Mary and Rian returned to Hestia on a sunny day exactly one week later.

The town was in a full bustle, pink and blue streamers were being strung up from balconies and lantern posts and trees, dried flower petals from summer blooms were being scattered across the streets.

The Sidhe pair, on horses, trotted down the street as they headed towards the stables.

They passed the town center, and a sharp gleam of silver cut into Rian’s vision.

Hissing, he squinted away, then turned back trying to figure out what the object was.

It was not, in fact, an object, but a person.

Belatedly, he remembered that Xenia wore quite a bit of silver jewelery the last time he saw her. He just hadn’t noticed due to the dim drizzle of the outside and then warm firelight when they had been in the Singing Bird.

Now, in the autumn sun, Xenia gleamed.

As if realizing someone was watching her, Xenia turned towards the pair. A beaming smile appeared on her face, and she hitched up her long skirt and dashed over to them.

“You came!” She called out when she got close enough.

“Well, we did say we would,” Rian drawled, looking just over Xenia’s left shoulder to avoid direct eye contact with the shine of her jewelery.

“I’m excited,” Mary said quietly, “I’ve never heard of a festival for the Blood Moon.”

“No?” Xenia tapped her chin. “Ah, I guess it’s because I’ve lived in Hestia for all my life. I always forget we’re a bit of a bubble.”

She shrugged. “Anyways, would you like to stay and help, or would you like to rest?”

“Ah,” Rian winced, “I’m afraid I must rest. I have a bit of a fragile constitution and we’ve ridden all the way from Gawain and I’m a bit tired.”

“Oh,” Xenia frowned. “I’m a healer, if you’d like me to check you out. Not today of course, but please, feel free to go to the Singing Bird to get a room. Iskra won’t ask for any payment, probably, but if she does just tell her I sent you.”

“I’m afraid that my affliction is a chronic one, and one I’ve had since birth.”

“Then, with your permission, I’ll look at you.” Her expression became determined. “I’ve yet to find a sickness or wound I couldn’t heal.”

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Rian laid in one of the Singing Bird’s rooms after withstanding Iskra’s stink eye.

The ride from Gawain hadn’t been exceptionally difficult, but there were times where the world could be perfect and his body simply refused to cooperate. It was as if his body decided to just give up in Hestia.

His ribs ached from a wracking cough session ten minutes prior. Shivers ran down his spine as rapidly cooling water droplets ran down his face from the cloth he had put over his eyes in an attempt to soothe the seething headache between his eyes.

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“Are you alright?” He rasped to Mary.

“Fine.” But the word was strained.

He peeled off the damp rag and threw it to the floor, pushing himself to a sitting position with much effort.

Mary was sitting cross legged on the floor beside the bed, eyes closed. Sweat beaded her brow as she worked to circulate water vapor throughout the air to ease his straining lungs.

He put a hand on her shoulder. “Enough. You’re straining yourself.”

“I—“

“Enough.”

In a fit of determination, she kept the water vapor going for a moment longer before funneling it back into the basin they had requested from Iskra. As soon as the water was no longer under her control, Mary slumped, breathing hard.

“I don’t understand,” she hissed, “you make it look so easy.”

“You already have magnificent control over water itself. You needn’t really worry about switching the Form like I do to be powerful.”

A flash of hurt glanced over her face, so quick he almost thought he imagined it.

He opened his mouth to say something but a knock sounded on the door. At the same time, a melodic tone seemed to echo through the town.

He pushed himself out of bed to open the door.

Iskra looked up at him, eye narrowed. “The festival starts at sundown. You’ve got about five minutes if you want to see the whole thing.”

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The pair followed the tone to one of the main paths leading to the town center.

Xenia stood in the center, where the circle of grass was, holding a piper. There were two circles of children and teenagers surrounding her, split into girls and boys. On the benches were the elderly and parents. Everyone else looked on from the windows of their houses.

As if sensing Rian’s presence, her gaze flicked to his. A flicker of joy gleamed in those silver eyes, and then the tone stopped.

She took a deep breath, and started to play a song.

As the song played, the children started to hum and walk around her in circles.

From one of the adults, a fiddle started to play. Then castanets.

More voices echoed the children, the weathered voices of the elderly, the clear voices of woman, the low baritone of the men, those slightly flat or slightly short.

The fiddle got faster. Xenia’s pipe got louder.

The circle of youth started to walk faster. Stomps and claps whistles sounded from the crowd. The hum turned into chants. Rian found himself clapping along, and realized with a jolt that his pain was, for the most part, gone.

He glanced down at Mary, about to tell her, but her eyes were transfixed on the circle of children.

Xenia whipped her head from her pipe for a breath of air. “Everyone!” She called.

Whoops sounded from the kids, and suddenly they were dancing with each other, swinging each other around and skipping to the next partner as the frenzy overtook them.

Oh, the fields of heather call to me, call to me, call to me

Where the foxes play by streams,

Starlight paths and moonbeams,

Where the ivy wraps the gate, wraps the gate, wraps the gate,

Through the dark I’m bound to roam

My heart will lead me home

The song changed, progressing into a new song.

And then suddenly—

The music stopped. The moon was high in the sky, a lovely, rosy red, and Rian was sitting down, exhausted, but unpained.

He blinked at the realization, then again when he suddenly noticed that Mary was asleep, snoozing on his shoulder.

Most of the children were sleeping, the teenagers who had managed to stay awake blinking slowly and were being ushered by parents and grandparents and any other guardians back to their homes.

A presence appeared suddenly behind him, and he glanced up.

Xenia looked down at him, silver eyes seeming to reflect the moonlight in an eerie red glow.

“You should sleep.” Her voice seemed a bit deeper, huskier. “Return to your room.”

Drowsiness overtook him, and between one blink and the next, he was guiding Mary to her bed and collapsing in his own.

When he slept, he dreamed of red eyes and a song he knew but didn’t, somehow.

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Veluri kalishvili var, am mits’is var shvili

Tavisupali var, shisveli dzveleburi, tsa chems tavze dat mits’a penkhvesh dgas,

Am mits’aze me vip’ovne simsvide da gza…