The forest seemed endless. Without landmarks or a watch, Logan had no idea how long he walked the winding, shadowed trail. It was hard to judge the movement of the sun through the thick foliage above but it hardly seemed to have moved at all and yet, it felt like hours had passed. Plus, he was getting tired, which seemed odd. He couldn’t recall ever feeling weary in any dreams before now. Of course, no other dream had ever felt as strangely real as this one did.

The only change he did notice was the temperature. Bit by bit, the air was beginning to cool off. Eventually, he began to see his own breath. Then leaves began to glisten beneath a light coat of frost.

His journey through the forest finally ended, rather abruptly, at an oval-shaped hole in an ancient-looking stone wall. A sheet of weeping ice blocked the opening. He could see a reflection on its shining surface of a broad-shouldered, dark-haired man in faded jeans and a black t-shirt. The man reflected in the ice had his mother’s green eyes and the burnished skin tone, square jaw, and strong nose of his father’s people.

Molly Flynn. That was his mother’s name and his father was… John. John Proud Bear.

Logan reached out to feel the cold, wet surface. As his fingers touched the ice, he heard a sharp crack and watched as ragged fissures shot through the ice. Small spiderweb cracks rapidly spread, popping and snapping in jagged lines until the entire sheet of ice suddenly collapsed in a splash of frozen shards. He watched in amazement as the chunks of ice quickly melted into water and vanished into the ground.

Cautiously, he ducked and stepped through the opening. On the other side was what appeared to be, quite literally, a moment frozen in time. Creatures of all sizes, both magical and mundane, sat against trees, lay on the grass, or curled up on each other beneath a glittering sheen of ice. Stout badgers, lovely nymphs wreathed in silk, and fat, ugly gnomes lay scattered on the ground beneath a cathedral-like arching roof of tree limbs. The tree trunks were perfectly aligned across the clearing in pairs, just as columns would be in an old church or the great hall of a castle. He looked up at fat, little squirrels, brightly plumed birds, and tiny, winged faeries that lay curled up on the high branches.

And everything was covered in a thin, crystal-clear rime of ice. The entire glade sparkled with the cold, silver beauty of moonlight. Logan could see their frozen faces. All eyes were closed. Whether in death or dreams, he could not say.

Moonlight? Logan blinked and looked up. Sure enough, the light of the day was suddenly gone. The full moon hung low and large in a field of unknown stars that hung like diamonds in a black velvet sky.

As he stepped in for a closer look at the shining scenery, the frozen grass beneath his foot cracked. Another step. Another pop of broken ice. Looking back at his footprint, he saw ice falling away from healthy, green grass.

Logan looked around in awe at all the little details his imagination was creating. Bending down over one of the squat, little, gnome-like creatures, Logan could see the wrinkles on its swarthy face and all the little gray and black hairs in its eyebrows.

What a crazy dream!

It was then that he noticed the throne at the far end and the woman sitting there between two snarling wolves seated to either side. The ice around her was clear as glass. Logan’s breath caught in his throat.

“Beautiful” was an inadequate word. Unlike every other creature in the glade, her eyes were open beneath the ice. Long, silky hair the color of the night sky framed her oval-shaped face. Skin the color of fresh milk. Perfect, cupid bow lips were the pink of a young girl’s blush. A gown hung from naked shoulders to drape her body in folds of what looked like glittering, blue smoke. Across her brow was a crown of silver, shaped into vines. Sunlight glittered off of leaves made of pure amethyst and berries of polished ruby.

Logan stepped closer. Ice popped and cracked. He did not notice.

Three stone steps led up to her throne. Logan stopped with one foot on the bottom step. It felt… wrong to get any closer.

Crack. Pop. Fissures spread out through the ice beneath his foot and up the stairs, spreading and reaching and growing until the first jagged break touched her slippered foot.

Logan flinched and covered his eyes as the entire hall exploded in a glittering shower of shattered ice. The hall rang like a bell as countless frozen particles rained down around him. A thousand cold kisses landed on his arms and in his hair.

When he dared to look up, it was into swirling eyes of midnight blue. Eyes that were now looking back at him. Her lips curled into a faint smile. Her hair now moved around her bare shoulders as if caught in a gentle breeze. One long, perfectly manicured fingernail slowly rose to point at his chest.

“Who has woken Maeve, queen of the Twilight Court?”

Logan swallowed a gasp of surprise and fell back to stand on the grass. He could almost feel the rich contralto of her voice like a soft breath against his skin. “My name is Logan…” Grandfather Bear’s warning sprang to mind. A moment of panic bubbled in his gut before a name rose out of the fog of his memory. His mother’s maiden name. “…Flynn.” Because it seemed appropriate, he offered a clumsy attempt at a bow. “Logan Flynn, Your Majesty.”

The two wolves flanking her snarled in silent, watchful menace. The queen slowly rose to her feet with the effortless grace of a swimmer gliding through water. She practically floated down the stairs. Her scent wafted over him; night-blooming Jasmine.

All around Logan, the entire court was now moving about as well. All of them sank down to kneel or bow before her. Not a trace of ice remained. Even the chill in the air was fading.

“Very good,” she purred. “Let us have a better look at you, mortal spirit.”

Logan was surprised to see how tall she was. At six-foot, two inches, Logan was used to seeing the tops of people's heads. Not so the queen. They were nearly eye-to-eye.

And what eyes! This close, Logan could see the color changing and swirling through every shade of blue like a slow whirlpool. It was hypnotic. Logan had to look away to shake off the sensation of falling.

Her laughter sounded like crystal chimes dancing in the wind. “You have woken us from our long sleep and for that, we are grateful. How have you done this, spirit?”

Something in the tone of her voice caught Logan’s attention. Beneath the queen’s honeyed words, behind her breathtaking allure, was the subtle, but unmistakable, sound of speaking to someone of lesser status. He had heard it before, many times in his life.

Vague memories bubbled up to the surface. A lovely girl with an evil heart and cruel words in high school. The dismissive voice of a higher-ranked officer. A stranger calling him “half-breed”.

That subtle tone of inherent superiority sent cracks through the glamour she had woven around him, like thin ice cracking beneath his boot. Logan straightened his shoulders, looked into her hypnotic eyes, and smiled. Her ethereal beauty was still breathtaking but he was no schoolboy to act the fool over a pretty girl. Respect and polite consideration, he was happy to give. Fawning devotion, not so much, especially in his own damned dream!

“As to how I cannot say… Your Majesty, though I am happy to have helped. The only thing I can say for certain is that I am no spirit. I am a man.”

Surprise flickered across her perfect face. Queen Maeve took a step back and gave Logan a long, appraising look, from his feet to the top of his head. Her hand rose, palm out toward him. “ I feel it from the heat of your skin. The beating of your heart. The blood pumping through your…” her eyes glanced downward. “…body.”

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Logan wasn’t certain how he felt about being viewed like a slab of meat but if that’s the way it was going to be…

Two can play that game, he thought.

Delicate looking, blue silk slippers encased the royal feet. Her gown of glittering, blue smoke was a wonder, revealing nothing but hinting at everything. Behind that gauzy shield were long legs, a narrow waist, and an hourglass figure. Shadows danced in the cleft between her thighs. The swell of high, firm breasts was plainly visible against the fabric. Her neck was a slender column of flawless, pale skin.

“You are a bold one.”

Logan tore his gaze away to look into her eyes. He couldn’t tell if it was anger or amusement he was seeing. Some vague sense of warning tickled at the back of his neck but he dismissed it. There was no danger in dreams.

“I have heard that about myself,” he replied with a slight bow.

The queen smiled. The crowd burst into soft titters of amusement and approval. All gathered seemed to take his gesture as a graceful and gallant acknowledgment of the queen’s attention.

“You have awoken us and we are feeling generous,” she declared. “How may we show you our appreciation, mortal man? Name your desire.”

The temptation to spout off something cute and sarcastic was his natural instinct. Words sat on his tongue, ready to fly out of his mouth. World peace. A pony. A moisture farm on the planet Tattoine.

After all, it was just a dream. Might as well have some fun with it.

Why then were the hairs standing up on the back of his neck? Why did he feel a tension in the air not so different from…

Sitting on a porch on a summer afternoon. The weather is dry and hot against my face but a chill wind is beginning to blow. Dark clouds boil across the pale, blue sky. There is a charge in the air and the faintest taste of copper on my tongue. I watch the clouds come closer and wait for that first jagged spear of lightning and the boom of thunder that must follow.

Only a memory or a warning? Logan took a deep breath, looked up at the beautiful, alien, faerie queen and considered her sweet-sounding words.

How may we show our appreciation? It seemed a casual enough question, a simple offer of gratitude but was it really? He could see it in the way all the fantastical creatures in this place were staring at him, breathless and silent as if his answer were the most important things in the world.

Only a dream, he reminded himself.

Ask for nothing. Give no thanks. Grandfather Bear’s warning echoed in his thoughts.

Danger. His instincts warned. Tread lightly.

“Your Majesty is too kind,” Logan spoke carefully. “And has already gifted me with the pleasure of your beauty and hospitality. I could ask for nothing more.”

Logan looked at the queen as he spoke but it was the crowd he watched in his peripheral vision. He watched them murmur to themselves, arguing the merits of his reply in a way that seemed very familiar. Almost like a contest, like…

A tennis match. He thought. They are all behaving like spectators at a tennis match as if I had just sent the ball back across the net. What the hell is going on?

She smiled, unreadable, and lovely. “Honeyed words well spoken. Still, a mortal heart yearns for much and more. Ambitions burn ever bright among your kind. What do you desire?”

Well… shit, Logan thought. For reasons he could not begin to understand, the queen was not going to take no for an answer. She was all but demanding that he accept some kind of reward by doing exactly what Grandfather Bear had warned him not to do.

Think fast, old son. He told himself. Think, think, think!

“How could I possibly desire anything from this day onward? I have already experienced perfection. Anything else can only fail to compare.”

Logan would not have seen it, had he not been watching closely. The queen’s perfect, cupid bow, lips twitched in the faintest hint of irritation. The crowd’s reaction was his only hint as to why. Wide-eyed and whispering, they gave the impression that this game of cat-and-mouse, of “thanks but no thanks”, was beginning to push the boundaries of polite interaction.

What would happen when he refused one too many times? Logan didn’t know, and he didn’t want to know. As beautiful and sexy as the queen was, she was also decidedly not human. Making her angry seemed like a very bad idea, dream or no.

He knew there were human societies that behaved in much the same way. Japanese culture required that a gift be refused three times as a show of modesty, but that was not all. There was something else about gift-giving in Japan, something that seemed very important if he could only remember…

Suddenly he knew. In many cultures, receiving a gift implied an obligation to provide a gift of equal value in return!

Was that the game they were playing? Everything that had happened to him since awakening in this bizarre place flashed through Logan’s mind. Grandfather Bear’s warning of “ask for nothing” and “give no thanks”, both implied an acknowledgment of obligation.

It all made sense! Everything that was happening now was because he had stumbled into the grotto and shattered the ice imprisoning the queen and her court, allowing them to rouse once again to life and motion. He had done this. Which meant…

She owes me an obligation and I don’t think she likes that one little bit.

Logan finally felt like he was beginning to understand the crazy rules of this dream… only it was beginning to feel more nightmarish, like storm clouds rolling in. Unfortunately, he had no clue how that was supposed to help him out of this current predicament, short of waking up. The only thing he now knew for certain was that time was running out and if he handled this wrong, it was likely to end ugly.

“You are wise to understand this truth.” The queen replied. Was that a touch of anger in her voice? “Any mortal woman will forever be a poor reflection of what you have experienced here in our realm. It is the price that must be paid to bask in our glory. Now, one last time, I ask what desire you would have in return?”

Answer or refuse. The queen or the bear. Whatever he did, or said, next would determine the outcome. The crowd leaned in, anxious and intent, like sharks smelling blood in the water.

Backpedaling had failed. Trying to dodge the question had failed. She had backed him into a corner. He had to commit to an answer.

Logan blinked. A memory bubbled up into his awareness, of his parents, and of better days. Molly Flynn and John Proud Bear, lost souls from two different worlds, who found meaning and hope in the most unlikely of places; each other. It brought a smile to his face and an idea to mind.

Mortal woman. Mortal man. That was how the queen referred to humans whenever she spoke of them. In other words, not immortal as she was and thus, inferior. For all her grace and beauty, she thought herself better than human. Which meant she could never truly understand what it meant to be human. Which meant she could not grant what she could not comprehend.

Or so Logan hoped. It was time to go all-in and bet it the pot.

Logan nodded. “What do I desire above all else? What my parents had, Your Majesty. Someone to share my life with. To make it a life worth living. Someone to raise children with, to share hopes and fears with. Someone to comfort when life is hard, and to laugh with when times are good. A woman who is my lover and my best friend. The keeper of all my darkest fears and brightest hopes.”

“You speak of love,” she replied. “That is the one thing that is not in my power to give.”

Logan nodded. “No one can. That's why it is so very rare and valuable.”

“Clever little fool.” The queen slowly rose to her feet. Her eyes seemed to glow with an eerie, blue light. Behind her, a faint spray of glittering frost began to crawl across and down her throne. Cold air and swirling mist began to boil up from her feet. Creatures standing nearby flinched, cried out, and hurried to move away. “You know not what you do. Name another desire quickly!”

“No.” The deep voice that spoke was not Logan’s. He looked over and up at the ageless, black eyes of Grandfather Bear looking at them over the garden wall. “This one has passed the test. While the debt stands, he is not yours to enthrall, oh Queen.”

“Enthralled?” Logan muttered. Then louder to the great bear. “Wait, you mean like… enslaved?”

Grandfather Bear nodded. “She hungers after the long sleep and would feed on your life essence for eternity or until you were dead, whichever came first. But you woke her from the long slumber and that is a debt owed…” He looked at the queen. “… and unpaid. She can do you no harm while it stands.”

“You would experience a thousand pleasures,” the queen ran her hands down her perfect body. “And die in bliss.”

“Holy shit!” Enslaved for eternity? Logan felt a chill run down his spine at just how close he had come to that point of no return.

The queen glared at Logan. “Choose another desire, mortal.”

“No way.” Logan started walking toward the round entrance in the garden wall. The sooner he was out of there, the better.

“I command it!” she snarled.

“Not a chance in hell,” was his reply. The doorway was just ahead. If he was able to trace his steps back to the clearing where he first woke, Logan thought he might be able to finally wake up. It was worth a shot. Anything was better than sticking around here.

“Hell?” The queen tasted the word. “Ah yes, hell. The human realm of damnation and punishment. I remember now.”

Her laughter caused Logan to spin around and crouch, certain some threat was hurtling his way. He was more correct than he knew.

“You will free me from this obligation, mortal. One way or another. Perhaps you simply require… motivation.”

The last thing Logan Proud Bear saw was the Faerie Queen raising one, manicured, hand in his direction. Winds howled. The ground shook. An ancient bear roared like thunder. Darkness picked Logan up and shook him like dice.

*****

The wind still howled, now a steady, furnace blast of air, rock, and dust that bit at any exposed skin. Logan looked up at dark storm clouds boiling across an angry sky of red and orange. Barren, rolling hills of rust-colored rock poked out of dull, yellow sand like the bones of dead animals.

On that wind, Logan heard the queen’s voice, faint as if far away. “When you are ready to complete our business, you have only to say my name.”

The truth rolled over him and crashed down like a tidal wave, threatening to drag him down into dark, swirling waters of madness. This was not a dream. It was all too real.

“Ah, hell,” Logan muttered.

“Indeed,” the voice laughed. And then he was very much alone.