The Kindgom of Heaven and Hell

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Faline all but cowered at the back of the great hall. She hated meetings. They were often times full of loud angry men who had a tendency to throw things. This night was no different. The entire village had shown up, despite the raging storm outside. Every man from every family was there, shouting to be heard over the next.
Her father, the Jarl, was seated at the head of it all, one long leg draped over his ornate throne. For a while he remained silent, his eyes not one the villagers, but going from the young woman hiding under one of the tables near the door to her sister who sat on top of it, holding onto a rather heavy broad sword. He shook his head at both of them. 
Oalf sighed heavily and held up a hand to silence the crowd. "I am fully aware of the danger we now face from the outlanders. And I am aware that those who cross our borders are far from human. However, I am not sure if we warrant help from out bordering villages. If we decide to seek help, we will need to go to the king. But...he is a bartering man. I am not sure we have anything he will find worthy enough..."

"The come from the ground. The places even the gods won't go." Olaf whispered. One of the guards leaned down and picked him up, setting him on his feet. When he saw the skeletal face that met him he began to scream. His terrified howls could be heard all the way down into the village below. 

"I don't give a shit about the gods. They don't scare me and neither do you." Braun snarled. "Do what I said, demon. Or I swear I will cut off your head and offer it as a gift to your idiot Sandman."

Lucian laughed loudly, but it wasn't the sound Faline would have been used to. It was cold, mocking anyone who was the cause of it. "The time of your gods is long since passed."

"Cut off my head and the sandman will cut off yours." The creature warned. "But I will take you to him, not that it will help. He has been searching for your Cessily for a very long time."

Faline didn't know what to make of the noises she was hearing. She was beyond terrified now. She remembered as a child, hiding in her closet from the monsters she was so sure were watching her in the dark. It was what she was doing now and strangely it felt as if it was for the very same reason. 

"Is that a good thing or a bad?" Braun asked, his broad shoulders slumping somewhat. He was very tired. He hadn't slept more than an hour or so in over a week. He'd searched endlessly for Cessily and followed her all the way here going as fast as he could. He'd come this far only to find that he had not found her after all. "Can you at least tell me if she is safe? If I promise not to threaten you again?"

Once he was certain Olaf had been locked away, Lucian returned to his own bed chamber. The war waging inside him drained him more and more each day. Today was a particularly bad day.

"Maybe you should sleep first?" The creature suggested, her voice as inviting and soft as a childhood lullaby right then. "Sleep and you can see her." She breathed, kissing Braun again.

The next morning Faline went down to the village, avoiding everyone in the castle when they wouldn't let her talk to her father. She found a charming farmers market and spent most of the morning there, glad for the company of a milkmaid who was showing her the use of a cow that  had nothing to do with killing it. 

"Don't do that again. Your lips taste nothing like hers." Braun snapped, shoving the creature who looked like Cessily away from him. "I'm not tired. I want to see her now. Let's go."

The milkmaid had laughed gently when she saw the look of horror on Faline's delicate features. "You really didn't know where milk came from?" She asked.

"You think you know her so well." The dark creature replied icily. "You don't even know what she is, nevermind who she is." She hissed.

"I thought you had to kill it to get that." Faline confessed, laughing when the cow butted her with its nose. She patted the creature, the horror of the night before forgotten for the time being. "I just find if odd that it comes from...there." She added with a deep blush.

"Perhaps I don't care." Braun said, shaking his head. "I would like to go to know her. The things that you say have little meaning to me." He added, fighting to pull back his hair again. "Now hurry up. I need to take her back home."

The milk maid laughed and nodded. "Makes you wonder what the person who discovered we can milk them was trying to do." She mused with a grin.

The creature covered her mouth with Cessily's hand and giggled again. "Silly boy, she is home!" She declared before skipping on ahead.

"Like what?" Faline asked, giving the milkmaid an innocent blink. "I imagine that he just saw the calf feeding and figured it could share." She shrugged.

"No one is home in the ice and cold, creature. Not even you could truly be happy with it." Braun muttered.

The milk maid grinned again. "Assuming the first person saw the calf." She replied, getting to her feet to push Faline down into the stool she had just vacated. "Give it a go."

"But she is." The light footed creature purred. "Didn't you ever notice it?" Each step she took seemed to allow her to float from one foot to the other, rather than actually walking.

"You want me to touch that thing...where?" Faline asked, her eyes wide with sudden worry. "Oh no...I couldn't do that...I'll leave it for some who knows what they're doing..." She was quick to get back up, her cheeks on fire.

"I don't trust anything you say, creature. You won't even tell me your name." Braun said, fishing out a cheroot from his chest pocket and using a flint to light it.

The milkmaid laughed again, not yet realising she was speaking to the woman who could quite possibly be her queen one day. "Are you afraid?"" She teased gently.

"You people are weak because you give your name freely to any who ask." The creature replied. "It's not my name, but you may call me Serah."

Soon enough half the village was involved in trying to get this woman to milk a cow. One young man even leaned forward and took her hands to try and help her with the task. "I can't!" Faline cried, though it was more with laughter than anything else. "Please stop!" 

"If it makes you feel any better, Braun isn't my real name either." He told her. He was rubbing at his wrists as they walked, though he wasn't sure why. "I don't even remember my proper name. That was the name the guards gave me when I woke up. They said it was because of my size."

It was only a few moments later that a sudden and immediate hush fell over the village. The young man who had taken Faline's hands would drop them like lead and join everyone else in bowing. Lucian had entered into the village to look for Faline, and even if it hadn't been his intention, everyone recognised him.

"You don't remember anything before that moment?" Serah asked as she skipped along, the flutter of her wings growing a little more pronounced each time she became distracted by something.

Faline turned to see what the fuss was about and she too bowed. Lucian made an impressive sight. Something about him had changed even further. He was more regal than he had been before. This worried her. It was like he was changing before her eyes. The man she'd met that first time was disappearing faster by the day and she didn't understand why. 

"No." Braun said, watching the way her form seemed to shift. "It was like waking up from a long sleep and not remembering where you are or how you even got there. I have no memory of being a child, or a young man. I don't remember having parents or friends. It's all gone. I didn't wake up until they pulled a gunny sack off my head."

Lucian stepped through the people,his dark golden eyes seeing only Faline. It was almost like the real him was in ere, trying to see her, but there was a darkness that silenced him. It was that same darkness that made everyone forget the true king.

"Funny, you have no memory of family, and your sweet Cessily had memories of a fake family." Serah cooed, the giggling sound she made rather unsettling as she swung around a nearby tree.

Faline kept herself lowered before the king, her fathers words like an angry wound inside her. She wasn't even good enough to shine his boots. She should be here on the ground and nowhere else.

"Good to hear they were fake. She never spoke well of them. And her father. I was afraid she was going to be forced to marry a drifter like me just to be able to go back home." Braun snorted.

"Faline... What are you doing?" Lucian asked, reaching down to take the young woman's hand and pull her back to her feet. "If you are worried about your father, I still have him locked in the dungeon. He can't do you any more harm."

Serah stopped swinging and came to a halt in front of Braun. "Cessily wouldn't return to that land, even after she married you. And oh my... How she dreams of being your one and only! It drives the Sandman crazy!"

"Sire, I have no right to stand before you like this." She whispered, her head down. "We both heard what my father said last night." She added, a single tear sliding down her cheek. "Forgive me for getting so close to you."

"Why should the Sandman care about that?" Braun asked, surprised to hear that Cessily dreamed of him. It made his chest ache more than he wanted to admit.

"I will not." Lucian breathed as he leaned down with his lips to Faline's ear. "I want you by my side, with or without your fool father's consent."

"Because she was supposed to be his." Serah breathed, as though this were common knowledge. "Before the veil went up between this world and that of mortals, little Cessily's family ruled here, and she was their most precious princess. But the Sandman looked into her tiny soul and decided she would be his when she was grown. He was furious when he found the child had been given to a mortal woman beyond his reach."

"I'm not of royal blood. I'm barely a jarl's daughter." Faline whispered. "I would love to belong to you but I can't, Lucian. I'm not even good enough to wash your bed sheets."

"Well too bad for Sandman. I'll send him a letter of condolence when she becomes my wife." Braun snorted. "I don't feel sorry for him."

Lucian squeezed Faline's slender hands tightly as he looked down into the delicate features. "is it not for me to decide who is worthy of my affection?" He breathed earnestly, his eyes much softer than they had been the night before.

"It isn't him you should feel sorry for... It is everyone else." Serah warned. "His wrath turned the kingdom to ice, and he trapped the humans inside their own dreams. When Cessily falls asleep, that's when he enters her dreams and learns all about you."

"There you are." Relief washed over her face and Faline threw her arms around Lucian's neck. She ignored the shocked gasps from the people around them. "You disappeared last night when my father got here."

"Good." Braun laughed at this. "Then he knows as much about me as I do. It's close to nothing." He lost interest in the creature before him and glanced out across the snow. "I'll say one thing for the old guy, he makes a hell of a landscape painting."

Lucian didn't say anything to that, he couldn't. He couldn't bear the thought of Faline finding out the truth about what he had done. Instead he held her tight and buried his face in her sweet smelling hair. "A cow was preferable to time with me?" He teased gently.

"I know you want to be the one to bite that sweet cherry." Serah snapped as Braun brushed past her. "But she would give it to Sandman, if it saved your life."

"I was trying to find some fresh vegetables. Have you ever been down here? Since you already here..." She slid an arm through his and suddenly realized that the villagers were still bowing. "Tell them to get up..."

"Any man worth his salt would not ask that of her. No matter what." Braun said softly, ignoring her completely. "How much longer? This landscape is a bit redundant."

"They're fools for doing that in the first place." Lucian muttered, though did gesture for everyone to get on their feet. "I never asked to of them."

"Would you refuse her a second time, if she offered it to you?" Serah countered as they walked a little further. The icy tips of a castle could be seen in the distance. It would have once sat in the side of a lush green mountain over looking a great river and waterfall that fell into the valley below. Now, it was no more than an icy fortress.

"You're the king, Lucian. It's the law, remember?" Faline whispered softly. People were still looking at them in awe and fear. "It's all right." She said a little louder. "Today his highness is just like the rest of us. He's just shopping for vegetables and a gift for a pretty girl." She laughed, giving Lucian a teasing bump with her hip. 

Braun shook his head against a flash of a green castle clouded his vision. It was familiar and yet not. And then it was gone, leaving nothing but the forbidding ice in its place. "Sounds like your king doesn't intend to give me a second chance." He said softly. "You know, Serah, I'm surprised you're not more upset about all this. Sounds to me like you like old Sandy."

"I am not!" Lucian huffed, seeming rather upset by this statement. "I'm looking for one for the most beautiful of all for giving her cheesy king another chance." He added before breaking into a grin.

Serah glanced up at Braun and smiled sadly. "You really think a god would ever look twice at a nymph?" She asked sadly.

"After that statement it better be something good." Faline said, poking her tongue out at him. She turned her head, giving the milkmaid a warm smile. "Will you let him try some of that milk? You have to try it, Lucian. It's amazing. And you wouldn't believe it. She doesn't even have to kill the cow to get it." 

"Why not? Are we all saddled by what we are?" Braun asked her. "I would hate to think so. Being trapped by my status would make life boring and worthless. If that's all that's holding you back from trying your hand at him...he did give you a gift after all. That has to mean something. Doesn't it?"

Lucian burst out laughing. "Why would one have to kill a cow to get the milk?" He asked, barely able to breath he was laughing so much.

"It means I did something please him, not that he feels anything for me." Serah observed wisely.