She had stared at him a long while, the campfire flickering between them, before finally laying down.  Her gaze was not unkind, but rather a mixture of question and wonder.  Like she didn’t understand what she was looking at.  Who he was.  Not that he blamed her; he wasn’t even sure he, himself, knew who he was.  He had expected her to say something to him.  Wish him a good night.  Tell him he was a jerk.  Something.  But she said nothing to him.  She whispered a good night to the Changeling and drifted off to sleep stroking his ears as he lay curled up on her chest.

He watched her for a long while after she’d fallen asleep, the smoldering flames casting her in a dull orange glow.  She’d turned onto her side and pulled her knees up and her chin down, one arm under her head and the other stretched out over her legs.  It was a very familiar sleeping position, though he couldn’t quite place who else he’d watched sleep like that.  The Changeling curled up between her knees and her stomache.  Rydan could hear his contented purring from his spot across the fire from her and wondered that it didn't wake her up.

Shortly after the third moon of Idmyr rose, significantly smaller than the other two and a delicate shade that bordered between blue and purple, the flames of the campfire finally died out, leaving only deep red embers.  She started shivering shortly after, drawing herself into a tighter ball.  He watched a moment, the goosebumps on her bare arms making the network of scars that danced up her right arm more visible, before crossing silently over to her and covering her with his blanket.  The shadows he once had to work so hard to keep near him retreated up his arm as his hands got close to her.  He wondered briefly what it meant that they couldn’t touch her.  Being around Eilendar was the same, but at the same time so vastly different.  The way his shadows dissipated when brought up against Eilendar’s light had nothing to do with Eilendar and everything to do with the position he held among the Fallen.  He had no title, but was still their ruler, a position obtainable only by killing the previous ruler.  Rydan’s position within the ranks of the Fallen, however, was a much more precarious matter.  Although he was no longer a Faire, he was also not a Fallen, caught somewhere between the two, instead.  When Eilendar was close enough to Rydan for his shadows to recede, where the shadows once were lingered an uncomfortable, almost painful sensation, like his hand or his arm or, in some most unpleasant cases, his whole body had fallen asleep and was just starting to wake up again.  When Addison touched him, or when he was close to her, there remained nothing in the absence of the shadows.  He was merely himself.  Which made him uncomfortable in a completely different way.

Hunkering down beside her, he gently brushed her hair away from her temple, exposing the crescent scar there.  He wondered how she’d gotten it.  Why she would talk about her other scars so easily but not this one.  Which only made him think about the filing cabinet she claimed to have.  He still didn’t understand the difference between knowing and remembering, or how she could know everything about something that had happened to herself but not remember it happening, but he did know that her system was flawed.  He had seen the way her eyes had clouded over when he’d asked about the small, almost unnoticeable scar, the way she had retreated inside herself.  She remembered that one, he was sure.

A breeze blew across their little campsite, sending up sparks from the dying embers and rustling the grass.  The Changeling stopped purring and lifted his head, poking it out under the edge of the blanket, his ears flicking as though he could hear something in the wind that Rydan could not.  The breeze came again, stronger, and the Changeling began to growl low in his throat.  Rydan cocked his head, trying to hear what the Changeling heard.  In Ithyria Forest, it was easy for Rydan to listen to the earth and the sky.  It was how he’d known the High Priestess had sent a messenger.  There were times, close to the Crystal Lake, that he could even speak with the earth and the sky again.  Before he’d drawn his shadows to him, he could have done it with ease almost anywhere in Idmyr.  Out on the Plains with his shadows drawn so tightly around him, it was harder to hear the conversation and impossible to take part.  He closed his eyes, concentrating, knowing that they were saying something he was supposed to hear. 

“Eilendar,” came the whispered message, carried along on the blades of grass.  “He comes.”

Rydan tossed the edge of the blanket back over the Changeling’s head, then stood, grabbing a thicker stick from the small pile he’d gathered for the fire.  His eyes searched the darkened Plains for a hint of Eilendar’s presence.  A moment sooner and he would have entered the small clearing of tamped down grass to see Rydan bent over Addison, smoothing out her hair.  As it was, he entered just after Rydan stood.

“Standing watch?” he asked, sauntering through the tall grass.

“Just building up the fire.”  Rydan dropped the stick on the smoldering embers.  Being neither Faire nor Fallen, Rydan had certain freedoms from both.  He could travel freely in and out of Idmyr Forest.  Had Addison crossed much closer to the Crystal Lake, Eilendar would not have been able to visit the other night.  Ellowyne would not have permitted it.  Rydan could still speak with the earth and the sky.  Of all the things lost when a Faire became a Fallen, hearing the constant whispering of the earth and the sky was the most devastating.  If there were nothing else different about Rydan, that would be enough for Eilendar to hate him.

“I half expected you to let the High Priestess have her.”  Eilendar flashed Rydan a half smirk.  “I should have known better than to doubt your loyalty.”

“It is not loyalty that forces my hand, Eilendar.”  Rydan moved around to the other side of the campfire, trying to draw Eilendar around with him.  Eilendar had not yet noticed the Changeling and Rydan hoped to keep it that way.  Any advantage, however small, was one Rydan would take.

Eilendar followed, just as Rydan hoped he would.  He had come not to check on the girl but to torture Rydan.

“I’ve brought you a present, Rydan, for being so faithful.”  He held his arm out and opened his hand to the cloudless sky.  Grey smoke drifted upwards from his open palm and as the smoke changed color and twisted to the form of a young girl laying on a stone floor, Rydan remembered who else he had watched sleep like Addison.

The girl’s knees were brought up to her chest and her chin pointed down.  Her arms would have rested just like Addison’s had they not been bound tightly behind her back.  Her wrists and ankles were red from struggling against her bonds.  Her skin, once so fair and unblemished, was covered with bruises.  Her hair, long and so blonde it was almost white the last time he had seen her had been cut raggedly short, revealing her long, gently pointed ears.  Rydan turned away from the vision, hands balled into fists at his side, his breathing ragged.

“A reminder, too.  She’s lovely, isn’t she?” Eilendar laughed.  “It’s been ages since I’ve had a Faire.  You really should hurry.  I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep myself from having her.”

His laughter echoed throughout the Plains.  He closed his hand and the vision drifted away, but the image remained burned into Rydan’s head.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Eilendar said, walking back out into the Plains the way he had come.