Prologue: 

      The Summer Palace of the Queen of the Seelie Fae is vast and
unmeasured.  It is said that even its architect finds things within it
that surprise him.  Within that palace are hundreds of rooms, plazas,
courtyards, fountains, closets, privies, and places unusued in living
memory.  Like most things in Arcadia, it is far larger within than
without.  

         Deep within that tangled mess is a small courtyard with a
sparkling fountain, a bench, some flowers that thrive without attention,
and a huge mirror set into one wall.  Few go there but Queen Glorianna,
for few know the mirror truly exists, and even less know the way to it.

        The Queen stared into the mirror and watched a young girl and a
young boy playing together.  Her blonde hair glistened in the sunlight as
he chased her round and round a tree.  "C'mon, don't run so fast!  I'll
never catch you!"  the boy said.  

       The girl giggled.  "Can't catch me!  I'm the gingerbread girl!"
She darted past the boy and took off across the yard, laughing and keeping
just a few inches out of his reach.

        The boy kept running.  He was an inch shorter than the girl and
had scraggly red hair.  "Sooner or later, you'll get tired of running,
and then I'll catch you!"

        "You never catch me unless I let you!"

        The man standing next to Queen Glorianna said, "Yes, he is the
one."

        "Are you sure?  We can't afford to make any mistakes."

        The boy shouted, "Well, this time it's going to be different!"  He
then promptly tripped on a tree root and fell down, smacking the ground
with his head.  He started to cry.

         The girl ran over to him.  "Don't cry!  It's going to be okay.
You just fell down, that's all."  She kneeled down by him and checked his
head.  "See, you're not bleeding or anything."

         The man frowned.  "I'm quite sure, though that doesn't bode
well."

        Queen Glorianna laughed.  "You expect much from a six year old.  I
don't think you were very stone-faced at that age, either."

       The boy sat up, rubbing his head.  "I'm so clumsy."

       "You're not clumsy.  You just weren't looking where you were going
while you were chasing me."  The girl smiled at the boy.  "Ready to play
some more?"

        The boy reached over and touched the girl on the forehead.  "Tag,
you're it!"  He took off running.  The girl got up and ran after him.

       "Besides, he will have a guardian."  Queen Glorianna said.

       "I think he'll need one,"  the man said.

       She frowned.  "We have years yet to make him what he must be.  If
we meddle too overtly now, the Unseelie will take notice."

        "So how do you propose to get him a guardian?"

        Queen Glorianna said, "Open your eyes, Glorfindel.  He already HAS
one."

        "You've been planning this a long time, haven't you."  It wasn't a
question.

       She smiled.  "One advantage of immortality is that it aids in
long-term planning."

       "I still think it would be wiser to take them now, so we can train
them properly."

       "They would be of less use if they cannot cross freely year round,
and if we take them too early..."  She did not have to finish her sentence
for him to understand her point.

        He sighed.  "This is why you are Queen, and I am merely a spy."

        "And a very good spy you are.  Now, tell me about that electrum
mine..."

         The conversation turned to other things.

***************************

The Summer People:
Chapter 5:  Preparation

**************************
        
Harry said:

        I was in the process of changing out of my pajamas and into some
clothing when Aquamarine stepped out of my mirror again.  I froze,
basically clad in my underwear.  

        She blinked and stared at me for a long moment.  I got really
embarrassed and dived into the closet.  "Next time, knock!"

         She laughed faintly.  "Nothing I haven't seen before."

        "WHAT?"

        I could hear her sitting down on one of the beds.  "It's no more
revealing than a bathing suit."

         "When have you seen me in a bathing suit?"  I finished getting
dressed.

        "Don't you normally get up earlier than this?"  she asked.

       "Normally, Angel doesn't decide at 1 AM that she has to go to
Burger King for food and I have to drive because she's too tired to drive,
either."  I yawned.  "Normally we don't sit in Burger King and gab for two
hours, either.  I nearly passed out driving back."

       "That would have been bad,"  she said worriedly.

       "Anyway, you here to tell me I'm about to be attacked again, or is
this just a social call?"

       She laughed.  "I understand you're taking a fencing class."

       "Yeah.  Angel kinda pushed me into it, and I needed the phys. ed.
credit anyway."

       "Would you be interested in some private lessons?  I'd like to help
you learn to defend yourself better.  You will probably need the skills."  

       I thought about it.  "It couldn't hurt, I guess.  I've got a lot of
homework to do this weekend, though."

        She laughed.  "One of the wonders of Faerieland is that there are
places where time flows much faster than it does here.  Quite likely, no
one will even notice you were gone.  I suggest you pack while I go make
sure Flamehair remembered to go talk to Angela instead of wandering off
somewhere."

       "Is he really likely to do that?"

       "Hopefully not, but with him...I'm never quite sure what he will
do."

        I thought a moment.  "Wait...I need to pack?  How long will we be
gone?"

        "I suggest bringing several sets of clothing you don't mind
getting dirty.  As to how long...it depends on how long Arcadia will let
us get away with.  I will be back soon."  She got up and stepped into the
mirror, which rippled.  That always freaks me out when it does that.

*****************************

Angel said:

       I finished packing my stuff.  Tanya's never gonna believe this, I
thought.  The idea of a trip to Arcadia where I wasn't fighting for my
life was pretty exciting.  My life is...well, it used to be pretty dull.
The mirror rippled and Flamehair, Harry, and Aquamarine stepped out.  

       Harry said, "Are you sure we won't miss weeks and weeks of school?
We really can't afford anything like that."

       Flamehair said, "Relax.  I do this all the time.  It's a great way
to finish a paper you wouldn't normally have enough time to write
properly."

       I laughed.  "Harry could use that trick."

       "I do NOT procrastinate on all my papers!"

       "Just the important ones."

        He fumed.  Aquamarine laughed.  "You know you do that, Harry."

       "How would you know?"

       Aquamarine said, "I'm all knowing, of course!"

       Flamehair snorted loudly.  "Anyway, you two both ready?"

       "Ready!"  I said, grabbing my suitcase.

        Harry came over and stood by me.  "I guess I'm ready."

        "Then let's go."  Flamehair took me by the hand and Aquamarine
took Harry's hand.  They lead us over to the mirror and we stepped into
it.  I noticed Harry winced just before we entered it.  After we had, I
understood why.

         We were in a grey misty space full of hundreds, maybe dozens of
odd holes in the air, showing various places.  It was bitter cold and made
me horrendously nervous for no apparent reason.  Aquamarine took the lead,
practically dragging Harry.  

      "What is this?"  I asked.

       "Every mirror in the universe opens into this space.  From here,
you can spy on anyone, or find your way to any mirror and step out of it.
It would take us weeks to get to New Camelot the normal way."  Flamehair
said.  "I have a room there with a mirror we'll be using."

       "New Camelot?"

       "Ruled by King Constanin, Arthur's...um...nephew?"

       "I think that's right,"  Aquamarine said.

        "Arthur's nephew lives in Arcadia?"

        "So does Arthur...so do a lot of versions of Arthur.  And a lot of
other famous people."  Flamehair said.  "You see, one region of Arcadia
has been shaped by various famous legends.  On the fringes, they all get
tangled together and grow and change over time, while, if you plunge into
the heart of the Land of Legends, you can watch the most famous stories
happen over and over and over again.  A sort of time loop, I guess.  Every
once in a while, they wander out into the rest of Arcadia, and then things
get messy.  And sometimes, we wander in..."

       We reached a 'mirror' and stepped out into a nicely furnished
bedroom.  "This is my room,"  Flamehair said.  "Aquamarine used to have a
room, but she doesn't come here as much as I do.  Here in New Camelot,
about a day passes for every hour on earth."

       "I've never heard any stories about New Camelot,"  Harry said.

       "This is one of the tangled regions.  Constantin shows up at the
very end of Malory.  He rode out of one of the Arthurian realms and
conquered this one before the loop restarted itself.  This used to be
based on some fantasy story, and now it's sort of a mix of the two."
Flamehair walked over to the door.  "You can stash your stuff here, and
then we can go get you a room."

       "Don't you mean rooms?"  Harry asked. 

       Flamehair smiled faintly.  "You two will likely have to share one.
These old castles don't have many bedrooms, usually."

       I blushed.  So did Harry.  We both stashed our stuff in the corner
and followed the two Fae out into the hallway and through the castle.  

       The place was a huge maze of hallways, and I got lost fast.
"Please tell me I'm not going to have to find my way anywhere by myself."

       Aquamarine laughed.  "Don't worry.  You'll have Harry with you."

      "In other words, we'll wander the halls for all eternity,"  I said.
Harry noogied me.  Normally, I'd have stopped him, but I did deserve it.

      We finally emerged into the courtyard.  It was dirty, and dingy, but
also impressive in a rough way.  People bustled about, unlike the interior
of the the castle, which had seemed to be very lightly populated.  An old
man was busily watching four pairs of students duel and offering
corrections and advice.  Most of the students were young boys between
thirteen and eighteen in age, but there were also two girls who looked to
be around 16 and one boy who must have been around 20 or older.  The old
man looked up as the foursome approached, and smiled.

       "So, you did come back after all,"  he said to Flamehair.  "I was
starting to think you'd gone and gotten yourself knifed again."

       Flamehair blushed.  "Aquamarine has kept me to the straight and
narrow."

       "Ahh, but who's been keeping HER to the straight and narrow?"  the
old man asked, smiling.  He was short and stocky.  I wasn't sure what his
age was.  Although his white hair and wrinkles seemed to indicate he must
have been at least seventy or more, yet his physique was that of a man
half that age.  He was dressed in a plain green tunic and blue breeches.  

       Now Aquamarine blushed.  "I'm not that bad!"

      The old man turned to us.  "I'm Galahad, son of Ban.  You must be
Angela and Harold."

       I blinked for a moment.  Not even Splinter calls Harry Harold.
Harry said, "Any relation to the Galahad who found the Grail?"

       The old man smiled faintly.  "Somewhat, but I am not he.  So, you
have come to seek training with me?"

       "Well, this crazy Unseelie keeps trying to kill us and we'd like to
be more able to deal with her.  We can't learn magic, but this we can
learn,"  I said.  "I'm sick and tired of being afraid of Splinter showing
up.  I want to be ready to take the fight to her."

       "Well, I can't teach you to resist her powers, but I can teach you
to fight."  He paused.  "It won't be easy."

       Harry sighed.  "It never is."

       He turned and looked over at his students again, then back at us.
"Well, I will do my best with the limited time we will have.  How long
will you be staying?"

       "About a month,"  Aquamarine said.  "They have duties to attend
to."

       Galahad nodded.  "Have either of you had any training in sword
fighting before?"

       "I've been studying fencing for two years.  Harry's been at it for
a month or so now."

        "Let's see you in action."  He brought me one of the wooden
practice swords, then called over one of the girls, Ayla.  "Ayla, this is
Angela.  Give her a good workout."

       I gripped the sword.  It was an effort to make a wooden
broadsword--not my usual weapon.  "I don't suppose you've got any wooden
rapiers I could use?"

       "A what?"  Galahad asked.

     Harry, Aquamarine, Flamehair, and the girl Ayla had been practicing
with (whom I later learned was named Clarissa) moved back to watch with
Galahad.  I laughed faintly. "Never mind."  I wonder what he'll think of
my style, I thought.

       I took up a fencing stance, while Ayla moved into a stance that I
guessed must be some sort of standard broadsword stance.  I decided to
fight defensively.  Ayla, on the other hand, went all out.  She charged in
and started laying about her like a berserker.  It was remarkably easy for
me to block the attacks or avoid them, although she slowly forced me back
across the yard.  

       She was getting pretty frustrated.  "Stop scuttling like a crab and
fight me!"  That was the moment at which I realized why she was having a
hard time with me.  Turned sideways in a fencing stance, I presented a
narrower target.  Blows that might have hit me fell to one side or the
other, and she wasn't doing a good job of adjusting the moves she had
learned.  

       It wasn't easy for me, either.  I didn't reply, because I was
trying to focus on the fight, which made her angry.  She had another
problem as well.  She was settling into the same four or five moves, over
and over again, in a pattern, as she got madder.  After the sixth or so go
through the pattern, I took advantage of it and jabbed her chest lightly,
right where her heart would be, then rapped her head while she was still
staring.  "You keep leaving yourself open after you do that double handed
swing."  I put on the pressure now, forcing her back.  She took several
more jabs.  

       Ayla was good, better than the average person would be with a
sword, but she wasn't as good as the best of our club members.  Things
would probably be different if we had real swords, though, I thought.
She's stronger than me, and she could probably just batter the sword away
from me.  I successfully caught her sword and tried to batter it away to
test my theory.  She almost knocked my sword out of my hands instead, then
followed up with a blow that would have clipped my legs, but I managed to
jump out of the way, just barely. 

       Ayla pressed the assault, pushing me back again, unleashing a
flurry of blows I could barely deflect.  She got in closer and I had to
keep moving because I needed space to keep her from just bashing me into
the ground.  Finally, she managed to knock my sword away.  Foolishly, she
went for the dramatic 'raise sword over head for killing blow' thing and I
managed to simply dive and get my sword.  I was starting to worry she
wouldn't want to stop.  She looked pretty mad.

       She charged at me, sword over her head.  I sidestepped and whapped
her in the legs as she tried to stop.  She fell down and her sword went
flying.  I moved in and put my sword to her head.  "I think we're done
now."  I could hardly believe it.  I'd won!  Okay, I'd won lots of
matches, but this was different somehow.  

        Ayla grumbled, then got up.  "You're good."

        "You need to learn to keep your temper, Ayla, or you'll make
mistakes,"  Galahad said.  "You can fight much better than that."  He
turned to me.  "You have an interesting fighting style.  I have not seen
its like in years."  He sighed.  "Since the fall of Camelot.  It was not
common, even then.  Who trained you?"

       "Professor Masterson.  He teaches the fencing classes at our
school."  I turned to Ayla, "You're good too."

       Galahad turned to Harry.  "You're next."

        Harry looked pretty scared.  I went over  to him.  "Don't worry,
Harry.  You'll do fine."

        It was pretty clear he didn't believe me.

**************************************


Harry said:

      I got my butt kicked, of course.  The worst part of it was that it
was a fifteen year old named Dodinas.  Not as bad as the time I went ice
skating and a five year old had to save me from nearly killing myself, but
still not an experience I wanted to repeat.  He was good, or at least
better than me, which wasn't too hard.

       I looked over at Angel, who sighed.  I think I disappointed her.
Galahad said, "Well, tomorrow, we'll work on what you did wrong."  He gave
me a long lecture, some of which I managed to remember more than five
minutes, but not most of it.  

       We spent most of the rest of the day being shown round the castle
and the surrounding countryside.  It wasn't as hard to understand as it
had seemed at first, but we did a lot of walking, and I was pretty tired
out by the time we finished.  Luckily, the room they gave us wasn't far
from Flamehair's room, so we didn't have to move our stuff very far.  

       I didn't even think about the fact that Angel and I were going to
be sharing the same bed.  I was too tired to think.  The next few days
were a blur.  We'd get up in the morning, go eat breakfast in the great
hall, which was usually porridge and vegetables, then go practice
swordsmanship until lunch, then go eat more porridge and vegetables, this
time usually with bread, then go practice some more, then go eat dinner,
which was ridiculously elaborate, with stuff like pheasant and venison,
miniature gingerbread castle centerpieces, and other incredibly rich food,
then MORE practice, then we'd go take a bath and pass out. 

       The baths were an old roman style bath.  Basically a small swimming
pool.  I was used to group baths from gym classes and living in dorms with
communal bathrooms, so it didn't bug me much.  It was, of course,
segregated by sex.  

       After a good bath, we'd slink off to bed.  Despite all the time we
were spending together, Angel and I hardly talked.  Meals were about the
only time we weren't continually busy or too tired to speak.  I'm not sure
why I put up with this.  Mostly, I was too tired to protest.  I was slowly
becoming more and more exhausted, and didn't know why.  It wasn't a lack
of sleep.  Even getting woken up a little after dawn, we usually went to
bed so early, I should have been getting more sleep.  Certainly I didn't
have any trouble sleeping.

       Still, it was like a creeping malaise.  I was fine when we were
doing stuff, but when we stopped, the exhaustion came back.  The fact that
my body ached didn't help, either.  I had never gotten this much exercise
in my life.  

       Finally, one day we both crawled out of bed, muttered good morning,
and staggered off to breakfast.  No one was there, not even the servants.
I looked over at Angel, "Did everyone die?"

       "I'm gonna die if I don't get some food."

       A bell began to ring somewhere in the castle.  A faint chanting
began, though we could only dimly hear it.  Angel cocked her head.
"Sounds like Latin."

       I thought for a moment.  "Wait...is today Sunday?"

       Angel shrugged.  "I haven't got a clue."

        We headed off to the chapel and soon discovered that Mass was
indeed in progress.  Everyone we knew seemed to be sleeping in.
Apparently, the staff went to the very early Mass, then made breakfast,
after which most of the other inhabitants of the castle went to a late
morning Mass.  Sadly, no one had told us.  We sat through the Mass, which
was confusing even for me, the Catholic, because it was all in Latin,
using the medieval rite, which I've only seen in movies, and not very
accurately, usually.

        It also seemed to last forever, and the long sermon was utterly
incomprehensible to me.  I mostly zoned through the whole thing.  Angel
slumped over and slept with her head on my shoulder.  Finally, it was over
and we went back to bed for a while, then proceeded to sleep through
breakfast and ended up starving until Lunch was finally served around 1 pm
or so.  

        Aquamarine approached us during lunch.  "Interested in going
picnicing in the forest for dinner?"

         I sighed.  "With what freetime?  I'm surprised we even got to
stop to go to church this morning."

         Angel tried to say something, but her mouth was full, and she
simply sprayed crumbs on me and Aquamarine.  

        "Well, you get today off.  Galahad usually spends most of the day
praying in the chapel."

         Angel said, "I'd be happy to picnic...if someone carries me."
She leaned over on me.  "I'm so tired."

        I nodded.  "I think I've done more exercise this week than in my
entire life."

       Aquamarine frowned.  "You shouldn't be this tired."

       "We've been swordpracticing about twelve hours a day, every day,
while you and Flamehair have been off gallivanting around the countryside
or whatever you've been up to,"  Angel said.  "You ought to come try it
and see how rough it is."

       "I know it's rough.  I trained with him.  I didn't have this much
trouble, though."

       "You're a faerie, we're not.  Probably magic,"  Angel muttered.
"Spinning straw into energy and stuff."  She yawned.  "I'm gonna take a
nap.  Wake me for the picnic."  She got up and stumbled off.

     I nodded.  "Come get us when you're ready to go."  We both crawled
into bed when we got back to our room, and lay there, half-awake,
half-asleep for several hours.  

       Finally, a knocking started, and ignoring it wouldn't make it go
away.  I muttered, "Come in."

        Flamehair came in and walked over.  "I see Aquamarine was right.
You two are zonked."

        Angel said, "You got that right."

       "Are you hungry all the time or just tired?"

       "Both."

        Angel nodded.

       He frowned.  "I'm going to guess you're not eating enough for the
amount of exercise you're getting."

       "If I ate any more food, I'd explode.  Even when it stinks, I've
been eating like a pig."

      "Maybe you're pressing yourself too hard."

       "We're just doing what we're told,"  Angel said.

       "Most of them have been doing this for years.  They're used to it.
I know I couldn't manage that much exercise anymore.  I'm not in as good
of shape as I used to be,"  Flamehair said.  "I'll talk to Galahad and get
him to slack off on you two.  This trip isn't supposed to be a torture
session."

        "Thanks,"  I muttered, then passed out.  We never did make it to
the picnic.

**************************************


Angel said:

       The next week, Galahad gave us the evenings off and it made a big
difference.  In a few days, Harry and I were back up to a more normal
level of energy and didn't sleep constantly whenever we had the chance.
We spent the first few evenings exploring the castle and wandering around
the countryside near the castle.  The castle sat on a river and there was
a fair sized town spread out around the gates, surrounded by a wall.  A
thick, beautiful forest stood on the other side, and farmland surrounded
the town on this side of the river.  

      We also had time to do a little studying, though I finished
everything I had brought with me long before Harry did.  I wish I'd
brought more;  I could have gotten a long ways ahead in my homework like
Harry was doing.  

       As it was, one evening, I took off to do a little exploring while
Harry pounded away at some reading.  The castle was huge, and full of
interesting paintings and tapestries, as well as some murals.  I was
looking at one of them, which I think was supposed to be a tournament with
some knight unhorsing seven knights with a single lance, when I overheard
two people talking around the corner.  It was Aquamarine and Galahad.

       "The boy tries hard, but he's completely inept.  Not knightly
material at all.  He's a klutz and has no knack for swordfighting at all.
He doesn't WANT to fight.  That's the really important thing.  He might
eventually be able to defend himself against the average swordswinger, but
that's going to take months or years, and I know I don't have that.  I'll
teach him what I can, but I'm probably just wasting his time."  It was
Galahad.  His tone was very matter of fact.

       Aquamarine replied, "He's not a coward."  Her voice was just a tiny
bit tense.  I was tense too.  I didn't like anyone saying bad things about
Harry.  

      "I didn't say that.  But he's not cut out for fighting.  He isn't
inclined to be a warrior.  He'd make a better priest or a scholar.  Now
the girl you brought me, she has potential."  

       I cocked my head and listened carefully.   

      "The Queen says they're both important, and we have to make sure
they can both take care of themselves."

       "I can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.  The girl,
though...she's already better than the average swordsman.  She's got
talent too.  In a week and a half, she's already shown strong signs of
improvement.  If I had a year, I could make her one of the best knights of
this generation."  He sounded hopeful.  "I don't suppose there's some way
she could stay longer?"

        I was flattered.  I also realized they were getting closer.  Part
of me wanted to hide and keep listening, but I knew I shouldn't spy on
their conversation.  

       "I hope we can bring them back a few times, barring disaster.
They've got one of Queen Teleute's children after them."

       Galahad gulped.  "I hope the boy knows some magic to compensate for
his lack of fighting skills.  Teleute's children are all pretty
dangerous."

       Who is Teleute?  The Queen of the Seelie Fae has taken an interest
in us?  I was flattered, but I really, really knew I needed to make myself
scarce.  I don't like people spying on me.  I started to sneak off, and of
course, they rounded the corner at that point.

      Aquamarine said, "Oh, hi, Angel.  We were just talking about you.
Galahad says you have a lot of talent at swordfighting."

       "I guess two years of fencing classes doesn't hurt."  I walked over
to Galahad.  It would show I'd been listening in, but...  "I overheard you
two talking.  So you really think Harry doesn't have any swordfighting
talent?"

       "Well, he tries hard, and I've had worse students...but he'll never
be very good.  Not unless he totally obsesses over it, and I don't think
he's the type to do that."  Galahad sighed.  "You could probably beat him
while blindfolded, Angela."

        Aquamarine frowned even more than I was frowning.  "There has to
be something we can do."

       "You can't teach a fish to fly.  Especially, not in a month.  You
should have brought him sooner, if it was so important."

       "I didn't even think of it until Flamehair came back from seeing
his father and announced he'd met with the Queen and she wanted us to see
about training them to fight better."

        I turned to Aquamarine.  "Why is the Queen of the Seelie fae
taking an interest in us?  And who is that Teleute person you mentioned?
Is she Splinter's mother?"

        Aquamarine said, "I rarely understand anything Queen Glorianna
does.  She's so secretive, her left hand doesn't know what the right hand
is doing."  She muttered something I couldn't understand, sighed, then
said, "But whatever her reasons, she's a good person to have on your side.
As to Teleute, she's the Queen of the Unseelie fae.  She rules half of
Arcadia, and Queen Glorianna rules the other half.  They both hate each
other.  Apparently, Glorianna had Teleute's last mortal incarnation
executed or something.  I'm not very clear on it.  They were blood
relatives or something...ask Flamehair.  He knows more history than I do."

        Galahad leaned against the wall.  "Teleute has six children.
Splinter is the youngest, only about as old as you, or Harry, or Flamehair
or Aquamarine.  They're all rather decadent, but very scary.  You should
be glad it's her youngest daughter who is after you.  If it was Porthos or
Alamantine, you'd be dead by now, most likely."

       "Porthos and Alamantine are dead,"  Aquamarine said quietly.  "They
assaulted the fortress of Caer Sidrach, and were defeated and slain last
winter."

        Galahad blinked.  "I must be losing touch.  Anyway, I wish I could
teach you two to defend yourself from magic, but that has always been my
big weakness.  Hardly anyone can beat me in a fair fight, but I can't do
much about magic."

        We talked a while longer, the end result of it all being to make
me worry even more than I did before.

**************************************


Harry said:

     I woke up early the next morning, though I wasn't sure why.  My
efforts to go back to sleep didn't work out, so I decided to go watch the
sun rise.  I slipped out of the room without waking Angel up and wandered
across the castle to the courtyard without getting too lost, despite how
dark it was.  I was missing electrical lighting a lot.

       There was a bored sentry up on the walls as I walked up the steps
to the top walkway.  He turned and stared at me silently for a moment,
then said, "Couldn't sleep?"

       I nodded.  "Pretty much.  Thought I'd come see the sun rise."

       The sentry smiled.  "The only good thing about night duty is
watching the sun come up over the river."

       I looked out across the water and we could see the horizon glowing
where the river vanished into the distance.  It looked like the sun was
going to rise right out of the river.  Given we were in faerieland, maybe
it WAS going to rise out of the river.  

       Footsteps interrupted our silent vigil.  I turned and saw
Aquamarine, who looked rather groggy.  She smiled.  "I thought I'd find
you here."

       I blinked.  "You did?  How did you know that?"

       She walked over, then turned to gaze at the horizon.  "You've
always loved to watch the sun come up, maybe because you usually sleep
through it."

         The sentry laughed.  I laughed a little too, then blinked.  "How
did you know THAT?"

        Aquamarine struck a rather silly pose and shouted, "I know
EVERYTHING!"  She turned back to me and said, "So how is your training
coming along?"

        "Ugh.  Exhausting.  Makes me wish someone would invent laser
pistols so I could just carry one.  Got whooped by Dodinas again
yesterday. At least I didn't fall down this time."  I sighed and stared
off at the horizon, willing the sun to hurry up and come up.  "How that
practice sword got down under my feet...Seems like things seek out my feet
or something."

       Aquamarine frowned.  "Are the lessons helping any?"

       "Galahad's a good teacher, but then I'd expect that from him."

       She glanced over at me.  "So you..."

       "Not too many sons of Ban running around in Logres, eh?  Took me a
while to remember that.  I read the Mort d'Arthur a long time ago.
Although I thought he entered a monastery."

        "Things don't always turn out quite the same in these lands,"
Aquamarine said.  "Sometimes better, sometimes worse.  You won't find a
better trainer in all of the lands of legends that I know of, though.
Except maybe that one-armed guy, but I only met him once and couldn't ever
find him again."  She sighed.

        "Is something wrong?"  Sighing often means, 'ask me what's wrong.'

        "Nothing."

        See above comment.  "You seem worried about something."

         "Don't worry about it.  You're safe here."

         I had the feeling I was missing something obvious, but wasn't
sure what.  "I appreciate all the effort you two have gone to to help us.
It's very nice of you."

          She smiled at me.  "Thank you.  Really, we haven't done half as
much as I've wanted to, but short of taking an army into the Unseelie
lands and trying to hunt her down, there isn't much we can do about
Splinter except wait for her to blunder into our hands."  She turned and
stared off at the horizon again.  It was glowing more brightly, and the
sun was beginning to peak over it.  The sky was glowing brightly with many
colors and the colors reflected beautifully upon the water.  "Do you
remember...," she began, then fell silent.

        "Remember what?"

         She laughed nervously.  "Nothing.  Nothing at all.  I got you
confused with someone else in my head and was about to ask you if you
remembered something, but I wasn't...I mean, you weren't there."

        I cocked my head and looked at her.  "Are you okay?  You're not
making any sense at all."

       "This is what happens when I wake up too early."

        I laughed.  "Me too.  Tanya and I both become completely
incoherent when we get up too early in the morning.  I remember we tried
to make breakfast for her mom one time and somehow ended up trying to use
tea instead of vegetable oil to try to make scrambled eggs.  That was a
disaster!"

        The sentry laughed, and so did Aquamarine.  "That w...that's
pretty funny," she said.  "So...this Tanya person is Angel's roommate,
right?"

        I nodded.  "Yeah.  She and Thomas are the only people we've told
about you guys and all this.  How they can believe us without having seen
anything, I don't know.  It's nice to know they trust us, though.  I guess
Tanya believed me because she's known me for a long time.  We've been
friends just about forever.  I wish she could see all this."   I waved my
arms about at everything.  "She'd love an adventure like this.  I wish she
was here."

        Aquamarine said quietly, "I suppose the two of you are pretty
close?"

      I nodded.  "She's my best friend in the entire world, like Angel and
Alex, I guess.  She's smart, beautiful, and witty." I reined myself in
before I could rant too much.  It didn't quite work.  "I can always talk
to her when I have problems, and she always finds time for me.  There
aren't a lot of people I can open up to, but I trust her.  I just hope
she's safe...if Splinter ever tries to use her as a hostage to get at
Angel and I, I'll be VERY angry."  I laughed a little.  "For what that's
worth.  Earning my wrath is about as bad for you as angering a cockroach."

	"You shouldn't put yourself down like that,"  Aquamarine said.

	The sentry, who I had forgotten was still hanging around, perhaps
for lack of anything better to do, nodded and said, "There's always enough
people in the world who will tear a man down without you doing it to
yourself, lad."

        "I'm not putting myself down.  I just know my own limits.  I can't
fight, I'm not rich, and I don't have any magic.  I suppose I'm a decent
taunter, so I could hurt someone's ego, but that's about it."  I sighed.
"I want to protect Angel, but I know she's going to be the one protecting
me, and there's not much I can do about it."

      Aquamarine sighed.  "I wish I could teach you magic, but it takes
years to learn unless you are fae, in which case the real problem is
learning to control it, rather than to do it."

      I nodded.  "So what's it like...I mean, growing up as a faerie?"

      "Well, I grew up as a mortal, mostly, actually.  I was fostered into
a human family.  It mostly happens by consent these days, although some
babies are still switched without asking, especially by the Unseelie."
She paused.  "And it makes some of us uncomfortable."

        I didn't say anything.  The idea of kidnapped children didn't
please me, but I didn't want to antagonize her.  Every nation has customs
other people don't like.  A thought came to mind.  I had to ask.  "What
happens to the children that get...switched?"

       "They are raised by fairy noble families as their own children.
They learn the arts of magic and play several important roles in faerie
society, for they are far more adept at things requiring a fixity of
purpose than we."  She turned and gazed off to the north.  "Far off that
way are the mists of Creation, which you have seen.  Mortals are very
adept at nailing down the mists and creating new realms.  They also are
prized in faerie warfare, for a battle that takes place without mortals
present has no permanent result."

       I tried to see the mists, but I guess my sight doesn't go that far.
"No permanent result?"

       "All the faeries who 'die', simply wake up in the Land of the
Fallen the next day.  It's a pain in the neck to get back, but it does
mean that if you crush a hostile army, in a few weeks, it will replace all
its losses, if no mortals are present.  If a mortal is present, then
anyone slain stays dead, although they will reincarnate within a few days,
but as a baby, not as themselves.   Only cold iron brings the true death,
the death from which there is no returning."  Aquamarine shivered.
"Still, mostly, mortals play a less deadly role in Arcadia.  The Queen's
favored playwright is a mortal.  Mortals do not age in Arcadia once they
reach maturity, and thus we have striven to save many artistic talents."

        "But why send Faerie children into the mortal world?"

        "Two benefits ensue.  One is that we gain some of the benefits of
mortals.  Those who have lived in the mortal world are less
scatter-brained than most of our kind.  I probably seem like a normal
human with powers to you, but that is because I am a changeling.  Pixies,
dryads, will-o-the wisps...they are far more alien."  She turned to face
me.  "The other reason is that most faerie can only enter the mortal world
during the half of the year their court rules.  Those of us who have grown
up in the mortal world may pass back and forth whenever we like.  Without
changelings, each court would be cut off from the mortals for half the
year.  All of us have a mortal form we can assume.  It ages just like any
other human, and eventually it dies.  At that point, we must either
abandon the mortal world for half the year, or accept reincarnation, and
the forgetfulness that comes with it."

      I nodded.  "So Splinter can bring an Unseelie army after us when her
half of the year comes up...she's a changeling as well?"

      Aquamarine nodded.  "I fear she is waiting for that.  She has a
mortal identity, though I know it not."

       "So, does your mortal identity go to my school?"

      Aquamarine quirked a smile.  "Indeed.  I wish I could tell you who I
am, but it must remain a secret for now."  She sighed.  "Perhaps one day,
I will be able to tell you."

       The breakfast bell began to ring.  "Food," I said.

       She laughed.  "Let's get some breakfast."

**************************************

Angel said:    

      I woke up and Harry was gone.  I panicked for a moment, then calmed
myself down.  No way anyone could have grabbed him without me noticing.
He probably just couldn't sleep, I thought.  

      There was a knock on the door.  I shouted, "Come in!"

       It was Flamehair.  Luckily, I wear fairly concealing pajamas, so it
never matters if some guy walks in when I've just woken up, other than me
looking like a disaster.  "Coming to breakfast?"

       I nodded.  "Have you seen Harry?"

       "Aquamarine is up on the walls, talking to him."  He looked at my
clothing and laughed a little.  "That always cracks me up."

       "What does?"

       "It's a long story.  Anyway, I'll wait in the hallway while you get
dressed."

        He stepped out, and I got dressed quickly.  He was leaning against
the wall with one foot propped up on it, like Harry and Thomas both do all
the time.  "Ready to go?"

       I nodded.  A question popped into my mind.  "Are you and Aquamarine
dating?  I've sort of assumed you are, but I really don't know how faeries
do that sort of thing."

       He smiled.  "I'm taken, if that's what you're wondering."

       I blushed.

      "I've done my best to stay faithful to my lady."  We walked down the
hallway towards the great hall.  "Although it's not easy.  Faeries have
problems with long term romances because we tend to be very fickle.  It's
in our nature.  Now, we CAN overcome our instincts, but it requires a
deliberate struggle."

        "It's not easy for us mortals, either,"  I muttered, then wished I
hadn't.

        He might not have heard me, or at least didn't respond.  "What
makes it even worse is that we tend to attract hordes of admirers.
Regardless of how beautiful we might be, we cause people to love us just
through existing.  It's part of our magic."  He looked down at me and
sighed.  "The worst part is that you never know if a mortal really loves
you, or if it is just your glamour overwhelming them. While if you take a
faerie lover...it tends to shine brightly, and burn out quickly."

      I nodded.  I could see how people could fall in love with him.  He
was handsome and friendly and witty and...I could feel my body starting to
give me signals I didn't want to be getting.  This hadn't happened before.
With effort, I regained my control.

      I heard him sigh.  "It helps that Aquamarine and I are both
changelings.  It makes us more stable, but still..."  He sighed.  "It
doesn't help that I have a rival, though she thinks I don't know."

       I stopped.  "She's cheating on you?"

       "No.  But I know she loves him, and she's loved him far longer than
she's loved me."  He turned to face me.  "He'll probably never know how
she feels though.  She's trying to forget him, to give up on him, but it's
very hard on her...it's like trying to stop loving your brother or
something."  He clenched one hand in a fist, though I could tell he wasn't
aware he had done so.  "It really frustrates me.  If I say anything about
it, she denies everything.  Meanwhile, if I make the slighest slip, I get
my head chewed off."  He punched the wall.  Maybe the fist wasn't
subconscious at all.

        I gulped.  I didn't want to make him angry, but now I was curious
and I do dumb things when I get curious.  "I...if she's loved this guy,
why isn't she with him?  Or does he not love her?"

        He turned and stared at me for a moment.  His face was unreadable,
a clamped down mask.  "Two reasons.  One, she's afraid that the only
reason he loves her is her glamour, that how he feels about her isn't
real.  Two, she's afraid that her own love might fade if she ever actually
let it out, and then he would end up getting hurt, and she couldn't stand
that."  His face relaxed a little.  "Or so I'm guessing.  I've had some
mortal girlfriends, but there's a third thing that tends to hamper
mortal/faerie relations.  We have to preserve the secrecy of our faerie
identities from our mortal lovers, and that tends to destroy any
relationship.  Keeping secrets from your lover is never a good idea."  He
turned and started down the hallway.

       I followed him.  "You can't tell them ever?"

       "There's not a law, but it's dangerous.  They tend to get sucked
into dealings with faerie that they're not equipped to handle."  He
sighed.  "Like you two.  You shouldn't have to be dealing with the
Unseelie Fae.  But since it's too late to undo that, I'm going to make
sure the two of you are as well equipped to deal with this.  I spent too
much time hoping the problem would go away.  It won't.  Sooner or later,
the two of you will be ready, and then we'll go after the source of this
problem."

        "Splinter told me that Queen Teleute had taken an interest in
me...that's not going to be easy."  We headed into the Great Hall and
started trying to find a seat in the crowded room.  

       "I know.  But I will not let you two be recklessly endangered.
I...I consider you friends, and more importantly, it's my responsibility.
Thornton is under the protectorate of Aquamarine and myself.  It's our job
to watch over those who go there.  We will protect you and help you learn
to protect yourselves."

        I sat down and started grabbing some food before it all got eaten.
My manners have gone to pot here.  "Thank you."

       "We'll see if you still want to thank me when all this is done."
He sighed.  "Can I ask you a question?"

       "You're asking me a question when you ask that."

        For a moment, I thought he was going to noogie me.  He restrained
himself.  "Ha ha.  I guess I'll just come out and ask it.  Have
you...um..."  For the first time in my life, I saw a faerie blush.

       "Have I what?"  Thinking about why he was blushing told me what he
was probably asking, though I didn't know why.  "Harry and I are still
virgins.  At least I am, and I doubt Harry and Tanya have been getting it
on."  I felt a flash of panic and tamped it down.  Nothing like that had
ever happened.  Harry wouldn't lie to me.  Not convincingly, anyway.

        "The fact that you two can sleep in the same bed and..."

        I laughed.  "Guess that shows we're not faeries."

        He stuck out his tongue at me and I reciprocated.  "But why?"

       "All of my sisters were pregnant by 21, and I'd like to not carry
on the family tradition.  I guess I'm just paranoid, but they all hopped
into bed with various guys and ended up pregnant in marriages that didn't
work out.  I just...I want to do it right."

       "I could never wait like that," he said.  "Faithfulness I can
manage, but that much abstinence...I can barely believe it."

        "Well, it helps that we're usually too tired to even think about
anything like that when we do have the opportunity."  But we can't keep
this up forever, I thought.  I can be stubborn, but I know my limits.
"But it is nice to have him with me, like that."  I could hardly believe I
was discussing this with a guy I didn't know very well.  Something had
unglued my tongue.  More faerie magic, I guessed.  "Harry's my first
boyfriend." 

       "And you're his first girlfriend?"

       I nodded.  "I can appreciate your problems with Aquamarine.  Harry
still...carries a torch for Tanya.  That's the other reason we haven't
done anything...we both are trying to get rid of some old feelings before
we can really commit to each other like that."

        "So there  is someone as special to you as Tanya to Harry?"  His
voice was light, but there was something odd in it.

        "I...not as special, but someone I had the most humongous crush
ever since I met him."  I tried to shut up, but I couldn't.  "He...He's
Tanya's boyfriend, Thomas."  My mouth seemed to be moving of its own
volition.  I wanted to hang myself for having a big mouth.  "He's such a
total dreamboat.  But I wouldn't have a chance with him, even if he wasn't
dating Tanya.  He always has twelve thousand women after him."  I finally
managed to shut myself up, thanking God that there was no way this would
ever get back to Thomas.

         Flamehair sighed.  "I see Aquamarine and Harry coming.  Perhaps
we should talk of other matters.  Does Harry know about how you feel about
Thomas?"

       "Well, we haven't explicitly discussed it, but he's not stupid.
I'm getting better about it, though.  Anyway, like you said, let's change
the topic.  You ever played any role-playing games?"

      He laughed.  "My life is like one, but yes."  

       Harry and Aquamarine walked up.   "I hope you saved some food for
us,"  Harry said.

       "We waited like one pig waits for another,"  Flamehair said.

       "So you'll be sleeping in the moat tonight,"  Aquamarine teased.  

        The conversation turned to lighter and increasingly silly things.  

********************

Harry said:

      Dodinas and I got to watch Galahad trash Angel and Ayla at the same
time.  It was awe-inspiring, watching this old man moving as if he was
still my age, totally taking two fairly skillful fighters apart with ease.  

       Dodinas said, "Your lady is pretty good."

      I laughed.  "Indeed, she is."

       "Why is she so much better than you?"

        Shrugging, I said, "She has two years training, I have about two
months training.  Makes a difference."

        He nodded.  "Are the Unseelie really after you?"

        "At least one of them is.  That's why we came here."

        He turned and watched the fight.  Angel's sword went flying and
landed at my feet.  Dodinas bent and picked it up, throwing it back to
her.  She caught it and returned to the fight.  I was impressed.  She was
getting better a lot faster than I was.  I'd have run for my life if
Galahad disarmed me, even just in a practice fight.  "She will make a
great knight."

        I laughed and resisted the urge to make sociological observations.
That's Angel's field, not mine, anyway.  "Indeed.  Better than me."  

         He looked at me and smiled.  I got nervous, but wasn't sure why.

***********************

Angel said:

      Dodinas was giving me a funny look as I walked over to Harry, having
finished getting stomped by Galahad.  Alya plopped down nearby, and tried
to wipe the sweat off her brow, but her hand was slick with sweat as well,
so it didn't help much.  Galahad gave us a quick lecture on mistakes we
had made, then brought out Dodinas and Harry for a match.

       Dodinas said something I couldn't hear and Harry's face flushed.
They started sparring, and Dodinas began slowly pushing Harry back across
the courtyard.  Alya said, "So how old is Harry?"

       "Twenty like me."

       "He's twenty and a fifteen year old is beating him?"

       "Harry's family spends more time managing their estates than
fighting."  I had given up trying to explain anything to anyone around
here a while back, and now I just translated everything into terms they
could understand.  

       I heard Dodinas say something about faeries and Harry's face
flushed more.  He launched a berserk attack and actually pushed Dodinas
back before Dodinas nearly disarmed him and forced him to retreat again. 

        "While you come from more of a warrior family?"  Alya asked,
turning and looking at me in an odd appraising manner.

      "I had a lot of practice fighting with my sisters,"  I said.  It was
true, although we didn't use swords.  I'd gotten in a few fights with
other kids too, who tried to pick on me.  Dad had taught me how to fight
so I wouldn't get picked on.  I'm no martial artist, but I'm a decent
scrapper.  

       "Are you two engaged or just lovers?"  Alya asked.

        "The latter," I said.  It seemed like a weird way to put it,
though it was true.  "A mutual friend introduced us at school.  We're both
going to the same University."

       "So he's planning to enter the church?"  Alya asked.  

        "That would kind of get in the way of us getting married,"  I
said.  I froze up when I realized I'd said that.  

       "So why do you love him?  I mean...he's not a bad person, but he
doesn't impress me very much."

        I frowned.  "Harry is a wonderful, kind, loving person.  He's
funny and he always knows how to cheer me up when I'm sad."  My brain
locked up.  It wasn't something I'd thought a lot about.  I loved Harry,
but it was hard to say why in terms that didn't sound stupid.  

        There was a great shout from the battlefield and I turned to look.
Harry had gotten clonked in the head and passed out.  I ran over to him.
"Harry!"

        He recovered almost immediately.  I think he must have just
actually fallen down and not really passed out, or he set a record for
shortest faint.  "Owwwww," he muttered.

        Dodinas laughed.  "You're going to have to learn take worse blows
than that."

        Harry muttered something incomprehensible, and got up.  Galahad
said, "Are you ready to go on, Harry?"

        "I think you'd better get some rest,"  I said.  "I'll put
some...hmm, no ice."

         Dodinas muttered something I couldn't quite hear.  Harry frowned.
"I'll be fine.  Come and get me, shorty."  He picked up his sword and
faced off with Dodinas.

        I got out of the way and went back to Alya who said, "He's a
stubborn one, but then most men are."

       "Harry normally has more sense."

        "No doubt Dodinas is taunting him and his pride won't let him back
down.  He got that from his grandfather.  The taunting skills, I mean.
He's good at finding ways to make people do things, especially foolish
things."

       "Well, if he does anything foolish to Harry, I'll make him regret
it."  I was starting to get irritated with everyone ragging on Harry.  

       Fairly soon afterwards, Harry and Dodinas finished and Galahad
started working on teaching us some more moves, which we then spent far
too long practicing in unison.  

        Finally, it was time for dinner.  On our way there, Flamehair and
Aquamarine intercepted us with a basket.  "It's time for that picnic you
two slept through last time."

        "Cool!"  I said.  Eating in the Great Hall is worse than my high
school cafeteria.  Well, the food is better, but the manners are worse and
it's overcrowded.  

         Harry didn't say anything.  He was in a bad mood, but I didn't
know why.  I had been trying to weasel it out of him, but all I got was
vague answers that didn't tell me anything I didn't already know.  I was
pretty sure Dodinas must have said something.

        We took a boat across the river and went into the forest a little
ways, spreading out a blanket in a pleasant glade.  Harry plopped down on
his back and stared up into the sky.  I sat down near him, and Flamehair
and Aquamarine sat down opposite us on the other side of the blanket.
Aquamarine started getting out lots of fruit and meats and bread.  She
glanced over at Harry, who still looked grumpy.  "Harry,"  she said in a
sing-song kind of way, that seemed familiar, though I couldn't quite place
it.  "I've got something to take that frown off your face."

         "Don't treat me like a five year old you can bribe with candy,"
Harry muttered.  

        I blinked.  Something had REALLY put him in a bad mood.  I glanced
over at Aquamarine, and she looked devastated.  Flamehair was blinking.
He hadn't been expecting that either.  Aquamarine tried to say something,
but her lips simply flapped without moving.  "Harry, you didn't have to
snap at her,"  I said.  "It's not her fault you're being cranky."  I was
starting to get irritated myself.  Harry wouldn't explain why he was
cranky, and now he was taking it out on Aquamarine.  

         He sighed.  "You're right.  I'm sorry.  I shouldn't be a monkey
just because someone else is."

         Aquamarine smiled nervously and opened a small box, which was
full of blueberry muffins.  Where she found muffins, I had no idea, but I
could smell them.  I have too much dignity to drool, but I wanted to.
"You like muffins, right?"

         Harry perked up and grabbed one.  "YES!"  Harry really likes
muffins.  These looked just like the ones his mom makes.  She sends him
some by mail once a month.  He usually eats them all the first day.  He
stuffed it in his mouth and ate rather messily.  

      I started to relax and grabbed one myself.  "How'd you know Harry
worships at the altar of the Muffin Goddess?"

      Aquamarine started to speak, then fell silent.  Flamehair leaned
over and said, "She hired the Keebler elves to spy on him."

       We all laughed and started eating.  The food was all really good,
but the wine was a little stronger than I'd gotten used to at the castle.
More like wine back home.  The stuff they drink here is really watered
down a lot.  I have no idea why.  Actually, I guess it's because they have
to drink it since the water isn't too healthy, but they don't want to get
drunk.  

        We'd all probably drunk a little more than we should have, and
Aquamarine started tickling Harry, trying to get him to explain why he had
been mad earlier.  "C'mon, Harry, tell us everything!  Confess or I'll use
the comfy chair!"

        Normally, I probably would have gotten jealous, but my head was a
tad fuzzy and I was feeling silly myself, so I started tickling him.
"Confess your heresy!"  I shouted.  

        Harry was laughing fit to explode.  Finally, he wiggled free and
said, "Okay, okay.  No more.  I'll confess to anything.  I shot JFK.  I
was on the grassy knoll.  Jimmy Hoffa's in my backyard."  He kept babbling
and we all laughed.  Finally, he calmed down and said, "Dodinas doesn't
think I'm worthy of you, Angel."  His voice was shaking.  "He wanted to
challenge me to a duel for your hand.  I laughed him off, so he called me
a coward and told me about how I wasn't capable of protecting you, and how
if you stayed with me, you'd end being killed by the Unseelie and all I'd
be able to do was watch."

        He sounded miserable.  I wanted to say something, but I couldn't
figure out what to say.  Flamehair looked angry and Aquamarine was just
staring at Harry, looking sad.  

        Harry went on.  "What if he's right?  I mean, I can't even beat
this big-mouthed fifteen year old kid.  How am I going to do any good
against Splinter?  What's gonna happen when she can bring a whole army
after us?  What if she goes after our friends?  If I can't protect you, I
certainly can't save Thomas or Tanya."  He was on the verge of crying.  

      I leaned over and hugged him as tightly as I could.  "Don't worry,
Harry.  It's gonna be okay."

       "No it isn't.  We're in over our head.  What if she goes after our
parents?  What if she kills...what if..."  He began to sob.  

        I could hear movement from where Aquamarine and Flamehair were,
and he muttered something I couldn't quite hear, except for Harry's name.
"I know.  I'm worried too.  Would it help if I kicked Dodinas' butt for
you?"

        "No.  I have to kick his butt myself, or it'll just make me feel
worse.  But the odds of me kicking his butt are about the same as Tanya
becoming Pope."

         Flamehair began to laugh really loudly.  I could hear Aquamarine
snort.  I giggled a bit myself.  I'd become Pope before Tanya ever did,
and I'm a Methodist.  "He's just a punk kid.  Don't pay attention to what
he says."  I leaned my head down on Harry's shoulders and whispered into
his ear, "I bet he doesn't know how to find every radio station on Earth
like you do."

         Harry sighed.  "I feel like a dead weight dragging you down.  I
don't wanna have to be saved by my girlfriend.  I wanna keep you and Tanya
safe.  We should have brought her and Thomas so they'd be safe...They
might be in danger right now."  He started to get up.  I pulled him down.

       "They're just fine, Harry.  Don't worry.  They're gonna be okay.
Splinter probably doesn't even know they exist."

        "They'll be fine,"  Aquamarine said.  Her voice was very soft.
"They won't be dragged into this, Harry.  It's good to see you care about
...your friends so much."

       "That's one of the reasons I love you,"  I said quietly.  "Just
relax, Harry.  Everyone's going to be okay."

        He began to cry again.  "I'm so weak and a coward.  How can you
love me?  I can't do anything to protect you.  I hate fighting.  I..."

        Aquamarine's voice was sharp.  "You are NOT a coward, Harry.  If
you don't stop beating on yourself, I'll...I'll..."

         Flamehair put a hand on her shoulder.  "I think he's drunk,
Aquamarine.  He's just babbling."

        I tried to think of something to say, but I didn't know what to
do.  The alcohol wasn't helping me either.  "I'll just get Alex to marry
you, and then you'll be safe."   I did NOT mean to say that.  I shut up
before I could say anything else incoherent.

        "I think she'd rather marry you,"  Harry said.  Now we were both
babbling.  

         Aquamarine started to say something, then shut up again.  She was
doing that a lot.  I guess that's what she does when she's drunk.  I filed
the thought away for future reference.  

        "How about if she marries both of us?"  What was left of my
rationality had apparently taken a hike.

        "Cool.  When Tanya's Pope, she can perform the ceremony."

         We all laughed and things started to lighten up.  Harry ended up
passing out, and Flamehair and I had to carry him back.  It was pitch dark
by then.  As we rode back in the boat, Aquamarine said quietly, "He's been
worried about this for a while."

        Flamehair sighed.  "I'll get Dodinas to get off his case.  That
should help."

        "Let me handle it,"  Aquamarine said.  She sounded just the
teensiest bit vicious.

        "I think not.  You'll string the boy from the castle walls by his
thumbs."  Flamehair said.  He whispered something to her and she frowned.  

         "I'll deal with Dodinas,"  I said.

         Flamehair shook his head.  "Let Harry handle it.  If he doesn't
do this on his own, he'll feel even more incompetent than he's worried
about being now."

        "I can't just stand back and let someone treat Harry like that!"

         Flamehair sighed.  "It might come to that, in which case I'll
stand back and let you and Aquamarine rip the kid apart, but I really
think Harry needs to find his own solution.  It's the only way he's going
to feel like he can really do something useful.  I'm a guy.  Trust me on
this.  I know how it goes."

         I looked down at Harry, who was snoozing peacefully, and twined a
lock of his hair around my finger.  "If Dodinas does anything to him,
I'll rip his head off.  He'll wish he had never been born.  I'll push
bamboo under his fingernails and..."  The alcohol was talking again.  At
least, I hope it was.

        "Remind me to never make you angry,"  Flamehair said.

************************

Harry said:

        I took another morning walk on the battlements the next day,
having gotten extra sleep on the boat.  The same sentry was there, bored
as before.  "Good morning,"  I said.

       "I hear you and the fairies went picnicing yesterday,"  the sentry
said.

       I nodded.  "It was a lot of fun."  Well, the parts I remember,
except for when I started whining and crying.  That was really
embarrassing.  I'm not as reserved about my emotions as most guys, but I
don't whine and cry in public, either.  

       I heard footsteps coming up the stairs.  Must be Aquamarine again,
I thought.  It wasn't.  It was Flamehair.  "Hi, Harry.  Got a minute?"

       How'd he know to find me here? I wondered.  "Sure."  

       "Follow me."  He took me down and out through the gates, then down
to the docks.  

        "Did we leave something behind at the picnic?"

        "I need you to help me test something.  Ideally, we'll make it
back in time for breakfast.  I wasn't too hungry anyway, so it didn't
bother me.

       We reached the glade again, fairly quickly.  "So what are we gonna
test?"

        He looked around.  "Tell me what you see, Harry."

        I looked at the glade.  "Trees.  Grass.  You.  The grass has
morning dew on it.  I can tell the sun's coming up."  I paused.  "Is there
something I should be seeing that I'm not?"

        A pinecone fell on my head.  I looked up and saw a squirrel.  "Or
was this a test of my reflexes?"

        Flamehair laughed.  "Is there anything special about it?"

        I looked around.  There was something about the glade.  Something
about Flamehair's voice as well.  Something about this glade was important
to him.  I closed my eyes and listened.  Maybe it was something I should
be hearing.  I heard murmering.  Two voices whispering quietly to each
other.  I couldn't tell what they were saying, but the voices...it was
Flamehair and Aquamarine.  

         They had made love here, I realized.  I opened my eyes, and I
could imagine them, over there, in the little hollow space by that one
tree.  The squirrel dropped another pinecone on me.  Stupid squirrel.  I
hate them.  "You and Aquamarine...here."  I blushed a bit.

       He smiled.  "Anything else?"

        The whole glade was very peaceful, almost abnormally so.  I could
almost feel a presence, like it was somehow alive.  "Is it alive somehow?
I can...it's like..."  Words failed me.  

        He smiled more broadly.  "Like it has power?"

        I nodded.  "Yeah.  Like it could do things."

        "You like it, don't you?"

       I nodded.  "I like the woods, even though I seem to trip over every
tree root in sight.  It's so peaceful and friendly.  This glade is even
more like a forest than normal.  I mean..."

        "I know what you mean.  It's a forest out of legend, larger than
life, like everything in Arcadia.  This place is even more special.  It
remembers its past and tries to shape its future to be like the past."

        "Mrr?"

        He laughed.  "In other words, it's been used as a lover's
rendevous and a place for picnics and other fun things, and the built up
magical energy then makes people more inclined to use it for that instead
of other things."

        "You can build up magical energy through picnics?"  I wandered
around a bit.  My imagination ran wild, imagining people having fun here.
It did seem perfect for that.  

        "Almost any repeated activity in Arcadia leaves a sort of magical
and emotional residue behind.  Over time, it builds up, making certain
places storehouses of power, and making those places more likely to
collect more power by attracting people to do the things that make it
stronger.  One reason that Arcadia is fat with magic is because of all the
places like this."

         I nodded and looked a tree.  Someone had carved initials into it.
I read them off.  "TC and TA.  I wonder who they were."

        For a moment, I could imagine the guy, whichever one that was,
carving their initials into the tree.   I laughed.  "I wonder if that
couple is still together."

        Flamehair laughed.  "Probably.  It is said that those who share
love within this place will never be parted."

        "That had better not be why you brought me here,"  I quipped.

       Flamehair fell over laughing.  "Aquamarine would KILL me.  Or ask
to join us.  Hard to be sure."

       I sat down and laughed.  "So why did you bring me here?"

       "To see if you could see."

        "Mrr?"

       "I'm hoping you have enough magical talent that maybe I can teach
you a few tricks to help you take care of yourself."

        "Doesn't it take years to learn magic?"  It would be pretty cool,
though.

       "The hard part is to get to where you believe you can do it.  Once
that happens, it's easy, but that can take years.  There are shortcuts,
but..."

       "They're dangerous and have low survival rates?"

        He nodded.  "I think you have potential.  You could feel the power
in this place, once you knew to look.  That's a start."

       I nodded quietly.

       "Then I try to figure out how what your aptitudes are, and how to
enable you to use them.  I wish I'd studied harder during my own training,
but I had other things on my mind at the time.  And then there's the other
thing."  He fell silent.

        "Other thing?"

        "Once you cross that threshold, you can never turn back."

        "Could you be a little more obscure?"

        He laughed.  "Magic is a beautiful thing.  It's useful, it's
powerful, and it can be a great help.  But when you use it to change the
world, it changes you as well.  Once you start down that road, there's no
turning back.  You have to ride the tiger wherever it takes you, or it
will eat you."  He stood up.  "I'll be honest with you, Harry.  The Queen
wants me to train you.  I'm reluctant to do that, because I know that
you'll never be able to have a normal life if you step onto the path we
walk.  The Queen has plans for you, and I don't know what they are.  I
don't want you to have to be dragged into the games we Faeries play.  It's
not all walks in the moonlight and romantic dinners.  I consider you a
friend, Harry, and I don't want to see you get hurt."

      "It's too late for that,"  I said quietly.  "Splinter has dragged me
into this whether I like it or not."

       He sighed.  "It's our fault that we didn't protect you better. "

       "You didn't even know me before that.  How could you know you had
to protect me?"  Silence.  "How Splinter could be dumb enough to mistake
Angel for Aquamarine...I mean, they're not like each other at all."

        "They're more alike than you may realize,"  Flamehair said
quietly.  "Anyway, we need to get back to the castle for breakfast."

       I nodded.  "I'm hungry.  So when do the magic lessons start,
Merlin?"

       He laughed.  "Well, first you need to go buy a hat that says,
'Wizzard' on it..." 

******************

Angel said:

        Harry was studying again that night, so I took another walk.
Perhaps I'm secretly the goddess of eavesdropping, or maybe I'm just
lucky.  As I went down one corridor, I overheard Aquamarine and Flamehair
having an argument.  I never mean to listen in on conversations, but I'm
not any good at stopping myself.

       "You can't!"  Aquamarine said angrily.  "It's far too dangerous!"

        "Do you know a better way?  We don't have five years to do it the
safe way.  If he doesn't start learning soon, he'll never learn enough to
take care of himself.  Even if he does, he still might not learn enough,
but we have to take the chance."  Flamehair was quiet and determined.

       "There has to be another way!  I'll...I'll..."

       "You'll what?  Glue yourself to his arm?  I don't think his
girlfriend would like that very much."  

        You got that right, Flamehair, I thought.  

       "There has to...I mean...What if it doesn't work?  What if he..."

        What the heck are they talking about, I wondered.  Something about
Harry, but what?

        Flamehair sighed.  "I told him it's dangerous.  I could have told
him it would cut off his right arm, but that wouldn't stop him."

        "Cut off his RIGHT ARM?"  Aquamarine shrieked.

        "That was a metaphor!  Or a simile...or whatever the right term
is.  Even the Unseelie wouldn't initiate someone that way.  Although Odin
did poke out his own eye...anyway.  It's that or nothing.  He'll never
make a swordfighter like Angel."

        "He shouldn't have to,"  Aquamarine said.  "I never wanted him to
get sucked into all this.  That's why I..."

         Why you what?  Now I was getting really curious.  I crept a
little closer.

       "I know.  I just have to figure out the best way to do it.  Most of
the methods appropriate to the glade, uh..."  He sounded embarrassed.  

        Aquamarine laughed.  "Maybe we should take him to the Queen."

       "Not yet.  She's gone off to visit Duke Stronghammer.  And we'd
never get there in time, anyway.  "

       They started to come towards me, and I vamoosed so they wouldn't
spot me.  Hearing all this had given me a lot to think about.

        Harry was still in the throes of homework when I made it back to
our room.  "You got a minute, Harry?"

        He looked up and smiled.  "Give me an excuse to stop this.
Please."

       I laughed and sat down by him.  "Harry, what were you and Flamehair
doing this morning?  You missed morning practice."  I paused.  "But I
noticed Galahad didn't seem surprised."

       "I guess Flamehair let him know what was going on."  Harry cocked
his head for a moment, his thinking signal, then righted it.  "We
discussed the possibility of his trying to teach me some magic."

       "I thought they said that takes years of study."

       "I don't have years, but apparently there are some shortcuts."  He
sounded hesitant.

       "Are they...safe?"

        Harry frowned.  "No.  But I have to take the risk.  We've only got
a few weeks before Splinter could bring an army down on our heads.  I have
to take the chance."

        "What if you blow yourself to bits?"

        "I've got to do this.  I have to take the chance."

        I frowned.  I didn't want Harry taking this big a chance.  Not
with something we knew nothing about.  How could he make any kind of
educated decision.  "I don't want to see you get hurt, Harry."  I didn't
want to have a fight, but I wasn't too sure this was a good idea.

       "Neither do I, but I have to do this."  I could tell he'd made up
his mind.  Once Harry sets himself on something, he can be hideously
stubborn.  No point in banging my head against the wall. 

        I sighed loudly.  He snorted faintly, then went back to his
homework, while I sat and thought.  They weren't very pretty thoughts.

*****************

Harry said:  

       Two more days passed.  Flamehair and Aquamarine seemed to be mad at
each other, though I wasn't sure why.  Angel and I were sitting up on the
ramparts watching the sun set while the others were practicing below.
Angel said, "We leave in three days, right?"

       I nodded.  "They'd better be right about this time change thing or
we're gonna be toast when we get back."

       Angel laughed.  "Tanya would probably think we were dead, and
Thomas would be tearing his hair out.  And Mom and Dad...I think my
parents would go completely over the edge.  They'd probably never let me
out of their sight ever again."

        Footsteps distracted us.  It was Aquamarine and Flamehair.  They
both looked tense.  Flamehair said, "Angel, can I talk to you in private?"

        Aquamarine said to me, "Can we talk for a minute, Harry?"

        I nodded.  "Uh, sure."

        Angel blinked.  "Um, okay."  She went down off the wall with
Flamehair while Aquamarine stayed with me.

        She stared out at the sun, vanishing below the horizon.  "Harry,
are you SURE you want to do this?"

       I blinked.  "Do what?"

        She frowned and stared at me for a moment.  "Don't be flip,
Harry."

        It finally struck me as to what she was talking about.  "Oh, you
mean the magic thing?"

        Aquamarine nodded.  "What did you think I was talking about?"

       "If I had a clue, I wouldn't have been acting so stupid."   I
thought for a moment, considering my reply.  "I have to do this.  You guys
can't watch us every second, and things are going to get a lot worse."  I
paused, considering how to continue.  "And I have to admit that the idea
of doing magic is pretty attractive in itself.  Even if I just learn to
talk to rocks, that would be cool in itself."

        She sighed.  "It's not all it's cracked up to be.  Magic makes
heavy demands, Harry.  Demands that don't go away, and are usually very
hard to satisfy.  It offers a lot, but it comes with a price."

       "I know that.  But I'll pay whatever price I have to in order to
protect Angel and Tanya and my friends.  Any of them could be in danger
because of this."  I turned and stared out across the river.  The sun was
practically gone now.  "Splinter's out there somewhere, and she has magic.
Whatever the price, she's not afraid to use it, so I can't be either."  I
gripped the battlement nervously.  "So...what price did you have to pay?
If you're willing to tell me?  What can I expect?"

        "It's different for every person.  It's not like someone pops up
from under a rock and hands you a bill.  But the life of magic, the life
of the fae, makes it harder and harder to associate with mortals,
especially to keep the ones you care about safe.  You have more power, but
you get more enemies as well.  Even the Unseelie don't randomly torment
mortals anymore...unless they're friends of an enemy of theirs.  And you
can't watch over all your friends all the time."  Her voice began to
waver.  "And it...it..."

         "You don't have to tell me."  I turned around and tried to give
her my most reassuring smile.  "I don't know you well enough to pry."

        She whispered something.  I couldn't quite be sure what she said,
but I thought it was something about being sure.  She spoke again, more
loudly, "Sometimes, you lose someone you love.  Of course, Angel knows all
about this, so that's not likely to be a problem for you, but..."  Her
voice trailed off. She was struggling with something.  I wanted to comfort
her, but I had no idea how.

       "Please, don't talk about it if it makes you unhappy."  I stepped
closer, then stopped.  If this had been Angel or Tanya, I would have
hugged her, but I'm too shy to do that with someone I don't know well.

       She lunged forward and began to cry onto my shoulder.  I froze up,
not knowing what to do.  If Angel comes back and sees this...who know what
she'll do.  She's not normally the jealous type, but...I hugged Aquamarine
anyway.  "Don't cry."  What a futile thing to say.  An intuition suddenly
struck me and I understood.  "You lost a mortal lover when he discovered
you were a faerie?"  Just like Alex, I thought.

         "I...I couldn't be with him because I didn't want him to get
drawn into something like what is happening to you."  She cried some more
and tried to say something, but it made no sense whatsover.  Something
about roommates and teddy bears and games.  

       I simply made comforting noises and tried to come up with a plan.
"Well, you have Flamehair now, right?"

        She gave a great shudder and stopped crying.  "Yes.  But letting
go of someone you loved for years and years isn't easy."

         "I know,"  I said quietly.  "I was in love with someone ever
since we were little, but she doesn't love me.  Well, not romantically.  I
love Angel very much, but I still...I wish I'd at least had the strength
to tell her I love her.  I'm sure she knows, but..."

         "So you still love her?"  Aquamarine asked with a shaky voice.

         I nodded quietly.  "I don't think I can stop, but I can't waste
my time waiting for something that's never going to come.  She won't ever
love me, or if she ever does, it could be years from now.  I just HAVE to
get her out of my head, so I can give Angel the love she deserves."

         Aquamarine gave one great sob, then let go of me and began to
wipe her eyes.  "I...I'm sorry about that.  I shouldn't have just grabbed
you and used you as a tissue, but I..."

         "I don't mind.  You've done a lot to protect us.  Thanks  for
listening to me rant."

          "No problem."  Angel and Flamehair returned at that point.

******************

Angel said:

         Flamehair took me down to a quiet corner of the courtyard.  He
broke the silence by saying, "I need your help.  I know you don't approve
of this, but I have to try to jumpstart Harry's potential.  It's
dangerous, but we only have one other option."

        "What's that?"

         He paused.  "Well, two options, actually.  The first one would be
for you and Harry to come stay at Queen Glorianna's court where you can be
protected until we find Splinter and stop her."

         "That could be months."

          He said quietly, "That could be forever.  Splinter has eternity
to wait and plan and let our guard get down.  Not that she has that much
sense, I think, but still...Much as I love the Seelie court, you'd be in
over your head.  And it could wreck your life.  Trying to explain your
absence...we could do it, but it would be hard."  He sighed and leaned
against the wall, putting one of his feet up on the wall with his back to
it.

        "What's the other option?"

        He silently opened a pouch on his belt and pulled out a six inch
long blue crystal rod.  He stared at it for a moment, then stared at me.
I stared at it.  It looked like a badly carved crystal cylinder with a bit
of the end smashed off.  He started to hand it to me, then stopped.

       "So what is this?  A magic wand?"

        He laughed faintly.  "Not exactly."

        "You're acting like...you're acting weird.  What is this thing?
Is it some kind of weapon we could use against Splinter?  Is it
dangerous?"

        "In one way, it's the most potentially dangerous thing ever
invented...for women.  It..."  He sighed.  "Take it.  Hold it up."

        I reached out for it, then paused.  "If you tell me to shout 'Moon
Prism Power', I'm going to hurt you."

        Flamehair laughed and nearly dropped it, fumbling about and
finally catching it.  He gave a sigh of relief.  "If only it was so easy.
I'm not really your pet cat, either.  Anyway, take it."  He dropped it
into my hand.

        "So what..."  A tiny light began to shine inside the rod, glowing
softly.  As I watched, it began to shine more brightly.  Thomas watched it
intently.  "What is this?"

        The glow engulfed my hand with a bright blue light.  Every second,
it raised in intensity.  Flamehair stared at it.  I had to slit my
eyelids.  "It's not going to explode, is it?"

         He said quietly, "I've never seen one explode."

         "So we're gonna blind Splinter with this?"

          He laughed very softly.  "Not unless we trick her into holding
it."  The light was getting too bright to look at.  I held it up over my
head so I wouldn't blind myself.  "So what is it?"

        "Your potential."

         I started to ask him what it was potential for, but not being a
complete idiot, I finally got the point.  "I...I could learn magic too?"

         "I understand why the Queen gave this to me now...no wonder she
has an interest in you two.  With enough training..."  He paused.  "Can
you close your hand over that thing?  I can't see."

         I laughed and closed my hand.  "Sensitive Elven sight?"

        "Something like that.  The other option I mentioned was to try to
train both of you, but you were so opposed to it, that..."

         Me do magic?  I could hardly believe it.  I had dreamed of doing
magic ever since I was a child, but it had been a very long time since I
had believed it could ever come true.  It suddenly struck me that one of
the reasons I had been so opposed to Harry learning magic was that I was
jealous.  No one had even thought to check if I could do it.  I sighed.
I'm going to sound pretty phony if I reverse my position now. Well, maybe
I am phony, but...I'm not an impulsive person, but sometimes you have to
seize the bull by the horns.  "All right.  What do we have to do?"

         Flamehair blinked, then sighed and muttered something.  "I should
have checked this earlier...I'd almost forgot the Queen gave it to me.
Anyway, I don't know a good method for trying to ...speed the magical
initiation of females."  He paused.  "Correction, I don't know one we can
USE.  I know one, but..."  

        "But what?"

       "Firstly, it only works well on the eight sacred days.  Secondly,
you wouldn't do it."

      "How do you know I wouldn't do it?"

       "If you aren't doing it with your boyfriend..."  He sounded
embarrassed.

        I blushed.  "Maybe Aquamarine knows a way."

        He sounded dubious.  "Maybe.  I wish the Queen had actually told
me what to do if this thing worked...I'll go ask her when I get a chance."
He banged his head on the wall.  "Of course I didn't even think to ask."

        "Well, it'll wait.  How do we ...do whatever we have to do to
Harry?  I guess this is what you needed my help for?"

        He nodded.  "It's sort of a long shot.  This really is not
something I'm trained in.  Why the Queen didn't send someone who really
knows how to awaken mortals...now, if you were faeries, this would be
easy.  I know a dozen ways that work with faeries, but I've only done this
once before with a mortal.  So I'm improvising from that."

         Sounds like the Queen didn't think of a lot of things, I thought.
Not too bright.  "So what do you need me to do?"

       "First we go to the glade, and then..."

***********************

Harry said:

       We rowed across the river and headed out to the glade, bringing
tents, since we didn't know how long this would take.  Aquamarine was very
quiet.  I asked Angel, "How did he talk you into this?"

         She sighed.  "I'm sorry, Harry.  I was just...I mean, it wasn't
just that I was...Harry, I was..."

         "You don't have to talk about it."

        "I was jealous, Harry.  That wasn't all of it, but I..."

        I put a hand on her shoulder.  "I'm jealous of your sword-fighting
skills too, dear.  I wish I could be as good as you, but I can't.  I can't
blame you.  So how did he change your mind?"

         She took a deep breath.  "He thinks I can do it too, although he
doesn't know how to help me learn to use it quickly."

        I sighed.  With an effort, I managed to restrain myself from
making the sarcastic comment that tried to get out.  No one's perfect, I
thought.  I shoved away the irritation. I'd have been frustrated too in
her place.  Heck, if she had been approached first about the magic thing,
I'd have probably gone just about nuts.  "So why can't we do...uh,
whatever we're about to do to you?"

       Aquamarine said quietly, "Because not all methods work for both men
and women.  I never bothered to learn any because I think they're too
dangerous."  

       We landed the boat and pulled it ashore, heading for the glade.
We soon pitched our tents and got ready.  "So now what?"

        Flamehair muttered something and gestured and the sticks that
Aquamarine had piled up burst into flame.  "Sit by the fire.  Angel, sit
to Harry's right.  Aquamarine, sit to his left."  We formed a square
around the fire, with the two men and women opposite each other.

        I glanced over at Aquamarine.  She was wavering between irritation
and fear, sitting indian-style, as was I.  Angel was half-kneeling, while
I couldn't see Flamehair's legs. 

        A gentle breeze began to blow, and I could hear the trees
rustling.  It sounded almost like they were talking to each other.  Maybe
they were.  It was the land of faeries, after all.  Flamehair said,
"Harry, Angel, gaze into the fire.  Think about your love for one
another."  His voice was droning and hypnotic.  "Remember the love you
have shared.  Remember the joys of your life.  This is a place of joy.
Give it your joy and it will give you power."  He then muttered, "I hope."

         I tried hard not to laugh, and just barely succeeded.  I gazed
into the flame and remembered.  

                                   ********

        I stood outside Angel's door, terrified out of my mind.  I had
never kissed a girl in my entire life.  Well, not a girl I wasn't related
to.  And I dimly remember having kissed Tanya a few times when we were
both pretty little, but then, I got kissed by a dog when I was little too.
It was our fourth date.  The first three hadn't quite been dates.  They'd
just sort of been two good friends hanging out together.  This time had
been different.

         I still don't understand quite what made it different.  We'd gone
dancing together before.  Maybe the difference was that this time, we were
alone.  Tanya and Thomas had been with us on the first two sort-of-dates.
The third one had just been a movie run.  This time, we'd gone out to eat
and gone dancing.  We danced for three hours.  Neither of us wanted to
leave, but it closed on us.  Now, I was standing outside her door, not
wanting the evening to end.  Somewhere in that evening, she had gone from
kind of cute to beautiful.  I didn't know when or how.  All I knew was
that I wanted to kiss her and I was too scared to do it.  

        I'd had dates before, but I'd never really reached the point of
wanting to kiss anyone but Tanya.  That alone scared me.  I had no clue
how she felt.  That was the second problem.  Part of me suggested asking
if she would mind if I kissed her.  I didn't have the guts.  She yawned.
I had to move fast, or she'd leave before I had the chance to try
anything.

         She had a weird look on her face.  "I guess I ought to go to
bed," she said softly.

        "I...uh...right.  We should go to bed."  I paused.  "I mean...not
together..."

        Angel laughed.  "Tanya would probably climb in with us."

        Various bodily impulses briefly fired, making me more nervous and
uncomfortable.  "Oh, well, in that case..."

        She lightly punched my arm.  "You're almost as silly as Tanya,
Harry."

        "Don't make me noogie you."

        She stuck out her tongue.  "Just try it."

         I did.  I think I surprised her.  Angel and I had roughhoused a
few times.  Normally, I won.  I didn't win this time.  I hadn't realized
how good a fighter she was when she actually tried.  Somehow, I was the
one in a wrestling hold, getting noogied.  "Ahh!  I yield!  I yield!"

         "You have to pay a penalty or else I get to keep you as a
hostage,"  she said, laughing and yawning at the same time.

        "Anything!  Just stop noogieing me!"  She was stronger than I'd
realized too.  

         "You have to..."  she hesitated, and took a deep breath.  "You
have to..."

        "Take you to Burger King 2000 times?"  

        She laughed.  "You have to...Harry, have you ever...I mean..."

        "I've never taken anyone to Burger King 2000 times."

        "Harry, if I asked you, would you..."  She gulped.  

         I can be clueless, but I'm not THAT clueless.  Sometimes, anyway.
I whispered, "kiss you?"

         She turned me around and stared into my eyes for a moment.  Part
of my brain started trying to summon up an image of Tanya.  I beat that
part of my mind in the head and leaned forward, closing my eyes.  It was
the sweetest kiss of my life.  I've had longer and even more enjoyable
kisses, but this was still the best.  I had crossed a line from which
there was no returning.

                                    *******

       Tanya was drunk.  She'd been dumped by Tommy Ford again. Why she
had gone back to the bastard after the first time, I didn't know.  He was
scum.  If he couldn't have ripped off my head and beaten me to death with
my own arms, I'd have killed him.  It had been worse this time.  The first
time, he just dumped her, but didn't insult her.  This time, he'd been
cruel about it.  I wanted to scream.  

         She'd gotten into her mother's wine again.  Her mom makes her own
wine.  I've had it a few times.  I think it tastes awful, but Tanya likes
it.  It's like wine with a few gallons of sugar added.  Per eight ounce
glass, that is.  Anyway, she was trying to drown her sorrows, which was
making me a bit mad at her.  She doesn't get drunk often, but when she
does, she does something stupid every time.  That's why I was at her house
at 2 AM.  Her mom had called me when she got home from a card game and
found Tanya soused.  Tanya defies her mom sometimes, but I can almost
always keep her in line.  

        I had to sneak out of the house.  Mom would blow her stack if she
knew I was here.  We were sitting on her bed.  I was restraining her, but
not very hard.  She was letting me restrain her.  I knew this, because I
knew Tanya could kick my butt to the moon if she felt like it.  She was
crying, and I was saying stupid things, trying to make her laugh, or
smile, or something.  I wanted to cry myself.  I wanted to kill Tommy for
hurting her.   "I won't let you run away to Russia, Tanya."

        "He...he called me a ..."

        "It doesn't matter.  It was all lies.  All of it.  You're a
wonderful, beautiful person who deserves better than gutter trash like
Tommy Ford."

        "He's not gutter trash!"

        "He's the mold that you find under old refrigerators.  He's pond
scum.  He doesn't deserve to breathe the same air as you. "  She tried to
get up, but I gently pulled her back down.

        She turned and cried on my shoulder, wrapping her arms around me.
"Oh Harry, you're such a good friend.  You're the best friend I have.
You're my only friend.  You wouldn't ever do anything like that to me,
would you?"

        "Never in a million years."  My heart was pounding.  I could feel
her body pressed against mine.  A million foolish thoughts rushed through
my head.  I wanted her desperately.  A thousand fantasies that all ended
with us in bed together flooded my mind.  I had to exert my will.  I
wouldn't try anything.  Not when she was so vulnerable, and especially not
when she was drunk.  That was how bastards like Tommy operated.  Not me.
Not me.

       No matter how much I wanted to.  

        She cried harder.  "You won't leave me, will you Harry?  Please
say you won't leave me.  That you won't...Oh God, Harry..."

       "I'm not God."  It was a stupid thing to say.  My brain was
beginning to short out.  "I won't leave you, Tanya.  I'll stay as long as
you want me to."

        "Don't die, Harry.  Please tell me you're not going to get
yourself killed.  That you won't get hurt because of me."  She clutched me
like a child desperately clinging to her mother or father when frightened.  

        Why she was afraid I'd die, I had no idea.  "You've never done
anything to hurt me, Tanya.  I...I promise I won't do anything stupid."
She must be worried I'm gonna try to beat up Tommy Ford.  Run him
over...that I might try.  I'm not crazy enough to fight him.  Not unless I
had to.  Visions of me punching out Tommy floated through my head for a
moment, but I suppressed them.  

        She started squeezing me so tight I started having trouble
breathing.  "I won't let you get hurt!  I won't!  I WON'T!"  She started
to shout.  What amazed me was that her speech didn't slur at all, even
though she was acting completely crazy.  Sometimes you can't tell she's
drunk, because she doesn't sound drunk, unless you think about what she is
saying.  "I'll protect you with my superpowers."

         I laughed.  "Am I talking to Elemental Lass or to Tanya?"
Elemental Lass is her superhero in one of the RPGS we play.  

        "Both.  Tanya IS Elemental Lass.  Now you know my secret identity.
Can we get married?"

         I laughed some more.   "Sure."

         Tanya slumped over, letting go of me.  She sprawled out on the
bed.  "So sleepy."

         I got up.  "I'll let you sleep."

         She struggled to sit up.  "No, don't leave me!  You said you
wouldn't leave me!"

         "You need sleep and..."

         "You can sleep with me!"  She tried to scoot over and make room,
then nearly fell off the rather small single bed.  It was barely big
enough for her.  

          "I can't do that,"  I said.  I wanted desperately to take her
offer, but I knew we'd regret it when she sobered up.  I wouldn't take
advantage of her.  I wanted to say yes and climb into the bed with her,
but I knew better.  Barely.  If she had actually been able to move enough
to grab me, I would have given in.  "I...The bed is too small."

        "Don't go."  She began to cry.  "Don't go.  Not like...don't go."

        I sat down in the big plush chair Tanya has in one corner.  It's
an old battered lazy-boy.  I love it.  "I'll just sleep right here.  I
won't leave you."

       She said faintly, "Thank you, Harry.  Promise you won't sneak out
after I pass out."  

       "I promise."

        "Okay."  She slumped over and was out within seconds.  I settled
back into the lazy-boy and fell asleep.  Mom's gonna kick my butt
tomorrow, I thought.  Gotta call someone and get them to make up a cover
story. Better to be punished for sneaking out with a guy friend than
Tanya.  

     I slumped over.

     I woke up in the morning with Tanya standing over me with
breakfast on a tray.  Tanya had a twinkle in her eye.  She never gets
hangovers.  Breakfast was scrambled eggs, english muffins, oranges, and
milk, one of my favorite of all possible breakfasts.  "Good morning,
Harry.  Been a while since you stayed the night at my house, eh?"

     I laughed.  It had been a while.  We'd been close since we were
little, but somewhere around twelve or so, Mom had stopped letting us
spend the night together.  Although I'd come close a few times, what with
late night roleplaying at her house.  "Thanks for making me breakfast."

     "Anything for you, Harry," she said faintly.  She handed me my
half of the breakfast and took the other half for herself.  "Harry, did I
...I can't remember anything I said last night.  Not after...I remember
ranting about how Tommy killed Kennedy or something and then..."

      I laughed.  "You just babbled all night.  Things about going to
Russia or becoming a nun or marrying Keanu Reeves or whatever.  Nothing
worth thinking about."

      "How...How did  you get here?  I remember thinking I was
hallucinating you.  You'd gone home for the night already before I got
drunk."  She paused.  "I did actually get drunk, right?"

      "Your mom called."

      "Your mom let you come?"

      "My mom is probably tearing her hair out right now."  I sighed.
"Soon as I eat, I gotta call someone and make up a cover story."

         The phone rang.  Tanya started to get up, then we heard her Mom
downstairs.  "No, Harry's not here."  Pause.  "No, I haven't seen him
since he went home last night.  He did make it home, didn't he?"  Pause.
"That's a relief.  I think he said something about some friend of his, but
I can't remember what."  Pause.  "If I see him, I'll let him know you
called."  Pause.  "You have a nice day too.  Bye."  I think Tanya's mom
hasn't ever quite figured out you don't have to shout loudly into the
phone to get them to hear you.  

        Tanya laughed faintly.  "You gotta love Mom."

        I smiled.  "Yeah, Mom's great."  I call Mrs.  Cromwell Mom.  She
insists on it.  Sometimes, I think she does think I am her son.

        "Harry..."  Tanya's voice was soft.

        "Yeah?"  I started to dig into my food before it could get cold.

        "Thank you, Harry.  For being such a good friend."

        It might be all I could ever be with her, but in that moment, it
was enough for me.

                                       *******

       It was a cold autumn day.  I was walking by myself and trying not
to cry.  I was only eight and I hated being alone.  I was alone because my
best friend was sick and couldn't walk to school with me.  More important,
I knew the bullies were gonna come after me again.  I hated the fourth
graders because they always tried to take my school money.  My best friend
knew some kind of magic that kept them away, but she wasn't here and I
didn't know what to do.  

       So I ran.  I ran as fast as I could, hoping they might mistake me
for a rabbit or something.  It didn't work.  I tripped on a tree root and
the tree got mad and told the bullies where I was.  The two big boys
stepped out from behind the tree.  "You can run, but you can't hide,"  one
of them announced.  He was the uglier one, but definitely not the funnier
one, though they both laughed and laughed at that comment.

        "Go away!  I've got a big bomb in my school bag!"  I tried lying.

        It didn't work.  I didn't REALLY think it would.  Bullies know
what you're thinking.  "Yeah, right," the less ugly one said.  "Fork over
your money, buddy."

        "My name is not buddy!"

         "Whatever.  Fork it over."

         "I don't have a fork."  I tried stalling.  I wasn't sure what he
meant, anyway.

         "Look, laughing boy, give me your money!"  The ugly one grabbed
me.
 
         Maybe the tree took pity on me.  Maybe I was lucky.  Maybe God
was watching out for me.  As I tried to shake loose, he raised his fist to
punch me.  It never connected.  A loud thunk announced the arrival of a
thrown lunchbox, which had just connected with his head.  He quietly
slumped over and let go of me.

         I turned.  It was Tanya, who I thought was sick in bed.  She
didn't look too good, being rather pale and tired looking.  "GET AWAY FROM
HARRY!"  

        The other bully stared at her, then at the lunchbox, then at his
friend.  He ran.  Tanya ran over to me.  "Harry, are you okay?  Did they
hurt you?  Do you need a bandaid?"

        "I...I thought you were sick."  I didn't know what to say.
"Tha...Thank you, Tanya.  You..."

        She grabbed my arm that the bully had grabbed and looked at it
like she expected it to be cut open or something.  "I...I was afraid the
bullies would try to hurt you again, so I snuck out of the house."  She
sagged a bit.  "I hate the flu!"

        "Thank you,"  I said again.  "Lemme help you get home."

        "You'd better go to school.  Miss Pritchett will get mad again and
throw erasers at you."

         I laughed.  "Lemme take you home."

         She gave in and I walked back the block and a half to her house.
Her mom patted me on the head and drove me to school.  I made it on time,
barely.  Her mom is really nice.  "Is it okay if I marry Tanya?"  I asked
her.  "When I get bigger."

         She laughed in a sad sort of way.  "I hope you do," she
whispered.  

                         ***********

          I stood on one spoke of a four-spoked wheel.  Angel, Flamehair,
and Aquamarine stood on the other three spokes.  The wheel rotated slowly
around a shadowy woman who stood on the hub with stars in her hair.
Flamehair was wreathed in flame.  Aquamarine had her own tiny rainstorm.
Angel's hair blew in a wind I couldn't feel, and a huge tree stood over
me.  I was leaning against it.  

        The woman terrified me, and I didn't know why.  I had the feeling
I was confronting something infinitely huger than myself, as if she was
but the little toe on the foot of some great beast.  She was dangerous.  I
could sense it without knowing how.  

       Flamehair stared at me, and spoke quietly.  "You love them both."

        I nodded dumbly.  "Pretty dorky, eh?  I love Tanya even though she
doesn't love me, and it gets in the way of my relationship with the one
who does love me."  Normally, I wouldn't be this honest, but I was pretty
sure he had seen everything I had.  I glanced at the woman in the middle,
between us.  It was hard to see him around her, and I didn't really want
to look at her.  Looking out into space wasn't too appealing either.

       His voice was quiet.  "I have to say I'm jealous of you."

        I couldn't believe it.  "I...you?  Jealous of me?  Why?"  How
could a handsome faerie with a love of his own be jealous of me?

       He tried to say something, but after some stuttering, he gave up.
Finally, he said, "You have the kind of love I've never known.  I can
never be sure anyone really loves me or if it's just my glamour
influencing their minds.  And most of them don't really know you at all.
Two women love you for who you are.  I wish I could say that."

        "What about Aquamarine?"

         He sighed and looked away.  "Love between faeries is always
threatened by our nature.  I love her, but I worry whether it will last.
And more importantly, she loves someone else as well as me.  He doesn't
even know."  He paused, then said slowly, "Harry, if you could choose
between Angel and Tanya, who would you choose?  If she just walked up to
you one day and asked you to be her boyfriend, what would you say?"

        "I don't see her dumping Thomas anytime soon."  I guess he changed
the subject so he wouldn't have to think about his rival, I thought. 

       "It's a theoretical question.  Assume Doctor Doom eats him or
something."

         I laughed at the thought.  "I already had to choose.  I chose
Angel. I could have waited forever for Tanya, but I don't love her that
much."  

         "What if you had been able to choose Tanya?"  His voice was
tense.  

        "What if Tanya was secretly Elvis?  She doesn't love me, so it
doesn't matter.  I love Angel.  I can't stop loving Tanya.  I don't know
how.  Maybe if I never came near her again, but I'm not strong enough to
do that."  I glanced over at Angel.  She and Aquamarine were immobile like
statues.  "But I can feel my love for Angel getting stronger every day.
I'm glad Tanya has someone to love her who she loves.  She and Thomas
fight a lot, but they really do love each other.  He's a lot better than
those trashpits she dated in High School.  Why she went out with those
maggots, I'll never understand.  Sometimes I get jealous of him, but I got
jealous of all of them, even the pond scum."  

        "What about the way Angel likes him?"

         I sighed.  "She's not half so bad as I am.  She'll let go of him
in time.  But I'm gonna make this work out if it kills me."  

         He gave a great sigh of relief and smiled faintly.  "Good for
you."

        "Anyway, what do we do next?"

         The woman in the middle of the circle suddenly spoke, and her
voice was a song.  "So, you have come, seeking power."

        I gulped.  I had the feeling of someone thrust onto a stage to act
in a play where they don't even know the title of the play, let alone the
script.  "I need to learn magic in order to protect the people I care
about.  I can't let other people risk getting killed while I sit around on
my butt."

         Her voice conveyed neither approval nor disapproval.  "So who is
it that you care about?"

         "My friends.  Angel.  Tanya."  I paused.  "Do you need a complete
list?"

         She laughed faintly.  A good sign, I hoped.  "So Angel and Tanya
are not part of the group of your friends?"

         I shook my head.  "They're my closest friends in all the world."

        "And that's all?"

         Honesty was the best policy, I hoped.  I glanced at Angel.  She
hadn't moved at all since this started.  Flamehair and Aquamarine weren't
moving either.  "I...I love them."

        "One man cannot serve two masters," the woman said.

      "Must I hate all women but one?  I won't betray Angel because of how
I feel about Tanya."  I hope.  "She's my oldest, dearest friend.  I'd have
to maim my heart to cease to care about her."

       "Even though she doesn't love you."

        "Love is pretty stupid sometimes, eh?"

        She smiled.  "Love is never stupid, but it is often blind.  It is
my task to make you see.  Come forward, Harry.  You have made your choice,
and now you may pass."

     I stepped forward and took her hand.  She brushed my eyes closed with
her hand, and I felt a kiss upon my brow.  A thrill which made me feel a
little guilty afterwards rushed through me.  

        "Your initiation has begun.  This is but the first of many trials,
and you now enter into the first of many gifts.  Awaken, and see with
second sight.  Your journey has begun down the road from which there is no
departure.  Soon, you will have to fight for all you hold dear.  Take my
blessing."

          A wind whirled around me, and I awoke.


***************

Angel said:

       The fire roared up as Flamehair spoke, and I saw things dancing in
the flame.  It was like watching something on a bad VCR.  The images kept
rolling and breaking up into the firey equivalent of static.  I tried to
focus on it.  What exactly I was supposed to be doing, I still wasn't
sure.  I guessed vaguely I was there to balance out Aquamarine or
something, from the way we were sitting, but I wasn't sure.  Harry was in
some kind of trance.  Flamehair had his eyes closed.  Aquamarine, however,
was as alert as I was.  She kept looking over at Harry, and she looked
scared.  I still hadn't quite gotten a straight answer on why this was
dangerous either.  I gazed into the flame.  Maybe I can't see anything
because I'm female.  They said it only works for men, but WHY?  That makes
no sense.  I mean, anyone can gaze into a fire.

         The static diminished and I could almost see something.  For a
moment, I thought I saw Harry kissing someone, but I couldn't tell who.
This didn't make me too happy.  I stared harder, trying the trick where I
use my eyelashes as a sort of screen to...okay, it sounds silly, but it
works for me.  Occasionally.  I had to see who he was kissing.

         The image flickered, then became more solid.  It was me he was
kissing.  I watched it and remembered.  I had been terrified out of my
mind.  I'd had some dates, but I'd never kissed a boy before Harry.  When
I finished zoning out, I couldn't see the images in the fire very well
again.  I stared harder.  I had to see what else was going on.

         "What he sees is not for your eyes, Angela Bedos-Rezak,"  a
female voice said from nearby.  I started and turned.   Ariel was standing
there, still carrying her lantern.  Aquamarine looked up at her and gaped,
her mouth flapping but no words coming out.

       "Uh, hi,"  I said.  "I...how do you know what he is seeing?"

        Ariel turned and stared into the fire.  "Fire and light is one of
my affinities.  It is not an affinity of either of you, so there is little
you can do to see inside his initiation test."  She sighed.  "I wish we
had more time, but there is never as much time as one would want.  He is
not ready to be initiated, but he must be ready."  

        I said, "I...you know about all this?  Are you...the Queen?"

        Ariel laughed.  "I am not a queen, but only a guardian.  I was
made to guide and to search, not to rule."  She turned to Aquamarine.
"You must initiate her."

         Aquamarine stared at her.  She looked scared, but I had no idea
why.  Ariel was a pretty nice person, though I was still wondering how she
knew what was going on.  Aquamarine said very quietly, "I don't know how.
I was too busy thinking about...I mean, I can barely concentrate right
now."

        "You must do it.  She does not know me well enough for me to help
her.  She trusts you and she knows you, better than she thinks."

        Aquamarine looked like she was going to cry for a moment.  "But
she'll..."

        "Would you rather she dies because you refused, just to save your
pride?  Do you think he would like that?"

         Aquamarine flinched.  "Yes, ma'am.  I mean no, uh, I mean..."

         "I won't make you do it, Aquamarine.  Not if it's going to hurt
you.  You've done a lot to help us, and I don't want to make more demands
on you."  Even though I do want to do this, but not if I have to hurt
someone.

         Aquamarine straightened up and took a deep breath.  "I'll do it.
What do I do?"

         "Think about what Flamehair did, and you will understand."  Ariel
turned.  "I must go before I draw down trouble upon you both.  That will
come far too soon as it is."  She turned and began to walk towards the
edge of the clearing.

         I whispered to Aquamarine, "Do you know her?  Why does she scare
you?"

         "I've seen her talking to Duke Silverhand.  He's scared of her.
And if anyone scared him, who has faced down twenty ogres by himself, I
think it's a good idea for me to be scared of her too.  She's incredibly
old.  There's rumors she actually lived through the Great Disaster
somehow."

         "The what?"

          "I'll tell you later.  I've got to do this before I chicken
out."  She went and got the cookpot we had brought.  She went down to the
river and filled it, then returned.  I sat and waited.  She put it between
us.  "Stare into it."

         The realization struck me.  "Ahh, his strength is fire, yours is
water..."

        Aquamarine laughed faintly.  "Ironic, eh?"

        "I'm sure if Tanya was here, she could have probably told us both
what to do.  She knows about all kinds of crazy occult stuff."

        Aquamarine began to laugh louder now.  I could almost hear the
fear draining from her.  As she laughed, her laughter became more normal
and an impish grin replaced her discomfort.  "I think this is a little
beyond her expertise."

         "I guess so."  It's not that funny, I thought.  I guess Elves
have a weird sense of humor.  I gazed into the water, and saw myself and
Tanya reflected in it, though not very well, since we mostly had moonlight
to work with.  The water began to glow.  Suddenly, the world reversed
itself, and I felt like I was inside the pot looking out at me.  

         I wasn't suspended in water, though.  I was in that funky void we
had travelled through to get here.  Or something sort of like it.  It was
cold, and all the holes in the air were now down in the 'floor'.  I could
see dozens of places through them.  Suddenly, I realized why I was so
cold.  I was stark naked.  If a human body could manage to blush all over,
I would have, but as it was, I had to make do with my face blushing.  

        Aquamarine stood near me.  She was naked too, but she didn't seem
bothered at all by it.  I recovered fairly quickly.  She was smiling.  "I
bet Harry would die if he saw us like this."

         I laughed.  "I bet I would die if Harry saw us like this.
Tanya's gonna laugh when she hears about this."

        Aquamarine laughed and said, "I can hear her laughing already."

         "So now what do I do?"

         "We take photographs of you and..."  Aquamarine must have seen me
blushing again, as she was unable to finish the sentence without nearly
falling down laughing.  "Seriously, take my hand."

         I took her hand and squelched various random, embarrassing, and
rather out of character thoughts.  I never should have read that one
comicbook at that party back in high school, now I...let's not think about
that.  Anyway, with only a few mental twitches, I asked, "Next?"

         "We jump into one of the pools."

       They were pools, not just holes, I could see now.  "Then what
happens?"

        "You confront what was, then what is, and then what may yet be."
She thought hard.  "There's something else, but I can't think straight to
remember what."

        I nodded, then took a deep breath.  "Ready?"

        She nodded.  Realizing I'd wasted my first deep breath, I took
another one and jumped in.

                           *********************

     The world whirred around me, and suddenly, I wasn't naked anymore.
This was a relief.  Unfortunately, I was chained up in that castle in the
Mists that Splinter had chained me up in.  Splinter was there as well.  

       Splinter drew her sword and walked over to me, keeping it pointed
at me.  "Give me the ring."

        I laughed inside my head.  I knew what came next.  "You SURE you
want it?" 

         Splinter stopped and stared at me, confused.  Her eyes narrowed.
"You're trying to trick me."

        I shrugged.  "Suit yourself.  Being protected from faerie magic
isn't too likely to hurt me."  

         Splinter considered a moment.  "Give me the ring."

         I must have been smiling too much, because she hesitated again.
I took off the ring and held out my hand.  She took the ring.  Nothing
happened.  Where was the wind?  For that matter, where was Aquamarine?

         I heard Harry scream and started to panic.  This wasn't just a
rerun of the past.  I'd just demonstrated that.  I wasn't even sure what
was happening.  Maybe I was in the past and I'd somehow buggered
everything up.  I heard Alex scream now.  Wait, Harry and Alex hadn't even
really been in the castle.  And where had that wind come from anyway?
There had been no one but...I was in the Mists of Creation, where will
becomes reality.  Which meant....I had made the wind.  I thought hard
about a rising wind, and a wind began to blow.  

         Splinter was casting some kind of spell on the ring and getting
angry because it didn't work.  I laughed.  Wind, blow her away.  She
looked up just in time to slam into the wall.

         The world flickered.

                       ********************************

       I was playing in the sandbox with Tanya.  Some tiny part of my
brain wondered where Aquamarine had gone to, but it quickly shut off as I
distracted myself with other things.  We were both eight.  It felt like a
memory, but it couldn't be, since I hadn't met Tanya until we were both
eighteen.  My brain felt weird, too.  We were building a sandcastle.  "So,
this is gonna be where Princess Lily lives,"  Tanya said, building a high
tower.

         I was building the castle wall.  "And all our soldiers will
defend this wall."  I looked over our vast domain.  "Don't forget Princess
Barbie is gonna need a tower too."

        "And one for the castle chef and one for Mommy, and one for my
boyfriend."  Tanya started on another tower.  "I guess we need a tower for
your mommy too."

         I nodded.  "And one for my boyfriend."  

         The ground shook and the tower fell over on Tanya.  We looked
over and saw Harry had run up, tripped, and fallen into the sandbox.
Tanya and I rushed over and helped him up.  "You okay, Harry?"  Tanya
asked.

         He spit sand everywhere.  I tried to clean the sand off my
shorts.  "I'm fine."  He tried to hug me and Tanya at the same time, which
didn't work too well, as he clonked our heads together.  We fell over. 

       "Ack!  I'm sorry!"  He helped Tanya get up, then helped me up.

       "Hey, you're my boyfriend!  You should help me up first!"

        Harry looked flustered.  I wasn't thinking clearly.  It was like
part of me was watching the rest of myself do things.  Tanya said, "But he
knew me first!  So he has to help me first!"

        "But he loves me!"

        "He loves me too!"

        Harry sat and turned his head back and forth.  He clearly didn't
like this.

         I stormed over to Tanya, "But you don't love him!"

        "But I do love him!"

         That stunned my eight-year-old self and my older self.  How could
she really love him?  I had to be hallucinating this.  This was my deepest
fear.  That one day, Tanya would just announce she was in love with Harry
and take him away from me.

         "Besides, you love my boyfriend, don't you?"  Tanya said to me.

         I babbled, "Uh...you mean...Thomas?"  I blushed.

         "Yeah!"

          "Uh.  Yeah.  I mean...he is kinda cute...uh..."

         "We can just trade!"  She pulled Thomas out of...somewhere.  He
was a little kid like the rest of us.  "Then we can all be happy!"

          "But if you love Harry, why'd you give him to me?"

         "Because I'm really..."  She pulled off a mask I didn't even know
she was wearing.  "Aquamarine."  A little eight-year old Aquamarine now
stood before me, holding Harry's hand.

         I did the sensible thing and fainted.

                            *****************

        I woke up, naked again, standing on the edge of a great cliff that
plunged into inky blackness.  A thin bridge led across the chasm to the
other side, far, far away.  I could see two tiny figures on the other
side.  

          Next to me was Aquamarine, naked as myself.  I stared at her.
"Did you see...I mean, are you..."

          Aquamarine nodded silently.  Something dissolved away around
her, and she somehow shrank without getting any smaller.  Tanya stood
before me.  "I'm sorry I never told you the truth.  That's one reason I
was reluctant to do this.  I knew you'd learn my secret."

        It was all incredibly obvious now.  It was no wonder she and
Thomas had believed me and Harry...they already knew the truth of it all.
Thomas had to be Flamehair.  "Is Thomas..."

        "Yes."

        "Do you..."

        "Yes."  Her face was sad.  "Harry doesn't know, in case you're
wondering."

          "I'm surprised you never told him, if you..."

          She sighed.  "I wanted to protect him.  Right after I learned of
my heritage, my mentor's lover was killed by an Unseelie assassin.  I
didn't want that to happen to Harry.  He was a mortal too, you see.  I
couldn't bear to see that happen to him, so I tried to get him to stop
loving me.  But I didn't try very hard, and it never worked."  She sighed.
"And then...he fell in love with you.  I couldn't believe it."

         "I couldn't believe it either,"  I said quietly.  "I had stopped
really believing anyone would ever fall in love with me."

        "You and Harry both are really hard on yourselves,"  Tanya said.
"And I can't understand why."

        "That's because you're one of those people everyone falls in love
with."  Because you're a faerie, I thought.  I remembered what Flamehair
had told me.  "Even without glamour, people would still find you
attractive.  You're funny and sexy and witty.  I'm just plain white
bread."  I looked down at my body.  It wasn't a bad body, but it wasn't as
impressive as Tanya.  She had a disgustingly perfect figure, beautiful
hair, a beautiful face, and she looked graceful, even butt naked.

         "Harry thinks you're beautiful.  And you're not just plain white
bread.  You're as funny and witty as I am.  You're a lot smarter than I'll
ever be, and you haven't done half as many totally stupid things as I've
done."  She walked over to me.  "Part of me wants to taunt you.  I want to
scream and rant because you've got Harry.  But part of me wants Harry to
be happy, whatever the cost to me, and I know he's happy with you."

         I squirmed.  I'd taken the man Tanya loved.  It was different
when Harry was just being a butthead.  Now I knew differently.  She'd made
a really difficult sacrifice to try to protect Harry.  I didn't know if I
could have done it.  I felt like the badguy.  Maybe they would have gotten
together one day if I hadn't come along.  "I...I've been so mad at you
because I thought you were...I just...I thought you were just stringing
him along."  I was babbling.

        She took a really deep breath and said very faintly, "I was.  I
couldn't really let go of him, no matter how much I told myself to."  She
paused.  "We can talk about this later.  We have to finish this."

        "What do we have to do?"

         She pulled out a handkerchief.  "Put this on.  I have to lead you
across the bridge."

         "How deep is that chasm?  What if I fall off?"

         "You'll have plenty of time to pray for God to protect Harry
before you hit the bottom."

          I gulped.  I like heights, but not this much height.  "I have to
do this?"

        She nodded.  "Don't worry.  I won't let you fall."

         I put on the blindfold, and we began slowly to cross the bridge.
A wind was blowing, and inch by inch, it grew stronger.  I could almost
hear it speaking to me.  

        Angel...Angel...What if she pushes you off?  No one would ever
know.

        I shuddered at the thought.  She could do anything...what if she
decided she could take Harry for herself if she let go of me?  The wind
picked up and I stumbled.  I felt Tanya grab my arm.  "Angel, are you
okay?" 

        I could hear the worry in her voice and relaxed.  Luckily, the
wind died down.  I could still hear it speaking, though.  She's just
trying to trick you, it said.  You can't trust a faerie.  They steal your
children.  They enchant you with their food.  Whatever a faerie wants, she
won't rest until she gets it.

         No, it's not true, I thought.  Tanya is my friend.  I can trust
her.  She's been fighting to protect me too.  "I'm fine."  We started
walking again.

         The wind grew stronger as I fretted.  What if Harry dumped me for
her?  What if she told him how she felt about him?  Would he really stay
with me?  I couldn't really believe it.  I stumbled again, and this time,
my foot missed the edge.  I began to fall.  I could feel the wind whip
around my body.

         Tanya didn't lose her grip.  I could feel her hands clasp mine
firmly and she began to pull me back up over the edge.  "Don't worry,
Angel.  I won't let you fall."  Her voice hardened.  "I won't let this
damn wind kill you."  

         She pulled me back up.  I could hear the wind whispering again.
She's just trying to set you up for a fall.  

        "SHUT THE HELL UP!"  I shouted.

         Tanya started to say something, and I quickly said, "Not you,
Tanya.  This damn wind won't shut up."

       The wind grew even stronger.  Tanya said, "Now I understand."
Pause.  "Shit."  I could hear her stumbling.  Her weight began to pull me
across the bridge.  

       We staggered to the other edge, which didn't take long.  Suddenly
her weight massively increased.  I got pulled down and slammed into the
bridge.  By some miracle, I somehow kept my grip on her hands.  She was
shrieking.  I was lying, holding her over the chasm.  It was one of the
scariest moments of my life.  "Hold on Tanya.  I'll pull you up."

      I couldn't.  I could hear the wind urging me to drop her.  I could
have Harry all to myself and Thomas too.  No one would ever know.  I tried
to pull Tanya up.  I wasn't strong enough.  I could barely even keep hold
of her hands.  I felt like my arms were about to wrench out of their
sockets.  

        The worst part of it was that I couldn't even see with the damn
blindfold.  I was cold and tired and scared out of my mind.  "Tanya, I'm
sorry.  I'm not strong enough.  I'm trying as hard as I can."  I yelped at
the pain I was feeling.

         I could feel her swaying in the wind.  "If only this damn wind
would stop, maybe I could climb up your arms..."

         I was getting angry at the wind.  It had done nothing but harrass
me and now it was going to kill Tanya.  "STOP!"  I shouted.  "I've had
ENOUGH!  If Tanya dies, I'll...I'll...I'll do something horrible to you!"

         The wind stopped in an instant.  A few seconds later, it started
again, as an updraft which powerfully flung Tanya up onto the bridge on
top of me.  Then it died away.  Tanya said, "Thank you.  I think we can
see your affinity now."

        "You mean I..."

         Tanya nodded.  "No wonder you could hear what it was saying.  I
didn't hear anything at all but just normal air noises."  We got up and
she started to lead me across the bridge again.  We reached the other
side, and she took off the blindfold.  Suddenly, we were both dressed
again.  

         We stood in the starry void of pools.  I could feel the air
moving around me.  I knew it.  Even with my eyes closed, I could see it.
I suddenly remembered my first confrontation with Splinter.  I had made
the wind.  It hadn't been just a coincidence.  Somehow, I had touched real
power.  "Do we go back now?"

         Tanya nodded.  "Angel...let me tell Harry about me, okay?
I...It's my duty to...I mean..."

         I understood, sort of.  "Okay.  I won't tell."

         We jumped into the pool together, and returned to the world that
we knew.

                                 *********************  
Harry said:

       I could hear the trees talking to each other when I woke up.  I
could sense the grass and the flowers sleeping in the moonlight.  I could
feel the vines creeping up the sides of the trees, inch by inch, as days
turned into years.  I could feel the power of the glade again.  I had no
idea how to do anything, but I knew I had changed.  "That wasn't too
hard,"  I said.

        "For you,"  Flamehair muttered.  "Actually, it was easy.  Which
worries me."

        "I can hear the trees and the grass and..."  The same squirrel
dropped another pinecone on my head.  "That."  We both laughed.  The fire
had gone out.  For a moment, I thought the girls had vanished, but they
had just moved over a ways and seemed to be communing with the cookpot.
"Are you two doing something?"

        They both suddenly started and the cookpot tipped over onto
Aquamarine, who yelped.  Angel got up and looked around.  She saw me and
ran over to me.  "Harry!"

       I hugged her.  "It worked, Angel.  Although I still don't know how
to do anything.  But, the world...it's different."

        Angel smiled and nodded.  "For me too."

        We had much to talk about.

******************************

Epilogue:

       Opal dealt out the deck of Tarot cards again, although he knew it
wouldn't help.  For the third time, he got the Fool, the Tower, the Four
of Staves, the Devil, the Lovers, and the High Priestess.  This was not
what he had been hoping for.  Splinter was going to do something foolish.
He could tell from the way she kept pacing around the castle walls all day
long.  

        He was starting to be tempted to do something himself just so he
could come back and tell her the problem was solved.  It wouldn't fool
her, though.  Not with her going to the same school as the mortals.  He
wanted to help her somehow.  With all her foolishness, he loved her
anyway.  There was no one else who knew how to cheer him up when the dark
moods settled on him.  They had grown up together in large part, and he
knew she was the one destined for him.  They said that the love of the