Chapter 10

In the morning when Rhiannon woke she reached out and found Rowan then curled into his side, warm and sleepy under the blankets. She didn't open her eyes, she simply let her mind wander delicately and slowly over the events of the previous night. The sound of Rowan's voice saying her name, his touch, the dream. It was like opening a box of something delicious then sitting and contemplating how good it will be before jumping right in and eating it. Just spending some time knowing that you have it.

She felt Rowan stir and his arms went around her. She sighed. After a few minutes of lying like that Rowan asked Rhiannon, “So, are you going to open your eyes?”

She smiled with her eyes still closed, “I'm just savouring this.”

“Very well, but you have to open your eyes before the sun moves, or you're going to miss this.”

Rhiannon opened her eyes and drew in a breath, then let it out slowly. The sun was shining through the stained glass doors and the room was ablaze with a myriad of vivid colours. Purple moons, red glowing suns, and deep indigo ravens flying across an azure sky over a sea green ocean. The doors formed an arch with two windows on either side completing the curve. These were filled with green leaves and yellow and orange flowers. Wild poppies. The images of water, sky and flowers were enough to stay with them for the rest of their lives but the feeling of lying together bathed in all that colour was beyond compare. A living rainbow. Absolutely breathtaking. “I don't think that I've ever experienced a morning this perfect. This . . . Everything . . . It's beyond anything I've ever felt before. I don't know what to do with it all. I feel like I'm overflowing.” She laughed and they lay there together smiling into one another's faces. “Last night . . . I had a dream . . .” She paused tying to find words, but she didn't need to.

“I know. I was there,” he said.

“So it's real then. I still have the feeling of the dream inside me. It feels scary and wonderful and right all at once.”

Rowan nodded. “That about sums it up, doesn't it.”

“A baby,” she whispered.

He nodded again, serious, “A baby.” And for a few moments they let the silence stretch, but sitting up and smiling once more, Rowan took her hand and pulled her up. “Let's open the doors and go out into the sunshine together for a few moments before anybody comes and makes us go to breakfast or anything like that.”

He passed her the blue and pink embroidered night gown that the fairies had put her in. It was finely stitched and gathered with tiny pleats and seemed almost too beautiful for sleeping in. She slipped it on as Rowan pulled his tunic and pants on. These too were obviously made by the fairies and had a simple fineness to them. Rowan passed her a heavy shawl then opened the doors. She reached for his hand and they stepped out into the sun.

It was about two weeks, now, passed the equinox, and the air was crisp bordering on cold, but one could feel that it would be warm by mid afternoon. Many of the leaves had turned gold and there were flashes of brilliant red here and there in the still largely green forests. They were right on what would have been the Burrard Inlet in the other world. “What do they call it here?”

“They call the settlement a stronghold and this particular one is usually just referred to as Lugh's Stronghold.”

Rhiannon looked around at the buildings. They looked like the great great grandchildren of Salish plankhouses and Haida longhouses. Still simple and elegant but sleeker and vaguely multicultural looking. Rhiannon and Rowan were standing on a patio together, Rowan behind her with his arms around her. They stood looking out on the water and across at the dense old growth forest growing on the opposite shore.

“I have to warn you about something before I lose my chance,” Rowan started in a tone that combined amusement and exasperated embarrassment. “Do you remember how a certain amount of, talk, reproductive speculation, giggling, and silly jokes went around the day after we became a couple?”

Although Rhiannon had been sheltered from the worst of it, and Rowan had taken the brunt when she wasn't around, she did indeed remember. “Yes,” she answered laughing.

“The fairies are worse,” he said bluntly. “And half of them have a sixth sense, so there's no hiding anything from them and, they all know that you were a virgin when you got here because of the unicorn.”

“Oh,” Rhiannon answered as her cheeks grew hot.

Rowan moved so that he could see her face then laughed, not unkindly, “You blush so easily. That world really did leave you in quite a state. There was sex all over the place there, and yet I don't get the feeling that the overall societal relationship to it is very open. I just don't want you to feel too embarrassed.” He leaned his forehead against hers smiling.

“I guess I'll survive. I wouldn't undo last night even if it would save me all the embarrassment in the world, so I'll just have to face it,” she smiled sheepishly and as if on cue knocking could be heard from within.

“If that's Nimue we're in for it,” Rowan muttered letting go of her waist and taking her hand as they returned indoors, closing the doors behind them. He went to the inner door and opened it. Nimue stuck her head in and, seeing then both up and decent, hustled in with a dress over her arm and a big pitcher of steaming water in her hands.

She smiled a big irrepressible grin which Rhiannon didn't think could possibly get any wider but after two seconds in the room it did and she burst out, “Whoa ho! It's a good thing you waited to do that until after you needed a unicorn's help. I don't even need the sight to tell that you're knocked up. It's written all over your face!”

“See what I mean?” Rowan's mouth quirked. “Just be glad she didn't do that in front of your father.”

Rhiannon was beet red and laughing so hard that there were tears running down her cheeks. “After that I think I can take just about anything,” she told Rowan who hugged her tight and laughed along with her.

“Leave her alone so that I can help her dress. Breakfast is nearly on,” Nimue said, still grinning while she swatted at Rowan, the winglike aura glowing madly behind her. Nimue opened the door to the little room off the bed chamber and left the pitcher on the wash stand within. It was just a small, well ventilated room with a composting toilet, some hooks for clothes, and a basin—much like at Rowan's family home—but Rhiannon headed into the little bathroom happy for five minutes of privacy.

When she emerged refreshed, Rowan headed into the bathroom with a fresh pitcher of water. Nimue had laid out the dress and some underthings. “Here, let's brush your hair before we put the dress on. Gran would kill me if I let it get snagged. She chose the fabric to go with my eyes,” Nimue prattled on as she worked through the tangles in Rhiannon's hair. “So it should look just as nice on you. I think we're almost exactly the same size although you may be a hair taller so Gran hemmed it a bit longer than she would have for me.”

Rhiannon slipped into the delicate embroidered underthings then picked up the dress. It was made of silk and velvet in dusky intense blues. Storm clouds and clear evening skies. It was a simple dress with sheer elbow length sleeves and a velvet bodice. The silk skirt fell to her ankles as she carefully lifted it over her head and let it fall around her. She didn't want to step into it for fear of dragging it on the floor—even clean as it was—and the skirt swished and fluttered as she turned to allow Nimue to fasten the back for her. “Isn't this a little fine for breakfast?” Rhiannon asked.

“No. It befits your station,” Nimue answered as she fastened the many tiny shell buttons, suddenly very serious. “You have freed me from a burden that I did not want, and I am sorry for you, but trust me, it is expected of you to present yourself this way.” She knew that Nimue was telling the truth. Nimue herself was wearing a pink silk empire waisted gown with a short string of freshwater pearls suspending a wild rose, delicately carved of rose quartz, just below her throat. Engraved silver cuff bracelets were on her wrists, and her shining black hair was neatly braided, coiled and pinned.

Nimue went over to the bureau and opened the top. She took out the box that held the circlet with its crescent shaped opal. Nimue opened the box and presented it to Rhiannon. With shaking hands and pounding heart she lifted it from the box and placed it on her brow. Nimue stood behind her and clasped the sapphire necklace around her throat. Rhiannon understood now why Bronwen would have given her something so precious, and why she had looked at Kristabell/Rhiannon with so much angst in her eyes. There was a full length mirror in the room which made Rhiannon realize that this really must be a very special room. She walked up to it and looked. It was just her reflection. She knew this, but in a world where seeing your entire reflection is something that only happens once a month or so, a look in a mirror, especially during a time of so much change and turmoil, takes on more significance. Rhiannon looked, and the heir to a Fay throne looked back at her. Eyes glowing, moon shining on her pale brow, hair caught back in a net of silver knot work and a dress made out of twilight. With a sapphire and a pearl both shining at her throat, she looked like the evening sky, and it was then that she saw for the first time the opalescent flickers that danced, sometimes, along her arms, shoulders, and occasionally her brow. Looking at the fern patterns spiralling up her right arm she realized with a finality that was like a stone in her stomach, that she was not just a fairy, which would have, in and of itself, been fine, she was a Fairy Princess. She could not escape her fate, and this terrified her.

Rowan emerged neat and clean-shaven, hair combed and tied back in a low loose half ponytail. He looked into her eyes and she saw that mixed look of love and sadness there. She knew now, how he must have felt the night that he'd asked her to be his wife, only to realize all of the painful complicated obligation and danger that would come with her. She flew into his arms, so hard that he grunted but he held her tight. “Please don't let this change how you feel about me. Please remember that whatever happens, at the end of the day, when the door is closed and the world has gone away, that I'm just a halfbreed fairy who loves you. Rowan, I'm so scared.”