging her into the air. Only Boy was left without injury, his eyes afire as he leapt towards the priestess... The centaur looked at him a moment, then brough his spear down into the servant's chest, into his heart, his blood spilling out of his body and onto the ground, splashing Duo's face. Hirde was crying, screaming. Sally was cursing. The centaurs were laughing as the spear was pushed down further, bones crunching.

There was a blinding flash, a figure reaching out in the flash clad in only dragon skin. His eyes burned with deadly fire as he reached for the centaurs. Their laughter died, and the figure turned back to the travellers, reaching his hand out for the blonde faerie who struggled to meet him before he faded.

Duo collasped against the ground, letting his eyes close. Hirde was going to be okay...The wounds didn't hurt anymore...and she was okay....

The man paced a little, his fists balled to his sides, "All the centaurs there were killed at his appearance, and they all had disobeyed his most simple order, accosting the nymph."

"Nymph...She's well over a thousand years old, and yet she lives. Honestly, she's no more nymph than he is sprite."

"But he died once, at a mortal's hand. You were there, master. You had him killed." The underling scampered to continue with the first's pacing, biting his lip on a smile. "And you are this close to Oberon himself now. This close."

"But, you forget, Oberon will only concede defeat and give away his throne when his heir is married, and currently, his heir is flittering around like a drunken pixie." The man ground his boot into the floor, his wings beating against one another in anger. "We cannot risk his return."

"But if he has returned--"

"There is a mortal in this forest with a black metal in his blade. Get him to spill the Keeper's blood. Assure me that this task is not above you, Trente. Your past preformance has left me less than confident in you." The fae stroked his face a moment. "And you don't want to see what will become of you when I have lost my faith totally."

But this fae was of half hieght, her voice soft and beautiful. And she sobbed bitterly, beating tiny fists on the ground, cursing in a lingo never meant for mortal ears. If Hirde was here, the Healer might have asked for a translation...but in the way she cried, no real translation was needed... She was in pain. That itself was astounding. Nymphs themselves were happy creatures that laughed and danced, teased mortal men with their shapely forms.

She knelt down, putting her arms around the fae. At first she jerked away, then melted down into the mortal woman, clutching the bloodied clothes. And there was nothing more said between them. Whatever distressed this nymph, Sally had her own worries and her own heart breaks. Duo, Wufei, Boy, and the naked man she now realized to be Relena's Heekun were whisked away from the battle field the moment the fae in dragon skin had touched the earth. And she hadn't seen them since they'd come in.

The last time that she'd seen Wufei, he'd been defending her, his sword drawn...There were arrows in his body, a few places where a spear had attempted on his life but not had the time to take it. And then two hooves crashed down onto his chest, his ribs ripping loud enough inside his body for her to hear. And they had laughed as they pulled her up from the ground, ready to run off with their prizes. Then it had happened so quickly....

Green eyes were all she remembered, furious green eyes. Boy's eyes, then that fae, his hand sweeping out over the crowds as the centaurs just....stopped. They vanished, little balls of fire where they had once been jeering. That had been the Beast Keeper, no Doubt in her mind, his hair long and wild with curling horns poking through the strands. His entire way of carrying himself illustrated power and control, his hands ending in curled nails, claws. Everything about him was beautiful...yet terrifying. When his lips pulled back to smile, they were claws.

This had been the time when they'd begun to drop from conciousness, the Beast Keeper beginning to fade as he put his arms around the nymph, this nymph. He'd brushed lips over her brow...And then taken the small, blond faerie to his heart just once before fading out completely. And then Sally herself had gone into the world of dreamless sleep. When she'd awoken, she'd been here, the blankets tucked up around her body and clothes hanging over the sides of the door. The door was just big enough for this nymph to walk through, making it quite a treat to attempt.

She rocked the sobbing thing against her, rubbing the nearly bare back. Of all the wounds to suffer, this was nearly the most painful, the most deadly. And there was nothing her Healer powers or knowledge could do to stop the pain but hold the girl and wait for the tears to subside.

She smiled, shaking her head. It was funny. Sex was wonderful and fun and invigorating, but it didn't create emotional attachment worth a damn. He probably only saw her as the first creature to fuck him, first in a long line of nymphs, she-elves, and pixies. Probably the only mortal he'd ever get a chance with, but maybe with other fae, it was different. Better...more than just sex. Her eyes blurred again, the heels of her hands pressing into her eyes again. The whisper of the faeries taking care of the elf, whose spell had yet to wear off and make him back to normal size, chilled her.

Before the incident outside Heero's home, faerie speak came in high pitched squeaks, most gibberish. Now she understood every word. And as much as she disliked Hirde for leading them astray in this horrible place, she was glad that the girl sugar coated the truth as much as she did.

"I heard that they were lovers!"

Another nodded, pink eyes wide with horror, "I heard that Oberon is having a royal fit over this. He doesn't want this trash in his realm any longer. With Durmail gaining forces with Dark Fae, and the fact that the Beast Keeper hasn't been seen for two decades, he's up to his ears in problems."

"I heard that he's coming to strip these fools of their mortal coils." Then they noticed her knowing stare, the paleness to her cheeks. The one who had most recently spoken put her tongue to her cheek a moment, crossing her arms over her chest, "You understand us, don't you?"

"Yes. I do. What is a mortal coil?"

"We don't talk to mortal harlots like you." One tossed her hair and went back to healing Heero. And they didn't speak again, though their glares were poison. Relena got up after a long time and walked through the small door into the hallway. She, much like the faerie Quatre had not been knocked out by the light, and she'd seen the man....

But the man didn't interest her as much as Hirde did. When the light came, Hirde had disappeared with in it for a long moment, her form completely lost. And when it had all cleared, it took Hirde a moment to return, falling onto the ground in an untidy pile of limbs. Where had the girl gone in those few precious momets? Off to hide her newest scheme to kill them all? Perhaps to alert the Lord Orberon of the things the faeries spoke of.

She shuddered a little. Losing your mortal coil sounded painful as hell, more painful than that first time she and Heero came as one. And from the gleeful note to the little one's voices only cemented her fright at that. She didn't want to die because she was stupid and horny that time...and all the times after that. Her shoulders shook a little as she broke into a run, suddenly needing to find Hirde. She never gave a reason to be trusted before, but now....

Pain cut through her body, deep and merciless. She screamed once, falling onto her knees. The pain was there, ever constant and taunting as she shook herself, determined to lose this at all costs. There were footsteps on the coridoor, some on calling out as she crindged, the pain a dull ache throughout her entire body. Her knees buckled slowly, arms giving out to fall onto the warm stone of the temple, but thin arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her up.

Hirde was the one to grab her, face filled with concern, "'Lena..." She pulled them into a healing room, pushing her onto the bed and pulling the sheets up to her chin. "You have to take it easy. Your body needs time to adjust to this transition. Going small would be a good idea right about now, though...Honestly."

The tourmaline eyes closed as sleep tugged at her, "You've been so nasty to me all this time. Why break your winning streak now?"

A cool compress found her forehead, "Lord Oberon's coming..."

"To take my mortal coil?"

The bucket clattered onto the floor, "Who told you that?"

"The faeries...taking care of Heero."

There was another beat of silence, "Yes. Oberon is coming for your mortal coil."

The braid that kept his hair at bay had come undone, chesnut strands falling onto his bandaged chest. He lifted his arms to fix it, then decided against it, the pain running up both his side and arm. He collasped back onto the bed, breathing in gasps, eyes darting around the room, trying to find some one willing to help. No one but Wufei, and the man was in no condition to help. His white blankets were soaked through with blood, face serene. For a moment, Duo thought him dead before the chest rose and fell with a laboured breath.

His eyes closed, lips moving in a silent prayer to Titania that things would bode well for the man. Perhaps a prayer to Oberon as well would have been in order, but he knew none. The Scattered Hills wasn't particularly friendly to that fae god as they were his wife. Violet eyes snapped open as the door creaked open, sitting up too quickly for his body to handle, the wounds reopening. Sally shuffled in, dressed in her glorified garments, still encrusted with blood and dirt, falling at Wufei's side. He lay back, the soothing sounds of her chanting to whatever Healers gained their power from.

Then some one placed a cool hand onto his cheek, and he looked up, seeing a smiling girl before him. Her eyes were a soft lilac, reddish hair done up away from her neck and face. There was mud on her face, a scratch on her cheek. The priestess... He swallowed a little as she stood, moving away from the bed to get new bandages for him. She was the priestess, but she did not dress as one, her long flowing robes gone to reveal a collar around her neck, long and frindged that stopped at the tips of her ample breasts and a small skirt to cover her sex. One arm bore a silver bracelet of a lion, the same one just below her knee. His throat tightened painfull as she sat down beside him again.

She said nothing as she cut away soiled cloth and then redid them, white crisp gauze covering the arrow wounds. He found his tongue as she began to move away, "Who are you?"

The eyes raised to his once more, and it was then he saw the puffiness of her face, the lines of cleaned flesh amoung the dirt and the red tint to her eyes. She'd been crying. "I can't tell you that..." Her voice was clear and gentle, and as soft as her eyes. Beautiful.

He smiled at her, "Of course you can. Tell me your nickname. Like Heekun."

"Heekun?" Her nose wrinkled, a spark of laughter in those wonderful eyes. "Hirde-hime told you that, didn't she?"

"So...Hime is her surname?" He logged that away with all the other bits he'd learned about the beautiful mortal girl, sitting up a little more. Her lip caught in her teeth, eyes widening. "Yeah. She did."

"Oh. Well, then...My name...is Cathy. Yes, Cathy." She wiped his brow again, lips twisted into a very pretty smile. "So then, what is your name, my sweet and gentle mortal?"

He looked at her, his smirk growing slowly, "Duo Maxwell. Now, tell me. What manner of fae are you?" She crawled up behind him, hands going around his long free hair and a brush pulling snarls out quickly.

"I'm a wood nymph." The brush was efficient, yet painful, pulling in quick, even strokes until his hair shone like satin as it tumbled over his shoulder.

"I'm a blacksmith." He felt her shift, the brush slowly to sculpt his hair into the proper positions, the braid starting slowly.

"What's a blacksmith?"

He laughed a little, "Guess you don't need people like that here. A blacksmith uses iron and steel to make horseshoes and weapons, anything really. It's..."

She shook her head, leaning around him to look at his eyes, her face centimeters from his own, "I have no idea about the mortal world. Except that I don't like it."

"Why don't you like it?" His voice was soft, eyes centered on hers.

"They took someone from me, some one--"

The door slammed open, Hirde thumping angrily through the hole. Catherine fell onto the floor, "Hirde-hime! Gomen nasai! It's not....I would never...I was braiding his hair."

Blue eyes chilled him a moment as the nymph picked herself up from the floor, going back to braiding his hair. And his brow raised. Was that jealousy in those beautiful eyes? Did she think about him the way he'd been hoping...or more than likely, it looked like another one of their travelling group was attempting to seduce another one of her precious fae. This girl had serious issues. He matched her glare for glare as Catherine began braiding his hair, her fingers moving in quick, even strokes. He relaxed after a moment, the odd feelings of contentment taking him as she took care of him, fawned over him.

"Sally, how is Wufei?" The girl kneeled at his bedside, touching his face for a moment, her eyes glowing in the dim light. "Is he going to--"

"He's going to be okay." The woman smiled, resting her back to the wall, eyes vacant. "I used some old Healer tricks, a little bit of magik. Nothing majour." She coughed, body heaving and blood appeared on her pink lips. "He'll be fine..."

Hirde moved, lifting the woman to her feet and pulling her to a soft pile of pillow, her throat moving as she watched the Healer go off into sleep. Her head bowed a moment, and her shoulders shook. "Was it really him, Cathy?" She whispered, almost forgetting that Duo was in the room. Her eyes, turning upward, looked far past him, fixated on a scroll on the wall. The fingers in his hair stiffened, letting the braid swing alone as she pulled away.

"It looked so, Hirde-hime. But..."

"How did he come back." She stood, wiping nonexistant dust from her legs. "Lord Oberon is here, Cathy. He wishes to speak with all of us, as soon as the travellers are ready." She cast one last look at Duo before hurrying out the doors.

Instead, she was led into a great room and placed in a chair beside Heero, his lower body covered in a pair of soft, sand coloured pair of leather breeches. Duo was cleaned, dressed, and sitting across from Hirde, who wore a simple blue garment as he sat in a cream leather vest and dark brown cloth pants. Wufei matched Duo, but Sally dressed in a magnificent robe of crimson red, her hair done up in yellow ribbon, satin gloved of the same colour on her hands. There was an empty chair beside Hirde, and her chest constricted. Boy should have been there.

Two more slid to the table, Quatre and the auburn haired priestess as they were all handed drinks in the silence. No one moved, Catherine glancing at the window once or twice as the sun dipped lower and lower on the horizon. And the door swung open. Relena screamed, but Hirde laughed as she ducked beneath the table.

Instead of a terrifying old man of a fae, there was a woman no older than she, eyes a glittering ice blue and skin as pale as milk. Her hair fell behind her in a shimmering cloud of dull gold, and her lips were a darker red than the dress Sally wore. But that wasn't what entranced the mage-apprentice. Moreover it was her clothing, a gauze of black that moved when she stood still, constant, almost alive. Their eyes met, and she looked away, a cold chill running through her. This girl took her seat at the darkest end of the table.

"So nice of us to join us, Princess...." Quatre smiled tensely from his seat, eyes darting around to Duo, Relena, Wufei, and Sally.

"Doe?" Hirde supplied, sipping her drink, looking around Heero to supply the name. The girl at the end, Doe apparently, nodded once.

"I'm sure you're all thrilled to see me." Her mouth twisted in a smirk as half the table let out a little snort in laughter, the mortal portion looking confused. She didn't say anything more as the door opened again.

The man that came through had hair even paler than Doe's, his eyes the colour of ice on the most northern streams. And his entire being commanded attention. He was tanned despite his cool features, wonderfully so, and walked with a regal grace. She suddently wished that Heero would preform another of his shrinking charms on her, her heart pounding. This man was a far cry from his usual depictions, colder but much easier on the eyes. This was Lord Oberon.

"I do not know why these mortals are in our realm, or why that emperor was fool enough to send you here. What ever troubles marr your litle short existance, we have our own problems." He spoke without sitting down, glaring at the travellers each individually. "The centaurs you encountered a mere annoyance in the long run, and, as surely as I stand here, if you stay much longer, you will all meet the painful end that Trowa Barton met."

"How did you--" A hand cut Duo off, eyes looking off as he slid into his seat.

"This is my forest, Mr. Maxwell, my people. Though I do not venture to the darker lands of the fae, I know their activities. And there is little you can keep from me, though why you still live is beyond comprehension. You are all either insanely lucky or just very stupid. Either way, there are certain things that must be dealt with." Ice cold eyes met Relena, a chill running through her entire body.

"What are you going to do to her!?" Wufei leapt to his feet, glass toppling over. Oberon blinked once, raising his hand. The mortal man was back in his seat and quiet, though his eyes read that this was not of his control.

He looked at Sally, "Why your ruler needs the things he does, I will give them to you, as what he needs them for. All you have to do is reach my palace in the other side of the forest. If you do not, I'd suggest that you turn around and leave. Now, and without Hirde's help." His voice was hard then, the room dropping several degrees. And Sally just nodded, biting her lip.

"Good. The next of the three things I must see to is the liason that has been taking place in your company. Relena, you have slept with an elf. That is against the most fundamental of the laws of the fae--"

"I didn't know!"

He shook his head, raising his hand. She felt herself lift from her feet, a hand tightening around her heart. "I am sorry..." And the hand closed more, ripping her in two, a frenzy filling her blood. The girl screamed, shaking, trying to get away. First there was ice in her body, then lava, thick and deadly, burying her. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't see. She couldn't hear. The world was nothing; she was nothing. Again she fought to take a breath, air spilling into her lungs, hot air filling her like tar. She was suffocating around that blackness, her body slowly becoming more and more limp.

And then finally nothing.

"Hope I'm not late." He slid into the room, into the shadows before they had chance to recognize him. From the darkness, the horns and fangs were evident. Her heart thudded in her chest, chair clattering as she stood.

The Beast Keeper...

So he was alive after all this time.

He shuddered a little, sitting next to the raven haired girl. She smiled at him, eyes flashing a little. From his spot, he could see the people from the flashes, and then his friends. His lover. Heero of Yuiko, an elf that lacked the usual long nose and bald head due to his pixie mother. Catherine of BloomingOak, a nymph that looked not a day of one-hundred and fifty years. His only family left because of the dark fae. And then there was Quatre of Spring or Raberba, depending on whether you went on his position or origin...His lips twisted into an almost-but-not-quite smile. His little lover, all big and mortal sized. His eyes caught those of the spring fae. A flush spread across his cheeks, golden head bowing.

Then he saw her at the end of the table. Dorothy of Kata...His smile disappeared into a snarl, watching her. Of all the daemons and beasts in his legions, only the succubae could live by their own rules. They were not a threat to anyone in the forest, their prey stupid mortal men that were set here for the most assinine of reasons. And at this table, two such beings sat. Both glared at the Lord Oberon, deadly rage in their eyes.

"I wish you to take the Beast Keeper along with you as you journey to my palace. His expertise may prove invaluable to getting you through safely." The lord sipped his red nectar, nodding to Catherine in satisfaction. "Princess Doe shall accompany you on this mission."

The raven haired girl, Hirde, leapt from her chair, eyes flashing, "Lord Oberon--"

"Sit, mortal." He raised his hand. She didn't move, mutely glaring until that hand rested once more on the table. "It is not wise to defy my wishes."

"Wise or not, sending your daughter with us, though she is a dark fae, would not be the best decision. Lord Oberon, please, her condition after stealing the essence of Trowa Barton--"

"What!?" The braided man...Duo? jumped from his seat then, casting an uneasy glance to Dorothy, who just watched this transpire with a smirk on her lips. "She killed Trowa! And you want her to come with us! She'll fucking kill us all. Well, maybe not Hirde and Sally, but still!"

"I'm afraid that I must agree with Maxwell on this matter, my Lord Oberon." Sally bowed her head demurely. "We have lost three members of our group thus far, and we do not wish to lose anymore."

Hirde nodded, smiling at Oberon with a strange smugness, "Do you wish the child be harmed in the trecherous paths that we must take to your palace?"

There was a moment, the ice blue eyes on that of the mortal. She said nothing, hands on her hips. The Beast Keeper raised his eyes, watching this interaction. Something ticked in the back of his mind, but he simply pushed it away as the Lord Oberon nodded, sighing in defeat, "Princess Doe will remain here with the Lady Cathy."

Food was served then, a delightful pumpkin pasty for each plate with cranberries on the side and a salad of greens from the gardens. He didn't fail to notice the elf didn't touch anything, his fork driving the food around his plate, eyes glued to it. There was an anger that narrowed his eyes, the prussian fires burning brightly. He had never seen Heero angry. His eyes travelled down to the girl lying on the floor, her body slow to vanish. Had he...

No, that was impossible. If he cared for the girl, he wouldn't have fallen into bed with her. Of course, Heero of Yuiko was a unique elf, the only elf borne with hair for many years. A mysteriously powerful being that lived alone. As handsome as he was, faeries and pixies despised him. Nymphs were frightened. Sprites were wary. He looked dangerous and acted much the same. There was few fae that would approach him on a normal basis, none who thought of him romantically.

He frowned, sipping his flask as Oberon clapped his hands, "Duo Maxwell of Scattered Hills, may I ask a favour of you?"

Violet eyes narrowed, "That depends. If I say no, do I get to lose my mortal coil too?"

"I didn't make that law. I only enforce it. I need you to cut Relena's corpse in half with your iron sword." He sipped the drink before him casually. "If you would."

"Fuck. You." He glanced at the elf, hate evident in his face. "Why don't you ask Heekun to do it?"

"I can't." The elf looked up, frozen in his chair. "He won't let me."

Duo looked at him a moment, realization dawning in his eyes, "So the mighty Oberon doesn't let his own subjects fight against him, eh?"

"What a weakling," Wufei snorted.

Oberon's smile was chilling as glanced at the warrior, "If you want the decree lifted from Sally, I'd suggest you stay silent. But, yes, Duo. I do have Hee...kun, did you say? under my power. As I do Lady Cathy and Master Kitty. It is the curse of being a fae. I know all their names and only the strongest may rebel that. Like the Beast Keeper."

"Does this freak have a name?" Duo was stalling. Relena was nearly gone now, the faintest outline of her body visible to the eye of a fae.

"He is not a freak!" Quatre slammed his fists down on the table, growling. "He is a powerful member of the fae community who has more power than you've ever dreamed. Show some respect for him, or I will kill you." His lover's eyes gleamed violently. He couldn't recall when last he'd seen the blond so angry, but it jarred something inside of him.

"What are you going to do? Throw flowers at me? Between the group of you, I think you all have a fucking screw loose. You throw flowers. That asshole fucks people who he know will be killed because of it. You...Well, Cathy's fine. And this Lord Oberon thing gets off killing mortals and then having others dismember the corpse for him." He downed the drink in a gulp. "And I don't even want to get on about that thing there. Fangs and horns and claws don't scream 'Trust' to me. I'm going to bed."

"There's no need to be. Despite your bodies urges, you have always been faithful to me." He smiled, handsome face kind for one. She swallowed a little, walking closer to him. "I understand that you have taken up with a mortal man, Chang Wufei. Correct?"

Again, she nodded, sitting down in the former chair of the Beast Keeper. This was why she stayed as long as she had. Not to eavesdrop on the little conversation of Cathy and their guide. Not to anger Wufei. Her lips twisted into a soft, sad smile. She was revered by the people of the mortal realm as a symbol of the gods, of this god. But in his realm, he moved her as a child would a doll. She could not open her mouth to speak as she wished and when she did speak, there was no conviction or force to her words.

"Yes, Lord Oberon. I need your permission, however, before we can move past...anything more than innocent carressing." Her cheeks warmed as those words were forced out, hands beneath the desk and twisting a piece of the dress around themselves.

He studied her for a moment, "I cannot let you lose your virginity to him, Sally. I am sorry, but the law states that." She nodded, shoulders sagging a little. There was a moment, then his fingers slid beneath her jaw, lifting her eyes to his. "I will not have a Healer disgrace herself or me in such a way as to give herself to a mortal man for pleasure. You belong to me."

Her eyes lowered, and she nodded, swallowing back anger and disappointment. This was the true reason she been benign on this quest so far, to learn if she and Wufei had a chance at a future together. The thought of losing him because of a formality, the moon which she'd been born under, ripped her apart inside. She bit her lip at the tears on her cheeks. He paused as the scroll he was signing, reaching to wipe her tears away.

"You love him."

"Yes, I do. I'm sorry to bother you with this, Lord Oberon. I will leav--"

His hand caught around her wrist, head shaking, "Sally, your life can be yours to ruin, if you choose. If you wish, you may go into that room and lose your powers to Wufei. Or you leave the temple you reside in with honour, as only a Healer can. To leave with honour, you will retain the gifts that were given to you by the fae, something that may come deeply in handy with the dangers ahead of you as venturing to my palace. The choice is yours."

The Healer nodded, "I would like to keep my powers as long as possible...What do I have to do...to keep them?"

He smiled, leaning forward, his soft and warm lips catching her own. A jolt shot through her body, lips responding without meaning to. "You cannot lose your virginity to anyone but your lord." His words weren't spoken, but they rang in her ears as he kissed her again, hands sliding down over the crimson dress she wore, mark of her undying loyalty to him. The dishes and plates were whisked away as his mouth opened, tongue slicing through the seam of her lips, striking at her own.

And she moaned in spite of herself. He lifted her off of the chair, the long red material falling off behind her as the kiss deepened, her satin covered hands stroking his face. A razor had never touched the skin, something obvious as he nuzzled his face against hers, laughing as she sighed. Unknown caresses astounded her as he pulled away the corset she wore out of modesty, playing with her breasts slowly, nipple teased by his broad thumbs. He continued to kiss her face, gentle and reassuring.

She gasped again as his knee, unclothed by the same magik that had cleared the table pushed onto her sex, awakening something deep founded in her body. Only twice has she felt this way with Wufei, but here with her master, it was magnified. Each kiss and carress pounded through her body as if it was lightening through water. She was flushed and dreamy, yet awake and painfully alert as his lips traced down the path to her cleavage.

Fingers made it to her sex, no longer as sweet and gentle. Demanding. Her eyes widened, body quivering the moment one finger touched the small protusion of flesh, a territory no one could touch via her status. She bit her lip, his teeth over her chest, stopping and leaving marks upon her flesh. Marks that she wished never to fade, to remind her of this awakening within her body. It was true that she loved Wufei, the flush that occastionally filled her cheeks warming her all over at the site of his smile, of him.

But with Oberon, it was different. It was an animalistic need that transsended love's boundaries, a rite of passage. If she would make love with Wufei before having sex with Oberon, she wouldn't enjoy it. Her body wouldn't leave fog of adolescence for womanhood without him. She didn't like the idea, mentally, but it was fate, destiny, her payment for the powers she possessed. Fae paid a punishment; their weakness to the most basic of all metal. Mortals paid a price for being able to use it; they would die some day. And her punishement for being able to help either with their weakness was this.

And might she say that all punishments should look this delicious.

His finger played inside her, rubbing the juices around her opening. Everything was slick, ready for the next move. He moved atop her, lips claiming hers once more. His own sex joined with hers; eyes locked onto her. And there was a small flash, long wings appearing from his back, flapping down to cover them as a blanket would. There was a second of pain, her own powers casting it off as nothing as they thrust against eachother, muscles tensing, bodies arching, his release triggering hers.

Lord Oberon slid off of her after a long moment, his wings still visible, beautiful midnight blue with silver swirls within them. He dressed in an eyeblink, looking mortal again save his ears. His wings were gone, a long blue and silver sash tied round his wasit as she herself was dressed in a flash, the crimson and canary gone from her wardrobe. She wore cream peasants blouse and rust red pants. Her hair was simple, tied back in two twisting braids that fell over each shoulder. She was free.

He touched her collar bone, a tingle starting, "You will bear that mark forever as a freed Healer. Go and live your life, Sally. I release you." Lips pressed against her forehead once as he turned for the door.

She was speechless a moment, before it hit her, "Wait...I'm mortal...What about?"

"For every law, there is an exception. A virgin Healer is the one to that law." And he was gone.

"You grow used to it, I suppose. As you grow used to claws while everyone else has tapered nails."

They sat in silence a moment, the faerie tugging on his pointed ears, "I...When you were gone, I was fancying after a mortal. I just thought I should tell you. Did you fancy anyone while I was out of your life?"

He just shook his head at his lover, "Quatre, we don't have to go through this."

"I just wish to be honest!" He cried, shrill as a blue jay. Tears burst up through aqua eyes, body shaking with emotion. "How many lovers did you have?"

"I don't remember. I told you that. I was...some where." He placed his flute to his lips again, fingers poised for a tune. The boyish face remained unimpressed. "I don't lie to you. I remember that."

The faerie sighed, "You don't remember a thing? Like what took you away, or why you came back?"

"The things I remember are like this. I remember this place, and I remember you, Catherine, Dorothy, Heero. Hell, I even remember the real names of our Lord and Queen. I remember where the heir hides. But I don't remember how two decades have passed and and I am here trying to explain that I was with no one memorable." He raked claw through his light brown hair, smiling just a little for his lover.

"Do you remember who you were?"

"I am the Beast Keeper, and the forest has gone to hell in my absence. That's all I worry about."

"No, who you really are. Just as our Lord and Queen were not always Oberon and Titania, you were not always called the Beast Keeper. You have had many names in your time, but who are you really?"

He pressed his lips onto those of the other fae's, the frantic note filling his voice terrible. At first the spring faerie was cold, unresponsive. But then his hands began to wander, tracing over skin that he had not touched for twenty years. All those years of loneliness and pain, the wonder if his lover was truly dead spilling out through his lips. He only held him closer, pulling away the long white clothing he wore, leaving the wing sash alone. Wings were beautiful, but hazardous. More than once, a horn or claw had popped through the delicate fibers, ending a session of lovemaking. That he remembered.

His hands remembered more, sliding down over smooth and flawless skin, touching places that ached for contact, hands sliding over the faerie's hardening shaft before falling to the ground, his mouth encompassing it, careful not to close his jaws to the point of his fangs hurting his lover. Hands tightened on his horns, little squeaks of approval emitting themselves as he played with the organ, a claw gently running over the base, careful and swift but enough for another soft moan, the hands sliding up and down over his horns, pumping them as if they themselves were each a phallus.

The Keeper snickered, his hands covering the area that his mouth could not, gentle and loving. He remembered this well, this dance, nipping at the delicate flesh with a fang, and his lover squeezed the horns once more, crying out to the heavens as he climaxed, warm seed rushing down the taller fae's throat. He pulled back, letting the last of the warm fluid pour down his throat before picking the white robe from the floor, preparing to wrap his pale and shivering love up when a hand pushed him back.

A hand guided his to the dew settling on the flowers from the evening, cool liquid that sparked another memory. Eyes glittered in the moonlight as the spring fae was lain down onto the grass, the dew being spread liberally over his opening, a finger sliding inside to spread it more effectively. Whether this was the right thing to do, niether was sure. But...just leaving the whirling confusion that had tarnished their lives behind for a few stolen moments of passion seemed the right plan at the time.

"Stay long enough to share some of these with me?" Duo flashed her the smile that had won over more free lunches from lonely widows and ale from the yet unattached barmaids. Fae or not, the flush in her cheeks told that she was no exception to this grin as she did as he asked, sitting delicately on the edge of his bed, nimbling on a pasty.

"You are a very brave man, Duo Maxwell. Lord Oberon is not usually so receptive to mortal opposition. And those who give it rarely live." She looked at him, face gentle. "You would be wise to stay far away from him. I do not believe he cares much for you."

"Cathy, he *killed* her, right there. Right in front of all of us. I'm supposed to like that prick after he...She was a sweet girl. She didn't deserve that." He laid back, rubbing the back of his head with the palm of his hand, "But I guess Heekun knew that. A ploy to get her--"

"Don't you dare say that about Heero! He would never put her in danger. He's...different from everyone, and as long as she was his size, the law couldn't touch her. Only the mortal sized can be punished for breaking that law. If you want to blame someone, blame me. *I* summoned Oberon here. *I* begged him to come when the centaurs were attacking...and...When the Beast Keeper returned, all enchantments more than a few minutes old ceased. She went back to her usual size." He blinked, looking at her. She'd been so angered for that fatal slip of the tongue to come through. Heekun was really named Heero.

He snorted, "Figures. That freak shows up just in time to save you and the other girls but fuck Boy. Don't you care about him? He *died* protecting you." Violet eyes glittered dangerously, and she shuddered a little.

"Of course I care about that mortal servant! I...his body...Oberon took it. I wanted to bury him with the others, the mortals that have come to our world and protect us from our own kind. All three of them." She shivered, arms wrapped around herself.

His expression softened, hand laying over hers, "Sorry. I know things are different in this world."

She stood, patting his hand a little, "There are many things you don't understand, most of them you should never have to wonder about." Her eyes remained on his, lingering before she turned and left much the same as she had entered.

Duo finished his cold dinner, stretching out in the small bed he'd been given. They'd been seperated and given these little cramped spaces for sleep. There were willow branches over the tiny window, casting a lattice of shadow over his face. Almost like a prison. The door was probably even locked. He sighed, watching the cieling as the door opened again, the fae lord stepping through it with a moment of difficulty. His wings hindered him, but then vanished.

"Duo Maxwell."

He sighed, "Look, if this is about dinn--"

"It isn't." His icy glare caught the mortal by surprise. "I am warning you. Stay away from her."

"Who? Cathy?"

"Stay away, Duo Maxwell of the Scattered Hills or what happened to the young Relena will look like mere child's play." The fae hand closed and a violent pain filled his being, tossing him down to the floor. He coughed, blood pouring out of his mouth as the pain intensified, a blackness filling the corners of his eyes. He ground his teeth, forcing himself to breathe and glare at the fae, hatred evident.

The door flew open, "Stop it! Leave him alone. Don't you have anything better to do than torture us 'poor, pathetic' mortals?" Arms wrapped around him, protective, concerned. "Get out of here."

"He needs to stay away from the fae--"

The room filled with a warm light, a pale purple shimmer in the shape of a woman before him, wings spread behind her like a mythical angel, "Leave the boy be, Zechs."

Oberon turned, horror in his voice though his face remained cold, "The mortal--"

"I said leave him. Come home." And his saviour passed, the light dying. The fae turned and looked at him once, at the frail creature holding him, her tiny frame heaving with anger breath. A sadness flickered in his eyes. "Very well. I will take Princess Doe home with me. Hirde-hime, if you would come with me a moment."

He felt the arms go, panic making him reach out and grab for her. She looked back, shaking her head, "He won't hurt me. He wouldn't want to sleep in the bogs twice. Titania is not forgiving."

They slipped out into the hallway, leaving him again. He wiped the blood from his face, blinking and trying to stand. The world spun around, but he managed to make it to the door, almost passing out there. But they were still there, talking in low, hushed voices.

"....knows too much. I heard Catherine of BloomingOak tell him Heero of Yuiko's first name." Oberon. He withheld his snort. If Catherine was a fool, the Lord Oberon had proved himself to be a bigger one. He apparently didn't understand that mortals listen into private conversations when ever they have the opportunity.

"Duo's too brass and foolish to be able to use the names against them. Just leave him."

There was a moment, and a pop before the door was pulled back open, "You heard, didn't you?"

"That guy always this much of an ass? What? Did he think I was after his precious little Doe or something?"

Hirde nodded, rolling her eyes. "He's an overprotective father. He saw you carrying on with Catherine--"

"Whoa, I was not doing anything with Catherine! She and I were just talking." He put his hands up to defend himself, her hands taking one of his to assist him to his feet and over to the bed. She watched him for a moment. "You don't find her attractive then?"

"Hell, I find her sexy as anything, but--" She got up from the bed, eyes glaring a moment before she turned her head sharply. "Hirde, I don't want Catherine. She's...good looking, but there's more to attraction than looks. Hirde, please--"

She turned and looked at him, "You had better clear your head. The journey ahead is deadly." And she left without another word.

The Healer had been freed from Oberon for at least an hour now, a sense of joy hitting her each moment. No more code of rules to live by. No more pain and longing when a pair of newly-weds came to the temple to ask for a blessing upon their marriage, that they would have strong and healthy babes to run after and a long life together. Hell, she wouldn't even have to return to the temple.

But she'd slept with another man, her mind reminded her. She'd let herself be taken. She hadn't offered any fight to the happenings. To make things worse, she didn't even feel *bad* about it. Just...off. Like she should be guilty and remorseful, but her body just could not manage that....She felt nothing outside of free for the first time in all her life.

Free beyond Oberon's grasp, above it. Aside from her dark thoughts of betrayal and Wufei, she was flying higher than anyone could ever see. She laughed at the stars, waved to both moons. Everything seemed lighter now that the crimson robes had been torn away to show a darker sense of what she was, a Healer that had lost her innocence. More and more she felt that. She wasn't evil...but things her powers had been blocked from began to kick in.

Like when she passed the garden's, seeing Kitty and the Beast Keeper lying in the dew, their arms around each other, she saw them for what they were. The blindingly golden glow of Kitty's skin against the others, his skin but camoflaged against the green grass. Were it not for his lover, only the sinster gleam of pointed fangs would have alerted anyone to him being there. And when she passed the room where Princess Doe was resting, everything seemed colder, darker, heavier. She could reach out and touch the walls, feeling the icyness of evil through her entire being, yet Doe had yet to give them a reason to not to trust her...Outside of the fact that she'd killed Trowa.

"Are you going to come in or just stare at me?" Wufei's amused voice rang up above the din of her thoughts, and she smiled, resting herself onto the floor next to him with nary a thought otherwise. His dark eyes traced along her body, fingers reach out to the fabric of her new blouse, a questioning raise of his brow as the fabric slid away and back to her.

She looked at him, suppressing a smile, "I thought a change was in order. Do you like it...Or should I go back to those hideous red robes. I always thought they made me look like some sort of dark fae priestess. The aged Healers are a step above me though. They actually do wash their clothing in blood."

He said nothing, "I believe you would look good in rags. If you needed a change, so be it."

Pale blue eyes moved over his face, mouth drawn into a knot. "But?"

A ghost of a smile graced his lips as he leaned over to light more candles, illuminating the small room, "I always believed it forbidden for a Healer to wear anything but the sanctioned colours when not near her temple. You're not really one for bending those rules...so what did you do?"

"I spoke to Oberon." She shrugged, suddenly unsure. If she told him, would he jump up and down like an irate child? Would he hate her? Would he take it out on Oberon? Would he throw her from the room? Would he accept this? She liked the last thought, but from what she'd witnessed in the seeming short time in the forest, though her body kept track of time differently. To her body, she'd been here three months, Wufei was more likely to throw her from the room before storming down the hall to try and kill Oberon.

He looked at her again, studying her face as he returned to his station on the floor, "He freed you then."

"Yes, he did." Sally busied herself with the hem of the shirt, looking at the stitches or trying to. There was no visble sewing...Faerie sewn.

A nod of the head, "Couldn't you wait until this was over? We might have needed your powers as a Healer."

"Wufei, I only lose my powers if I was taken by a man before Lord Oberon has his chance at me." Damn that hem was sure interesting.

"But you're not a Healer anymore."

"Not...officially. But I still retain my powers in case we need them on our new little quest," Her eyes met his, the questions there suddently very hard to look to.

For a moment, he said nothing, "If you are not a Healer, you cannot have your powers."

"There's a loophole, like there is with everything in this realm. A way to twist things around and avoid the laws--"

"Unforunately not for Relena." His eyes flared in pain for a moment. That caught her. The pair had shared a childhood of misery and loss together. Of all the travellers, her death hit him as hard as it seemed to have hit Heekun. She swallowd, nodding.

"Perhaps that's why Heero kept her fae size as long as he did...But Oberon instructed me to this loop hole, and I took it. I couldn't stand being under his thumb any longer...and if there was another incident...like before, I wouldn't be able to bear it." She wrapped her arms around herself, waiting.

"What was the loophole?" His words halted as he said it, eyes darting around the room. She could almost sense his mind going "don't want to know...don't want to know..".

"I slept with him."

He looked at her, eyes narrowed to mere pinpoints, "You...slept with him. Just like that."

"Wufei, I didn't have any choice. I can't breathe in this place if he tells me not to. I can't even look up at the cieling without his mind telling me to. I needed freedom, and if I...just one time, it was worth it." She sighed, shoulders slumping. "But I won't apologize for it. I don't want to die without atleast spending one last day free from his control."

"I see. Did you enjoy it?" There was a tint of something frightening in his voice, but she dared not to duck away from him, show that he had control of her.

Instead she simply shrugged, "It was allright. I believe that he fueled any...desire I had for him. Up until the end, there was a weight on me that I couldn't shake, but the moment he let off of me... I was free. And, looking back, I would not do that sort of thing with him again if I had to. Too...His wings came out in part of that."

The black eyes blinked at her, his jaw open, "How can you be that casual about it? You betrayed me, our relationship, and you--"

"Tell me that you've never had sex before and I'll walk out of here sobbing for forgiveness." Her brow was quirked, and he just sighed.

It was a moment before he looked at her, "Define sex."

A sly grin spread across her face, body sliding onto the ground, "I would much rather you show me. Oberon might be handsome, but he's a piss-poor lover. Of course, I wouldn't know. Maybe you are too."

He sat up straight, "Was that an insult?"

"More like an invite." And she tackled him.

What you couldn't see was the little wooden house on the border of these lands where a little mortal man lived. A little mortal man that told the grandest of stories with a great smile on his face as he knitted scarves and other useful items when winter came to this enchanted forest. When Quatre would spend time in their house, resting his wings for the season ahead of him. The little old man she called Papa...

He didn't see the edge of the forest, only the dark land. There was nothing in his face as he watched the spriggans running about in the valleys of the dark lands, their malicious little smiles gleaming up at him. The Will O Wisp were up already, and the boggarts were starting. Each he knew by name. It was Heero who told her of the ways of the dark fae, naming each of them as they appeared. She nodded as he pointed out a group of phooka emerging, watching the spriggans with anger in their eyes.

Finally she sighed, "Did you care about her?"

Heero started violently, as if he'd touched a lightening bolt, eyes wild a moment before he frowned at her, "Care about her, Hirde? She's a mortal. She's a mortal who doesn't see a hideous and dangerous elf before her. She doesn't understand the truly horrorific part of my powers any more than she understands that elves borne with hair on their head, and no where else...are elves just the same. She was a stupid mortal."

"Then you did care."

He snorted, "Of *course* I cared. I thought I could protect her from Oberon, keep her hidden until all was said and done and the mortals left the forest. I could have travelled with them, gone to see this mortal realm. I would have lived a mortal life for her."

"Please. One touch of iron, and you'd be done. Besides, they need you to protect the crossing. If the manticore mixes in with the succubae, and then the spriggans, we'll have a war on our hands. Who is going in you place to keep him there?"

"The Beast Keeper has handled it. He put up wards. We have three weeks before his wards fail." Heero ran his fingers through his tangled mess of hair. "What's between you and Duo Maxwell?"

It was her turn to start, "Excuse me? Duo's just like every other--"

"Then why do your eyes narrow everytime he laughs with Catherine. I heard about what happened when you saw her in his room. News travells fast faerie-to-faerie. When did you change?" He looked at her over his shoulder, brow quirked.

Hands settled on her hips, "I am just the same as I ever was, Heero of Yuiko. I am the best damn mortal guide Oberon ever hired. I've got thirty-four names to my credit."

"Yeah, but you're the same as me or Quatre or Dorothy. You have *needs*. And that fae-killer is willing to submit to each and everyone like you were some secret love of his."

"Don't call him that! It's not his fault that the weapons he makes are crafted of the black metal. He doesn't choose that. And he had never raised his sword in battle unless it was nessecary." Her eyes were ice cold as she looked at him, hands to her hips. "He has been nothing but kind to you and Relena since Trowa Barton captured you. He didn't like the idea of those hideous ropes, and when you and Relena were making nasty in that bag, he didn't say that you *couldn't* continue on."

"One of his kind killed my mother. And they took away the Keeper. How can you forget such crimes?"

"I haven't fogotten. But both of those happened before he was born. Your mother perished over a hundred years in mortal time, and the Keeper. Twenty of this realms years is...how long in the mortal realm? Duo wasn't alive for that. And you don't hold it against Relena that she's mortal."

"Relena isn't a blacksmith. Relena is a mage's...student. She is learning--"

"Was, Heero. Relena is *dead*. Oberon killed he--"

"Because of that stupid little servant! He went and got his heart driven through--"

"Trying to save Catherine's life! There was a time when you would have done the same, need I remind you, before you learned that her bread wasn't buttered that way."

"You weren't there." He spat on the ground. "You needn't talk of that."

She threw her hands up into the air, "Look, we're going to be in the dark land in two days. After that, you know as well as I that Duo Maxwell and the rest of that little party will be but mere memories. I'll see to his death personally, if it will make you feel better." Hirde kissed his cheek. "Promise."

A bogle and a centaur stood before her, "So, you're awakened. Dermail will be wishing to speak with you."

Her head cocked to the side, "Who is Dermail."

"He is the leader of the Dark Fae. My name is Nichol." The centaur stepped forward, and she noticed one arm was but a three inch stub, blood running from it in fresh rivulets. Her tongue ran over her lips, watching the blood, needing it. "He is Trente." The bogle nodded once, unimportant. Bogles were bloodless fools.

"Oh, good. A Leanan-Sidhe. I was thinking you to be a glaistig, but from the look of you, we will have fun. My name is Dermail." He smiled, putting his hand out to her. "Are you hungry?"

She looked at him a moment, rating him. Just a stupid little Fir Darrig. A perverted little ass of a dark fae. A slow smile passed over her lips, tongue out once more before she tugged at her bonds, breaking them easily and jumped to the door. Mortals in the forest...Mortals. Her lips twisted in a smile, the Black Annis behind her as she fled into the dark shadows, ignoring the cries of the fae behind her.

Was she hungry? Stupid little man. When was a seduction fae *not* hungry?

That concerned him. Oberon had made it clear the night before that he didn't like Duo. He didn't like the rebellious streak in his blood. He didn't like the fact that Duo didn't look at him with profound respect and admiration. He didn't like the way the blacksmith handled the situation, and he was even more displeased by the way Wufei and the other two travellers attacked when Duo stormed from the table, leaving behind the most profound of silence. All of this didn't sit well...

Sally stepped out then, the Beast Keeper behind her. The crimson she usually wore was gone, the robes discarded for a simple look that he had yet to grow accustomed too. Beside her, looking shockingly mortal and normal, the Beast Keeper...frightened him. His eyes were normal, the diamond slits of pupil humanish dots of black. His faces were gone, retracted enough not to be noticed when he spoke. His hands were normal, wicked claws apparently trimmed back. And the horns, his thick, spiraled horns had vanished.

When he came close, a sharp breath hit him, confusion swimming over him. Yes, he knew those glassy emerald eyes and the shock of hair that endlessly drifted to one side. Duo turned, his eyes wide for a moment. "Boy?"

Hirde put her hand onto Duo's arm, appearing from the temple, "Dear Keeper, he is truly daft. Boy was a mortal companion of ours that died in the saving of Cathy. Though I say that there is quite the resemblance, one thing is forgotten. Boy was mute."

"Mute? But Trowa never said that he couldn't talk. Just that he didn't. Besides, if this fruit isn't Boy, where the hell did he come from. I thought the Beast Keeper was dead." The man pulled his arm away. "Boy gets killed, and then he appears. Sounds like quite the co-inky-dink to me."

There was silence as they started along, Heero in the lead as Duo fumed. Hirde always did that. The moment he accused a fae of something, she flew to the defense. She didn't even let him blame a pixie for the dumping of Wufei to the quicksand. Her excuse made no sense either. "If a pixie was going to off Wufei, they would have finished the job, not just shaken him up." Whose side was she on, anyway?

He heard her laugh, running around the Keeper with Quatre's bags. Both seemed to be delighted when she was near, easy. Happy. Lucky fucks. There wasn't a moment that she didn't stop for Quatre's needs when his wing was healing. She took them all so seriously, so happily. But...he supposed, in this place, there wasn't any real need for her to grow up knowing mortals. She didn't know how they reacted. Hell, in manners and attitude, she was a fae herself. All she needed was a pair of wings herself.

"You know...Duo, we're going to have to leave her when this quest is over. She doesn't belong with us." Sally pulled away from her love and took his arm in hand.

"She's mortal, isn't she? She'd fit along just fine."

A shake of the head. "No matter her birth origins, she's not like us. She doesn't see the world the way we do. For Oberon's sake, she shirks at iron almost as much as a faerie does. If I rang a bell, she'd probably scream and flee with the others and never come back."

"She knows she's mortal--"

"But she wouldn't be able to survive in our realm. It's very possible that she's over a hundred years old. Time is slow here, and your body will stop aging to almost a standstill. It's happening to us, slowly but surely. My body has passed three courses, Duo. Three. And by all accounts I should be on my next any hour, but I'm not. I don't feel anything."

"So?" He shrugged at her. "I don't care how old she is. She's..."

"What happens when she walks through those gates? What if she crumbles into dust because she's too damned old to live--"

"And what if she turns into my lover, my wife. Sally, I...Hirde is..."

A warm smile passed her face as she nodded, "You don't have to explain. I know. Wufei and I...it happened so fast, and then Heekun and Relena. Things here...they are so different than they are at home. Who knows...Maybe that magik will work its way back to you and Hirde."

"I could be so lucky." He sighed, looking back at her a moment, watching her as she talked to the fae, smiling at them with the strangest little contented grin. But he understood then what Sally meant. If he put a bit of diamond into the metal he mixed for a sword, it would look a bit out of place, a bit off. But if he tried to remove it, his hands would burn in the hot liquid or his skin would cut trying to pick it out.

And if he tried to take Hirde from this place, it would be he who paid for it. His sword weighted on his back, reminding him of what he was. He was as mortal as they came. His entire livelihood revolved around iron. Without it, he was doomed to live a miserable existance, poor...But without her.

"Lighten up, would you?" That serious expression doesn't suit you." Sally shook her head, walking past him once more.

"It's not like that, love...He was a passing fancy. Nothing serious." The little faerie assured him once more. And all he did was nod it off.

"I'm sure he was. I never accused you of anything. You needn't be so jumpy. Oberon would have reprimanded you has anything happened."

Again he glanced back at Hirde, "Tell me...about this Boy. Was he...a friend to these people?"

For a long time, she said nothing, sobered completely in the quiet forest. She felt the unrest here too then. He noted that, but dismissed saying anything. This was Oberon's problem, not theirs. "He was a servant boy to the one named Trowa Barton, the one that Dorothy killed two nights ago."

"What else aren't you saying? If he were only a servant, you wouldn't have taken notice. And I know that Quatre would have passed over him like the dull mortal that he was." Actually, he didn't mean those words. He found mortals to be surprisingly intelligent in matters of entertainment. Their music was awful and they lacked grace, but they could spin yarns that would make a sphinx turn its head. And they were shrewd and wily, with a will as unbreakable as their choice weapon.

Her eyes cast to the ground a moment, "I am saying...he looked very much like you. His eyes were the same shade, the hair the came colour, and you remember the lion, of course."

"Yes. Of course I remember the lion. Is he well?"

She shook her head, "His touch made it...the ward you put upon it disappeared, completely. It was so strange for a moment, and I connected with him on a level...But...."

"But....he was a mute."

"And you speak."

"And there is no way he is that mortal." Quatre grabbed his arm then, dragging him away slowly, his mouth drawn into a straight, angry line. He didn't say anything more,

Then there was a laugh, the beating of wings that made them all freeze. Through the trees, he saw the first one. Its wings were large and covered with the soft, lush feathers. It wore a simple white shift, laughing and sings with a silver voice. An angle. He and Wufei moved faster, the others struggling behind, shouting at him, but it didn't matter suddenly.

One stopped, looking at them. Her eyes were large and a sultry blue with light orange hair. "Hello."

"H...i..." He swallowed quickly, trying to find his own voice. Wufei looked much the same, a red head moving over to him and putting her arms around him.

"You look lost....Wanna have me show you the way home..." Her lips were on his ear, body molded to him, "Or would you rather stay here."

In the back of his mind, he heard Hirde screaming his name, pounding little fists on his back. And then she flew back as the angel stroked a hand on his face, eyes swirling onto his. "Sure."

"Such a good little mortal man. Tell me...What do you want?" Her voice was beautiful, a fire was in his blood. He felt the leather pants he wore grow tighter as her barely covered breasts pushed harder to his chest.

"I want...."

"Duo!" There was that pounding again. Stupid pounding. He moved to knock it away, but the angel held his arm pinned.

"You don't want that little...thing. Do you?" Large cherry lips turned to a pout, hands running down his body. His mind was turning into mush for some reason. The pounding stopped. There was a scream.

"Leave him alone." That voice cut through easily, a flap of wings breaking something inside of him. He collasped to the ground chest heaving. The angels that spoke to him and Wufei glared to the one that had landed in the opening of the field. He didn't notice the panicked expressions that Quatre and the Beast Keeper wore as they moved around him in a half circle.

"We don't have to listen to you. There will be justice! We are going to win!" The red haired angel laughed at the newcomer, slightly plain looking with straight blonde hair and dove-grey eyes. Though she was plain, she had some conviction, some inner spark. He didn't look at her past that moment, too intent on the huddled girl on the floor. His back hurt worse. Hirde had been hitting him.

"Yes, you do. I was sent by those in the Seelie Court to make sure that Dermail hadn't told you that you could go off on any male you wished." The two looked at eachother and only they did he notice the blackened clawes on their hands and the dullnuss to their eyes. "Be gone with you."

One leaned down, running her hand over the grass, stained crimson, her tongue darting out for it, "The Glaistig are awakening. All of us...Pity this blood will have to hold me over." And they were gone. He stared at the ground. Blood?

The fae, whatever she might call herself smiled to the travellers, "I didn't know the Sirens had been awakened. Please, come with me and I will return you to the Temple--"

"Slyvia, we're not going back to the Temple. We need to get to the Palace." Heero looked at her, his voice unnaturally soft as he came forward. "Can you help us?"

"Help you? You don't deserve my help. I heard about you, and what you did. I can't believe you. Don't you have any pride!? A *mortal*, Heero? A MORTAL!" Her eyes gleamed for a moment, hands on her hips. "Honestly. So, no, I won't help you."

The elf rolled his eyes, motioning. "Of course, you have to go and explain that to the Seelie Court." His hand motioned to the Keeper who held the limp and stained body of Hirde. His eyes widened, the claw-marks having cut deep through her clothing. His stomach knotted around itself. She'd been trying to protect him...and he didn't even know what happened. One moment he'd been wishing Hirde would see him...

"She does, Duo. She does." Kitty nodded at him, his gentle eyes glowing in worry. Duo nodded, watching the blood flow from the girl, her eyes glazed, chest rising and falling with laboured breaths.

The angel said nothing for a long moment, her eyes frozen on the girl's body, "Hirde-hime..."

"Exactly. Cut down by a siren. Get her safe passage to her home, and we will ask nothing more of you."

Slyvia nodded once curtly, "Just this once."

There was a long moment before the other turned, her lips covered in thick black burns before she fell to the ground, screaming in pain. The other called for help, shrieking, nails cutting her skin to ribbons. And the woman on the edge of the field just smiled, her one visible eye crackling with the rush of victory.

They paid little heed, drooling over themselves, "Freshbloodfreshbloodfreshblood..."

The Sidhe rolled her eyes, flicking a tongue over sharp fangs. Hags were great to have around, but they barely possesed the power to go above the most basic of their instincts, "That's not the blood we're after!"

"FRESHBLOOD!"

Again there was the roll of her eyes, "FINE! We'll go to this fresh blood, and THEN we find the mortals." She grabbed them all with in her hand, eyes fiery red. "And if you don't like that, there is an iron reserve that I will be more than pleased to throw you into."

The four nodded, frightened by her outburst, "Gomen nasai, Sidhe-sama!" She threw them back, raising her nose to the air, ignoring them.

"Come on. Let's get this over with.

First it had been the singing, the deadly weapon that these monsters possesed. Part of her figured that Oberon had sent them here, away from their lake in the palace gardens. They were death to any man who heard them, the voices ensaring them in an almost iron strong hold. And they'd sung to Duo and Wufei, the only two to be affected. There had been a flash of desire in the eyes of the fae-men, but none so much as the mortals.

Their eyes went blank as they ran up that hill, ignoring the pleas of the others. Sally looked almost frantic when it dawned upon her what was to happen, fear in her pale eyes. If Duo and Wufei fell as prey, she would be the sole remaining mortal traveller on this journey. Hirde and the fae could just as well wait for death to come upon her. Things were ending. She was doomed.

She'd moved without meaning when she saw those arms around him, the claws glistening in the sun. She'd run up and begun beating on him, trying to break his concentration with pain. His iron sword flashed, her mind ticking when she saw it. Would she be able to lift it? The siren struck then, claws ripping through her flesh and tossing her back. But she'd gotten back up, struck at Duo's back once more, her body filled with an instense need to save him. Then the claws came and things were black.

From that point on, she'd drifted back and forth from conciousness to oblivion, each time her mind straying a little farther. Now she was almost to her home. She could smell the burning wood, hear the bells on the front door. The arms carrying her stiffened, feet firmly on the ground, "Can you go in there, Sally, and ask the man to take those infernal things down a moment?"

"Why would she do that? It's not like there is an iron trail over the doorway. You fae are the biggest bunch of weaklings I have ever met!" Wufei's voice was angry, sword thwacking off a tree. The nymph within screamed, her tiny voice hurting her ears. The Keeper recoiled, the warmth gone. He thought of Catherine. She could tell. He wondered for Catherine....if she weren't in the Temple...

There was a moment and the door opened, all the gaurds gone. She felt prodding hands, some one trying to force Duo away, but his smell...Quatre stepped away and he took her hand, squeezing it as herbs were applied to her body. There was chanting, Sally's voice rising in and out of the dim. But all she felt was Duo's hand on hers, squeezing it, lips against her forehead. Then his cheek, his wet cheek. A strange wetness that made her insides warm. And in the din, she smiled for this warmth, the coldness creeping over her fading back some.

The man glared at the ground, "I don't have to tell you anything. You killed Relena."

There was a moment, "Maybe so, but if Hirde dies in there, Quatre and the Keeper will leave us. And I will follow unless you tell me what you're after. I have seen the list in the bag you put me in before, but I don't read your speak. Who sent you?"

"Our emperor. He needs...somethings from this forest." Wufei shrugged once, stepping away. The simple way Heero placed the words shocked him. Hirde would die. Hirde could die. And they'd be alone again. Sylvia, the angel girl who stayed just long enough to see Hirde's care done, would help them no longer. They would be with this elf, who willingly took Relena to him when it meant her death. He had no loyalty for the one he made love to. And he would be their guide. She had no doubt he'd more preferrably leave them to rot in the middle of a way.

"What does he need?"

"I don't remember..." Heero handed him the list. "Read the speak."

"It's not called speak, it's called writing."

For a long moment, prussian eyes looked at him, a debate obvious in their depths, "Mortals speak the same as they write, therefore it is speak. Fae write different from the speak they use, so it is writing. What does it say?"

"Laugh of the banshee, tears of a spring fae, a vial of the Eternal Light, a lock of shining elf hair, a few shavings from the horns of the Beast Keeper. And a faerie. Why? I don't know what this is for. I'd assume it a new temple."

The elf shook his head, "Those are all very hard to impossible to get. Oberon's temples require a lock of veela hair, a spriggan's nail, and a pixies antenae. Titania's temples require that of siren's feather, lion's claw, a faerie's eye lash, and a drop of nymph's blood."

Fear struck him as he looked at the list again, "Then...what is this I hold? A pledge to Fin Varra?"

"No. Fin Varra doesn't exist...That is for an immortality elixir. Eternal life to the one who can mix it and live long enough to drink it. The emporer gave this to you?" Heero's jaw ticked a moment, eyes narrowed.

"Yes, he did."

The fae merely shook his head, "He is a fool to attempt this, then. The elixir itself is passed down by mortal king to mortal king, if I correctly recall my mythology. The method hasn't been preserved. Only Oberon himself knows it."

"What will happen to him if he mixes it incorrectly?"

"He'll die, of course, and his soul will be sent into the bowels of our realm, locked forever in the home of a veela where she will sing and dance, but he cannot touch her nor say anything as she brings home dinner, night after night, feasting on his kin. Truly a lovely fate for the fool."

"You don't think we had anything to do with this?"

"I rate mortals as scum, Wufei. Don't overestimate that." He lifted a few pieces of kindling off of the floor. "No man that was concerned with immortality would send himself into this forest, an inherently dangerous place. Only one mortal made it out alive, and he made a pact with the Unseelie Court to do so."

"The Unseelie Court? In all my travels--"

"Where the dark fae hold their power, formed to oppose Oberon and his rules. He promised two fresh women into the forest, not protected by a single ward."

"Why not take Hirde? She's--"

"Wards. Wards are all over this forest. She's protected from the Unseelie Court's magik, their needs for her. She cannot be forced to bed." Heero sighed, standing. "You should come inside."

"In a moment." The elf nodded once, disappearing within the door as he rested his head back to the tree. It was hard to think about. Relena, sweet little Relena whom he'd grown up next to, was gone. Her life had been nothing to that...His fist pounded against the tree. He should have protected her from Heero in the beginning and insisted they not go into the same bag.

For the first time since it had happened, he actually realized what this meant, beyond that the house he'd purchased from Relena for Relena and her future husband was forever to be empty. He'd lost the last reminder of his childhood, of where he came before the wars and the fighting...before his hands were stained with blood. He'd lost the one person who could remember him crying. The last person who remembered what his eyes looked like before life hardened them. And it hurt...There weren't words to describe the ache filling every fiber of his being as he pulled Relena's long, patched robe from the pack on his back, holding it close to him, breathing in her scent.

In the forest, he could almost hear her laughter...What happened to your soul when you were robbed of your mortal coil...what became of her body? He shuddered, the far off cackling of an unseen being getting him up from his feet and back into the house, the iron pole replaced into the doorway.

Her fingers steadied as she looped the garland of bells into the branches, letting them hang low enough to meet her in the eye, the iron reflectingly dull before she removed the puffy shirt she wore, adjusting the corset beneath so that it looked to cover her assest and tacked it to the door. Sure fire fae replents.

Problem resided now with the fae inside. They looked normal mortals to the untrained eye, but they were prisoner of the protection. One step into the open and they would be labeled fae all too quickly and dragged off into the world of the dark fae. Her eyes darted around again, hearing them. They were close. Too close.

The women flicked back her violet tinted bangs and ran for cover, arrows ready for strike.

Sally looked up from the tea Howard, the aged mortal, had prepared for her, eyes wandering a moment, questioning, "Would oit be so terrible for us to call you by your proper first names? Kitty and Beast Keeper are so..."

"Protective. We cannot let you know our names any more than you can make love. It's a fact of life, and though I admit my first name would be preferable to Kitty, it is for our best interest." He sighed, resting his head against the leg of his lover, drinking in his scent like a wraith to souls.

Wufei shifted beside the Healer, his hands straying lower so the twisting feathers of a pheonix were where the eyes focus. "I'm not exactly forbidden any longer."

There was a moment once more of the uncomfortable silence, "You may call me anything you wish. Other than Beast Keeper, I have no name to speak of. It is forbidden for anyone to call me my real name as long as I hold this title." The green eyes pulled back from the fire. "I understand that it is a mouthful to get around. But I know nothing of mortal names."

"Why can you not let your name out?" The black haired warrior asked, setting his plate to the floor. "Can fae use your name against you as well?"

"No, but it reveals the manner of fae that I was once. And then my weakness is clear. Besides, I still have family that can be used in torture." Quatre took his hand, squeezing it. His heart ached for him, for what he'd become over the centuries living like this. At first, before they'd been anything more than friends, he'd been overjoyed to take this honour upon him. Then things had gotten hard between them. When under the eyes of the forest, they couldn't be with eachother as they grew from friends to lovers. And the changes made things hard on both of them.

He'd always been beautiful, unmatched by any other fae, with cinnamon hair and bright green eyes. He'd been lithe and strong and perfect to behold in the sun's gaze. First came the horns, twisted, curved abobinations that sprang forth from his head, causing a dreadful amount of pain. Then the tapered nails grew long, hard, black...sharp. He had no control over these changes. The simple things that his origins allowed him, being the fae he was, were impossible now. He was a fae outside the fae, much like Oberon or Tititania or the heir. Fae that could do remarkable things.

Quatre was forced to spring that year, and when he returned, his lover had all but vanished into the form of the Keeper. His eyes were larger, greener. They glowed like a cat's; they looked like a cat's. The smiles, that had once come so readily, all but vanished. He was no longer lithe and able to slide behind the narrowest tree. Now he had muscle, a hardness to his form. Annd then Quatre learned that he couldn't call him by his first name. He was the Beast Keeper.

That was what led to the fight that day...First of many kinks in their relationship, "Besides, his true name is terrible." A glare cut down to him and he simply stared back until there was a smile on his lover's lips. A small smile that no one but he could see...Little smiles that had been there since his return.

"I'm sure. Some of your fae do have the oddest names. Kitty, for one, quite odd." Sally's grin was teasing, and he smiled back a little, "But what should we call you?"

"Trowa." Quatre said it without hesitation. "He was already in your party, and the only ones who know him dead are the group, me, Heero, and Doe." Part of him still crindged at using the elf's first name, but after Slyvia's little mixup....Heekun was ridiculous to use anyway.

His lover nodded, "Trowa will be fine."

"Then Trowa it is." Wufei held his hand out to the-newly-named Trowa, "Pleasure to see you so well after that succubus attack."

And the fae took it, nodding, "Yes...I haven't been myself for days." Then he stood and moved to Hirde's bedside, ignoring Duo as he watched her pale face. Quatre sighed shaking his head. Typical.

"I don't have too, Sara, right, Sidhe-sama?"

"You're so beautiful, Sidhe-sama..." One reached out for her smock, a smile on its hideous face.

"Sidhe-sama, I want to touch you!"

"Hags, for the most part, were horrid creatures that had only one thought in their entire wrinkled head. They do not speak; they grunt..." The fae closed her eyes tight as they started whining again, nails cutting into her palms. Reciting from the book on Hags wasn't helping. Hell, it wasn't even true.

"SIDHE-SAMA!"

Eyes snapped open at that, hand reaching out and taking the nearest hag by the throat and lifting her up, "The next one to call me Sidhe-sama will *not* get any blood at the house. Furthermore, they will *not* be making it there in one piece. I will slit youur throat and throw you to your sisters. And if you dare tell on one another, I'll kill you all."

They said nothing, staring at her with wide eyes.

"Understood then?" She smiled once, fangs gleeming in the sun.

"It's hard." Heero looked up from his whittling, the knife carefully poised for the next cut. "To watch something you care for slide between your fingers."

Duo nodded once, swallowing, "With Relena, at least, it was quick."

"For her. Yes, it was. For me, it hurt. He takes both mortal coils, but I was born a fae, therefore, without coil....It still hurts."

Violet eyes gave away nothing as he stared at her face, "So fae feel pain like mortals do?"

"How can you say that?" Trowa sat down then, looking at him. "All fae feel pain. When we touch iron, pain. When you cast even an infant's cap to the floor inside out and Heero would step on it, his foot will bleed. If he steps near it. Fae...are just unaccustomed to it. We can die just as swiftly as you...but it just is harder to obtain. Most of us flee at the very site of iron or bells. Or red thread."

"Red thread? But Sally wore--"

"Crimson is not red. Plain red, like the kind made for maid's aprons or tavern napkins, is the red we fear...But not all of us. Oberon is immune to its effects. Trowa, as long as he is the Beast Keeper, will be immune. Nymphs are immune." Heero sighed, shaking his hair over the pointed ears, "Just another one of our own illogical mishaps."

His hand wrapped around Hirde's again, watching her face, "Will she be all right? Do they have poison in their claws?"

"No, nothing like that. She'll be fine as soon as the herbs begin to take effect." Hirde's father nodded once, sweeping around in his pink tunic and half-knee britches, a truly odd man. But he seemed pleasant, taking excellent care of them even as his daughter hovered between life and death.

"Why did Oberon wish to have Relena's body desecrated?" Wufei was with them suddenly, eyes unreadable but he had been listening to them, watching them from his meal.

There was an uncomfortable moment of silence, "There are theories of what happens to you when you lose the mortal coil. In one, you simply die and your soul is denied the passage to the after life. In another, the essence of your body becomes a dark fae. Yet another says the killed will strike against his or her killer with the stength of ten mortal men. Still there is one where the slain will turn to an iron--"

"I get the picture." Duo waved his hand, "Removing it spells big trouble for the fae...Which begs the question *why* the law was created? I mean, Doe slept with Barton before....Okay, bad example, but you get my point."

Trowa sighed once, pressing his head against the wooden house, "No one knows. It's just the law."

"Look, I think all you fae are cool and eveything, but your laws suck."

She would have survived had her sisters not seen the blood coursing in thick rivulets and attacked, licking their lips. She smiled at them, ripping an arm away before they placed their decayed hands upon it. The nails were thick, ripping down the shirt from the door, then the bells. There was shouting. And she laughed when they realized what was happening.

The door opened, mortal men pouring out, armed and ready. And all she could do was laugh as they rushed forth from the house, five mortal men. There was another in the house, aged. And two women, one injured. Simple job.

"What are you doing here?" The braided one asked, his sword outstretched. Iron. Not very smart save that sword. What did he suppose her here for? To know where the blond one purchased his riduculous hat.

The fae just smiled, "Such strong mortal men the five of you make..." Her powers to ensnare the mortal men started then. The dim looking ones, one braided, one with black hair, faltered, resisting. The other three made no move before one, dark brown harir and prussian eyes. An alluring combination that set her blood to fire.

He fell to his knees before her, looking up at her with admiration, "Take me first, my love, my heart, my soul. They don't deserve you." And she smiled to him. Too easy. He came to his feet, kissing her lips as though she had no fangs. Something in her mind went haywire, but his essence...his blood...so close. She ignored that warning bell, sliding past the warmed lips to his throat.

Instantly, she was sickened by the blood, but couldn't pull away, strong arms holding her there. It wasn't sweet and light, it was aged, thick, cold. Then her mind caught everything wrong in a slow second. He didn't smell. His eyes were too bright. The ears were pointed. His step had a spring. Fae blood...cursed blood...deadly blood. She tried to pull back but his arms held her there, crushing her there as a battle began around them.