win one for the reaper

might have to go where they don't know my name
float all over the world just to see her again
and I won't show or fear any pain,
even though all my armor might rust in the rain

- up with the birds, coldplay

Lena had gone to bed feeling anything but fatigued. The stench of antiseptic loomed around her, covering her and intoxicating her nostrils. It was certainly not the most comfortable bed in the world, but she preferred that option over having to share a bed with Charles back in Vorstenbach Manor.

The brunette fluffed her pillow and set her head down atop it. The feathers inside cushioned her head, and the Uchitel turned on her side. Clutching the blanket close to her chest, the fur of her stuffed panda engulfing her, her eyes fluttered themselves shut.

---

She woke to find herself buried in his arms. As her eyes scanned the scene, she saw his wings folded on his back like crepe paper: one layer on top of the other. She moaned, and his thoughtful eyes took her in, swallowing her whole with just one gaze. Her eyes stayed ablaze, entranced by his expression.

"L-Leon?" she whispered, her fingers childishly reaching out to touch his cheek. As they made contact, a thrashing boom occured in the distance. A fire spread, its embers edging closer, closer, closer.

Lena screamed. She struggled against 'Leon's' grasp, scratching the ground with her fingernails, holding onto stones, kicking her legs aimlessly. Her pale face reddened with exhaustion and overheating as she watched Leon slowly transformed. His fingernails morphed into claws, little isosceles traingles as dense as osmium. His feet lengthened, joints akin to a hound jutting from their edges. Where his toes once were were the same claws spotted from his nails. His head - all of it - turned a ghastly shade of red, one that was brighter, more morbid than blood. At the edges of his head sprang two identical horns: conical, a spiral pattern engraved as they narrowed.

The brunette's cries for help grew weak. She was face-to-face with the Vorstenbach manifestation of a black gentleman, and though she liked to think of herself as a disowned woman this was one thing she could never forget. His eyes glowered over her, bright as a street sign, as his panting made his nostrils flare. Lena could see the sparks of fire forming inside them, and she shrieked, pounding fists on his bony arm.

"Merlin!" cried she, the fire halting before spreading in a circular motion around her, "oh Merlin! Someone! Anyone! Help me! Please!"

As if it was summoned, a pair of flapping wings swooped across the sky, far above the blaze, running, tearing at it to destroy, to kill. A youthful face came into view. He stretched his arm as Lena took his hand. The brunette failed to consider the thought that this boy was possibly an enemy.

He tugged onto her, and with one massive pull she leaped onto the sky at such a speed which made it appear as if she was soaring upwards, leaping for the fringes of sky she could reach. She yowled as she landed on the floor of the sailing ship, her eyes flickering upwards to acknowledge her saviour.

"Lena!" he cried, steering his boat, "what the hell were you doing?"

The brunette exclaimed frantically, "How am I supposed to know? I landed on him on the way from the Daylight, for Merlin's sake!" She narrowed her eyes, "Who are you anyway?"

"I'm Leon Prentiss," he replied hastily, "the seventeen-year-old version."

Lena laughed. "How does that make a difference?" she mused.

Smiting his brow, Leon wiped sweat off his forehead with his fingers. "I wasn't such a rat's arse at seveteen," replied he arrogantly.

The brunette pondered upon the thought, sitting on the stool close to the boat's steering wheel. She saw Leon's gentle hand graze over the soft, brown timber, its metallic center twirling around as he commanded it to wordlessly. Innocently, Lena looked back up at her rescuer, eyes fluttering in adolescent fascination, "Nice boat," she whispered.

Leon smiled. "Thanks, Le." He spun it round, and his hand rested on the girl's shoulder, sitting next to her. He brushed her hair out of her face, setting her head down on his shoulder. "Are you sure you're alright? I mean, that monster was..."

"Terrifying?" questioned the brunette, the estranged warmth making her quiver, "it wasn't, not really. It was a lot more terrifying when it looked like you."

The blond ran his fingers through his hair and laughed. She laughed with him. They sat their laughing as emerald skies came and went.

A caw interrupted their peace. Leon's eyes widened. Lena grabbed a bow sitting idly behind him (whether she had conjured it or not was unclear), grasping it tightly in her hands. She drew back: further, further... and let go, the arrow carving a clever arch in the air. Surprisingly, it shot the blessed avian square on, and it tumbled out of the sky.

Screeching, the Uchitel clutched Leon's shoulder after she threw the bow away into the countryside below. He looked down at her, and leaned in. Their lips met, and Lena's heart burned like wildfire. She retracted slowly from him, lips worn from the kiss, her eyes still shut, her heart still pounding.

---

As her eyes opened, a metallic tinge stung her tongue. Flickering her eyes, the brunette found she was back in Bad Munstereifel, alone in an aged quadrant of an 'abandoned' building.

She glanced around, and not a soul was about to see her morose and pedantic. She laid back down on her bed, silently shedding the tears she'd been holding back for too long.

Far too long.

She was to live and die by the sword.

Ashling came to her own coronation dress in a light lavender robe, her brown hair sweeping past her shoulders. Calculating eyes questioned the loyalty of every soul - or lack thereof - in the compound, their eyes glaring back. There was no question of the protest in their eyes, though it was a risk the Uchitel was willing to take. She was hated in her reality, so what did this imaginary kingdom compare to others that truly determine her fate? The more hate she received, the more power she had, she'd concluded.

Behind her was Leon, her proposed bodyguard for this event. It was a proposal Ashling didn't agree with, yet she didn't have the heart - nor the power - to object. She was not so stupid as to allow Enya's mind games affect her. For this event only, she supposed that Leon - again in his teenage form - was a suitable companion that she could trust with her life. She had forgotten (though she had a choice in the matter) much of her previous encounter with him, high above the Dreamtrails, close to the fringe between the Real World and the imaginary, a border which she had crossed numerous, countless times in her short life.

The brunette gazed into the mirror waiting for her at the end of the path. Although there was a solemn expression covering her face her mind was anything but. She was dreading the world resting upon her shoulders, having the power to drastically shift the way people dream. She could let people dream no longer. She could let the dead haunt their living relatives. She could even trigger an epidemic of dreamnesiacs, haunted by dreams, yet they could never truly remember what they ever were. That, she believed, would thunder Enya's rage.

Really, the only change she proposed to make during her reign was to let other talk to dreams. For others' conveniences and for hers.

"You should wave to the people, Ashling," Leon prompted. The Uchitel gazed back at him, and nodded. Armed with a faux smile and a steady arm, she lifted it abruptly, waving and greeting the crowd with an unprecedented pleasure they had never seen worn on her face. Cheers roared and reverberated across the square, lengthways, upwards, sideways, downwards.

To Leon's chagrin they passed the edge crowd soon after, the path she was taking leading into a narrow staircase. She steadily climbed it; away from the light, away from the public eye. "Damn you," she cursed, "if Enya didn't love me so much I would have punched you in the face right then." She swiftly turned so that she was facing the blond. "I don't even know why Enya appointed you as my bodyguard in the first place. Sure, you are an important man by her standards, but you're practically the last person I want to see alive." She raised her brows, "Granted, I was the one that killed you - "

"Do you have to rub that in my face every time, Ashling?" snapped Leon. "I forgive you for taking my life away from me - and my son, and maybe my wife - but I don't understand how on earth could you possibly not forgive me for not doing the same to you!"

Ashling exhaled heavily. "I was seven," she elaborated, "I had a whole life to live. I could've been so, so much different hadn't you tampered with my sanity. I would've still had security, I would've stuck with my ginger, and perhaps the most insurmountable fact of all, I wouldn't have felt so bitter towards Charles in the first place!" She glared on him, the moment hovering for much more than a moment, before she turned her back to him and continued up the stairs. "Come," she commanded, "we cannot keep Enya waiting."

Leon's footsteps grew louder with each leap - she figured it out due to the time in between each step - and quickly Ashling mastered the art of running and falling up the stairs with demure, gentle, silent steps. She reached the top with ease, and there Enya was, dressed in an ochre robe in a similar fashion to hers, and the elder Dreamtrailer gestured towards a rock. A soldier passed Ashling a crafted sword: its hilt marked with an eighteen-carat amethyst. As Ashling took it from him, her fingers trembled with power, a familiar sensation running through her bloodstream. Her lips parted, her pupils dilating.

The sword in one hand, the brunette walked towards the rock. She could feel the calming breeze blowing her hair behind her in an attempt to distract her, but if anything it did the opposite. Her brows furrowed as she assessed the rock. If she broke it in her first try, she was everything. If she broke it in her first try, she was nothing.

If she broke it in her second try, she was everything and nothing.

She caught Leon's calming gaze on her. Go for it, Ashling. Go for it. His encouragement did naught but doubt her own skill. In a flash of courage, the brunette lifted her sword up high above her head, eyes following its movement. She inhaled, and brought the sword down to the rock. She closed her eyes to brace herself, and the only thing she could hear once her sword was drawn was a sharp clang.

There was a crack.

And another one.

And another one.

Flitting her eyes open, Ashling glanced at the stone. She could see, hear, sense the cracks merging, and soon they cracked open. Her jaw slackened. She... she did it.

She was everything.

She was nothing.

A burst of euphoria sprouted from the new-named lady, and tears - joyous tears - shed from her eyes. She harshly wiped them off her face, terrified to appear vulnerable in Enya's vision, but when she looked up all her grandmother did was grin at her, clapping mildly in appreciation. Inversely, the soldiers were all patting each other on the backs and promising each other beers as a celebration. That was another thing Ashling did not understood: why were they celebrating her achievement? It was not theirs to celebrate.

The blond guard patted the girl on the shoulder, and ignoring her previous anger for him, the brunette leaped up and planted a kiss on his lips. She wrapped her arms around him, and he did the same towards her.

That was all Ashling had chosen to remember.