bandombigbang2012 Red is the Rose, Brendon/Spencer, R, Part 3
Part 2
As the last strains of Patrick's voice float eerily through the feasting hall and the final notes of the lute die away in the quiet of the night, The Faerie King stands and walks to the front of his raised platform. He claps Patrick on the shoulder and says in a clear, if slightly nasal voice, “Thank you, Patrick. Your song is a fitting farewell to one of our most brave soldiers.” He inclines his head towards Spencer, who says nothing in reply, just grips Brendon's clammy hand all the harder. “Spencer, your sacrifice is great, and your name shall be sung, echoing to the rafters of this hall, forevermore.”
Looking from the King, to his Bard, to Spencer, and back again, anger sings through Brendon’s veins like quick-fire. “Bullshit!” he calls out, wrenching his hand out of Spencer’s grip and getting to his feet. Spencer’s mouth is a round moue of shock, and William and Gabe get to their feet, standing on either side of Brendon, gripping his arms tightly.
The King’s dark eyes flash, vulpine and angry. “Who dares risk such an outburst against their King?” He stands up and stalks on his tall boots to the edge of the throne stage. Scanning the crowd he finds Brendon easily, pinning him with his coal dark glare. “What did you say, human?”
“I said, bullshit!” Brendon barks out, again. His entire body is vibrating, but not from fear. In all his years, Brendon cannot recall being so angry. “You claim to celebrate Spencer, his bravery, his dedication, his choice.” He manages to wriggle free from the painful grip the Kingsguard has on him, and taking a deep,1 fortifying breath continues, “But how many weapons has Spencer made for you? How many wars have you won because of them? How many suits of armour has he made? How many times has he kept you safe?”
The King continues to stare, never blinking, his dark eyes burning right through Brendon, who takes a deep breath and continues, ignoring Spencer’s sad pleading eyes and his gentle exhalation of please. “This is not Spencer’s choice at all.” Brendon knocks the angry curl of his fists against his thighs. “You could have let him go a thousand times over these thousand years, but you kept him here, because you knew. You knew that you could use him, for this.”
Pete slowly walks down the steps leading to the throne dais. The chunky heels of his platform boots plod heavily against the polished wood and gold as he methodically makes his way towards Brendon. It seems as though the entire room is holding its breath, all but Brendon, who is breathing so hard his vision is dark and blurry around the edges. He focuses on Spencer’s hand in his, the hold fragile, but real. The Faerie King walks slowly, and with purpose down from this throne and across the feasting hall. His dark eyes burn with the otherworldly Faerie light Brendon had thought beautiful, but in Pete, it’s terrifying. He stops in front of Spencer, arching an eyebrow at Gabe, who shrugs and smiles. “That,” he says slowly, “Was quite a speech. And who exactly are you, human?”
Tilting his head down to look in the king’s feral brown eyes, Brendon swallows and then says, “I’m Brendon, Brendon Urie, of Summerlin. I am Spencer’s…friend.”
Snorting a laugh out through his nose, the King draws himself up to his full height, which to Brendon’s surprise even given the very tall platform boots Pete is wearing, is not very tall at all. When he replies, he speaks into Brendon’s collarbones, “Well, friend of Spencer, what know you of our world?” Brendon can’t look away from the King’s crown. It’s fashioned from hundreds of deadly-looking golden rose thorns.
Brendon’s eyelashes twitch on his cheeks when he blinks, and a muscle jumps in his jaw, “I only know what Spencer has told me.” He bites his lip, the pink tip of his tongue flicking out to sweep across the indentations. “But, it seems to me, from what Spencer has told me about his time here, that you,” He pauses to give the King a knowing glance, “rarely turn away from a fight. You say this is how it is, this is how it must be. But…what if fate is…I don’t know? What if it’s a lie we tell ourselves when we’re too afraid to do anything? It just seems like just because your father’s father’s father,” Gabe barks out a laugh and Brendon hitches his shoulders, “once made a deal with this Caorthannach, that doesn’t mean that you should just accept it. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t fight. Does it?”
Everything, and everyone, is silent and still. Brendon watches as the King’s glance never wavers from his own. He can feel the heat of Spencer beside him, can feel the burn of breath held too long in his lungs. And then, with an upward twitch of his full lips, the King begins to laugh. He laughs so long and so hard that he’s bent over, hands on his knees struggling for breath and the dark kohl he’s smudged around his bright-burning eyes is running in inky rivulets down his cheeks. “I like you, Urie of Summerlin.” The King claps him companionably on the shoulder, with more force than his stature would have lead Brendon to believe possible. “You know, I do enjoy a good fight.”
Brendon blinks stupidly at the King. He startles a little when he feels Spencer forcibly remove his fingers from Brendon’s grasp. Gabe and William raise their fists in the air. “To battle!” The King’s roar echoes off of every stone in the feasting hall. His voice is parroted by the crowd, the din enough to shake the rafters. “Patrick! A war song, if you will!” Pete turns his back on Brendon and Spencer and heads back to his throne. “Tomorrow, we fight!” Gabe and William cannot hide their astonished expressions as they follow the King forward. “Spencer, Gabe and William will rally the Seelie troops. You will arm them!” Pete claps his hands in enthusiastic glee.
It’s only then that Brendon tears his eyes away from the spectacle of the King, doing a sort of hitching jig step to the tune Patrick the bard is picking out on his lute. It’s never easy for Brendon to read the expression on Spencer’s face but if he has to hazard a guess he would say from the paleness of his skin, the dimming of the Faerie-light glow, and the slackness of his red, red mouth, Brendon would say that Spencer is devastated.
“What have you done?” Spencer’s eyes are filled with sorrow as he tilts his head at Brendon, then storms through the crowd and exits the hall.
He stands there blinking for a moment before the fear and panic of the last few minutes washes over Brendon. “Spencer! Wait!” he calls out, shoving desperately though the throng of Fae folk, most of whom are in various states of excitement and enthusiasm about the King’s call to battle. Wild eyed with panic, Brendon reaches the main doorway of the great hall, but has managed to completely lose sight of Spencer. He shoves through the back slapping members of the Kingsguard who are massed there, making up their own words for Patrick’s jaunty melody.
Bursting into the cool night air, Brendon stands for a moment, scanning his surroundings and hugging his arms across his chest. He waits for his eyes to adjust to the full darkness in front of him, almost painful in contrast to the warm brightness of the feasting hall. He imagines everyone is inside the hall and has no idea where to start looking for Spencer. Tentatively, he calls out, “Spencer?” and is unsurprised when he receives no answer. Rubbing his hands down his arms, Brendon steps away from the Seelie King’s castle and onto the Faerie road, keenly aware of the lack of warmth and light.
Stone buildings dot the roadside and as Brendon walks, he sees light in a window a few houses up the road. “Spencer?” he calls again, trotting quickly towards the light. It’s a small building, and the light is coming from a hearth fire. Brendon steps inside and realises he’s found Spencer’s shop; the blacksmith forge. Only unlike at home where the smithy’s place is filled with horseshoes and repaired farm equipment, the walls of this room are covered in weapons and armour, made of metal so bright it reflects and magnifies the glow from the fire until the entire room is bathed in light. Spencer isn’t in the shop, but the burning fire tells Brendon he can’t be far.
There are smaller outbuildings scattered across the property, and Brendon starts his search in the first one he comes to; a barn. The nicker of horses and their pungent smell immediately stabs Brendon in the gut with pangs of home. It’s dark but Brendon can make out the restless forms of two animals, sleek and tall, and so unlike good old Algernon, the plough horse Brendon had grown up with. There’s another shadow, leaning against one of the stall gates. “Spencer?” Brendon softly calls.
Spencer is leaning on a barn beam, forehead cradled against his braced arm. “Brendon,” Spencer’s voice is sad in the stillness of the barn, and the hurt in it rips down Brendon’s spine like a thousand shards of broken glass. “There’s going to be a war, Brendon.”
“I didn’t know!” Brendon’s exclamation disturbs the quiet and the horses paw and snort. “I swear I didn’t know!” He rushes to Spencer’s side, clutching at his upper arm. “I just didn’t want to lose you, I didn’t think…”
“No, you didn’t.” Spencer’s wide palm cups Brendon’s cheek as he talks. “This could be the end, Brendon, of everything-The End Days. It’s not just the Faerie world that’s in danger, do you understand?”
Lacing their fingers together, Brendon shakes his head, drawing closer to Spencer, seeking his warmth. “But…”
Spencer silences him, pressing a kiss to Brendon’s temple, “Samhain is the time when the veil between worlds is thin; what your people call All Soul’s Night. It’s a time when your world, and this world, and the underworld, they blur.”
“Oh,” Brendon’s eyes go wide and he hides his face in the soft cotton of Spencer’s shirt. “I just wanted to save you.”
Drawing Brendon into a tight embrace, Spencer sighs into Brendon’s ear. “I know, I know you did. And you took a horrible risk, mo chroí. The King could have had you killed, right then and there.” Brendon can feel Spencer’s heart pounding beneath his fingertips where their joined hands rest on Spencer’s breastbone. “But then Pete never could resist a challenge. I just don’t know how to ensure we can win. So many people, so many innocent creatures at risk…”
“Because I love you,” Brendon finishes sadly.
“Yes,” Spencer untangles their fingers and traces the shape of Brendon’s mouth in the dark. “I am a warrior, and I will fight as asked.”
“Me too!” Brendon’s face is set in a determined frown and he wraps his arms around Spencer’s neck. “We’ll win, Spencer. We have to.”
Spencer rests his forehead against Brendon’s “Aye,” he says softly, but without much conviction.
Brendon makes a whining noise, low in the back of his throat. Winding his fingers in the soft strands of hair falling in a mess at the nape of Spencer’s neck, Brendon pulls Spencer down to him, presses their mouths together in a sloppy, desperate kiss. “I just wanted us to be together,” Brendon whispers against the bow of Spencer’s top lip.
The only reply Spencer makes is a pained growl. He wraps his blunt fingers bruising hard around the jut of Brendon’s hipbones, his thumbs coming up beneath the rough fabric of Brendon’s shirt to swipe at soft skin. Spencer pulls Brendon even closer and bites formless words into the width of Brendon’s careful smile. The kisses they trade are a painful clash of teeth against sensitive flesh and their hands are rough, too desperate to be careful. Brendon clings to Spencer, mewling and rubbing his face into Spencer’s shoulder when they finally break apart to draw breath. It stings when Spencer traces over the bitten skin of Brendon’s plump bottom lip with the pad of this thumb. When he ducks back in, Spencer uses his tongue to lave relief into the deep bite marks his urgency had created.
“Please,” is all Brendon says, and all Spencer needs before walking Brendon backwards to an empty horse stall. Their breathing is loud and the exhalations mingle in the air as Spencer tips Brendon down into the soft hay. His hands trace up Brendon’s body, rucking his shirt up as they go, and his mouth tracing nonsense shapes across the exposed skin.
Spencer laughs when Brendon attempts to open the tiny buttons at his throat with shaking hands, and instead roughly drags it over Spencer’s head, throwing it across the stable in his urgency. Brendon swallows Spencer’s laugh with a messy, urgent kiss, drawing Spencer down on top of his prone sprawl. With a groan, Spencer’s long blunt fingers skate down across Brendon’s pale skin to rest at the waistband of his trousers. He arches an eyebrow in question, and Brendon’s eager reply is the twitching of his hips. Cradling the fragile bones at the base of Brendon’s skull in the palm of one hand, Spencer makes short work of Brendon’s pants with the other. “Please,” Brendon sighs, desperate.
Huffing laughter into Brendon’s neck, Spencer lifts up only long enough for Brendon’s hands to do more than their teasing pawing at Spencer’s ass, and ruck down his breeches low enough to free his cock. They groan at the feeling of warm skin against skin and Brendon’s hands claw up the sharp definition of Spencer’s spine, jagged fingernails raising welts in his eager explorations. There’s no time for gentleness, and they’re too eager; keyed up on fear and adrenaline to do little more than rut against one another. Brendon easily spreads his legs allowing Spencer to lay more of his weight on top of him. Hissing as Brendon scratches a deep furrow across his shoulder, Spencer grabs at Brendon’s hand, stretching his arm up over his head and back into the hay.
Brendon moans and arches up, meeting the smack and thrust of Spencer’s every movement. His cock glances off the pronounced cut of Spencer’s hip and he huffs out a whine, blindly seeking out Spencer’s mouth with his own. They rock against each other, perfectly fitting into the hollows and planes of each other’s body, and Spencer cries out, rough in the darkness when Brendon manages to fumble a calloused hand around his cock. “I wish I could see you,” Brendon whispers brokenly, rubbing his cheek into the softness of Spencer’s beard. He cups his hand over the head of Spencer’s cock, come pooling there and sliding over his wrist into the hay. Spencer’s answer is unintelligible, half Old Words, half nonsense and Brendon laughs with joy as his own cock slips through the mess of Spencer’s orgasm low on his belly. Brendon comes with a woosh, pulling Spencer down to him and licking a droplet of sweat from Spencer’s cheek.
Spencer holds Brendon close, his head resting on Spencer’s shoulder, until his breathing evens out, and the pounding of his heart in his ears slows. He watches, closely memorising Brendon’s features as he gives in to sleep. Even after, Spencer lies in the dark, listening to the horses and the stillness around them, wishing he knew how to keep Brendon safe. Anything more beyond that was outside of his ability to even think about.
When he is certain that Brendon is sound asleep, Spencer manages to untangle himself and, after sifting through the soft hay they’ve made their bed, he manages to find his breeches and shirt, slipping them on in the dark. He covers Brendon, still deep in sleep, with a blanket pulled from the dividing wall. As he passes their stalls he gives each horse a companionable slap on the rump, and heads out the door. Leaning against the wall of the barn, Spencer squints up at the sky, looking at the nearly full moon, which spreads light across the pasture. His thoughts are a jumble in his head, wondering what the next day, Samhain, holds; he wonders if it will be his last, or the last for everyone.
He’s so deep in thought he fails to see William until the Kingsguard is right in front of him. He startles with a jump, and William laughs, his smile blinding white in the moon’ s light. “Well, warrior, on your guard are you? You’ve straw in your hair,” William says, before very helpfully extending his long arm and extracting the offending object. He gives Spencer a knowing glance and says softly, “It’s like that, is it?”
A little sheepish, but unembarrassed, Spencer shrugs and says, “Aye.”
“What are you going to do? With Brendon, I mean.” William settles beside Spencer, and leans back against the barn board.
Scratching his nails through his bead, Spencer squints at the sky and says, “What can I do? He gave me a gift…a drum.”
William’s mouth drops open in a surprised O. “He’s bound himself to you? Does he know what that means?” His brown eyes are warm with concern and pity.
Sighing deeply, Spencer presses his palms flat against the roughhewn boards of the barn behind him. “He does now, I think.”
“Surely you must know that it’s not so easy as marching on Caorthannach and her Unseelie court? Win or lose, there is some very old magic at play. The King-Pete, he has chosen you…” William trails off.
“I am no fool, nor new to Faerie ways. There is always a price to pay.” Spencer stares unblinking into the darkness, stubbornly refusing to look at William.
William stares in the same general direction as Spencer and after long, painful moments he says, “There may be a way…”
“A way?” Spencer does look at William, now. His glance is too guarded to be hopeful, but he is curious.
Crossing his arms in front of him, William pushes away from the barn with his hip and takes a deep breath, “The wise women, they talk about the old magic, sometimes. And as hard as it might be for you to believe, standing guard is not always the most exciting of pass times, so I hear…things, sometimes.”
Spencer nods eagerly, “Yes, so. William, do get to the point, mo chara.”
“They say that if you can survive Caorthannach’s ride, if you can make it to dawn, that the curse may be broken and you will be…”
Shaking his head in confusion, Spencer implores, eyes wide, “Go on?”
William frowns a little to himself, considering his next words. “Do you love Brendon?”
“I do,” Spencer answers without hesitation.
“Does he love you?” William fits his hand to the crook of Spencer’s elbow.
The expression on Spencer’s face is inscrutable when he finally says, “Well if he doesn’t he must be out of his mind because he’s stuck with me, isn’t he?”
William laughs and says, “The wise women say that when you are to take Caorthannach’s ride, if your true love,” William emphasises the words and smiles sadly at the face Spencer makes, “can hold on, all through the night, no matter what, then when the sun rises you will be...”
“Human?” Spencer’s expression, bathed in moonlight, is so full of hope that William can only nod. “Oh! Oh, we must tell Brendon!” Spencer grabs Williams hand and starts to haul him into the barn.
They hurry through the barn to the stall where Spencer had left Brendon, “Brendon! Brendon wake up!” Waking slowly, Brendon yawns and stretches his arms over his head, making the old horse blanket Spencer had covered him with dip dangerously low across his hips.
Blinking sleep from his eyes, a slow smile spreading across his face as he wakes, “Hi.”
“William, you must tell Brendon what you told me!” Spencer urges William forward, and takes a spot beside Brendon, cuddling him close and securing the blanket around him.
William clears his throat awkwardly and stares down at the couple, “Well, there may be a way to break the curse. A way to survive Caorthannach’s ride.”
Looking up at William, Brendon’s eyes are wide and earnest. He trips over the shape of the syllables, foreign in his mouth but finally manages to say, “Caorthannach’s ride?” blinking his confusion between Spencer and William.
William frowns at Spencer and then says, “Yes, it’s part of the tithe, you see the Queen is Unseelie. She is... the opposite of our people. Legend says that long ago, and long ago she was one of the Seelie court,” Spencer waves a dismissive hand and William stops his yarn spinning to sum up with, “Basically, on his way to the Unseelie lands, Spencer will be transformed into...”
“Unseelie,” Spencer takes Brendon’s hand in his and squeezes.
“Yes, so.” William ploughs on, ignoring the expression of distress on Brendon’s face. “But, if his true love,” he arches a pointed eyebrow at Brendon, “Can hang on through the night, no matter what, the magic will be reversed. Payment will not be required.”
Spencer takes in Brendon’s stunned face and says, “And I can be human, again. I can go home.”
“Home? Oh!” Brendon makes as if to stand, then remembers he’s naked and sits down hard on the straw. “Oh! I can do that! I can absolutely do that! My mother always says I’m tenacious as a terrier!” Brendon smacks a kiss to Spencer’s cheek.
“You would not mind, then? It would mean leaving Faerie. Going back to the Summer Lands?” Spencer chews on his bottom lip, waiting for Brendon to answer.
Shaking his head back and forth, Brendon says, “I don’t care. I just want to be with you.” He smiles wide and then nuzzles at Spencer’s cheek. “My home is where you are,” he whispers, kissing Spencer quickly.
“So!” William claps his hands together, loud in the dark and startling the horses in their stalls. “Now all you have to do is survive. And, well, all we have to do is survive this battle the King is waging.”
Shocking both William and Spencer, Brendon breaks into loud, head back, full out laughter. “Yes,” he says, laughter hiccupping down to little more than giggles, “All we have to do is that. That’s all. No big deal.”
“No big deal!” Spencer hugs Brendon around his waist, pulling him into his lap, and joining in his laughter.
***
Samhain morning is sunny and clear, the crisp bite of autumn missing from the air in the Seelie lands. Brendon yawns loudly, leaning against the door jamb, an old patchwork quilt falling around his bare shoulders. “Good morning,” Spencer rumbles low in Brendon’s ear. Brendon leans back against Spencer, glad of his solid warmth. They stand there, silently surveying the growing dawn as Spencer wreaths Brendon’s hips with his hands and snuggles close to rest the point of his chin on Brendon’s shoulder.
“What do you think of Faerie?” Spencer asks. They’d left the barn and its stables not long after William had revealed the possibility of overcoming the old magic, and spent the time curled together in the tiny rope bed in Spencer’s shop. The last few hours of night were for whispers and reassurances and soft kisses like wordless promises against skin.
Brendon turns his head a little, rubbing his cheek against the soft hairs of Spencer’s close cropped beard. He smiles almost in apology, and glancing out over the green rolling hills that lead down to the Wild Wood and says, “To be honest, it’s not all that different from home…Summerlin. I mean everything is, well, nicer and brighter, and we don’t have your freaky Faerie lights but,” he scrunches up his nose and giggles, his shoulders sending the quilt sliding dangerously low on his bare skin.
Spencer chuckles and gives Brendon’s belly a squeeze, “You were expecting palaces made of crystal and roads paved in gold?” His eyebrow arches knowingly, but his tone is playful and teasing.
Without taking his eyes off the lightening horizon, Brendon finds Spencer’s hand and stills his petting by fitting their fingers together and bringing them to rest on his hip. “Maybe?” he waggles his eyebrows, making Spencer laugh harder.
“Come now, there’s work to be done this day.” Spencer tugs at Brendon, drawing him away from the door.
***
Brendon’s eyes are wide in amazement. He had boggled before, when they’d walked into the smithy and seen the array of weapons and armour gleaming bright from every surface. That display had nothing on the cache hidden in a cellar at the King’s Palace. He’d worked with Spencer and a few of the Kingsguard Elves-including William and Gabe, to load wagons with weapons and fit the Seelie with armor. Some of the swords were so large Brendon couldn’t lift them alone.
“He’s a good lad,” Gabe says as he and Spencer lean against the castle wall, sharing an earthenware jug of Sprite Wine to stave off the thirst of their morning’s labor. They’re watching as Brendon searches through an assortment of gleaming gold breast plates to find one small enough to be suitable for the tiny Pixie who’s head barely comes up to Brendon’s waist. The little blue creature is chattering away and Brendon is nodding and smiling, even though he can’t possibly understand a word.
Spencer feels warmth bloom all through his chest and he takes a long gulp from the jug, “Aye, that he is.”
The early afternoon is spent planning and organizing and rallying the troops from all corners of Faerie. If Brendon’s face had reflected amazement at the array of weapons, his expression at seeing the arrival of the Seelie can only be called delight. His eyes shine and his smile threatens to split his face as he greets Pixie and Sprite and Elf. The King gives long blustering speech after long blustering speech, and William and Gabe plot points on maps and give orders.
Spencer is right, Brendon knows nothing of war, nor of battle. His only experience with soldiering came from seeing his brothers don uniforms to patrol the far borders of Summerlin, protecting the fragile peace of the Republic. “If there weren’t so many beautiful, incredible folk to greet, I would be quite bored. I don’t understand a word anyone is saying, and they’re not even speaking the Old Words.” Brendon fidgets in his seat at a long table in the King’s council room.
“Dusk is coming, mo chroí, by moonrise you won’t even remember that boredom was once a possibility.” Spencer squeezes Brendon’s knee and stifles his laugh with his glove encased fist.
***
When the King has finally run out of filibuster, and William and Gabe are sure that the Seelie army know their orders, Brendon and Spencer go back to the forge, making half-hearted attempts to ready themselves. “Here, Bòidheach,” Spencer beckons Brendon over to a bench by the forge. “For you.”
Brendon blinks, very carefully reaching out a hand to stroke tentatively across the intricate woven interlace rose pattern that covers most of the breast plate Spencer is holding up to him. “For me? But, when did you…” his voice trails off and he swallows hard, trying to fight off tears.
“A warrior cannot do battle unprepared, now can he?” Spencer’s eyes are soft with affection. “I managed to fight a Pixie for this, so it should fit.” He concludes with mock seriousness.
“Hey!” Brendon elbows Spencer, but takes the breast plate in hand and gets Spencer to help him don the rest of the suit of armor. “I remember being human, and having a squire,” Spencer grouses in amusement.
Brendon exhales and holds his arms out at his sides, fingers working inside the stiff new leather of his gauntlets. “How do I look?”
Spencer bites his lip and snorts. Brendon looks like a child playing dress up, and something breaks off inside Spencer’s ribs, rattling painfully around his insides. “Brave and bold,” he manages to say, finally. “But you need a helmet to be proper.” Spencer reaches back onto his work bench, before plonking a helmet down over Brendon’s head and swiftly flicking the face plate shut.
“Hey! I can’t see!” Brendon flails around, managing to catch Spencer in some tender spots before Spencer can snatch at his hand. He uses Brendon’s own fingers to flick the grate open and leans in until their noises are almost touching. His grin is wide and ridiculous. “You’re very silly, Spencer Smith. This is serious!”
“Aye, mo chroí, very serious.” Spencer once more reaches back to his work bench. “If I were to give you a broad sword I wouldn’t have to worry about you being taken to the depths of Hell, you’d off yourself with no help at all.” Spencer smirks when he sees Brendon’s pouting expression of outrage. “So these should do the job.” He hands Brendon a sheath that’s the length from elbow to wrist.
“What are they?” Curious, Brendon’s nimble fingers work the leather thong open and he grabs two slim handles made out of a dark, ebony-like wood. A metallic snick sounds through the small room as he extracts two blades, blue metal glowing and lethal. He blinks and after staring at the weapons, stares at Spencer.
“Pixie sticks,” Spencer shrugs and takes them from Brendon’s loose grasp. “Try not to slice that pretty face of yours open before the battle’s even begun, aye?” He fixes the sheath to the arm of Brendon’s plate mail, then takes off his helmet, kissing him soundly.
Brendon breaks from the kiss, gazing sideways out the tiny window. “The sun is going down.” He whispers into Spencer’s cheek.
“So it is,” Spencer pats at Brendon’s waist with a metallic tapping. “Brendon,” his voice drops low and serious, “you must know I would never, ever hurt you.”
His brows furrowing in confusion, Brendon says passionately, “Of course you would never hurt me! Of course I know that!” He totters awkwardly, walking in his new suit of armor for the first time, and his arms are heavy and stiff when he tries to reach for Spencer.
“I just,” Spencer pauses and licks his lips, “I need you to know that. I can’t say what will happen when we march on the Unseelie. I don’t know what kind of magic the Caorthannach will use. If I try…if I do hurt you, know then I am no longer myself and you may…” He swallows hard and drags his index finger along the Pixie blades at Brendon’s elbow.
Realization dawns and Brendon does fling himself at Spencer then, “No! No! I can’t! I won’t. You can’t ask me to hurt you Spencer, you can’t.”
Spencer holds him close and makes gentling noises under his breath, “Brid willing it won’t come to that. But I know no other way to protect you from what I may become-what the Caorthannach could yet make me.” He holds Brendon’s face in his hands and kisses him once more, pretending he doesn’t hear the sob choking at the back of Brendon’s throat.
***
When the sky is a velvety purple the likes of which Brendon has never seen back in Summerlin, he and Spencer, hands joined, head to the King’s Palace to take their place in the march on the Caorthannach. They just miss Pete’s rousing speech, and are swallowed up by a sea of cheering Fae folk. The Kingsguard marshal the throng into formation, and Spencer and Brendon take their appointed places in the center of the massed troops.
Brendon’s neck swivels back and forth as he tries to take in the vast number of creatures all around him. Everywhere he looks there are Elves and Faeries and Pixies, and even the tiny Sprites and the awkward Dwarves have gathered into units behind the waving vanguard of the Seelie Lands.
“So,” Brendon says, desperately trying to keep his fear from his voice, “What’s plan B?”
Spencer, looking every bit the knight warrior he was back in the thick of the Wild Wood when Brendon first met him, frowns and says, “Plan B?”
“Yeah, so say William’s wrong and this whole ‘hold on and ride through the night’ thing doesn’t work. What do we do then?”
Eyes piercing blue in the advancing moonlight, Spencer says, “Oh, Brendon. My beautiful Brendon. Don’t you see? There is no plan B. We live, or we die.” Brendon blinks and gulps for air but has no time to reply, as the Fawns blast their horns and the entire army surges out into the night.
Brendon feels awkward and stupid in his armor, sure that he’ll be more a hindrance than anything else, but he struggles along beside Spencer, who awkwardly holds out his gloved hand and wraps Brendon’s own gauntleted hand in his fingers. “Hold on to me,” Spencer says, “and don’t let go. No matter what.” He doesn’t seem to mind being outpaced by the other Seelie warriors.
“No matter what,” Brendon agrees solemnly Soon enough, the purple sky deepens to an inky black and the Wild Wood looms around them, under the full and bright of the moon. A fleeting glance at Spencer makes Brendon startle and exclaim a shocked, “Oh!”
Spencer is…fading--in and out-- himself and gone. Brendon blinks, thinking maybe it’s a trick of the moonlight. “Maybe my helmet’s too tight,” he mutters to himself. But then, when he looks again, in Spencer’s place, is a large, white horse. Brendon tips his head back and laughs. “Embarr!” he cries. He weaves his fingers through the horse’s mane and awkwardly climbs on to its back. “I think I can hold on okay,” Brendon laughs again, wondering at the ease of it all. He’d spent countless days as a child riding the lumbering plow horse Algernon through the Urie farm fields.
His relief at the turn of events is short lived. Almost as soon as he is astride the night air is alive with the sounds of the leathery beating of wings. Brendon sits low, pressing his entire length against the horse’s back, eyes squeezed tight shut and digging his knees into the horse’s muscular flanks, “I just need to hang on.” He says as a screeching howl rends the dark. He can’t tell if it’s the Unseelie creatures flapping just above his head, or just a normal wind, but he feels the breeze blustering against his skin, despite the obstacles of the other Seelie warriors surrounding him, who should be blocking it out, at least a little. Brendon’s fingers ache from clutching so tightly to the horse’s-Spencer’s-mane, and he feels like if not for the caging metal of his breast plate, his heart would beat out onto the forest floor.
Beyond the whining of the wind, the screams of the flying Unseelie creatures, and the clash of sword against sword, Brendon can hear the screams of the dying, the hoarse calls of the desperate, and a low, liquid squelching noise that signals the advance of a new onslaught of the Caorthannach’s creatures. Despite the almost mid-day brightness of the full Samhain moon, Brendon cannot see where these creatures are.
But he can smell them.
Brendon tries not to wretch as the stench of rot and decay fills his nostrils, creeping inside his helmet and threatening to choke him. He pants, desperate to keep a hold of Spencer. He should arm himself. He should unsheathe the deadly sharp Pixie daggers sheathed in his arm holster. But, Brendon is afraid that if he loosens his grasp, even one hand, even just a little, he’ll be unseated and it will be over; he’ll lose Spencer. So he breathes through his mouth, searching around wildly, not even attempting to steer the large white beast in any particular direction, putting his trust in Spencer.
As Brendon sees the Elves around him fall-one, two, three--he realizes that the latest attackers from the Unseelie army are slithering along the forest floor. His realization is proven true when Spencer bucks and rears up on his back legs, desperate to avoid being snared by the slithering creatures. The horse starts with such force that Brendon’s helmet is flung from his head, lost in the battling creatures around him.
The wind increases yet again, tearing at Brendon’s cheeks with powerful force. But somehow, he manages to hang on, even with the horse thrashing wildly beneath him. Spencer is doing everything in his power to keep them from falling into the slithering mass of slimy Unseelie bodies that are everywhere now. There is a lull in the noise and wind, and it’s then Brendon sees the Caorthannach. By the whinnying and stamping, Brendon knows Spencer sees her too.
They freeze in place.
Stuck as they are, Brendon takes the chance to unlace the Pixie blade holster, drawing one of the wickedly sharp knives out of their sheath and clutching the wood handle in his palm. He knows it won’t do him much good against the Caorthannach, but he feels better for having it at the ready. He’s panting, trying to calm himself, but he’s never in his deepest nightmares known what it’s like to be this afraid.
She is beautiful and terrifying. Every time they look at her she is something different; a woman, a dragon, a bear, all as tall as the twisted limbs atop the ancient trees in the Wild Wood. Her colors are so bright and so painful Brendon has to shield his eyes with his hand as stinging tears course down his cheeks. Then suddenly, she is no color at all, black as the night of the new moon, and barely more than the memory of where she once stood. Until she bursts to life again; a thing of flame. Her great wings unfurl, at once as leathery as the Unseelie creatures that continue to beat a horrible rhythm about their heads, and as fragile and delicate as a butterfly’s, splashed with colors Brendon does not know the names for.
She uses her wings to whip the wind into a fury once more, and Brendon buries his face against Spencer’s neck, clinging for both of their lives, stuck staring at this horrible creature. The Caorthannach, the Queen of the Underworld, has blood red scales like weeping sores that fade away to feathers as she screams, shaking the ground beneath the white horse’s hooves. She thrashes her spiked tail, causing thin grey beings to drop free from the trees. They land on the heads of the Seelie warriors, so busy fighting they fail to notice until it’s too late.
“Oh god,” Brendon wails. The grey beings unhinge their jaws, stretching them to engulf the struggling Seelie. When the greys fall away from the Seelie fighters, scuttling back to the Caorthannach who takes them beneath her wings, they are round and fat, leaving behind dried out husks that used to be Elves and Dwarves, and other Faerie folk Brendon spent the morning getting to know. Panting, Brendon pushes his face against Spencer’s neck. “No more. Please, please no more.” He mumbles between choking sobs.
Just as the grey beings fed on the souls of the Fairies, so the Caorthannach feeds on them. She grows bigger and taller, until she’s blotting out the stars in the night sky. She’s a woman once more, her face beautiful and cruel as she laughs. Brendon can hear her voice inside of his head. It’s like music. “No, no.” He shakes his head, tugging on Spencer’s mane. “Come on! Move, we need to get away from her!” he viciously kicks his heels into the drum of Spencer’s belly, spurring him into a gallop.
Brendon feels it, like a pulse of lightning between the horse’s back and himself, the moment Spencer starts to change. Brendon digs in with his knees and keeps his Pixie dagger fisted in his right hand, his left tangled in the soft white hair of Spencer’s mane for balance. But it’s like lightning burning him along his legs. In less than the time it takes to blink, he’s no longer sitting astride a horse.
Brendon blinks dumbly for a moment, only roused from his confusion when the creature he’s clinging to roars louder than a thousand trumpets, and he can only watch in horror as the creature bolts forward, great rows of razor sharp teeth making short work of the Troll he’s grasped in his jaws. “Oh, Spencer,” Brendon says. And then he feels awful for thinking at least Spencer is still in there somewhere because it was one of the Unseelie minions he’d ripped apart. The creature that was Spencer is bucking and thrashing and doing its best to toss Brendon from its back.
Brendon thinks he remembers learning about such creatures in school, once. Head and shoulders of a lion, teeth of a shark and, “Oh!” Brendon raises the hand he’s using to grasp his dagger. Using his knuckles he swipes across his face and his hand comes away stained with blood. Eyes wide he manages to duck just in time to avoid another stinging blow from the creature’s scorpion tail. With painstaking slowness Brendon manages to work his way onto Spencer’s shoulders as the creature, the manticore, hurtles through the dense forest growth. He flings both arms around the creature’s neck, careful to duck low and avoid the lethal jaws and teeth.
They’re headed straight for a huge thicket of rhododendron, Brendon’s best guess puts at half the size of his town. Maybe they could hide inside the maze of laurel leaf and be safe until moonset? “Yes, Spencer. Yes!” Brendon continues to dodge the constant snap of the scorpion tail but he hugs Spencer close, encouraging him on.
The waxy leaves of the hell are close, so close that if Brendon dared, he could reach out and graze the dark green plants with his fingertips. Maybe this is it, maybe this is their chance to be safe. Though locals called them rhododendron hells, it looks the most like any kind of heaven Brendon can let himself believe in; safety. Well as safe as he can be with Spencer snapping and growling, but, Brendon thinks, Spencer loves me. He would never hurt me. Brendon honestly believes that, like he’s never believed in anything before.
Brendon is exhausted and clinging to the bucking, thrashing beast and he’s been dangerously lost in thought. And now a wave of vertigo washes over him so strongly that the only thing keeping him clinging to Spencer is his knees. The rhododendron hell is getting farther and farther away. Farther and farther below them. Shaking his head like a spaniel coming out of the water, Brendon realizes in the few moments he took for hopeful wool gathering, Spencer had shifted shape again.
The brown feathers in Brendon’s grasp are anything but soft. They cut his hands and his knees and along his sides where his shirt has rucked up underneath his breast plate. As Brendon is trying to get his bearings Spencer turns his head to screech, his large golden eagle eye unblinking and his deadly hooked beak snapping at Brendon’s clutched fingers. Brendon tries to remember to breathe as the wind whips painfully against his skin. The moon is bright and from this great height Brendon can see the bodies of uncountable Seelie strewn across the swath of meadow leading to the Wild Wood. He swallows a wave of nausea at the sight, as well as at the swooping and diving as the eagle tries its best to beat Brendon off of him.
The icy needles of a pelting rain soon join in the ferocious wind, turning the eagle feathers into stinging blades against Brendon’s flesh. The rain water mixes with the blood from Brendon’s cuts, but he bites his lip and holds on against the stinging pain. The water is falling in such great amounts that the bowl shaped clearing that eventually rises into the gentle Seelie hills Brendon had just that morning admired from Spencer’s doorway soon becomes a lake, washing away several of those of the remaining Seelie army. Great white caps race along the lake’s surface blown by the gale force winds, and Brendon flicks his hair out of his eyes, desperately wracking his brain for some way to find relief from the pins and needles shooting up his exhausted arms and legs.
The eagle seems to be warring against the elements just as much as Brendon. Taking advantage of the moment when the eagle isn’t trying to pluck Brendon free of him, Brendon seats himself upright on the eagle’s back, armor heavy, and balanced on his knees. Using the Pixie dagger, Brendon slices through the straps securing the guardbraces over his shoulders, using the leather to secure himself to the eagle’s wings.
He’s panting with the effort when the bird starts its dive. “No, no! Spencer, no!” Brendon’s voice is barely a murmur, swallowed by the howling fury of the storm. Brendon pulls with all the strength he has left, coming away with bleeding palms and fists full of feathers. But still, the eagle dives. They hit the water with an audible smack and Brendon gives silent thanks that he’d tied himself to Spencer, or else they would be lost.
They dive below the surface of the lake, only to rise again as Brendon gasps to the surface. The second time Brendon pulls in a great lungful air, he realizes he’s no longer sitting on an eagle, but rather wrapped in the spiraled coils of a snake. The cobra-like animal is enormous, with teeth the size of Brendon’s arm. And it’s doing its best to drag Brendon below the surface of the lake, permanently. “Hold on, just hold on.” Brendon closes his eyes against the fear that threatens to overwhelm him, and wraps his arms around the snake’s body, silently repeating to himself all he has to do is hold on, and Spencer will never hurt him. Their fight goes on and on, above the water and below, wind stinging the cuts all over Brendon’s body, and the frigid water of the lake startling him to full consciousness so he can suck in great burning gasps of air.
If Spencer has morphed into enormous snake, the Caorthannach is gigantic. Where the wicked teeth in Spencer’s mouth are as long as Brendon’s arm, the ones in the Queen of the Underworld’s serpentine jaws are as big as Brendon. On each of his increasingly fewer and shorter moments at the surface of the lake, Brendon realises that she is slithering towards them. She rears up and strikes when a Seelie warrior attempts to block her path. If the claymore blades of her teeth don’t kill the people fighting because of Brendon, because of his selfish need to save Spencer, then the toxic venom dripping from her jaws like the rain that falls without relent surely will.
Brendon is so weak, so tired. His brain is screaming at him to relent. He knows he could just let go, unravel himself from the snake’s --Spencer! He’s still Spencer!-coils and it will be over. Just as Brendon is reaching beneath the surface of the water, fumbling with his dagger, there's a great musical flapping like the distant tinkling of a million tiny bells, and the moon in the sky is blocked out by the shadow of a great dragon. Pete is piloting the beast, its indigo scales shining against the platinum of his armour. When he's close enough he gives a mighty yell and jumps from his mount onto the Caorthannach-snake, brandishing the sword Spencer made for him when he first arrived in Faerie.
The King whoops and yells, laughing like a child at a carnival. Raising the sword high above his head, he stabs the Caorthannach in her serpentine face, pinning her jaws shut. Then as she thrashes, trying to free herself of the sword, and of Pete, he takes out another smaller yet no less lethal looking sword, and without hesitation, in one smooth stroke, lops off her head. The body of the beast goes careening backward, Pete still clinging to her slippery black form. As the Caorthannach’s body goes plummeting to the ground, there’s an earth shattering crack as the ground opens up beneath them. Molten red-gold fire shoots high into the autumn night sky, and the last thing Brendon sees before giving into his exhaustion and letting the water pull him to slumber is the laughing face of the Faerie King being pulled down into the licking flames of the Underworld.
* * *
Slowly, Brendon opens his eyes. Against the pounding in his head, two fuzzy yet familiar faces come into view. He blinks a few times and then struggles to a sitting position. “Gabe? William?” His head swims and he raises a hand to his hairline, pressing at the bleeding knot there. “Wait. Spencer? Where’s Spencer?” He looks around frantically, ignoring another wave of nausea.
All he has to do is look at the expression on his friends’ faces and Brendon knows. “No! Oh nononono no! Spencer!” He scrambles to his feet, panting with the effort. “I failed him,” he bows his head and shudders. Blinking back tears he manages to swallow his sobs as he looks at the bleak faces of William and Gabe.
Gabe pulls Brendon to him in a fierce hug, managing to finally pry the pixie daggers from Brendon’s curled fists. “You were really, really brave, little man. You hung on long enough for Spencer to distract that Queen Bitseach. Pete--the King--he got her. Fucking vanquished her nasty ass, and went out in a blaze of Seelie glory!” Gabe’s voice catches and breaks, his tears falling into Brendon’s dark hair.
“What do you mean? Wait,” Brendon sucks in a painful breath, shivering in his damp clothes. “You mean Pete’s...”
“Gone,” William finished solemnly, bowing his head. He unhooks his heavy purple cloak and drapes it over Brendon’s thin shoulders, trying to warm him from the shock of injury and loss. “His heraldry, as well as your Spencer’s will give Patrick and all the bards to come something to sing about through all the ages” His smile is sad as he brushes a hand over the crown of Brendon’s hair.
Brendon huddles miserably under William’s cloak, still clutching at Gabe. The smell of fire and sulphur are still strong in The Meadows, although the lake is gone and the grass is dry. In the distance Brendon can hear the sounds of the last remaining members of the Unseelie army retreating into the far off Wild Wood. “What happens now?” Brendon asks in a small voice. He’s not really expecting an answer.
With Spencer gone, everything Brendon hsd sacrificed for is gone too. He can’t go home, only the Faerie King, only Pete can release him from his time in the Seelie Lands. And now Pete is gone, and Brendon fears he may well be stuck in some sort of horrible limbo. Like Spencer had been. He cannot bear to think of it, and is unsure he will be able to cope with a thousand years of longing to be free.
If the Queen has been vanquished and the Unseelie army defeated, there will be no need to pay the Thousand Years Tithe. So Brendon cannot even sacrifice himself for the good of the Faerie folk. He is, essentially, trapped. Spencer had warned him about eternity. As the weight of his fate sinks in, Brendon slumps back to the ground. He stretches his hands out, palms flat against the dying autumn grass, beating his frustrations into the ground. He isn’t sure how he narrowly misses touching a red hot coal that hisses in the coarse weeds.
“That must be left over from when the Queen...you know.” Gabe makes an exploding noise and then waves his hands around his face. Still trying to figure out exactly what happened between the time Spencer turned into a viper and the time he’d himself been thrown beneath the waves and knocked unconscious, Brendon just stares at Gabe in silence.
“Unless,” William says very slowly. He crouches down beside Brendon and very carefully scoops the glowing red coal up into his leather gauntlet.
“Be careful,” Brendon hisses in pre-emptive sympathy.
Holding his hand out flat, William stares at the coal as Brendon and Gabe stare at him. “Curious,” he says finally.
“What?” Brendon doesn't think his anxiety and confusion are entirely the fault of his concussion.
Turning the ember over and over in his hands, William says, “Maybe you didn't fail at all. Maybe, just maybe the thing you wish for with all your heart can come true.” Very gently he takes Brendon's hand in his and drops the coal into it. Brendon flinches and hisses-but there's no heat, no pain. There is a thrumming though, almost a pulse; like the thing he's gingerly holding is alive. Puzzled, Brendon blinks down at the coal and then up at William.
William stands between Brendon and Gabe, smiling expectantly. When Brendon makes no move, William inclines his head to the broad expanse of the Wild Wood. Frowning, Brendon follows William's glance as he walks over to where the trees grow in a thick tangle. Cradled in the roots of a Rowan tree is what Brendon has heard the village elders call a Brid's Well. Not wells at all, these small pools have been found all over the Republic and are said to have been blessed by Brid-The Mother herself-and possess magical properties.
Brendon shrugs, at this point it can't hurt to try, can it? He reaches out and opens his hand. The strangely burning ember drops into the pool and disappears in the brackish water. All three stand and stare trying to find something in the pool's dark depths. “Well,” Brendon's voice cracks, “it was a good thought.” He pats William's arm and squeezes Gabe's hand in his.
“Wait! What's that?” Gabe points at the water's surface and they lean closer, desperate for any sign that something is happening.
After a few brief moments, Brendon sees it. Tiny streams of bubbles are floating to the surface of the well water. “Oh!” he exclaims-the bubbles are increasing in size, number, and frequency as they begin to frantically push towards the surface. And then, as they watch in awe, they're no longer bubbles at all, but the tender shoots of new leaves--plants that gleam with an unnatural light as familiar to Brendon as breathing.
Gabe tugs Brendon and William backwards as the vines and leaves snake out of the well, over its sides, and over grow the tree's roots. Soon enough rose buds appear and then burst into enormous red-pink blooms. The three move back even more as the plant continues to spread in a thick tangle over the forest floor-completely overgrowing the pool. “Give me your sword,” Brendon says without looking away from the amazing sight before him.
“What?” Gabe asks dumbly.
Brendon holds out his hand, “Your sword. Give it to me!” Without hesitation Gabe unsheathes the deadly broadsword with a metallic snick. Taking it in both hands, Brendon starts to hack haphazardly at the vines, muttering “Magic grows stronger, over time,” under the quickening of his breath.
Without having to be asked, William has his own deadly blade in his hands, chopping at the thick foliage. Brendon cries out “Spencer!” as he pl¬ucks a bloom as wide across as his shoulders.
Curled deep inside the thicket of blooms and vines, lies Spencer. He's naked and filthy, and covered in bruises and cuts. “Spencer! Oh, Spencer!” Brendon crawls over the greenery and gathers Spencer into his arms. “Shh, shh. You're okay, I'm here. You're okay.” Brendon shushes Spencer as he shakes and shivers, moaning quietly. Brendon's not sure if he's talking to Spencer or himself.
¬
Blinking, and with a voice like he's spent a week in the desert, Spencer says, “It worked, mo chroí . You were brave and bold, and it worked.” He smiles weakly, but his eyes stay open and Brendon swipes Spencer's hair away from his face, careful of the deep, nasty cut on Spencer's forehead.
But, he's warm and solid, and Brendon can't help notice, human.
“You too,” is all Brendon says, pressing a kiss to the top of Spencer's head. Gabe tucks his cloak around the pair of them, and then picks up his broadsword from where Brendon had discarded it on the grass. Brendon looks from Gabe to William, who has picked up Brendon's Pixie daggers and is tucking them into his belt. “Where are you going?” Spencer rasps from the security of Brendon's arms.
“To get Pete,” Gabe says at the same time William says, “To Hell and back, gods willing.”
Brendon nods at them and bids them good luck, and then can't help but smile at Spencer's confused expression. “You don’t remember?” When Spencer slowly shakes his head back and forth Brendon kisses him and whispers, “You kind of missed a lot. Don't worry, I'll explain it all later. Rest now, we have all the time in the world.” Brendon kisses Spencer and strokes his fingers through his hair, watching as his eyes fall closed in sleep, watching as Samhain eve fades away into a very human dawn.
Glossary
Bhí mo chroí ó shin trasna na farraige-Since then my heart was across the sea
Bitseach-bitch
Bòidheach-beautiful
Caorthannach-thought by some to be the devil’s mother, is a demon that was fought off by St. Patrick when he banished the snakes out of Ireland
Embarr-the name of the white horse who carried Fionn mac Cumhaill’s son Oisin to the mythical land Tír na nÓg
Fianna-(singular fian) were small, semi-independent warrior bands in Irish mythology and Scottish mythology, most notably in the stories of the Fenian Cycle, where they are led by Fionn mac Cumhaill. They are based on historical bands of landless young men in early medieval Ireland known as kerns
Fionn mac Cumhaill-known in English as Finn McCool, was a mythical hunter-warrior of Irish mythology, occurring also in the mythologies of Scotland and the Isle of Man. The stories of Fionn and his followers the Fianna, form the Fenian Cycle (or Fiannaidheacht), much of it purported to be narrated by Fionn's son, the poet Oisín
focáil leat-Fuck off!
mo chara-my friend
mo chroí-my heart
Sidhe-demon,generally used for Faerie folk in some folklore
Téigh trasna ort féin-Go fuck yourself!
Bonus materials:
Art: by look_alive
here
Mix: fantastic soundtrack by morganya
here
As the last strains of Patrick's voice float eerily through the feasting hall and the final notes of the lute die away in the quiet of the night, The Faerie King stands and walks to the front of his raised platform. He claps Patrick on the shoulder and says in a clear, if slightly nasal voice, “Thank you, Patrick. Your song is a fitting farewell to one of our most brave soldiers.” He inclines his head towards Spencer, who says nothing in reply, just grips Brendon's clammy hand all the harder. “Spencer, your sacrifice is great, and your name shall be sung, echoing to the rafters of this hall, forevermore.”
Looking from the King, to his Bard, to Spencer, and back again, anger sings through Brendon’s veins like quick-fire. “Bullshit!” he calls out, wrenching his hand out of Spencer’s grip and getting to his feet. Spencer’s mouth is a round moue of shock, and William and Gabe get to their feet, standing on either side of Brendon, gripping his arms tightly.
The King’s dark eyes flash, vulpine and angry. “Who dares risk such an outburst against their King?” He stands up and stalks on his tall boots to the edge of the throne stage. Scanning the crowd he finds Brendon easily, pinning him with his coal dark glare. “What did you say, human?”
“I said, bullshit!” Brendon barks out, again. His entire body is vibrating, but not from fear. In all his years, Brendon cannot recall being so angry. “You claim to celebrate Spencer, his bravery, his dedication, his choice.” He manages to wriggle free from the painful grip the Kingsguard has on him, and taking a deep,1 fortifying breath continues, “But how many weapons has Spencer made for you? How many wars have you won because of them? How many suits of armour has he made? How many times has he kept you safe?”
The King continues to stare, never blinking, his dark eyes burning right through Brendon, who takes a deep breath and continues, ignoring Spencer’s sad pleading eyes and his gentle exhalation of please. “This is not Spencer’s choice at all.” Brendon knocks the angry curl of his fists against his thighs. “You could have let him go a thousand times over these thousand years, but you kept him here, because you knew. You knew that you could use him, for this.”
Pete slowly walks down the steps leading to the throne dais. The chunky heels of his platform boots plod heavily against the polished wood and gold as he methodically makes his way towards Brendon. It seems as though the entire room is holding its breath, all but Brendon, who is breathing so hard his vision is dark and blurry around the edges. He focuses on Spencer’s hand in his, the hold fragile, but real. The Faerie King walks slowly, and with purpose down from this throne and across the feasting hall. His dark eyes burn with the otherworldly Faerie light Brendon had thought beautiful, but in Pete, it’s terrifying. He stops in front of Spencer, arching an eyebrow at Gabe, who shrugs and smiles. “That,” he says slowly, “Was quite a speech. And who exactly are you, human?”
Tilting his head down to look in the king’s feral brown eyes, Brendon swallows and then says, “I’m Brendon, Brendon Urie, of Summerlin. I am Spencer’s…friend.”
Snorting a laugh out through his nose, the King draws himself up to his full height, which to Brendon’s surprise even given the very tall platform boots Pete is wearing, is not very tall at all. When he replies, he speaks into Brendon’s collarbones, “Well, friend of Spencer, what know you of our world?” Brendon can’t look away from the King’s crown. It’s fashioned from hundreds of deadly-looking golden rose thorns.
Brendon’s eyelashes twitch on his cheeks when he blinks, and a muscle jumps in his jaw, “I only know what Spencer has told me.” He bites his lip, the pink tip of his tongue flicking out to sweep across the indentations. “But, it seems to me, from what Spencer has told me about his time here, that you,” He pauses to give the King a knowing glance, “rarely turn away from a fight. You say this is how it is, this is how it must be. But…what if fate is…I don’t know? What if it’s a lie we tell ourselves when we’re too afraid to do anything? It just seems like just because your father’s father’s father,” Gabe barks out a laugh and Brendon hitches his shoulders, “once made a deal with this Caorthannach, that doesn’t mean that you should just accept it. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t fight. Does it?”
Everything, and everyone, is silent and still. Brendon watches as the King’s glance never wavers from his own. He can feel the heat of Spencer beside him, can feel the burn of breath held too long in his lungs. And then, with an upward twitch of his full lips, the King begins to laugh. He laughs so long and so hard that he’s bent over, hands on his knees struggling for breath and the dark kohl he’s smudged around his bright-burning eyes is running in inky rivulets down his cheeks. “I like you, Urie of Summerlin.” The King claps him companionably on the shoulder, with more force than his stature would have lead Brendon to believe possible. “You know, I do enjoy a good fight.”
Brendon blinks stupidly at the King. He startles a little when he feels Spencer forcibly remove his fingers from Brendon’s grasp. Gabe and William raise their fists in the air. “To battle!” The King’s roar echoes off of every stone in the feasting hall. His voice is parroted by the crowd, the din enough to shake the rafters. “Patrick! A war song, if you will!” Pete turns his back on Brendon and Spencer and heads back to his throne. “Tomorrow, we fight!” Gabe and William cannot hide their astonished expressions as they follow the King forward. “Spencer, Gabe and William will rally the Seelie troops. You will arm them!” Pete claps his hands in enthusiastic glee.
It’s only then that Brendon tears his eyes away from the spectacle of the King, doing a sort of hitching jig step to the tune Patrick the bard is picking out on his lute. It’s never easy for Brendon to read the expression on Spencer’s face but if he has to hazard a guess he would say from the paleness of his skin, the dimming of the Faerie-light glow, and the slackness of his red, red mouth, Brendon would say that Spencer is devastated.
“What have you done?” Spencer’s eyes are filled with sorrow as he tilts his head at Brendon, then storms through the crowd and exits the hall.
He stands there blinking for a moment before the fear and panic of the last few minutes washes over Brendon. “Spencer! Wait!” he calls out, shoving desperately though the throng of Fae folk, most of whom are in various states of excitement and enthusiasm about the King’s call to battle. Wild eyed with panic, Brendon reaches the main doorway of the great hall, but has managed to completely lose sight of Spencer. He shoves through the back slapping members of the Kingsguard who are massed there, making up their own words for Patrick’s jaunty melody.
Bursting into the cool night air, Brendon stands for a moment, scanning his surroundings and hugging his arms across his chest. He waits for his eyes to adjust to the full darkness in front of him, almost painful in contrast to the warm brightness of the feasting hall. He imagines everyone is inside the hall and has no idea where to start looking for Spencer. Tentatively, he calls out, “Spencer?” and is unsurprised when he receives no answer. Rubbing his hands down his arms, Brendon steps away from the Seelie King’s castle and onto the Faerie road, keenly aware of the lack of warmth and light.
Stone buildings dot the roadside and as Brendon walks, he sees light in a window a few houses up the road. “Spencer?” he calls again, trotting quickly towards the light. It’s a small building, and the light is coming from a hearth fire. Brendon steps inside and realises he’s found Spencer’s shop; the blacksmith forge. Only unlike at home where the smithy’s place is filled with horseshoes and repaired farm equipment, the walls of this room are covered in weapons and armour, made of metal so bright it reflects and magnifies the glow from the fire until the entire room is bathed in light. Spencer isn’t in the shop, but the burning fire tells Brendon he can’t be far.
There are smaller outbuildings scattered across the property, and Brendon starts his search in the first one he comes to; a barn. The nicker of horses and their pungent smell immediately stabs Brendon in the gut with pangs of home. It’s dark but Brendon can make out the restless forms of two animals, sleek and tall, and so unlike good old Algernon, the plough horse Brendon had grown up with. There’s another shadow, leaning against one of the stall gates. “Spencer?” Brendon softly calls.
Spencer is leaning on a barn beam, forehead cradled against his braced arm. “Brendon,” Spencer’s voice is sad in the stillness of the barn, and the hurt in it rips down Brendon’s spine like a thousand shards of broken glass. “There’s going to be a war, Brendon.”
“I didn’t know!” Brendon’s exclamation disturbs the quiet and the horses paw and snort. “I swear I didn’t know!” He rushes to Spencer’s side, clutching at his upper arm. “I just didn’t want to lose you, I didn’t think…”
“No, you didn’t.” Spencer’s wide palm cups Brendon’s cheek as he talks. “This could be the end, Brendon, of everything-The End Days. It’s not just the Faerie world that’s in danger, do you understand?”
Lacing their fingers together, Brendon shakes his head, drawing closer to Spencer, seeking his warmth. “But…”
Spencer silences him, pressing a kiss to Brendon’s temple, “Samhain is the time when the veil between worlds is thin; what your people call All Soul’s Night. It’s a time when your world, and this world, and the underworld, they blur.”
“Oh,” Brendon’s eyes go wide and he hides his face in the soft cotton of Spencer’s shirt. “I just wanted to save you.”
Drawing Brendon into a tight embrace, Spencer sighs into Brendon’s ear. “I know, I know you did. And you took a horrible risk, mo chroí. The King could have had you killed, right then and there.” Brendon can feel Spencer’s heart pounding beneath his fingertips where their joined hands rest on Spencer’s breastbone. “But then Pete never could resist a challenge. I just don’t know how to ensure we can win. So many people, so many innocent creatures at risk…”
“Because I love you,” Brendon finishes sadly.
“Yes,” Spencer untangles their fingers and traces the shape of Brendon’s mouth in the dark. “I am a warrior, and I will fight as asked.”
“Me too!” Brendon’s face is set in a determined frown and he wraps his arms around Spencer’s neck. “We’ll win, Spencer. We have to.”
Spencer rests his forehead against Brendon’s “Aye,” he says softly, but without much conviction.
Brendon makes a whining noise, low in the back of his throat. Winding his fingers in the soft strands of hair falling in a mess at the nape of Spencer’s neck, Brendon pulls Spencer down to him, presses their mouths together in a sloppy, desperate kiss. “I just wanted us to be together,” Brendon whispers against the bow of Spencer’s top lip.
The only reply Spencer makes is a pained growl. He wraps his blunt fingers bruising hard around the jut of Brendon’s hipbones, his thumbs coming up beneath the rough fabric of Brendon’s shirt to swipe at soft skin. Spencer pulls Brendon even closer and bites formless words into the width of Brendon’s careful smile. The kisses they trade are a painful clash of teeth against sensitive flesh and their hands are rough, too desperate to be careful. Brendon clings to Spencer, mewling and rubbing his face into Spencer’s shoulder when they finally break apart to draw breath. It stings when Spencer traces over the bitten skin of Brendon’s plump bottom lip with the pad of this thumb. When he ducks back in, Spencer uses his tongue to lave relief into the deep bite marks his urgency had created.
“Please,” is all Brendon says, and all Spencer needs before walking Brendon backwards to an empty horse stall. Their breathing is loud and the exhalations mingle in the air as Spencer tips Brendon down into the soft hay. His hands trace up Brendon’s body, rucking his shirt up as they go, and his mouth tracing nonsense shapes across the exposed skin.
Spencer laughs when Brendon attempts to open the tiny buttons at his throat with shaking hands, and instead roughly drags it over Spencer’s head, throwing it across the stable in his urgency. Brendon swallows Spencer’s laugh with a messy, urgent kiss, drawing Spencer down on top of his prone sprawl. With a groan, Spencer’s long blunt fingers skate down across Brendon’s pale skin to rest at the waistband of his trousers. He arches an eyebrow in question, and Brendon’s eager reply is the twitching of his hips. Cradling the fragile bones at the base of Brendon’s skull in the palm of one hand, Spencer makes short work of Brendon’s pants with the other. “Please,” Brendon sighs, desperate.
Huffing laughter into Brendon’s neck, Spencer lifts up only long enough for Brendon’s hands to do more than their teasing pawing at Spencer’s ass, and ruck down his breeches low enough to free his cock. They groan at the feeling of warm skin against skin and Brendon’s hands claw up the sharp definition of Spencer’s spine, jagged fingernails raising welts in his eager explorations. There’s no time for gentleness, and they’re too eager; keyed up on fear and adrenaline to do little more than rut against one another. Brendon easily spreads his legs allowing Spencer to lay more of his weight on top of him. Hissing as Brendon scratches a deep furrow across his shoulder, Spencer grabs at Brendon’s hand, stretching his arm up over his head and back into the hay.
Brendon moans and arches up, meeting the smack and thrust of Spencer’s every movement. His cock glances off the pronounced cut of Spencer’s hip and he huffs out a whine, blindly seeking out Spencer’s mouth with his own. They rock against each other, perfectly fitting into the hollows and planes of each other’s body, and Spencer cries out, rough in the darkness when Brendon manages to fumble a calloused hand around his cock. “I wish I could see you,” Brendon whispers brokenly, rubbing his cheek into the softness of Spencer’s beard. He cups his hand over the head of Spencer’s cock, come pooling there and sliding over his wrist into the hay. Spencer’s answer is unintelligible, half Old Words, half nonsense and Brendon laughs with joy as his own cock slips through the mess of Spencer’s orgasm low on his belly. Brendon comes with a woosh, pulling Spencer down to him and licking a droplet of sweat from Spencer’s cheek.
Spencer holds Brendon close, his head resting on Spencer’s shoulder, until his breathing evens out, and the pounding of his heart in his ears slows. He watches, closely memorising Brendon’s features as he gives in to sleep. Even after, Spencer lies in the dark, listening to the horses and the stillness around them, wishing he knew how to keep Brendon safe. Anything more beyond that was outside of his ability to even think about.
When he is certain that Brendon is sound asleep, Spencer manages to untangle himself and, after sifting through the soft hay they’ve made their bed, he manages to find his breeches and shirt, slipping them on in the dark. He covers Brendon, still deep in sleep, with a blanket pulled from the dividing wall. As he passes their stalls he gives each horse a companionable slap on the rump, and heads out the door. Leaning against the wall of the barn, Spencer squints up at the sky, looking at the nearly full moon, which spreads light across the pasture. His thoughts are a jumble in his head, wondering what the next day, Samhain, holds; he wonders if it will be his last, or the last for everyone.
He’s so deep in thought he fails to see William until the Kingsguard is right in front of him. He startles with a jump, and William laughs, his smile blinding white in the moon’ s light. “Well, warrior, on your guard are you? You’ve straw in your hair,” William says, before very helpfully extending his long arm and extracting the offending object. He gives Spencer a knowing glance and says softly, “It’s like that, is it?”
A little sheepish, but unembarrassed, Spencer shrugs and says, “Aye.”
“What are you going to do? With Brendon, I mean.” William settles beside Spencer, and leans back against the barn board.
Scratching his nails through his bead, Spencer squints at the sky and says, “What can I do? He gave me a gift…a drum.”
William’s mouth drops open in a surprised O. “He’s bound himself to you? Does he know what that means?” His brown eyes are warm with concern and pity.
Sighing deeply, Spencer presses his palms flat against the roughhewn boards of the barn behind him. “He does now, I think.”
“Surely you must know that it’s not so easy as marching on Caorthannach and her Unseelie court? Win or lose, there is some very old magic at play. The King-Pete, he has chosen you…” William trails off.
“I am no fool, nor new to Faerie ways. There is always a price to pay.” Spencer stares unblinking into the darkness, stubbornly refusing to look at William.
William stares in the same general direction as Spencer and after long, painful moments he says, “There may be a way…”
“A way?” Spencer does look at William, now. His glance is too guarded to be hopeful, but he is curious.
Crossing his arms in front of him, William pushes away from the barn with his hip and takes a deep breath, “The wise women, they talk about the old magic, sometimes. And as hard as it might be for you to believe, standing guard is not always the most exciting of pass times, so I hear…things, sometimes.”
Spencer nods eagerly, “Yes, so. William, do get to the point, mo chara.”
“They say that if you can survive Caorthannach’s ride, if you can make it to dawn, that the curse may be broken and you will be…”
Shaking his head in confusion, Spencer implores, eyes wide, “Go on?”
William frowns a little to himself, considering his next words. “Do you love Brendon?”
“I do,” Spencer answers without hesitation.
“Does he love you?” William fits his hand to the crook of Spencer’s elbow.
The expression on Spencer’s face is inscrutable when he finally says, “Well if he doesn’t he must be out of his mind because he’s stuck with me, isn’t he?”
William laughs and says, “The wise women say that when you are to take Caorthannach’s ride, if your true love,” William emphasises the words and smiles sadly at the face Spencer makes, “can hold on, all through the night, no matter what, then when the sun rises you will be...”
“Human?” Spencer’s expression, bathed in moonlight, is so full of hope that William can only nod. “Oh! Oh, we must tell Brendon!” Spencer grabs Williams hand and starts to haul him into the barn.
They hurry through the barn to the stall where Spencer had left Brendon, “Brendon! Brendon wake up!” Waking slowly, Brendon yawns and stretches his arms over his head, making the old horse blanket Spencer had covered him with dip dangerously low across his hips.
Blinking sleep from his eyes, a slow smile spreading across his face as he wakes, “Hi.”
“William, you must tell Brendon what you told me!” Spencer urges William forward, and takes a spot beside Brendon, cuddling him close and securing the blanket around him.
William clears his throat awkwardly and stares down at the couple, “Well, there may be a way to break the curse. A way to survive Caorthannach’s ride.”
Looking up at William, Brendon’s eyes are wide and earnest. He trips over the shape of the syllables, foreign in his mouth but finally manages to say, “Caorthannach’s ride?” blinking his confusion between Spencer and William.
William frowns at Spencer and then says, “Yes, it’s part of the tithe, you see the Queen is Unseelie. She is... the opposite of our people. Legend says that long ago, and long ago she was one of the Seelie court,” Spencer waves a dismissive hand and William stops his yarn spinning to sum up with, “Basically, on his way to the Unseelie lands, Spencer will be transformed into...”
“Unseelie,” Spencer takes Brendon’s hand in his and squeezes.
“Yes, so.” William ploughs on, ignoring the expression of distress on Brendon’s face. “But, if his true love,” he arches a pointed eyebrow at Brendon, “Can hang on through the night, no matter what, the magic will be reversed. Payment will not be required.”
Spencer takes in Brendon’s stunned face and says, “And I can be human, again. I can go home.”
“Home? Oh!” Brendon makes as if to stand, then remembers he’s naked and sits down hard on the straw. “Oh! I can do that! I can absolutely do that! My mother always says I’m tenacious as a terrier!” Brendon smacks a kiss to Spencer’s cheek.
“You would not mind, then? It would mean leaving Faerie. Going back to the Summer Lands?” Spencer chews on his bottom lip, waiting for Brendon to answer.
Shaking his head back and forth, Brendon says, “I don’t care. I just want to be with you.” He smiles wide and then nuzzles at Spencer’s cheek. “My home is where you are,” he whispers, kissing Spencer quickly.
“So!” William claps his hands together, loud in the dark and startling the horses in their stalls. “Now all you have to do is survive. And, well, all we have to do is survive this battle the King is waging.”
Shocking both William and Spencer, Brendon breaks into loud, head back, full out laughter. “Yes,” he says, laughter hiccupping down to little more than giggles, “All we have to do is that. That’s all. No big deal.”
“No big deal!” Spencer hugs Brendon around his waist, pulling him into his lap, and joining in his laughter.
***
Samhain morning is sunny and clear, the crisp bite of autumn missing from the air in the Seelie lands. Brendon yawns loudly, leaning against the door jamb, an old patchwork quilt falling around his bare shoulders. “Good morning,” Spencer rumbles low in Brendon’s ear. Brendon leans back against Spencer, glad of his solid warmth. They stand there, silently surveying the growing dawn as Spencer wreaths Brendon’s hips with his hands and snuggles close to rest the point of his chin on Brendon’s shoulder.
“What do you think of Faerie?” Spencer asks. They’d left the barn and its stables not long after William had revealed the possibility of overcoming the old magic, and spent the time curled together in the tiny rope bed in Spencer’s shop. The last few hours of night were for whispers and reassurances and soft kisses like wordless promises against skin.
Brendon turns his head a little, rubbing his cheek against the soft hairs of Spencer’s close cropped beard. He smiles almost in apology, and glancing out over the green rolling hills that lead down to the Wild Wood and says, “To be honest, it’s not all that different from home…Summerlin. I mean everything is, well, nicer and brighter, and we don’t have your freaky Faerie lights but,” he scrunches up his nose and giggles, his shoulders sending the quilt sliding dangerously low on his bare skin.
Spencer chuckles and gives Brendon’s belly a squeeze, “You were expecting palaces made of crystal and roads paved in gold?” His eyebrow arches knowingly, but his tone is playful and teasing.
Without taking his eyes off the lightening horizon, Brendon finds Spencer’s hand and stills his petting by fitting their fingers together and bringing them to rest on his hip. “Maybe?” he waggles his eyebrows, making Spencer laugh harder.
“Come now, there’s work to be done this day.” Spencer tugs at Brendon, drawing him away from the door.
***
Brendon’s eyes are wide in amazement. He had boggled before, when they’d walked into the smithy and seen the array of weapons and armour gleaming bright from every surface. That display had nothing on the cache hidden in a cellar at the King’s Palace. He’d worked with Spencer and a few of the Kingsguard Elves-including William and Gabe, to load wagons with weapons and fit the Seelie with armor. Some of the swords were so large Brendon couldn’t lift them alone.
“He’s a good lad,” Gabe says as he and Spencer lean against the castle wall, sharing an earthenware jug of Sprite Wine to stave off the thirst of their morning’s labor. They’re watching as Brendon searches through an assortment of gleaming gold breast plates to find one small enough to be suitable for the tiny Pixie who’s head barely comes up to Brendon’s waist. The little blue creature is chattering away and Brendon is nodding and smiling, even though he can’t possibly understand a word.
Spencer feels warmth bloom all through his chest and he takes a long gulp from the jug, “Aye, that he is.”
The early afternoon is spent planning and organizing and rallying the troops from all corners of Faerie. If Brendon’s face had reflected amazement at the array of weapons, his expression at seeing the arrival of the Seelie can only be called delight. His eyes shine and his smile threatens to split his face as he greets Pixie and Sprite and Elf. The King gives long blustering speech after long blustering speech, and William and Gabe plot points on maps and give orders.
Spencer is right, Brendon knows nothing of war, nor of battle. His only experience with soldiering came from seeing his brothers don uniforms to patrol the far borders of Summerlin, protecting the fragile peace of the Republic. “If there weren’t so many beautiful, incredible folk to greet, I would be quite bored. I don’t understand a word anyone is saying, and they’re not even speaking the Old Words.” Brendon fidgets in his seat at a long table in the King’s council room.
“Dusk is coming, mo chroí, by moonrise you won’t even remember that boredom was once a possibility.” Spencer squeezes Brendon’s knee and stifles his laugh with his glove encased fist.
***
When the King has finally run out of filibuster, and William and Gabe are sure that the Seelie army know their orders, Brendon and Spencer go back to the forge, making half-hearted attempts to ready themselves. “Here, Bòidheach,” Spencer beckons Brendon over to a bench by the forge. “For you.”
Brendon blinks, very carefully reaching out a hand to stroke tentatively across the intricate woven interlace rose pattern that covers most of the breast plate Spencer is holding up to him. “For me? But, when did you…” his voice trails off and he swallows hard, trying to fight off tears.
“A warrior cannot do battle unprepared, now can he?” Spencer’s eyes are soft with affection. “I managed to fight a Pixie for this, so it should fit.” He concludes with mock seriousness.
“Hey!” Brendon elbows Spencer, but takes the breast plate in hand and gets Spencer to help him don the rest of the suit of armor. “I remember being human, and having a squire,” Spencer grouses in amusement.
Brendon exhales and holds his arms out at his sides, fingers working inside the stiff new leather of his gauntlets. “How do I look?”
Spencer bites his lip and snorts. Brendon looks like a child playing dress up, and something breaks off inside Spencer’s ribs, rattling painfully around his insides. “Brave and bold,” he manages to say, finally. “But you need a helmet to be proper.” Spencer reaches back onto his work bench, before plonking a helmet down over Brendon’s head and swiftly flicking the face plate shut.
“Hey! I can’t see!” Brendon flails around, managing to catch Spencer in some tender spots before Spencer can snatch at his hand. He uses Brendon’s own fingers to flick the grate open and leans in until their noises are almost touching. His grin is wide and ridiculous. “You’re very silly, Spencer Smith. This is serious!”
“Aye, mo chroí, very serious.” Spencer once more reaches back to his work bench. “If I were to give you a broad sword I wouldn’t have to worry about you being taken to the depths of Hell, you’d off yourself with no help at all.” Spencer smirks when he sees Brendon’s pouting expression of outrage. “So these should do the job.” He hands Brendon a sheath that’s the length from elbow to wrist.
“What are they?” Curious, Brendon’s nimble fingers work the leather thong open and he grabs two slim handles made out of a dark, ebony-like wood. A metallic snick sounds through the small room as he extracts two blades, blue metal glowing and lethal. He blinks and after staring at the weapons, stares at Spencer.
“Pixie sticks,” Spencer shrugs and takes them from Brendon’s loose grasp. “Try not to slice that pretty face of yours open before the battle’s even begun, aye?” He fixes the sheath to the arm of Brendon’s plate mail, then takes off his helmet, kissing him soundly.
Brendon breaks from the kiss, gazing sideways out the tiny window. “The sun is going down.” He whispers into Spencer’s cheek.
“So it is,” Spencer pats at Brendon’s waist with a metallic tapping. “Brendon,” his voice drops low and serious, “you must know I would never, ever hurt you.”
His brows furrowing in confusion, Brendon says passionately, “Of course you would never hurt me! Of course I know that!” He totters awkwardly, walking in his new suit of armor for the first time, and his arms are heavy and stiff when he tries to reach for Spencer.
“I just,” Spencer pauses and licks his lips, “I need you to know that. I can’t say what will happen when we march on the Unseelie. I don’t know what kind of magic the Caorthannach will use. If I try…if I do hurt you, know then I am no longer myself and you may…” He swallows hard and drags his index finger along the Pixie blades at Brendon’s elbow.
Realization dawns and Brendon does fling himself at Spencer then, “No! No! I can’t! I won’t. You can’t ask me to hurt you Spencer, you can’t.”
Spencer holds him close and makes gentling noises under his breath, “Brid willing it won’t come to that. But I know no other way to protect you from what I may become-what the Caorthannach could yet make me.” He holds Brendon’s face in his hands and kisses him once more, pretending he doesn’t hear the sob choking at the back of Brendon’s throat.
***
When the sky is a velvety purple the likes of which Brendon has never seen back in Summerlin, he and Spencer, hands joined, head to the King’s Palace to take their place in the march on the Caorthannach. They just miss Pete’s rousing speech, and are swallowed up by a sea of cheering Fae folk. The Kingsguard marshal the throng into formation, and Spencer and Brendon take their appointed places in the center of the massed troops.
Brendon’s neck swivels back and forth as he tries to take in the vast number of creatures all around him. Everywhere he looks there are Elves and Faeries and Pixies, and even the tiny Sprites and the awkward Dwarves have gathered into units behind the waving vanguard of the Seelie Lands.
“So,” Brendon says, desperately trying to keep his fear from his voice, “What’s plan B?”
Spencer, looking every bit the knight warrior he was back in the thick of the Wild Wood when Brendon first met him, frowns and says, “Plan B?”
“Yeah, so say William’s wrong and this whole ‘hold on and ride through the night’ thing doesn’t work. What do we do then?”
Eyes piercing blue in the advancing moonlight, Spencer says, “Oh, Brendon. My beautiful Brendon. Don’t you see? There is no plan B. We live, or we die.” Brendon blinks and gulps for air but has no time to reply, as the Fawns blast their horns and the entire army surges out into the night.
Brendon feels awkward and stupid in his armor, sure that he’ll be more a hindrance than anything else, but he struggles along beside Spencer, who awkwardly holds out his gloved hand and wraps Brendon’s own gauntleted hand in his fingers. “Hold on to me,” Spencer says, “and don’t let go. No matter what.” He doesn’t seem to mind being outpaced by the other Seelie warriors.
“No matter what,” Brendon agrees solemnly Soon enough, the purple sky deepens to an inky black and the Wild Wood looms around them, under the full and bright of the moon. A fleeting glance at Spencer makes Brendon startle and exclaim a shocked, “Oh!”
Spencer is…fading--in and out-- himself and gone. Brendon blinks, thinking maybe it’s a trick of the moonlight. “Maybe my helmet’s too tight,” he mutters to himself. But then, when he looks again, in Spencer’s place, is a large, white horse. Brendon tips his head back and laughs. “Embarr!” he cries. He weaves his fingers through the horse’s mane and awkwardly climbs on to its back. “I think I can hold on okay,” Brendon laughs again, wondering at the ease of it all. He’d spent countless days as a child riding the lumbering plow horse Algernon through the Urie farm fields.
His relief at the turn of events is short lived. Almost as soon as he is astride the night air is alive with the sounds of the leathery beating of wings. Brendon sits low, pressing his entire length against the horse’s back, eyes squeezed tight shut and digging his knees into the horse’s muscular flanks, “I just need to hang on.” He says as a screeching howl rends the dark. He can’t tell if it’s the Unseelie creatures flapping just above his head, or just a normal wind, but he feels the breeze blustering against his skin, despite the obstacles of the other Seelie warriors surrounding him, who should be blocking it out, at least a little. Brendon’s fingers ache from clutching so tightly to the horse’s-Spencer’s-mane, and he feels like if not for the caging metal of his breast plate, his heart would beat out onto the forest floor.
Beyond the whining of the wind, the screams of the flying Unseelie creatures, and the clash of sword against sword, Brendon can hear the screams of the dying, the hoarse calls of the desperate, and a low, liquid squelching noise that signals the advance of a new onslaught of the Caorthannach’s creatures. Despite the almost mid-day brightness of the full Samhain moon, Brendon cannot see where these creatures are.
But he can smell them.
Brendon tries not to wretch as the stench of rot and decay fills his nostrils, creeping inside his helmet and threatening to choke him. He pants, desperate to keep a hold of Spencer. He should arm himself. He should unsheathe the deadly sharp Pixie daggers sheathed in his arm holster. But, Brendon is afraid that if he loosens his grasp, even one hand, even just a little, he’ll be unseated and it will be over; he’ll lose Spencer. So he breathes through his mouth, searching around wildly, not even attempting to steer the large white beast in any particular direction, putting his trust in Spencer.
As Brendon sees the Elves around him fall-one, two, three--he realizes that the latest attackers from the Unseelie army are slithering along the forest floor. His realization is proven true when Spencer bucks and rears up on his back legs, desperate to avoid being snared by the slithering creatures. The horse starts with such force that Brendon’s helmet is flung from his head, lost in the battling creatures around him.
The wind increases yet again, tearing at Brendon’s cheeks with powerful force. But somehow, he manages to hang on, even with the horse thrashing wildly beneath him. Spencer is doing everything in his power to keep them from falling into the slithering mass of slimy Unseelie bodies that are everywhere now. There is a lull in the noise and wind, and it’s then Brendon sees the Caorthannach. By the whinnying and stamping, Brendon knows Spencer sees her too.
They freeze in place.
Stuck as they are, Brendon takes the chance to unlace the Pixie blade holster, drawing one of the wickedly sharp knives out of their sheath and clutching the wood handle in his palm. He knows it won’t do him much good against the Caorthannach, but he feels better for having it at the ready. He’s panting, trying to calm himself, but he’s never in his deepest nightmares known what it’s like to be this afraid.
She is beautiful and terrifying. Every time they look at her she is something different; a woman, a dragon, a bear, all as tall as the twisted limbs atop the ancient trees in the Wild Wood. Her colors are so bright and so painful Brendon has to shield his eyes with his hand as stinging tears course down his cheeks. Then suddenly, she is no color at all, black as the night of the new moon, and barely more than the memory of where she once stood. Until she bursts to life again; a thing of flame. Her great wings unfurl, at once as leathery as the Unseelie creatures that continue to beat a horrible rhythm about their heads, and as fragile and delicate as a butterfly’s, splashed with colors Brendon does not know the names for.
She uses her wings to whip the wind into a fury once more, and Brendon buries his face against Spencer’s neck, clinging for both of their lives, stuck staring at this horrible creature. The Caorthannach, the Queen of the Underworld, has blood red scales like weeping sores that fade away to feathers as she screams, shaking the ground beneath the white horse’s hooves. She thrashes her spiked tail, causing thin grey beings to drop free from the trees. They land on the heads of the Seelie warriors, so busy fighting they fail to notice until it’s too late.
“Oh god,” Brendon wails. The grey beings unhinge their jaws, stretching them to engulf the struggling Seelie. When the greys fall away from the Seelie fighters, scuttling back to the Caorthannach who takes them beneath her wings, they are round and fat, leaving behind dried out husks that used to be Elves and Dwarves, and other Faerie folk Brendon spent the morning getting to know. Panting, Brendon pushes his face against Spencer’s neck. “No more. Please, please no more.” He mumbles between choking sobs.
Just as the grey beings fed on the souls of the Fairies, so the Caorthannach feeds on them. She grows bigger and taller, until she’s blotting out the stars in the night sky. She’s a woman once more, her face beautiful and cruel as she laughs. Brendon can hear her voice inside of his head. It’s like music. “No, no.” He shakes his head, tugging on Spencer’s mane. “Come on! Move, we need to get away from her!” he viciously kicks his heels into the drum of Spencer’s belly, spurring him into a gallop.
Brendon feels it, like a pulse of lightning between the horse’s back and himself, the moment Spencer starts to change. Brendon digs in with his knees and keeps his Pixie dagger fisted in his right hand, his left tangled in the soft white hair of Spencer’s mane for balance. But it’s like lightning burning him along his legs. In less than the time it takes to blink, he’s no longer sitting astride a horse.
Brendon blinks dumbly for a moment, only roused from his confusion when the creature he’s clinging to roars louder than a thousand trumpets, and he can only watch in horror as the creature bolts forward, great rows of razor sharp teeth making short work of the Troll he’s grasped in his jaws. “Oh, Spencer,” Brendon says. And then he feels awful for thinking at least Spencer is still in there somewhere because it was one of the Unseelie minions he’d ripped apart. The creature that was Spencer is bucking and thrashing and doing its best to toss Brendon from its back.
Brendon thinks he remembers learning about such creatures in school, once. Head and shoulders of a lion, teeth of a shark and, “Oh!” Brendon raises the hand he’s using to grasp his dagger. Using his knuckles he swipes across his face and his hand comes away stained with blood. Eyes wide he manages to duck just in time to avoid another stinging blow from the creature’s scorpion tail. With painstaking slowness Brendon manages to work his way onto Spencer’s shoulders as the creature, the manticore, hurtles through the dense forest growth. He flings both arms around the creature’s neck, careful to duck low and avoid the lethal jaws and teeth.
They’re headed straight for a huge thicket of rhododendron, Brendon’s best guess puts at half the size of his town. Maybe they could hide inside the maze of laurel leaf and be safe until moonset? “Yes, Spencer. Yes!” Brendon continues to dodge the constant snap of the scorpion tail but he hugs Spencer close, encouraging him on.
The waxy leaves of the hell are close, so close that if Brendon dared, he could reach out and graze the dark green plants with his fingertips. Maybe this is it, maybe this is their chance to be safe. Though locals called them rhododendron hells, it looks the most like any kind of heaven Brendon can let himself believe in; safety. Well as safe as he can be with Spencer snapping and growling, but, Brendon thinks, Spencer loves me. He would never hurt me. Brendon honestly believes that, like he’s never believed in anything before.
Brendon is exhausted and clinging to the bucking, thrashing beast and he’s been dangerously lost in thought. And now a wave of vertigo washes over him so strongly that the only thing keeping him clinging to Spencer is his knees. The rhododendron hell is getting farther and farther away. Farther and farther below them. Shaking his head like a spaniel coming out of the water, Brendon realizes in the few moments he took for hopeful wool gathering, Spencer had shifted shape again.
The brown feathers in Brendon’s grasp are anything but soft. They cut his hands and his knees and along his sides where his shirt has rucked up underneath his breast plate. As Brendon is trying to get his bearings Spencer turns his head to screech, his large golden eagle eye unblinking and his deadly hooked beak snapping at Brendon’s clutched fingers. Brendon tries to remember to breathe as the wind whips painfully against his skin. The moon is bright and from this great height Brendon can see the bodies of uncountable Seelie strewn across the swath of meadow leading to the Wild Wood. He swallows a wave of nausea at the sight, as well as at the swooping and diving as the eagle tries its best to beat Brendon off of him.
The icy needles of a pelting rain soon join in the ferocious wind, turning the eagle feathers into stinging blades against Brendon’s flesh. The rain water mixes with the blood from Brendon’s cuts, but he bites his lip and holds on against the stinging pain. The water is falling in such great amounts that the bowl shaped clearing that eventually rises into the gentle Seelie hills Brendon had just that morning admired from Spencer’s doorway soon becomes a lake, washing away several of those of the remaining Seelie army. Great white caps race along the lake’s surface blown by the gale force winds, and Brendon flicks his hair out of his eyes, desperately wracking his brain for some way to find relief from the pins and needles shooting up his exhausted arms and legs.
The eagle seems to be warring against the elements just as much as Brendon. Taking advantage of the moment when the eagle isn’t trying to pluck Brendon free of him, Brendon seats himself upright on the eagle’s back, armor heavy, and balanced on his knees. Using the Pixie dagger, Brendon slices through the straps securing the guardbraces over his shoulders, using the leather to secure himself to the eagle’s wings.
He’s panting with the effort when the bird starts its dive. “No, no! Spencer, no!” Brendon’s voice is barely a murmur, swallowed by the howling fury of the storm. Brendon pulls with all the strength he has left, coming away with bleeding palms and fists full of feathers. But still, the eagle dives. They hit the water with an audible smack and Brendon gives silent thanks that he’d tied himself to Spencer, or else they would be lost.
They dive below the surface of the lake, only to rise again as Brendon gasps to the surface. The second time Brendon pulls in a great lungful air, he realizes he’s no longer sitting on an eagle, but rather wrapped in the spiraled coils of a snake. The cobra-like animal is enormous, with teeth the size of Brendon’s arm. And it’s doing its best to drag Brendon below the surface of the lake, permanently. “Hold on, just hold on.” Brendon closes his eyes against the fear that threatens to overwhelm him, and wraps his arms around the snake’s body, silently repeating to himself all he has to do is hold on, and Spencer will never hurt him. Their fight goes on and on, above the water and below, wind stinging the cuts all over Brendon’s body, and the frigid water of the lake startling him to full consciousness so he can suck in great burning gasps of air.
If Spencer has morphed into enormous snake, the Caorthannach is gigantic. Where the wicked teeth in Spencer’s mouth are as long as Brendon’s arm, the ones in the Queen of the Underworld’s serpentine jaws are as big as Brendon. On each of his increasingly fewer and shorter moments at the surface of the lake, Brendon realises that she is slithering towards them. She rears up and strikes when a Seelie warrior attempts to block her path. If the claymore blades of her teeth don’t kill the people fighting because of Brendon, because of his selfish need to save Spencer, then the toxic venom dripping from her jaws like the rain that falls without relent surely will.
Brendon is so weak, so tired. His brain is screaming at him to relent. He knows he could just let go, unravel himself from the snake’s --Spencer! He’s still Spencer!-coils and it will be over. Just as Brendon is reaching beneath the surface of the water, fumbling with his dagger, there's a great musical flapping like the distant tinkling of a million tiny bells, and the moon in the sky is blocked out by the shadow of a great dragon. Pete is piloting the beast, its indigo scales shining against the platinum of his armour. When he's close enough he gives a mighty yell and jumps from his mount onto the Caorthannach-snake, brandishing the sword Spencer made for him when he first arrived in Faerie.
The King whoops and yells, laughing like a child at a carnival. Raising the sword high above his head, he stabs the Caorthannach in her serpentine face, pinning her jaws shut. Then as she thrashes, trying to free herself of the sword, and of Pete, he takes out another smaller yet no less lethal looking sword, and without hesitation, in one smooth stroke, lops off her head. The body of the beast goes careening backward, Pete still clinging to her slippery black form. As the Caorthannach’s body goes plummeting to the ground, there’s an earth shattering crack as the ground opens up beneath them. Molten red-gold fire shoots high into the autumn night sky, and the last thing Brendon sees before giving into his exhaustion and letting the water pull him to slumber is the laughing face of the Faerie King being pulled down into the licking flames of the Underworld.
* * *
Slowly, Brendon opens his eyes. Against the pounding in his head, two fuzzy yet familiar faces come into view. He blinks a few times and then struggles to a sitting position. “Gabe? William?” His head swims and he raises a hand to his hairline, pressing at the bleeding knot there. “Wait. Spencer? Where’s Spencer?” He looks around frantically, ignoring another wave of nausea.
All he has to do is look at the expression on his friends’ faces and Brendon knows. “No! Oh nononono no! Spencer!” He scrambles to his feet, panting with the effort. “I failed him,” he bows his head and shudders. Blinking back tears he manages to swallow his sobs as he looks at the bleak faces of William and Gabe.
Gabe pulls Brendon to him in a fierce hug, managing to finally pry the pixie daggers from Brendon’s curled fists. “You were really, really brave, little man. You hung on long enough for Spencer to distract that Queen Bitseach. Pete--the King--he got her. Fucking vanquished her nasty ass, and went out in a blaze of Seelie glory!” Gabe’s voice catches and breaks, his tears falling into Brendon’s dark hair.
“What do you mean? Wait,” Brendon sucks in a painful breath, shivering in his damp clothes. “You mean Pete’s...”
“Gone,” William finished solemnly, bowing his head. He unhooks his heavy purple cloak and drapes it over Brendon’s thin shoulders, trying to warm him from the shock of injury and loss. “His heraldry, as well as your Spencer’s will give Patrick and all the bards to come something to sing about through all the ages” His smile is sad as he brushes a hand over the crown of Brendon’s hair.
Brendon huddles miserably under William’s cloak, still clutching at Gabe. The smell of fire and sulphur are still strong in The Meadows, although the lake is gone and the grass is dry. In the distance Brendon can hear the sounds of the last remaining members of the Unseelie army retreating into the far off Wild Wood. “What happens now?” Brendon asks in a small voice. He’s not really expecting an answer.
With Spencer gone, everything Brendon hsd sacrificed for is gone too. He can’t go home, only the Faerie King, only Pete can release him from his time in the Seelie Lands. And now Pete is gone, and Brendon fears he may well be stuck in some sort of horrible limbo. Like Spencer had been. He cannot bear to think of it, and is unsure he will be able to cope with a thousand years of longing to be free.
If the Queen has been vanquished and the Unseelie army defeated, there will be no need to pay the Thousand Years Tithe. So Brendon cannot even sacrifice himself for the good of the Faerie folk. He is, essentially, trapped. Spencer had warned him about eternity. As the weight of his fate sinks in, Brendon slumps back to the ground. He stretches his hands out, palms flat against the dying autumn grass, beating his frustrations into the ground. He isn’t sure how he narrowly misses touching a red hot coal that hisses in the coarse weeds.
“That must be left over from when the Queen...you know.” Gabe makes an exploding noise and then waves his hands around his face. Still trying to figure out exactly what happened between the time Spencer turned into a viper and the time he’d himself been thrown beneath the waves and knocked unconscious, Brendon just stares at Gabe in silence.
“Unless,” William says very slowly. He crouches down beside Brendon and very carefully scoops the glowing red coal up into his leather gauntlet.
“Be careful,” Brendon hisses in pre-emptive sympathy.
Holding his hand out flat, William stares at the coal as Brendon and Gabe stare at him. “Curious,” he says finally.
“What?” Brendon doesn't think his anxiety and confusion are entirely the fault of his concussion.
Turning the ember over and over in his hands, William says, “Maybe you didn't fail at all. Maybe, just maybe the thing you wish for with all your heart can come true.” Very gently he takes Brendon's hand in his and drops the coal into it. Brendon flinches and hisses-but there's no heat, no pain. There is a thrumming though, almost a pulse; like the thing he's gingerly holding is alive. Puzzled, Brendon blinks down at the coal and then up at William.
William stands between Brendon and Gabe, smiling expectantly. When Brendon makes no move, William inclines his head to the broad expanse of the Wild Wood. Frowning, Brendon follows William's glance as he walks over to where the trees grow in a thick tangle. Cradled in the roots of a Rowan tree is what Brendon has heard the village elders call a Brid's Well. Not wells at all, these small pools have been found all over the Republic and are said to have been blessed by Brid-The Mother herself-and possess magical properties.
Brendon shrugs, at this point it can't hurt to try, can it? He reaches out and opens his hand. The strangely burning ember drops into the pool and disappears in the brackish water. All three stand and stare trying to find something in the pool's dark depths. “Well,” Brendon's voice cracks, “it was a good thought.” He pats William's arm and squeezes Gabe's hand in his.
“Wait! What's that?” Gabe points at the water's surface and they lean closer, desperate for any sign that something is happening.
After a few brief moments, Brendon sees it. Tiny streams of bubbles are floating to the surface of the well water. “Oh!” he exclaims-the bubbles are increasing in size, number, and frequency as they begin to frantically push towards the surface. And then, as they watch in awe, they're no longer bubbles at all, but the tender shoots of new leaves--plants that gleam with an unnatural light as familiar to Brendon as breathing.
Gabe tugs Brendon and William backwards as the vines and leaves snake out of the well, over its sides, and over grow the tree's roots. Soon enough rose buds appear and then burst into enormous red-pink blooms. The three move back even more as the plant continues to spread in a thick tangle over the forest floor-completely overgrowing the pool. “Give me your sword,” Brendon says without looking away from the amazing sight before him.
“What?” Gabe asks dumbly.
Brendon holds out his hand, “Your sword. Give it to me!” Without hesitation Gabe unsheathes the deadly broadsword with a metallic snick. Taking it in both hands, Brendon starts to hack haphazardly at the vines, muttering “Magic grows stronger, over time,” under the quickening of his breath.
Without having to be asked, William has his own deadly blade in his hands, chopping at the thick foliage. Brendon cries out “Spencer!” as he pl¬ucks a bloom as wide across as his shoulders.
Curled deep inside the thicket of blooms and vines, lies Spencer. He's naked and filthy, and covered in bruises and cuts. “Spencer! Oh, Spencer!” Brendon crawls over the greenery and gathers Spencer into his arms. “Shh, shh. You're okay, I'm here. You're okay.” Brendon shushes Spencer as he shakes and shivers, moaning quietly. Brendon's not sure if he's talking to Spencer or himself.
¬
Blinking, and with a voice like he's spent a week in the desert, Spencer says, “It worked, mo chroí . You were brave and bold, and it worked.” He smiles weakly, but his eyes stay open and Brendon swipes Spencer's hair away from his face, careful of the deep, nasty cut on Spencer's forehead.
But, he's warm and solid, and Brendon can't help notice, human.
“You too,” is all Brendon says, pressing a kiss to the top of Spencer's head. Gabe tucks his cloak around the pair of them, and then picks up his broadsword from where Brendon had discarded it on the grass. Brendon looks from Gabe to William, who has picked up Brendon's Pixie daggers and is tucking them into his belt. “Where are you going?” Spencer rasps from the security of Brendon's arms.
“To get Pete,” Gabe says at the same time William says, “To Hell and back, gods willing.”
Brendon nods at them and bids them good luck, and then can't help but smile at Spencer's confused expression. “You don’t remember?” When Spencer slowly shakes his head back and forth Brendon kisses him and whispers, “You kind of missed a lot. Don't worry, I'll explain it all later. Rest now, we have all the time in the world.” Brendon kisses Spencer and strokes his fingers through his hair, watching as his eyes fall closed in sleep, watching as Samhain eve fades away into a very human dawn.
Glossary
Bhí mo chroí ó shin trasna na farraige-Since then my heart was across the sea
Bitseach-bitch
Bòidheach-beautiful
Caorthannach-thought by some to be the devil’s mother, is a demon that was fought off by St. Patrick when he banished the snakes out of Ireland
Embarr-the name of the white horse who carried Fionn mac Cumhaill’s son Oisin to the mythical land Tír na nÓg
Fianna-(singular fian) were small, semi-independent warrior bands in Irish mythology and Scottish mythology, most notably in the stories of the Fenian Cycle, where they are led by Fionn mac Cumhaill. They are based on historical bands of landless young men in early medieval Ireland known as kerns
Fionn mac Cumhaill-known in English as Finn McCool, was a mythical hunter-warrior of Irish mythology, occurring also in the mythologies of Scotland and the Isle of Man. The stories of Fionn and his followers the Fianna, form the Fenian Cycle (or Fiannaidheacht), much of it purported to be narrated by Fionn's son, the poet Oisín
focáil leat-Fuck off!
mo chara-my friend
mo chroí-my heart
Sidhe-demon,generally used for Faerie folk in some folklore
Téigh trasna ort féin-Go fuck yourself!
Bonus materials:
Art: by look_alive
here
Mix: fantastic soundtrack by morganya
here