Love at first sight isn't real, right?


He'd met a girl and she had been the first person he had ever really felt connected to, He watched people, observed, understood and compartmentalized. People are easy but it doesn't make getting close to them easy, not when you can look at a person and tell when they're being polite. When they're talking to you because they have to.


It's hard to find someone that really understands you, that really clicks. When he had met her, it was like finding the other piece to your puzzle. You knew almost instantly that your pieces fit, they were different but in that difference it made the connection deeper.


It's how he fell into her trap. How he had his essence stretched thin and torn apart until it was nothing more than a shade. A shade attached to her glory. The worst part of it? Was she apologized for having to do it, but that the consolation was they would be together forever. He as her shadow, her as his light. It was poetic.


It was a story book ending.


Not all story books are happy. They were, quite literally, inseparable. He lived as her shadow,, he was supposed to keep an eye out on the other shadows, on the shadows of her guests. He was her information broker and spy, there to make sure everyone who came to see her was on the level.


There was so much pain.


Every other Lord and Lady that had seen her had someone like himself attached to them and he could see their pain, feel their pain They were trapped, prisoner, and if they didn't do their job counter to James they would be punished. But he knew he wouldn't be punished. She loved him so right?


This Lord had come into her Court with promises of fealty to my Queen and all he could do was whisper.


"Lies. He lies. Shadow twisted, watching, waiting."


Voice a sibilant whisper in her ear as the other shadow across from him looked ahead with pleading eyes, begging not to turn him in now. Begging for a chance. But he couldn't, couldn't betray my Lady, to betray her was to betray himself.


He wasn't rewarded for this behavior it was just expected and he was good at his job. Good at piecing together their motivations, the Fae were ephemeral but their shades could be read and that was the job. He was there to break their greatest weakness...us.


But when they were alone it was just her and himself...and the chair, and the chandelier, and...well, they were never really alone alone but the others were things; that was the logic right? That was the problem with understanding a being like that, or at least attempting to understand. They spoke together, spoke often, she hadn't changed much from that girl he'd met on the bench. He didn't know if that was lie or design and he couldn't ever get a bead on that.


They talked for hours on end, talked about what was coming, who was who, what their intentions were what he should look out for and she encouraged him, complimented him, besides the initial torture her promises had been true, they were together and they were together like that for a long time.


She was something else, cold, inhuman, ephemeral but their proximity brought them closer though he could never be sure if that had been her plan all along. Every new visitor made him pulse with desire, to be outside these walls again. To see the sky, to smell the air, she'd promised him the world but it was on her time and her scale was long. A hundred years could be a day to her.


Then one day. He Left. It wasn't as easy as walking out the door it took careful planning as he had to turn light to dark and dark to light. He had to switch places with her for a moment to break the connection.


And when that connection broke...


----


He woke up gasping and panting, his sheets soaked through in a cold sweat as he slowly sat up the fresh tears starting. Sobbing and shaking as the memories began slipping away but the feelings remained.


They had spent so long together, she'd made him do terrible things, she'd made him turn his gift into a weapon. Who knows how many other changelings suffered because of his words. He'd had it easier than so many of the other Lost but his suffering was just different. He had to live with the guilt, the burden of everything he'd done while he was there.


That wasn't the hardest for him though. The hardest was knowing that deep in his heart he still had feelings for her, that he might even still love her and he was deeply afraid of what would happen if he saw her again. He didn't know if he was strong enough to tell her no, he didn't know that he would want to.


So he'd put off that day for as long as he could. He'd run, he'd hide, hide from her, hide from his feelings and from what he'd done. Sorrow was the right emotion because he didn't know if he could ever be happy without her, his fucked up other half and he knew that made him just as bent, broken, and twisted as she was.


He took in deep breaths focusing on his body, on his form, feeling like he was slipping away, becoming shadow again; reminding himself that he was physical that this was his body...


But he couldn't help but look at his shadow in the darkness and see it twist and deform. She'd be with him always...