#nuada silverlance

"What do you mean he wants me with Hellboy? I don't go out on those missions," you question the agent, moving him to finally look at you, but only in annoyance at the fact that he has to speak any further on the memo he was given. The agent just shrugs and repeats what he says like it was final before leaving you to figure the rest out. The hall bustled around you with other agents in dark attire and scientists carting around paranormal species in slumber. You pitied them in this state, limp and unknowing, having no clue the only reason they were strapped to metal tables for experimentation was because they were not human. You snap out of your thoughts and head to the boardroom where you hoped to find the director. Lo and behold, Tom Manning stood at the front of the room with an exasperated look on his face as he spoke with someone. He catches you watching him and motions you inside.

"Agent! Get in, get in," Manning hisses at you until you shuffle in more awkwardly than you would like, gluing yourself to the wall while Manning shuts the door. Sure, you were an agent of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, and you could be directed to go on ground missions as you did receive tactical training like anybody else, but you were simply used to the paperwork end of things to the point of comfort. Manning then motions you to close in with the other two agents in the room around him. You peel yourself off the wall and do as he asks.

"You all must be wondering what caused this impromptu meeting between the director and some employees who hardly ever talk to me, well," Manning ducks his head down as he continues, "I want you three to be all eyes and ears for me, you hear me?" he now whispers frantically, "I don't trust Red OR Blue to stick to protocol anymore, they undermine me, they don't listen, they—" Manning restrains himself from going on his age old rant and pops a Tums in his mouth with a hand on his chest.

"Just report to me anything…that would seem against my judgement on this channel," for the rest of the secretive meeting, Manning demonstrates the radio channel to dial him on and gives a lengthy list of all of the things he deems not BPRD protocol. You glance at the other two agents frequently, expecting them to want to refuse Manning at some point. They were young, fresh-faced, and determined to please. You almost scoff at them, but then Manning finally dismisses the group and you quickly jump on the opportunity to weasel yourself out of this ordeal.

"Director Manning! Yeah, hi, so I'm guessing since you put me on this mission you have read my entire file," you begin, "I don't go out for these big things, with um, Hellboy and Abe. I've been on shorter jobs, like lower threat level missions..?" Manning looks at you like he didn't understand the issue you had with him pulling you out of the air to spy on his own special agents; you twist your hands together as he just chews his Tums with that confused look on his face.

"Yeah well, I'm not asking you to stand in the middle of a shootout; I just need you to lay low and um, watch Hellboy." You gape at him, and he takes the silence as an answer, slapping your shoulder with one hand and fleeing from the boardroom straight after. Hours earlier a special agent, who was more like a German ghost in an old diving suit, arrived at HQ to lead the supernaturals on their next mission to investigate some evil elf prince—Nuada— who was hellbent on annihilating humanity, and now you were being told you had to join that same mission. Shit.

***

"Just watch this perimeter for me okay?" Liz points to a street corner where she posted a couple of cameras, Manning meanwhile winks at you knowingly from the back of the Bureau van. You turn away to roll your eyes. Little did he know you intended on doing nothing about Hellboy. Liz had eased your anxiety over the ride to the bridge too after you aired out your grievances to her; never, and you meant never, have you had to join the special agents anywhere in your seven years at the Bureau. You spent the entire ride in the van glancing at Abe and Hellboy cautiously, then nearly burning up in embarrassment when Hellboy finally caught you rather irked. Those other two agents who were in the meeting with Manning held their chins up haughtily the entire ride.

They would shit their pants if they knew the shit BPRD had to deal with before sticking it in the lab. Hellboy, Abe, and Krauss now cross the street with gadgets you've never seen before strapped onto their heads, this Bureau got weirder everyday and you wondered why you stuck around so long. You pace around in small circles in your corner. You realize that you could clearly see the special agents from where you stood, but chose to keep the private channel on your radio off. You were no spy.

"Hanging in there?" Liz's voice comes from behind you and you spin towards her, trying not to look so much like some surprised puppy.

"Yeah, just keepin' my eye on things," you rock back and forth on your heels. Liz didn't make you feel awkward or inferior, so you manage to converse with her lightly; being two of the very small percent of women working in the BPRD helped too. Time flies with her, and the night seems almost pleasant. What were you worried about again?

"What was that?" one of the fresh faces asks as he crosses the street towards you and Liz.

"What was what?" she replies; then it happens. The ground rumbles violently, an earthquake in Brooklyn? You spin towards the last place you saw Hellboy and your eyes double in size as the concrete splits open into several deep crags. A large green stalk sprouts out from the earth causing chaos to erupt up and down the street. Pedestrians start shrieking left and right, cars honk at each other, then stop one after the other as drivers jump out of their cars entirely to make a run for it. You click into action and motion at the civilians to head towards the undisturbed streets. But more people keep appearing out of nowhere and you fall in with the panic in the air to the point of being caught in surprise at the monstrous plant out on the street. It towers over the buildings and its strange roar felt like drums beating in your head. You finally focus on a large red man jumping from car to car—Hellboy—and scaling the side of a building. The swarm of people were watching the scene too rather than fleeing, much to your annoyance, and both Krauss and Manning were shouting incoherently at Hellboy. You do all you can and yell at people to get further back, but a part of you wanted to watch the action too. You whip your head around to see Hellboy on top of a sign letter with a large gun in hand and a baby wrapped in his tail. You nearly smack your palm on your own face, talk about decreasing casualties.

"SHOOT IT!" Krauss shrieks from beside you. You glance at him and back to Hellboy and the plant monster. A small part of you hoped it would decide to turn away and submerge itself into the ocean or perhaps take a hike to the upstate. It shouldn't have to die. Someone else catches your eye too, a pale, glowing man on the rooftop speaking to Hellboy. The world seems to pause around you, people's voices and Manning's whining going into slow motion as you set your gaze upon the pale man. This must be the target. You felt ridiculous for thinking how attractive he was even from afar. Before you knew it, Hellboy blew a hole into the monster's head and the elf disappeared. The monster shrieks in agony, more in fear rather than anger, and stumbles backwards until it crashes into one building's side. You immediately focus back on the situation and urge the crowd of civilians to leave, but they would not listen. The aftermath was silence, then people kicked back up in a frenzy and threw slanderous words at Hellboy; blaming him for everything as if he weren't the one to eliminate the threat. You give up and choose to stare at the pavement as it was being carpeted rapidly by lush grass and delicate flowers from the monster's green blood.

***

Your body hurt like hell. You drag your feet beneath you while you direct some BPRD men to clean up the debris of the night's events. Dawn was hours away, but the deep blue sky slowly blended into a lighter purple. Hellboy and the other supernaturals had left a while ago, along with Manning and his trained dogs. You on the other hand decided to stay on the ground to actually make a tangible difference. The whole street was in shambles, the pavement was blasted throughout and several buildings were caved in on, not to mention all of the flattened vehicles standing silently too. All of the stander-bys had their information collected and were told they would be compensated at some point. You sit on the curb and glare at two scientists in white suits scraping up the greenery that spilled out of the monster after it died. Another two were jabbing the monster's decaying body with more tools; scraping, pulling, sampling anything they could take.

"Are you proud of this?" a silver voice hisses at you and you look over your shoulder slowly, too tired to think twice, but then jump up off the curb when you spot the elf standing in the alley. Were you really that tired or was the literal point of this entire mission standing several feet away from you? You begin to tremble and shake your head no.

"I thought not, you people are poison, you know that? Poison," he sneers at you while you nod in agreement. What else were you going to do? He reaches his hand behind him and you finally bristle in alarm. You pull out your rubber baton as he unsheathes a blade. Was he really going to fight you now? There isn't a moment to think as he lunges at you, you dodge by nearly hurtling yourself into the stone wall. He grins like some wild hyena then lunges again, weapon ready to cut you down. You dodge him again and this time smack the blade away from you as it nearly slices into your arm. It was like a dance meant to tire you out, and it did, after the sixth round of dodging and blocking, you trip over trash bags on the floor into the alleyway. Your throat felt so constricted from hyper-vigilance that it only made you more voiceless, unable to call for help. The elf's eyes bear down into you like prey stalking his kill, but before he slices you open, you smash the blade to the floor with your baton one last time. The spear suddenly springs open from the force and the blade shoots into your right thigh. You gape at your leg in shock before shrieking at the pain sparking throughout your entire body. The blood pools around you quickly, it hit the major artery, making your head feel faint and sight turn blurry. Nuada nudges your leg with his foot, causing you to whimper in pain and lash towards him with your baton. He smacks the baton out of your hand and squats beside you. 

“Tch-tch, nobody’s here to help the little officer anymore,” Nuada grins wickedly over your now slumping body. Through groggy eyes you watch him seeming to wonder what to do with you, to let you die here in the street or…something else? As your senses begin to slip away, the last thing you recall is him picking you up with one arm under your legs and the other holding your back.

***

A dream—a nightmare—of the events that had just passed make you jolt wide awake into a wince. You try to look at your leg, which still throbbed in pain, but you were strapped to a metal table. Your head is fixed facing the ceiling, which was made of rough stone; the only light source was a dim and flickering one placed around you. It was as if you were in some kind of ancient dungeon or cave. You try to wriggle around but the straps on your forehead, chest, and limbs were very taut.

Fuck, fuck, fuck fuck fuck—

"Awake are we?" the elf's voice makes your panic stop and ramp back up again as he comes into eyesight. He looks down at you and you can finally see him clearly all at once. His eyes were large and yellow like that of a hawk's, his skin was etched with lines similar to tree bark, his complexion was pale, and hair paler. You naively wonder how someone so enchanting could be so evil, but the thought is snatched right out of you the moment Nuada presses his palm on your wounded leg. You cry out and cringe at the sensation, hot tears stream down your temples and into your hair. Nuada keeps pressing into your leg with his eyes fixed on yours. You reach the point of howling wildly, eyes rolling around in every direction. He finally pulls away and you let out several trembling breaths. Your thigh muscles spasm from the pain and only cause more pain to jolt down to your knee. He leaves your bedside, walking over to one end of the room until you hear him push a metal cart towards you, its' wheels scraping the stone floor. He begins picking up various items, inspecting one before placing it back down and moving on to the next.

"Please let me go…" you beg meekly. Nuada slams the scalpel in his hand down onto the metal tray and rushes over to your side, peering at you intently. The face you once thought beautiful now turned very eerie and haunting.

"What was that?" he asks almost excitedly.

"I said let me go please," you begin to blubber, "I didn't even do anything! I wasn't even supposed to be on this mission, I didn't even wanna be here, I—" you cry like an idiot to the elf and he simply smiles down at you without remorse.

"Of course that's all true, I'm sure, but anyone can just say that can't they? They didn't want to be here, they didn't mean for things to go this way, but they still participate in it don't they?" he begins in a mocking tone and ends with a menacing one, fury taking over him the more he thought about humans destroying his world. You stop your crying with a gulp and stare at Nuada now. There was not an inkling of mercy in him, so you begin to accept your fate in silence and shut your eyes.

"Uh-uh-uh, open your eyes for me," he sticks a finger inside your wound and you immediately yell at him to stop. He digs around in your open flesh, causing your wailing to stop and start sporadically. The pain makes you feel sick. Bouts of nausea and dizziness wave over you and you ball your hands into fists to the point of your palms stinging from your nails digging into the skin. He finally stops and you breathe out in deep gasps. You were beginning to sweat; you felt your hair sticking to your neck and forehead. You needed to just die at this point, the pain was unbearable and the room seemed sealed shut from the whole world.

"Now let's take a look…" Nuada walks over to the other side of the table you were strapped onto and turns a crank. You feel yourself tilting forward and finally see the room you're in now. It was in fact some sort of cave, but full of technology foreign to you. A row of tanks with floating specimen, plants of unusually dark shades of blue and purple, and other biomedical machines. With great difficulty you peer down at your leg and wince at the blood pouring out now that you're angled more upright. What made you even more prepared to die then was the trolley right beside you. It was stacked with various knives, saws, pliers, scissors, tubes, and other unpleasant things. Things you recalled being used back in BPRD on the paranormals. It seemed that you were paying humanity's karma alone. You almost begin to relax from the momentary release from torture, but the elf comes back into your peripheral view and your heart beats wildly. He taps on the metal table before him, drumming his fingers on it repeatedly to make the objects rattle. He then finally grabs needle and thread and returns to your side. Nuada slides a finger over your wound, making you hiss through your teeth; then, to your surprise, he begins to mend your leg, without painkillers of course. You groan as the needle slides through your skin, Nuada slowly criss-crosses the thread over the giant gash in your outer thigh. He uses his other hand to press the sides of the gash together as he goes further down, ignoring all of your winces and gasps. Nuada's breath grows ragged while he stares into his handiwork. He reaches down a couple of times to adjust his pants, accompanying the motion with a soft sound from his throat. The stitching stretches on for an eternity in your mind and you reach the point of fainting from the searing pain.

"Shh, it's over now, shh," Nuada seems to soothe himself more than you as you finally pant out in relief from the sharp torture ending. All that was left was a throbbing in your leg and dizziness in your head. Through your growing fatigue you keep a weary eye on Nuada's back. For a moment you think you see him suck your blood off of his fingers. You grimace as he lets out a soft groan from tasting the blood. Silence falls over the two of you and you wonder if you would just die anyway from the loss of blood. You blink in and out of consciousness and lose track of Nuada's movements in the room. He hooks something into your elbow crease and another into your thigh, and later rummages through your stuff he had stripped off of you and put in a bag at the far end of the room. The white gauzey cloth you were wrapped in was stained with sweat down the chest and stomach, the gross sensation now entering your awareness after the pain in your leg becomes more dull. At some point you finally fall asleep.

***

You wake up, regrettably, in a new room. It was well lit due to a wall of arched windows facing a hallway full of torches. Your mind was still fresh from the sickening procedure conducted in the cave and so you sat, to your surprise, upright in a low narrow bed. You yank the thin sheet off of you and inspect your thigh to suddenly gasp at what you find. It was a miracle. The once festering, dark gash in your thigh was nothing but a long, pink scar. You carefully poke and prod your own leg, bracing for any pain, and sigh when you feel nothing at all. You almost become too relieved and begin to swing your legs over to the side of the bed, but find your ankles chained to the ground.

"Do you see what I am holding?" Nuada's voice echoes into the room and you look around frantically to find him perched on the window sill. He was holding a slim vial of dark red liquid. Your blood. The color on your face drains and you simply stare at him.

"I am going to wash the earth with this," Nuada jumps into the room and shakes the vial in your face, "yours and all of mankinds. I will purify the land for the old ones." He awaits your reaction with a twisted gleefulness.

"Why haven't you killed me..?" you ask weakly, pulling the thin blanket right back over your legs. He breaks his stare away from the bottle of blood and narrows his yellow eyes at you like you were stupid.

"You are my hostage, do you understand? Those mortals have someone I want, so I will keep one of their own," you were going to live. A rushing sense of relief begins to calm you down and you slump into the bed which you now accepted as your prison cell. At least it was a bright and warm one.

"What do you want from the Bureau?" you ask him, nearly biting your tongue as his intense gaze continues to insult you in its own way. You had to know though, and you assumed the worst of it was over.

Once, long ago, I made friends with Time. I myself was little more than a Careful Creature, young and curious. There is not much, now, I can recount of the days before him.

But I remember him.

He was enduring and ancient. Silver hair spilled down his face, and golden were his eyes. Broad was his back, strong were his shoulders, and heavy was his gaze. Heavy were his hands, too, and so quiet and reverent was his voice.

He had a clever tongue, a clever mind, and even in his worst moments, it was difficult to look away.

We had a few long years together—or, at the very least, I thought them long. He had lived beyond all but a small handful of equally-eternal cultures still surviving in the human world. His age was vast, so vast that even now, I cannot comprehend it as he could.

Our time was likely the blink of an eye, for him.

It was slow-going, our friendship. Tentative, from the very beginning, and later less so. He opened up, slowly. About old literature and old langues first, then the customs of fighting and war. Then, in the dark of one evening, the legends and stories of his people. Fairfolk, he called them. My people, he told me, voice low.

It was then that he told me of his armour, of his youth, of his childhood and of the Golden War. He told me how the Army functioned, and why they were once necessary.

His fingers grazed along my cheek, and into my ear, he whispered the quietest, truest apology for thinking me so terrible. He apologized for putting upon me the sin of being human.

A few years passed after that evening, years which tugged him close to me. His language became less foreign, more familiar; I do not remember when it became home.

I do not remember when he became home, or when I fell in love with him for it.

But he taught me. Taught me how to speak and write in his mother tongue, a swirling language more ancient than any living human could imagine. He wrote them in journals with yellowed pages, all of his tongue so that I could keep it close to my heart like I did him.

I have thumbed through the pages so often that the edges are worn soft, and every day I ache to hear him speak the words in my ear. I ache to have him behind me, humming songs I will never know the names of while he sways and dances with me in the candlelight of the room made his.

Perhaps it was ours, eventually, even if just for a breath.

He taught me of the trinkets and little machines he liked to make; tiny, but enduring machinations with minuscule springs and the smallest screws. He would spend his happiest hours making elaborate systems for puzzles or music boxes.

He made a music box for me, once, too. It still sits on my bedside, playing a song whose first three notes always make me choke.

One day, a new war came.

At first, I had desperately hoped we'd both survive, that he might find some respite from war after all his centuries. Then, as the dust and darkness closed in, I merely hoped I would die in place of him.

I would have died, rather than him, if only he had let me.

But he took the blow, and there is nothing I could have done but hold him. All I did was hold him.

All too clearly, I remember his blood. Sweet and red, not unlike the sash he often wore around his waist. It suited him, I told him once, a confession made when I was tipsy and hot-bellied from a mead he had bartered for in the Troll Markets.

His laugh was husky, quiet, reserved; his eyes spoke of a thousand endless affections that made the heat simmer hotter. I still wonder if the thumb against my lips was his way of saying he wished to kiss me, to have me.

I remember his blood. Warm, though never as warm or as sweet as the mead made me. He was dying and we both knew it. He asked so quietly, in some of his last breaths, if I would honour him by tattooing his royal marks into my skin. I could hear the silent plea beneath the words, the acceptance and confessions between the syllables.

To keep my people alive, he had said. To mend the bond which has been broken.

I hadn't needed his explanation, or the half-true excuse. I did not need his reasoning, because I knew he entrusted such weight only to me.

I knew why—even then, I could see it in his eyes. Those beautiful, tender, ever-feeling golden eyes.

I told him no, so quietly I told him no, and those eyes welled with tears that seemed more powerful than weak. I have still never seen such anguish.

But it did not last, not when I instead begged for him to carve the marks properly into my cheeks, like had been done for him, for his twin.

With the last of his strength, and with apologies thick on his tongue—I know it hurts, I know, you are doing so well for me—his blade bit so tenderly into my flesh. The marks were a mirror image of those which had eternally rested in his own skin.

When I wept into his reddened palms, he assured me that he should be the one to die—he had made too many mistakes, had too long been part of a peoples so old they had forgotten who they were, who they were meant to be.

He looked miserable for hurting me, even a little. I held his hands once the blade slipped free of them and let him feel the race of my heart. Drums, he whispered, I wish I could have danced with you with the drums as our minister and the forest as our witness.

He told me that he should die, and the world would be better for it.

But he could not let me die. He would not let me die, not in that place, not anywhere that was not a field of flowers and sunlight.

"I am an old fae," he told me, breaths still strong despite the blood which pooled under my knees. "This world has no room nor use for an angry, blackened heart like mine. I cannot change anymore, though you have softened me. But you—if you die, the world will be poorer for it."

He took one of my hands and pressed his spear into it, curling my grip tight and certain around it. He had blood in his teeth, and nothing but worship in his golden eyes.

I can swear to you I saw the first sunrise in them.

When his last breaths came, something inside broke. Even when the war was won, when the battle had been done, I had to be pried from his body. The warmth faded, the years became only memories instead of our everyday routine, and the sun seemed to die with him.

The sun died, and I felt the world shed its own tears.