Everytime

By Laura Schiller

Characters and storyline created by Frewin Jones

Song performed by Britney Spears

Notice me,
take my hand.
Why are we
strangers when
our love is strong?
Why carry on

without me?

Edric's eyes were like a pair of dark marbles, revealing nothing, asking nothing. Tania bit down the words she had been about to say and ducked her head, her red-orange hair hiding her face like a curtain. How could he be standing there, watching the Royal Family grieve for Cordelia's illness, as if he were a stranger? Couldn't he guess how Tania must be feeling? Or did the fact of her refusing to marry him suddenly render her and her family completely irrelevant to him?

Everytime I try
to fly, I fall –
without my wings,
I feel so small.
I guess I need you, baby...
And everytime I see
you in my dreams,
I see your face –
it's haunting me;
I guess I need you, baby...

Nighttime fell gently in the Palace of Veraglad; as a child, Tania had spent many a happy, wakeful summer night giggling over secrets, cuddled up on a big bed with her sisters. Now there was no one to share the velvety black skies and glowing stars with, no one's shoulder to lean her head on, no one to listen to the worries gnawing at her soul.

She should be asleep, but her dreams brought her no comfort. She kept seeing Edric, tall and stern in his black uniform, walking away from her to rejoin his lord. It's my duty. I'm sorry. She wished – or did she? – that this independence came as easily to her as it apparently did to him.

I make believe
that you are here:
it's the only way
I see clear.
What have I done?
You seem to move on easy...

She still couldn't understand how a relationship so strong, so beautiful, so rock-solid like a bridge over flowing water, could break down in a matter of moments from nothing but a few spoken words. She had thought he understood her better than anyone – her mortal parents, her Faerie parents, even her sisters. Why couldn't he understand that how she, with her 21st-century London upbringing, felt about marriage, was not the same way a native Faerie felt? And how could she make him understand, with his stubborn, black-and-white, forever-commitment attitude?

Love never dies in Faerie, he had said.

But did it?

Everytime I try
to fly, I fall –
without my wings,
I feel so small.
I guess I need you, baby...
And everytime I see
you in my dreams,
I see your face –
it's haunting me;
I guess I need you, baby...

At moments like this, she ached to fly more than ever. The delicate gossamer wings she had lost haunted her like phantom limbs. If only she could soar out her window into that welcoming night sky, go face to face with the moon and gather stars like confetti from the sky. If only she could leave her broken heart on the ground like so much unwanted baggage, outflying it forever and ever.

But here she was, a half-breed creature as earthbound as any full mortal, and she had never felt more alone.

I may have made it rain...
please forgive me.
My weakness caused you pain
And this song's my sorry...

Perhaps Edric was right. Perhaps she had made a terrible mistake. Hadn't she realized how much she loved him, just how right they were together? She could never see herself marrying anyone but Edric. So really, what did it matter when they did it in the eternity of time they had?

But the fact remained that she was afraid. The last time she had been engaged, it had been to Gabriel Drake. Since then, the very thought of undergoing the Hand-Fasting Ritual made her skin crawl. It was ridiculous to feel his way – after all, Edric wasn't Gabriel, though he did come from the same province and had been Gabriel's bondsman all his life. And even if she was plagued by nightmares of taking Edric's hand, only to have him change into Gabriel before her eyes, his cold fingers grasping her hand like Death itself.

It was weak. It was paranoid. But there it was.

At night I pray
that soon your face will fade away – !

Tania felt disgusted with herself. How could she not trust Edric? He had risked his position, his freedom, his very life for her sake. He had even been willing to leave his home behind and join her in the mortal world, if that were her decision. He would have given her anything she asked. But the moment he had asked her for something, the first time in their relationship, she had turned him down without stopping to think.

He was her shoulder to cry on, her sword arm, her co-star, the love that warmed her from the inside out. He was to her soul what her lost wings had been to her body.

Without him, how could she fly?

And everytime I try
to fly, I fall –
without my wings,
I feel so small.
I guess I need you, baby –
and everytime I see
you in my dreams,
I see your face –
you're haunting me.
I guess I need you, baby...