"You have such beautiful long hair, Sylvan," Lucinda said, lounging on a window seat in Sylvan's quarters one evening. "Why do you always wear it up? I've seen it loose not half a dozen times in all the two-some years I've known you."

Sylvan's hands continued to pluck at the harp as she looked up from her work. Her experiment was training spiders to weave according to commands in the form of music. The insects had thus far woven a beautiful tapestry over her window, an exact replica of the section of the magic web around the Fairy Realms. The sunset made it glimmer like threads of molten glass.

"It keeps it out of the way," Sylvan murmured. She always grew so self-conscious when her friend paid particular attention to her body. "Can you imagine all that hair getting in my eyes, getting in my weaving, getting caught in the harp strings? Loose hair is impractical."

"It's perfectly practical for me."

"Well I work with my hands while your job is looking beautiful and charming every diplomat across the five realms into doing your bidding." Blast it! Why did she accidentally say such flirtatious things to the queen?

"Everyone would think you were beautiful and charming too if they actually saw you. But of course that requires leaving your quarters. Why, if you weren't so busy with your experiments, you could usurp me and take over the realms with those mind control powers of yours."

Beautiful. Charming. Sylvan turned back to her weaving and wished that her hair were down so she could hide her blush behind it. "I would never do such a thing, my queen. Besides, I like it here. The spiders keep Miranda away."

Lucinda's sister was terribly arachnophobic. She'd been increasingly volatile lately—not just because of the influx of spiders in the palace—and Sylvan had been avoiding her as if she were a shadow creature.

The queen's glib demeanor dissipated. She stood and crossed the room to Sylvan's side. "I don't know what to do about her. I can unite the Fairy Realms, even bring the goblins under control, but my own sister? I'm at a loss. That's partly why I called on you."

"She's resentful," Sylvan said. "I'm sure you know that. Sick of always being in your shadow. She feels like she's never accomplished anything on her own—you even engineered her bonding with Faylinn. My advice is don't interfere. Don't go behind her back to talk to Faylinn. We haven't seen much of Miranda lately. I think she's working on something difficult, it's frustrating her, and she's worried we'll meddle like we always do. Let her carve out some independence."

"I…I suppose you're right. You're the mind-reading empath after all. But it's so difficult to just…do nothing. I'm terrified that these tensions will prevent us from ever opening the Gates of Avalon, much less finding it."

"You need to trust Miranda. She understands how important this is just as much as we do. Trust and respect are the key to her good graces. She'll come around. You'll see."

Lucinda inhaled a deep shuddering breath. "Thank you, Sylvan. You always know just what to say to calm me."

She curled a loose tendril of Sylvan's red hair around her slim finger. "You have such beautiful hair. It looks like fire in the sunset."

Sylvan's heartbeat kicked up into a flurry. Her hands froze, unable to focus enough to pluck the harp. "…thank you."

Lucinda played with one of the pins that held Sylvan's hair in a pile on top of her head. "May I?"

"May you what?"

"May I let your hair down?"

"As you wish, my queen."

"Well how do you wish, my friend?"

"I…I would like that very much."

Her scalp tingled with either anticipation or just the sensation of her hair falling down, lock by lock, as Lucinda pulled out the pins one by one. Sylvan tried breathe normally and disguise the gasps of desire that eked out of her throat. This was madness—the queen just liked to make others feel beautiful. It was ridiculous to think she would compromise her loyalty to Henry, especially with someone as rustic, blunt, and inelegant as Sylvan herself. And yet she could not help but fantasize how those perfectly-formed pearly fingernails, now combing through her hair, would feel raking over her bare skin.

Lucinda shifted to face her and now had a full view of her flushed skin. She twisted Sylvan's hair around the fingers of one hand and placed the other hand on Sylvan's cheek. "You look lovely with your hair down."

Her hand traced a path down Sylvan's neck and came to rest on her chest, just above her heart. Lucinda was wearing one of her ostentatious fairy gowns, this one made entirely of peacock feathers that, to Sylvan's eye, seemed to be slightly trembling. Now that she noticed, she could feel the queen's hand shaking through the fabric of the plain blue dress she wore.

"You've always been so kind to me, yet you never lie," Lucinda said. "You never just tell me what I want to hear. You're strong. You're honest."

"Lucinda?"

"Yes?"

"Are you trying to seduce me?"

"Yes." Her face was enigmatically blank. Her voice was flat. But Sylvan could tell when Lucinda was terrified and trying her hardest to disguise it. "Would you like me to stop?"

She thought of Henry and how he would look at either of them if he knew what was about to transpire. She thought of how Lucinda would feel about herself. She thought of the beautiful woman that she loved standing before her and offering at least a moment of affection and pleasure.

"No."

I haven't written the next chapter yet, but it'll probably increase the rating to M. I'm debating whether I'll post it here and make the story invisible on the front page (only K - T stories display by default, which is annoying), or only post it on Archive of Our Own.