You really stepped in it now Barney. You know that right?

This isn't like that time you accidentally wandered into the Chamber of Fatal Prophecies on the thirteenth floor and had the Circle of Senior Wizards all shaking their beards at you.

This goes way beyond when you accidentally decrypted Grand Wizard Virgil Borengirdles Tome of Rather Personal Secrets and left the translation on the Library counter. Remember? You thought he was going to curse your family line down to your great grandchildren's great grandchildren.

And remember that one time you mixed up the ingredients for the Draft of Greater-Newt's Fire Resistance solution with the Solution of Greater Fire Resistant Newt? And then drank it? And then your grandfather almost chopped you up for potion ingredients?

None of that holds an ever-burn candle to the trouble you're in now. I've been pouring through everything I've ever known about the Fae. And not once. Not ONCE has any mortal really gotten the better of the Fae. I'd bet my brim on it.

Those stories like Rumplestiltskin, Rapunzel, Snow White? All of these great kingdoms and valiant kings and princes and knights.... What happened to them all? The stories just stop. What happened to Camelot?

What I'm trying to say is... your beard's on the line here, now. You understand?

You made a deal with the Fae, in exchange for time. Time and nothing more. She's still coming after those kids afterwards. And if you don't deliver, she's coming after you as well. Pretty sure this uses up her "Good Grace". And Fae are all about their deals.

— You understand?

'Mothballs you do! But at least your finally acting your beard length. Well nothing to do now but stir this cauldron.

So Barnibus, grandchild of Grand Wizard Albernathy Thomas Barnwinkle, grand-grandchild of Arch-Wizard Zeldon Hoover Montgomery Barnwinkle. You shove that Knowing Twinkle back in your eye. You patch that gaping hole in your Dignity. And for the sake of wide brims and good stitching everywhere throw on that Wizardly Air of Intrigue and Wisdom of Ages Past. Its been slipping all night!

'You want me to be a Hat to thee? Well for once in your life you be a Hatted Wizard to me. And when that robe gets back you throw it on. I don't care if its sopping wet, this 'Wizard is always a wizard even with his pants down' shtick you're peddling is getting old. We are walking in the footsteps of Merlin here. The Merlin. Those are shoes wider than mountains. No two bit Hedge Wizard is going to cut it.

— Wizard Barnibus' Hat

* * *

There was an odd numbness that Leinan was feeling. A numbness that was so odd juxtaposed to the stinging burn coming from where she was sitting down.

Fat tears leaked down her cheeks. They ran in streams that she couldn't stop, passing her lips and covering them in salt, and then collected in drops at her chin.

Eventually they fell.

Burning. And numb. It was a surreal combination. Which was appropriate she supposed. Everything was surreal now.

Like the monster grinning agreeably beside her who had hair the color of freshly fallen snow, and lips like blood.

Who "punished" her and laughed. Laughed — delighted, like it was a game. Like it was fun. Who had hunted them, deftly separating them away from the rest of the Landsend folk out passed the tree line and forcing them to run. To hide. To tire like game animals.

Who was sitting a small evenly spaced distance away from her even now, in a parody of camaraderie. Surreal.

Surreal. Like the Wizard, wearing a hat far too large and nearly nothing else. Who saved them and fed them and — allowed this! Who had said the words 'Meet and Just and Done' and had added to The Forerunner's justice.

She hadn't understood him. But she could tell by the cadence of the words. The formality. And how The Forerunner had responded had solidified it.

Meet and just and done.

Like Leinan had done something wrong. Like this was justice and she should be happy that she had gotten off so lightly.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to tear at her hair and fight! She wanted to grab her knife again, draw it and this time not miss. To —

Leinan wanted to weep. Why? Why was this happening? What was all of this?

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A small hand touched her.

Keimen touched her arm and when Leinan didn't flinch away, crept closer and wrapped her small arms around Leinan's form.

The motion made her shift on her log sending a searing jolt along her hips and she hissed. But she didn't flinch away.

'Thy shalt take not these children mine....' She remembered The Forerunner saying. Leinan pulled the child close and wrapped her arms around Keimen as more tears streamed from her eyes.

Face thee me, eye to eye, and speak unto me thy heart's desire.

'Thy shalt take not these children mine.

My path hast crossed and holdeth this day.

I stand against thee! Thee, an' all the Fae.'

AND SHE STILL COULDN'T SPEAK THEM! Leinan couldn't say the words. And She had tried.

They stuck in her throat like a piece of bone. She couldn't even look at The Forerunner.

Leinan stared hard at the fire. Stared and tightened her grip on the small child. The orphan child who she had practically raised all by herself since finding them in the forrest. Her child.

"I'm sorry, sister Leia." Keimen whispered, snuffling into her cloak.

"Shh. It's not your fault, Kei." Leinan petted Keimens dark hair. Stroking it behind her ears. And hugged the little girl as hard as she could. "I swear it's not."

"But I said to." The girl insisted. "I said The Forerunner would —"

"I know." Leinan said sharply. She stomped on this hard.

Whatever her pain, there was no way she was letting Keimen believe — "And you saved us. Me." Leinan hissed quietly. She pulled Keimen away just far enough that she could rest her forehead on Keimen's own. "I was stupid enough to think.... You saved me Kei. Shadows take the switching."

She heard a tinkling giggle from her left.

Her shoulders hunched, but she ignored it the same you ignored that creeping sensation in the dark, when you were certain there was something in the room with you but dared not light the candle to check for certain.

"It's her fault." She finished simply, and stared down Keimen's frowning face until Keimen nodded reluctantly.

"He's thinking again," came Keimen's brother's voice from next to them.

Leinan reached out and drew him into a hug too. He came easily. And from the corner of her eye, she saw the Wizard give a start of alarm. But he didn't stop them. Only fretted. Probably because they were not evenly spaced, she thought darkly. He had been very particular before. She didn't care.

"He was thinking again." Aemon insisted. "He's trying to figure out how save us."

"I'm going to save us." Leinan insisted. "I will. I swear I'll figure it out."

"We know." Keimen said earnestly, while Aemon nodded next to her.

"But he is too." Aemon supplied. "Its what he keeps talking to his hat about."

Leinan stared at him and somehow, she felt something in her fall even farther.

She tried to sniff back the newest resurgence of tears. "His... his hat?"

Aemon nodded again, with that earnestness of children insisting that their teddy bear wanted a hug too.

"Ah..."

"Hat is a big ol' meany, but" Aemon leaned closer and pitched his voice even quieter. "But they are trying help us!"

Leinan looked at him and tried to keep the sneer from her face as hard as she tried to keep her bottom from shifting on the log. It was hard!

Some help he'd been she thought. Adding to her switching and then turning away as if losing interest. Not pulling Keimen and Aemon away. Leaving Keimen and Aemon to watch while she'd —

She hated the Wizard in that moment. How dare he be useless! She thought. How dare he be crazy! This all had to mean something! It had too!

She hated that hatted man. Hated almost as much as she hated the Monster cackling quietly on her other side. Help them. Help....

I have to. She thought. I —

"An' with what will canst thee hold this claim,

as thee gaze thus at the fire-golden flame?"

It. Was. All. So. Surreal.

She still couldn't pull her eyes away from the fire and look at the monster lounging and cackling and grinning that sharp grin only feet away from her.

Leinan couldn't say those words. And she tried. OH, she tried. Wetting and re-wetting her lips. Gulping down the air to.... And they never came.

She couldn't tear her eyes from the fire. Couldn't look The Forerunner in the eyes. And those words Leinan had to say, wouldn't leave her throat.

The worst part was, it wasn't magic.

Some part of her knew that. Not Magic. But she thought it was fear.

And wasn't that the strangest of all, Leinan thought bitterly. Because she could draw a blade and spring at the monster. But even thinking about saying those last words 'I stand against thee... An' all the Fae.' Made her want to quake.

She had never, ever, not once heard of the Fae. Master Bordenson had no tales of Fae or wicked Forerunners. No merchants brought stories of them. But the thought of standing against the Fae filled her mind with pants wetting tremors as she had never known.

Who were the Fae?

* * *

And the moon glowed and the wind slowed, and the fire burned bright and no one did fight.

The Forerunner of the Fae sat on her rock by the fire, grinning that cut-midnight grin of the cruel, crescent moon.

The Wizard from very very far away fussed and fiddled with his beard. A big blue hat was pulled low over his brow, its brim spread wide like a halo about his ears and tip curving back behind his head.

He was thin, this wizard. You could tell, because his robe lay beside him by the fire and he wore little else save for a strange pair of shorts of too fine a make for their purpose, slippers, and his hat.

He was also crazy, and cruel, and nobody's hero.

And two children sat by Leinan.

They were helpless, these children, for all that they were special.

One of them could read in more than one language, though Leinan didn't know that.

The other cocked his head as he listened to a conversation in a language no one in this world had ever heard, and wondered how a hat could be so unkind.

Leinan didn't see, because she could not look, but she heard the monster clap three times and cackle a cackle of pure cruelty. "Well here we are, Wizard from afar. An accord we hath made, an' ere the night fade, entertainment an glee shall thee grant unto me. Te-heeheehe!"

And the Wizard stood. His hat threw a shadow over his eyes, and they glimmered dimly from underneath in the firelight.

He stood in nothing but underclothes and babbled nonsense into the night and when the Wizard's robe arose to carry out its master's will, Leinan cared not at all.

Leinan sat and tried not to shift too much.

She sat and stared at the fire, and Blackest Hatred dribbled from her eyes and from the corners of her mouth, though, again, she did not know that.

It was all a matter of perspective.