Disclaimer: I don't own, never claimed to, please don't sue me.

1.

For whatever reason, Sparrow goes on with his suggestion and names the boy Logan. Reaver would like to be pleased about this, would like to brag in court and on the street; he named the queen's heir. But he is not pleased. When he hears "Prince Logan" heralded through the streets, it makes his backbone crawl and on the odd chance that he sees the boy, it twists something deep, deep, deep down in his guts. Logan was the son that Robin should have given Oriole, and whenever he hears the name of Sparrow's child, Reaver remembers that. Not even an orgy and half of the wine in Bowerstone can make that twisting thing inside dissipate.

Like all tedious human things though, Reaver learns to work around it until it becomes a whisper he can lock away and forget—most of the time. It helps that Sparrow doesn't want his involvement in rearing the child. He can avoid court when the young prince is present, and when the boy old enough to attend at most events, Reaver pays respects and then stays clear until he isn't around. For quite some time this method works.

And then the boy ruins it.

His intent in the palace that day is to request a favor from Sparrow for one of his many business ventures. Mostly. The fact that he also hasn't seen her in several months is weighing in as well, and that hunger that he has for her is starting to impeded his already shaky sleep cycle with unheard of severity. Reaver needs Sparrow's legs around his waist and soon, lest lack of sleep starts to impede his charm. It is an unfortunate thing then, that upon his arrival at the castle, he is informed that Her Majesty has had to make an emergency trip to Brightwall.

He almost shoots the page who delivers the message to him. It is a testament to his affairs with Sparrow that his itching fingers do not pull take the handle of his Dragonstomper. He still sends the girl running with his scowl, but certainly no one can blame him for that.

The detour he takes through the gardens is an unconscious one. They are lovely and all, as much as manicured lawns and shrubbery can be. Reaver finds himself staring up at the little room (little for the palace anyway) that can only be accessed by the garden staircase. Every coupling since the boy came along has been in that room. Perhaps it might even be fair to say that that room is their room.

Fair but dangerous.

He closes his eyes and he can feel the bed's satin sheets tangling with his legs, the soft warmth of Sparrow's skin as it slides against his, and the soft, keening breaths that she'll puff against his ear. A hot coil twists in his belly; Avo's balls, it has been far, far too long…

Indignation and disgust roll in at once. Reaver bites the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood and growls at the back of his throat. Pining over her? Like some lovelorn, little fool? Unacceptable. He is Reaver. He is a king—no an emperor! No, a titan! She might have the formal throne but would she have that much without him?

Robin's voice slips into his subconscious like a puff of smoke. She would have what is important, is the whisper that the broken little wretch brings to him. She would have her safety.

He bites down another snarl and the impulse to shoot himself in the foot to spite the ghost. For half a second, when he hears the pop of pistol, he thinks that he might just have done it. But this sound is too meek to have come from his Dragonstomper, and too far off.

Since Reaver never denies his curiosity, he follows the noise. Through the gardens he strolls, into the gauche hedge maze that Sparrow's consort has had grown. He assumes it is a page or two skulking about. The queen and that lumbering fool that she's replaced her dog with (Walter) have left the grounds, the princess-consort is holding a salon, and most of the staff is otherwise occupied with whatever it is that underlings typically do to keep a castle running; what better time could there be to sneak in a bit of target practice?

He's right about the sneaking target practice part; however he finds no page at the heart of the maze.

Logan does not notice him at first; he's too focused on keeping the pistol steady. It isn't a particularly large weapon, but in the hands of a nine-year-old (Skorm aflame, is he really that old already?) it's a tad cumbersome. Around the hedgerows are several padded targets, looking as if they were hastily set. All of them have bullet holes that pepper very close to the center.

Memories of Robin holding a toy gun for the first time surface. The boy's aim had not been perfection. That did not come until later, after the cracking voice, aching bones, and awkward sweat-soaked mornings that marked the start of his march into adulthood. Until then, Robin was very, very good but not flawless.

There was help getting there too… Robin's phantom whispers in his ear.

"Steady your arm, lad." The scent of salt-spray, tobacco, and spicy but not overbearing cologne envelope Robin as he aims his pistol toward several paper lanterns that sway at the dock's end. Their glow is soft and warm in the twilight; he might even dare to call them beautiful. Robin belly twists at the thought of bringing them down.

Hard but gentle fingers comb through his hair. He tilts his head up, following the crisp blue line of jacket sleeve that the hand is attached to, up to the embroidered breast pocket that holds an artfully folded handkerchief, to the words "Adm. L. Stanchion Esq." stitched across it in gold thread. Above that, there is a weathered face with kind smile peeking out from beneath a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard. Blue eyes, eyes that Robin has often been told are identical to his own, twinkle down at him.

"They're only lights, Pluck," Grandfather says, not unkindly or with an ounce of impatience.

"I know," Robin whispers, feeling his cheeks flush with shame. "But…If I shoot them out…what light will we have left?"

Grandfather chuckles and tilts Robin's head upward. Soft diamond pinpoints and a silvery disk have begun to seep through the purple skyline.

"There's always light when you look for it, Pluck," Grandfather says, smoothing his knuckles through Robin's hair once again. "And unlike those lanterns, these ones will always come back on for you."

The pistol is taken into Grandfather's hands and down the lanterns go in quick succession, bathing their little pier in darkness. Robin is afraid only for a moment. Grandfather is behind him still and above the moon and her stars still shine. He is safe, even in the darkness.

"Oh!"

The prince's startled exclamation pulls Reaver back to the present. The boy fumbles in his surprise, nearly dropping the weapon. His small hands shake, the barrel flips and for a scant second Reaver feels something that might be panic crawl up his gullet as Sparrow's son has the blasted pistol aimed at himself.

His reaction is so fast that Reaver cannot even comprehend it until after it has happened. The gun discharges as it hits the ground, knocked away by his hand, and a scorch mark is left amidst chipped cobblestone where the boy once stood.

"Wow," Logan says looking up from where he's being clutched to Reaver's side. His eyes are sable-brown, just like his mother's, but wider. "You're really fast."

The young prince gazes up at him with admiration, which Reaver is used to given the fans and sycophants a reputation such his acquires en masse. What he is not used to is tasting his heartbeat at the back of his throat and the lack of smugness that comes with being praised. There is still some, he is Reaver after all, but he the normal inclination to strut and brag is absent. No, there is an alien thing needling his chest that demands that he grab Logan by the nape of the neck and shake him until his teeth rattle then lock him away in a tower where he will be safe from his own harebrained ideas. In a fashion, he gives in to this bizarre impulse.

Reaver turns and kneels, grasping the boy's shoulders. He does not shake him, that would be pointless and would almost definitely leave a mark which Sparrow would have his head over. And also, from Robin's memories, Reaver knows that at the prince's age, words cut the deepest wounds.

"Your mother boasts about what a clever boy she has ad nauseam, you know." Reaver speaks slowly, making sure that Logan's eyes are locked with his for the careful enunciation of each word. That small frame shudders while his pale face flushes. "It does not do Her Majesty credit when your actions so grievously contradict her words."

The prince flinches as though he were slapped. Reaver finds that he does not enjoy such a reaction; in fact, he distinctly dislikes being the reason for tears glinting at the edges of those eyes so completely like Sparrow's. He also despises the sanctimonious tone that his voice has taken, as if he were the lad's teacher. Yet he cannot regret what is said either.

"Why are you out here by yourself?" he demands as he releases the boy. Without a thought, Reaver pulls the silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and gives it to Logan, sparing the prince some dignity by looking away while he rights himself. "As well as I know Spar—Her Majesty, you should have several very well paid instructors fighting just for the chance to lecture you on what a trigger is."

"Master Swain is ill," Logan tells him after he's composed himself. "And Walter has gone with Mother. Besides, we only ever practice with rifles." He tilts his head, nose scrunching. "I don't think I like rifles. They don't feel right. They're too…big." The lad looks down at his hands, as if picturing one of those clunky turret monsters his mother insists on carrying.

Rifles feel wrong, eh? Well, if Reaver had ever doubted Sparrow claiming that her pregnancy was his doing (he did not), he certainly would not now. A smile curls upon his lips.

The boy tilts his head to the side, looking up at him with curiosity now. Reaver notes the differences in Logan's eyes to his mother's. They're softer, swathed with youthful naiveté that Reaver has never even seen hint of in Sparrow. His jaw, padded by baby fat as it is, is sharper than hers as well, his skin is lighter, and Reaver just knows that the lad is going to stand well-above his mother in a few short years. All of those traits he also knows are from him, just like this disregard for large firearms.

"You're Mother's friend, the other Hero," Logan interrupts his thoughts. "I've seen you at court. They say that you helped her to save the world." Those large eyes brighten.

Unable to resist—now that alarm isn't choking him—Reaver preens and bows deep, taking off his hat.

"The one and only Reaver at your service, Your Royal Highness," he tells Sparrow's son. "And yes, I have dabbled at playing the savior once or twice with your esteemed mother." He's prouder of himself than he probably should be when he doesn't tack on something lewd.

The excitement playing across Logan's features pleases Reaver more than he can explain. It also makes Robin twist and fit within his prison but Reaver kicks the vault door shut.

"There's no better marksman in all of the world," the boy continues. "Everyone says so. Even Mother."

He isn't bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, shaking with glee, hell, he's not even grinning. Still though, Reaver can feel the enthusiasm radiating from Logan like overpriced perfume on a backwater noble and does not disapprove of it.

He is very intrigued that Sparrow has admitted to other people that he is better at something than she is. Rather sneaky of her but he'll forgive it.

"Well, arguing with Her Majesty is something one will never find me doing." At least not in public.

The boy laughs, a soft, genuine sound, the like of which Reaver has not heard before. From the glimpses he has caught over the years, Logan has inherited Sparrow's penchant for quiet diffidence; at least in public. He'll be quite the dour king someday. A king who will need to learn to protect his throne all on his own because his mother cannot cosset him forever.

"Would you like a lesson, Your Royal Highness?" Reaver asks the question before he has time to think about it and Logan responds before he can take it back.

"Oh, yes, please!" The momentary exuberance is short-lived but amusing nonetheless. Ever his mother's son, the prince catches himself and feigns a cough while he straightens up and nods with a seriousness that makes his young face appear ancient. "I mean, yes. I would very much enjoy that, Lord Reaver."

"Splendid," he says. Sweeping up the pistol Logan had brought out, Reaver takes a moment to examine it. The craftsmanship is well enough, but it is older and has not been used in some time. Reaver suspects that the boy pulled it from a display while no one was keeping an eye out. Clever lad. Something else Reaver can chalk up to his blood.

"Lesson the first, Your Royal Highness, always choose a weapon that fits you," he tells the boy as he sets aside the first gun. From his boot, he pulls one of the lighter pistols in his collection, a polished clockwork revolver. In his hands, it looks tiny, but when he places it in Logan's it is, to coin a phrase, just right.

It occurs to Reaver, as he stands behind the boy, adjusting his stance with gentle prods and direction, that this is the first time that he has touched his son since Logan was a newborn. This is their first real conversation, their first real interaction, and given the barrier that both he and Sparrow have constructed, it very well could be the last. The thought of such irritates him but he cannot fathom why.

Because he is ours, Robin taunts.

"Lord Reaver?" the boy breaks up the argument welling within him before it can even start. When he glances down, he finds the lad gnawing at his lower lip. "You—you won't tell Mother that I was shooting unsupervised…Will you?"

The pathetic state of such a plea should disgust him. He should sneer and scowl and push the boy away. At the very least he should extort him; demand that the child pocket the royal treasury key and deliver it to him perhaps.

But Reaver's personal wealth is almost a match for the Crown's and he has no real desire to level Albion's coffers. Even less so, are his desires to pull Logan into the center of conflict, to use him.

Because he has living tools enough at his disposal, and his son will not be one of them.

Reaver kneels again, molding his hand over Logan's as it aims the revolver. His arm and chest are flush with the boy and should he cant his neck an inch or two, his chin could rest on atop Logan's head. He can remember the smell of him as an infant, new and strange and vulnerable and soft in the world and Reaver swears that that scent lingers on him yet.

"I will strike a bargain with you, My Prince," Reaver tells him as he adjusts Logan's grip on the gun. "If you do not tell your lovely mother about this little lesson, then I shall not bring up the reason I thought it best to give it to you. Agreed?"

Logan tilts his head back, grinning. "Yes, sir. Thank you."

"You are welcome." Gently, Reaver's free hand nudges Logan's chin, returning his face forward. "Now, keep your eyes on the target, Your Royal Highness. That is a must."

Sound advice, and some which, should Reaver care to think more intently upon it, he should probably keep in mind himself, rather than nudging at the Line that Sparrow and he have put up between themselves.

2.

He very nearly kicks the girl the first time that he meets her. One moment Reaver is standing by the grand fountain in the castle gardens, grousing over the fact that Sparrow's valet had directed him to find her here rather than fetching her himself, and the next there is a weight against his boot. A weight that he discovers upon looking down, is a small person. A small person with Sparrow's thick black hair and a pair of very familiar blue eyes.

He had not planned to be gone nearly this long. The Eastern Kingdoms are just so interesting. Not to mention that establishing a good smuggling route for his little armada isn't something that can be rushed, even with the murders of his rivals; though he does take that precaution. Still, he relishes the return to Albion; the Shadow Court must be fed and as very entertaining as the ladies are in the East, he never slept soundly next to any of them. Indeed, he is at the point that fucking Sparrow has become a necessity if only to get a good night's rest.

Of all of the changes that could take place in just over three years though, he certainly wasn't expecting a baby to be one of them. He's shooting each and every one of his informants for neglecting this detail. First, however, Reaver intends to examine the creature clinging to his boot.

"'Lo," she says smiling up at him. Friendly. Logan has never been like that, as far as Reaver can recall. He has good manners of course, and he's kindhearted, but Reaver never observed the boy going up to strangers and demanding attention, even as toddler. Sparse as his interaction has been with the lad, he's kept close enough eyes on the crown prince to know his behavior very well.

Intrigued, Reaver returns the smile and kneels before the girl. "Hello."

The girl's response is to giggle and pull the hat right off of his head. Under normal circumstances, such an offense would be worthy of the roar and spit of his Dragonstomper. With her it is…somewhat amusing. Mostly because she overestimates the cumbersomeness of a wide brim and so many large feathers. Onto her bottom she topples, giggling even harder beneath the hat.

Reaver snorts and lifts the girl up, setting her on the edge of the fountain. "Well, aren't you ridiculous?" He adjusts the hat in her grip and she immediately puts the closest bit of it in her mouth. Reaver wrinkles his nose as the girl slobbers all over some of the world's finest velveteen. He makes no move to stop her though.

"Ugh. I refuse to believe that you're my issue," he tells her. "I don't make nincompoops with such blatant disregard for good fabric."

She doesn't understand him, he knows that. Even so, meeting those eyes is as good as a "yes, I am" because he cannot argue back against them.

That same strange almost-want that brushed him when he held Logan over a decade ago rears its head as Reaver stares back into the mirror of those eyes. Her face is mostly her mother's albeit fairer, rounder, and brighter. None of her mother's reservation is in those eyes though.

There is a future of wild laughter and running ahead of this one. She is going to be lightning in the flesh. Masses will swoon with each step that she takes and hearts will fracture with the slightest flutter of her lashes.

That makes him…proud. Almost. In a way. Some very close relation to the definition at least.

He feels eyes on him right before the girl exclaims, "Mummy!" and leaps from her perch.

Surprise has made Sparrow's chocolate eye wider than is normal; or perhaps they're always like that nowadays. Four years isn't a short time. At least not for other people.

It isn't an unhappy surprise, simply shock at seeing him in the flesh. Had she believed that he would not return? Made peace with it? He doesn't feel very warmly about that idea.

Then she smiles as she swiftly plucks the girl up onto her hip. "What do you have there? Did you steal Lord Reaver's cap? Naughty girl." She clucks her tongue while the child giggles. The smile turns toward him. "I hope that you didn't want that back," she says, nodding down at the hat, which the girl is attempting to put on her own, small head. "She's not one to concede a prize easily."

Reaver chuckles, thumbing the artfully trimmed line of his beard. "Well, I am fond of such a fine chapeau. But seeing as I'm behind a few nameday gifts to her Royal Highness, I suppose I could part with it."

Sparrow chuckles too, rocking the girl to stillness as she wriggles. "How generous." Swiping a stray curl or two back from her daughter's forehead she nods toward him. "What do you say, darling?"

Something that's close to a "thank you" is directed at him as the child continues to stuff her head into the mass of silk and feathers.

He bows to the girl deeply, eyes locked with her mother's. "You are most welcome, Princess."

The air changes as he stands back up; it's heavier as Sparrow continues to cradle the girl on her hip. Her teeth worry her lower lip before her tongue darts out to wet them. Finally, she says, "Welcome back. You've missed a few things in your absence."

"So I see," he says, glancing to the girl who appears to be finished ducking beneath the hat. She looks back at him with their shared blue eyes, an endless well of naïve inquisitiveness bobbing within.

When he looks back to Sparrow, something has crossed her face that borders upon pain. She is looking between he and the girl. Her lower lip is in the grasp of her teeth again, crimson from the pressure. There is a very telling sheen to her soft eyes and redness on her nose.

She wants to know where he has been. What exactly it is that has been so important that he had to abandon her for close to four years? Has he known about the girl? He sees all of these questions in Sparrow's eyes and more. He also sees her tamping them down as ruthlessly as he does the echoes of his dreams.

Never before however, has she turned from him, as if to tamp him down along with those questions.

"If you'll excuse us," she says, adjusting the girl's weight as she picks up her skirt, "the princess is due for a nap and there's a terrible amount of papers for me to look over before Court in the morning." Her tone is formal, as if he's one of the faceless nobles petitioning her in her throne room. It is the voice of a queen, perfect in its confidence. A slight trill of pride runs through Reaver along with surprise; she definitely learned such a thing from him. "Good day and again, welcome back to Albion, Lord Reaver."

Alarm rises in his chest as he watches her flee. He has done nothing to warrant being brushed aside. Certainly nothing to deserve the almost-despair he had spied before she spun away on her heel. Something akin to dread crawls up his gullet.

Let her go. Robin is whispering, down, down, deep in the dark well where he's been banished to. She was safer when you weren't here. They were safer when you weren't here. Tear asunder the world but leave her be.

As always though, Robin's good sense is too late and far, far too frail. Letting Sparrow go isn't an option. Reaver would not choose to even if it were in fact a choice. She belongs to him.

"Sparrow?" He doesn't use names. They're personal things, names. Even with her, there are restrictions upon intimacy. Saying her name is the closest that he can come to begging and she knows this.

That is why she turns.

Say nothing. Now Robin, he can beg. Release her.

Reaver ignores him, as always, and clears his throat. "I understand that Her Majesty has a busy schedule, but might a…private audience be possible in the near future? Say, the evening after tomorrow?"

They both know that said "private audience" will be in her rooms, against her sheets and he knows what she wants to say. He also knows that she knows what she should say. For a second or two, Robin is excited, believing that maybe, just maybe Sparrow will be strong enough to save the both of them while Reaver dismays for the same reason.

Just like him though, she is weak when it comes to this thing between them. She nods quickly, curtly, adjusts the child in her arms, and continues back toward her castle, as if no agreement had been made at all. Reaver isn't sure that he's satisfied with that, at least when, with the way that she goes, it almost as if Sparrow is running away from him.

3.

Fêtes can be grand affairs; if Reaver adores anything it's a party and even the "proper" ones that he hosts at Bower Lake have their charm. What they lack in excessive drinking and orgies they make up for in allowing him opportunity to flex for the nobility, so-to-speak, showing off his wealth, charm, and influence. They also come with the added benefit of at least three or four days of Sparrow being in his bed without interruption. Usually.

At the Summer Gala, they've already gone at it once, down in one of the alcoves just off of the ballroom, but that was merely a taste of everything he has in mind. Sparrow wore a red gown to the party tonight. A very pretty, almost scandalously cut red gown. It's always hard enough for him to keep his hands off of her under normal circumstances, it is nigh impossible when so much of her cleavage is in view and draped in red satin. By whatever powers be, he adores her in red and he has many plans for that dress and the body within it behind the closed doors of his boudoir.

They're almost there. They would have been arrived a good while ago, but they keep ducking into corners to kiss and grope like a pair of teenagers. Right now, he has her pressed against the wall a few yards away from his bedroom, as he devours the lovely curve of her neck.

"By the light," she whimpers, arching against him as he nips the space beneath her ear. Her quick hands slide up his chest; his vest and shirt were torn open down in the alcove. Reaver groans against her pulse as a lace-gloved thumb swipes over his nipple. His hands, which have been occupied with the curve of her bottom and the small of her back, grasp harder out of reflex, urging their already tight bodies closer. Her leg slides up over his hip and Reaver is certain that this coupling of the evening won't make it to the bed either.

He is correct. Just not in the way that he expected.

Over their heavy breathing and rustling fabric comes the sound of a throat being cleared. Reaver has to give Sparrow's valet credit, for a chap so small he can always get attention when required. Considering how close Reaver is to being inside of Sparrow however, he does not have the patience to admire anything about their interloper at this moment. Were Sparrow not present in fact, he would have fired his Dragonstomper.

Jasper knows this of course, and pointedly disregards the mortal peril snarling six feet away to see to his duties. "I beg your pardon, Your Majesty," he says, giving the appropriate bow. Sparrow doesn't push Reaver away but she's righted herself enough that he's no longer half holding her up against the wall, ready to fuck. She also continues to cling to him for balance, which placates him a bit.

"It's fine, Jasper," she tells her valet. Reaver makes a noise of disagreement at the back of his throat which Sparrow ignores. "What is it?"

"The princess is asking for yourself and the Princess-Consort, Your Majesty," he says. "Apparently the young mistress managed to sneak a dozen or so honey cakes away from this evening's party and has eaten every one of them."

"All of them?" Reaver asks the question without thinking. To be honest, he is almost impressed. Frilly as the girl's frippery was this evening he wouldn't suspect it capable of hiding so much.

Sparrow moans unhappily, pinching the bridge of her nose between her knuckles. "By Avo. Marcella and I both told the nannies to double check everything! They know how she is with sweets! And now of course, she's puking up puddles of cake." She pushes a hard hissing-breath out through her nose and shakes her head. "Does Marcella know?"

The valet nods. "She's already there, Your Majesty."

Sparrow snorts, fixing her skirts and collar. "And likely green herself. Excellent. Thank you, Jasper, really. I'm on my way."

Jasper nods at the dismissal and turns on his heel, taking his leave as quietly as his entrance. While he does, Sparrow sighs and looks up at Reaver.

He glowers, not caring a whit about how petulant he must appear to be. The evening's sexual congress has been derailed; petulance is the nicest thing that can be expected of him. "What exactly do you pay those fancy governesses for?"

Sparrow rolls her eyes. "Believe me; I'm beginning to wonder myself."

He hasn't released her yet and he doesn't want to. Reaver clenches his fingers in the folds of her bodice. "And your lovely wife can't handle this?"

Another snort. "Marcie handles sick about as well as you would handle a wrinkle on your handsome face." She taps his chin, a smirk playing on the corner of her red mouth. It takes all of Reaver's self-restraint not to crush that smirk with his kiss. She catches him off-guard before the impulse can be acted upon, with a quick press of her lips to the underside of his jaw. "Don't worry, I'll be back soon. Rosie just needs her tummy rubbed while she takes a tonic to calm it down and sleep. Maybe a story too, if she's fussy."

"You should fire your chief au pair," he says even as she steps away. "Or better yet, execute her as an example to the others."

That makes Sparrow laugh and she winks at him over her shoulder. "A bit unfair. Have you seen how bloody fast that girl is? It's almost as if she comes from special stock or something…"

Reaver can't help it, he laughs. That is something to consider, he supposes.

His amusement is short lived. Once Sparrow is gone he is only cold, alone, and sporting a painfully rigid line in his trousers. Briefly, Reaver considers finding someone else to relieve him of his "tensions." Perhaps arrange a scene for Sparrow to walk in on. That idea is dismissed quickly enough; she might not be as thrilled with idea as he would. Also he isn't entirely sure that he wants anyone else's hands on her, no matter how pretty they might be.

After some debate, he decides that if he's to wait this out, he'll do so with a fine restorative beverage. It's easier than hunting up a servant to fetch it; when Sparrow visits he bans all people that aren't hers from the wing that he shares with the royal family. It keeps him from shooting all of his staff once she's gone in an effort to contain certain idle gossip concerning the queen and himself. Whether or not that it might be more truth than gossip does not matter, all the more reason to gouge out prying eyes and snip wagging tongues.

Down one of the many hidden stairwells he goes, intent on the secret wine cellar only he knows about. It has a potent selection that Reaver has gathered over his many wide voyages. Some Southern Island fruit liqueur perhaps, to take away the edge off of his wait and pliable for Sparrow's return. His objective of the green and gold bottle with its syrupy contents are derailed however, when upon pushing the door open to the pantry, he finds two (very) young men in state of passionate disarray between the vegetable bin and the shelves stocked with flour, sugar, and the like. One of said young men is Logan.

"By Avo!" they spring apart like rabbits once they notice his presence, which takes a moment and the clearing of his throat. The other fellow, a stocky chap with untidy blond hair and a barrel of a chest, had been pressing the prince to the wall and buried his face at the juncture of Logan's throat and shoulder. Now he whirls about with wide eyes, still keeping Logan to the wall but differently. His body is a shield for his prince now; were he anyone else, Reaver might call it sweet. As he is indeed himself though, Reaver crosses his arms, smirks, and flags an eyebrow.

"I—Lord Reaver—Uh…" Logan stumbles over words while trying to catch his breath.

His companion fares little better.

"His Royal Highness tripped!" the blond fellow says. His voice has a pitch to it that suggests it isn't normal for him and his gray-green eyes are wide. Lying is not his forte, even if he can manage to grit out the words.

"What?" The disbelief that Logan levels upon the other boy is comical, but Reaver manages to abstain from cackling. For the moment.

The blond winces. "And…so did I?"

In the fifteen years that Logan has lived, Reaver does not think he has ever looked more his mother than he does at this exact moment in time, thoroughly hard-up, exasperated, and disappointed. Skorm's arse, this boy's life will be a bumpy one…

With any other pair caught Reaver would encourage them to go on about their business and include him. Blackmail would certainly enter in whether or not he was issued an invitation to the tryst. However, while Reaver is a man of very, very, very few scruples and almost no morality to speak of, he is not going to participate in a Ménage à trois with his son.

What he feels he must do though, is just as odd. At least for him.

"Young Master…?"

"Uh, Daniel," Logan's friend says only after Reaver has settled a pointed stare upon him. His swarthy skin is covered in patches of red, particularly his ears. "Daniel Silsbee, Lord Reaver."

A Silsbee? Interesting. As Reaver recalls the Silsbees are gaggle of old-blood conservatives who threw a fit when Sparrow took charge. Funny how their scion is apparently intent on canoodling with the prince that they attempted to decry as a bastard.

"Ah, very good." Reaver smiles and hopes that it sends a chill or two down the boy's backbone. By the pallor that blooms beneath his flush, he would say that he succeeded. "Young Master Silsbee, if you could please take a moment to peruse the kitchens, I would speak with the prince. Privately."

That barrel of a chest puffs out at once and he broadens his stance between Logan and Reaver. To the Silsbee boy's credit Reaver is very good at reading fear and lies in a person. The gesture is all defense, more than ever he is Logan's shield, so this tryst whatever it is, is no ploy that he has been finagled into by his squawking relatives. Adorable as that may be, Reaver hasn't the time for it.

Logan is prudent enough to see this. Before his little friend can protest himself into something painful, the prince lays a hand on his arm. Daniel looks up and over his shoulder, into Logan's face.

"It will be fine, Daniel," he tells him with a faint smile. "Go on."

The young Lord Silsbee's face softens and he nods. With a touch to Logan's wrist, he takes his leave but not before casting a dark look back at Reaver and muttering, "Better be." He slams the door shut to drive home his point.

"Rude," Reaver says as a box of something-or-another tumbles from the shelf closest to the pantry door. "But full of backbone I'll give him that." He centers his gaze back upon Logan. "Which, I suppose is all just part of the attraction."

In fifteen years, Reaver has not seen Sparrow's son blush. Logan doesn't blush; he simply gets an uncomfortable and grumpy look about him—not unlike his mother. At this very moment however, his whole face flushes pink and Reaver takes stock of the boy anew.

Fifteen. Fire and plague, the boy is that old, isn't he? Not a child anymore and not a man. Not yet, but if the purpling mark on Logan's neck and mussed clothes are any indication, that won't be distinction for much longer.

Why does that make him…almost sad?

Robin is awake. Because we've missed everything. The fool taunts like a child in a schoolyard. We helped to make him but what else have we done? A lesson with a pistol years and years ago? Bah.

The argument must play across his face in some part because Logan now looks at him with a flicker of concern. "Lord Reaver?"

An impulse runs through him and before he can think it over, he is beckoning Logan into the passage. "Come with me. Be quick, I don't wish to keep your gallant suitor waiting long lest he do something foolish."

Logan hesitates but only for a moment. For whatever reason—which Reaver refuses to dwell on—the boy follows him through the narrow walkways between rooms. It's a mostly straight shot from the pantry to the pleasure chamber hidden behind his study. Reaver unlocks the door to it and steps inside turning the lights on while the boy watches.

It's not an overly sumptuous room, it was built specifically for a quick fuck after business arrangements have been struck in the study that it is adjacent to. It has a soft bed though, as well as all of the necessities for a rigorous, sanitary coupling.

"Condoms." He opens the top bedside drawer, making sure Logan sees them before he shuts it. "Lubricant." The second drawer is opened and closed in the same manner as the first. "Use them both, particularly the second in excess. I assume that fancy school that Her Majesty sends you to has gone over the finer biological points of the act you and your little chum were getting close to back there? Preparation and all of that?"

Logan is so red right now that Reaver half expects blood to come shooting out of his nose. He stares down at the tops of his boots. "Yes, Lord Reaver. I—we know about…that aspect."

Sex has never been an awkward topic for Reaver. As much of it as he's had over the many, many, many years that he has been around, there has never been an act, position, or query in regards to intercourse that has ever made him remotely uneasy. And he would not call himself uneasy now, simply…ill-prepared.

Again, he refuses to dwell and pulls the key that unlocks this room and the study in front of it from the ring on his belt, proffering it to Logan. The boy accepts, a curious gleam to his dark eyes.

"Good, here," he says. "You can remember the way back from the cupboard, yes?"

Logan stares at the key a moment but then nods.

"Very good. Bring your beau here, then," he tells him. "Lock the door behind you, do whatever it is you two wish, and return the key to me sometime tomorrow."

Another nod and Logan looks smaller than he is. Which should be incredibly hard because they're quite close to being the same height.

Avo, Skorm, or whatever lies beyond, when did that happen?

The boy shifts about in disquiet. There are words, questions, fears humming by the thousands behind those eyes that are far too much like his mother's and Reaver is at a loss for what to do when they turn upon him, begging for assistance without words. He has nothing.

Robin, though, that imp finally has something that is not ash in his hands and he wheedles between the bars of his cage, slinking to the root of Reaver's tongue and arm.

Reaver is not sure who is surprised more by the hand that he lays like a feather on Logan's shoulder, himself or the boy. More astonishing is that neither of them jerk away the second that they realize the contact.

"You are a prince," Robin tells Logan with Reaver's voice. "You will be a king. Carry yourself with the authority that you were born with. Whether you want to share this night and certain moments with that handsome young man back there or whether you would kiss his cheek and then retire to bed alone is all within your control. And neither decision is a faulty one."

Something very close to a smile curls upon Logan's mouth. "You make it sound easy."

Reaver chuckles, pulling his hand away to clasp at the small of his back, lest Robin gives into the itch and ruffles the lad's hair. Such a thing would be too familiar and worse, too tacky. "You are young, Your Royal Highness. These sorts of things should be easy. Everything ahead is a dreadful sight more boring, I assure you." Before he can stop himself he adds, "Fucking in a pantry for example, is something you should hold off on doing until you're old and bored and you know enough tricks to ensure you won't trip over a potato and suffer serious injury."

A laugh this time, it is brief and low, but earnest. Tension rolls from Logan's lanky frame, making the very air of the room brighter. And it makes Reaver feel…something. Relief perhaps, mixed with a touch of pride and even affection. Perhaps his blood is still addled from the earlier encounter with Sparrow, or maybe the wine at the party was stronger than he thought that he ordered. He can't fathom another reason for what he asks next.

"He's a good fellow, this Silsbee boy?" He nods vaguely in the direction of the kitchens where the other lad is surely waiting with baited breath. Avo, the irony of that question falling from his lips.

If the thought crosses Logan's mind as well, it's pushed aside; he's blushing again. Though this bout comes with a faint smile. "He is. He's…my best friend."

Robin cannot stop grinning. His face feels as if it will be forever split like this. He does not care either, not with the events of this night. In fact he can scarce imagine ever being unhappy again. Against his chest, Oriole hums in agreement.

"So I guess all the gossip was right," she says, voice muffled against his skin. Her lips brush his collarbone, sending the warmest shivers down his spine. "That was just about the most fun thing we've ever done."

A twinge goes through his gut, prickly disquiet that threatens the serenity of the moment. "You…You're sure you're all right?" His hands were stroking up her back and through her hair idly before, now they curl and grasp. His throat clenches. "They say for girls that it's…That it might…" The very idea that he could cause her harm by any means is intolerable to him.

Oriole is aware of this too. With a sigh, as if his concern were childish she rolls up, knocking back the worn quilt that they had covered their naked bodies in post-coital bliss. On her hands and knees she hovers above him.

"Do I look to be anything less than pleased?" she demands, right eyebrow cocked high.

The weight in his chest lifts as he stares up at Oriole. Behind her, in the blackish-blue, summer sky that's been set aflame with a few hundred-thousand stars, the moon halos her head almost perfectly. He can make out every detail of her pretty face in such brilliant darkness, the right corner of her mouth is curled in a smirk but her eyes are soft and there can be no mistaking the adoration that overflows from them.

"You look like a goddess." Syrupy drivel, that's what he would normally call such a sentiment. Pretty but useless. But they escape him before he can think to bite down on his tongue. Also, there is no hollowness to those words; Robin means every syllable. He venerates Oriole with every single breath, that has been a constant fact for all sixteen years of his life, and as trite as voicing it might sound, there can be no taking back the truth.

He waits for her to laugh and jab him. Robin's heart beats wildly, fearful of her scorn. A fool worry. In a blink, her body is pressed against his once more, mouth hot and hungry and searching. He returns the kiss with equal vigor until all of the breath is lost from his lungs and they're both a gasping mess clutching at one another under the stars.

"I asked Dahlia and Bunny about it," she tells him after they've cooled down a bit. "They said hurting or bleeding when you lose your virginity was a shovel-full of horseshit. That it would only happen if I wasn't wet." She nips at his pulse-point and giggles. Taking hold of his wrist as he cards her hair, she brings Robin's hand before her face. "Considering what good work these clever things usually do, I didn't worry." And she brushes her lips to his knuckles.

A blush creeps up Robin's neck but it doesn't impede his ever-widening grin. "You trust me that much, do you?"

She sticks her tongue out then kisses his nose. "You're the love of my life and—more importantly—my best friend, what wouldn't I trust you with?"

"Cooking," he says without a pause. Oriole laughs outright, the sound ringing out through the darkness like silver chimes. "Anything with a hammer. Or—" His jokes are silenced with a kiss.

"Lord Reaver?" Logan's voice jerks him away from the reverie of Robin's pathetic life. He shakes it off and puts a smile in place for the prince. As good as he is at masking himself, it's probably very reassuring.

Why does he sincerely hope that that is true?

"Well, he'll understand your decision no matter what it might be then," Reaver says. He nods toward the passage, the strangest itch to run eating at the muscles in his legs. He doesn't give into it, not completely. He does go past Logan, walking ahead without pause for the prince. At least until Logan speaks.

"This…This isn't a topic of discussion that you'll bring up with my mother, is it?" the boy asks when they're about halfway back to the pantry.

Reaver can't suppress a derisive snort. "Only if Your Royal Highness would like me to bring the matter of his virginity to Her Majesty's attention."

His back is to Logan so he can't rightly see the lad but he can feel the trill of horror running down his companion's spine. "Um. No. That's quite all right. Thank you, Lord Reaver."

He waves the words away. "Think nothing of it, Your Royal Highness." And surprisingly, he means that.

They part ways in the pantry, Reaver does not stay to slake his curiosities about how Logan's evening will end; that is the business of the two boys and no one else. He continues onto his private wine cellar taking his sweet time in selecting the evening's poison (he opts for the fruit liqueur as previously intended), and when he returns to the intersection where he'd come across the would-be lovers, he finds it deserted. Both the pantry and passage doors are shut.

Upon his return upstairs, he finds a curious compulsion leading his feet off course from his bedroom. His wayward path ends at the wing's opposite end, in the temporary Royal quarters, at the threshold of the princess' room. The nannies are nowhere to be seen, which given what use that they seem to be is probably all for the better, and neither is the Princess-Consort. There are only two figures in the room assigned to the princess, and that is the princess herself along with her mother. In the bed, Rosie is curled into Sparrow's side, eyes closed and face a still a bit green, but she otherwise appears to have found peaceful slumber. Sparrow seems similarly inclined, there's an open storybook in her lap as she continues to pet Rosie's curls, but her eyes are drooping without a doubt.

Sleepy or not, she still notices him when he leans against the doorframe. A half-smile is sent in his direction.

"Worried that I'd forgotten you?" she asks, voice almost inaudible. To anyone without Hero senses he doesn't doubt that it would be.

The urge to tell her that he had in fact not been worried at all because he was too preoccupied with assisting their teenage son in losing his virginity is nigh impossible. Somehow though, Reaver manages and instead smirks as he nods to Rosie.

"Her Highness appears to be fast asleep." He keeps his voice low only to avoid further interruptions. It has nothing to do with that soft, round face with Sparrow's midnight curls and his bright eyes sleeping so serenely at her side. Not one single thing.

Padding across the room in complete silence, he extends a hand to Sparrow. She rolls her eyes but nods, beginning the tedious process of extracting herself from the girl's grasp. For Reaver it is a process that runs far too slow and the second after Sparrow's lips have touched the crown of Rosie's head, he scoops her up into his arms. Sparrow only barely swallows back a very indignant squawk. Her glare is full of fire but the strength of it is meager compared to the force of the kiss that he steals.

"Impatient ass," Sparrow hisses, mouth still slanted to his. In all fairness she isn't wrong. She does not struggle as he goes about carrying her back to his rooms though.

The next day, Reaver's key is returned by the prince's valet along with a letter asking if he would consider coming to Brightwall on occasion to teach marksmanship. He acquiesces to it along with the lad's subsequent request to keep their lessons out of Sparrow's periphery. Because, as he tells himself, it is always a good idea to be in the favorable graces of his future monarch.

It's harder to excuse the pony that he buys on a whim for the girl as such. Or the close eye that he ensures the young Lord Silsbee knows is kept upon him. But Reaver does not dwell on mundane things and Robin is easy enough to drown out.

Most of the time.

4.

"Why is Mummy sad?"

The girl is quick and that, Reaver supposes, is his fault. Most of the time it pleases him to see her darting underfoot, startling unwary courtiers. He especially enjoys hearing how she takes her nannies, Mother, and Foster-Mother by surprise. Like when she manages to sneak twenty frogs into her rooms. That was a delightful tale, if he does say so himself.

Less amusing for him is her appearing practically out of nowhere while he's minding his own business in a corridor and latching onto his mulberry-silk jacket sleeve. With little fingers he does not trust to be anything other than sticky with the aforementioned frog incident taken into consideration.

Ruined fabric is only funny when it happens to other people after all.

His first inclination is to shake her off. No, his first inclination for anyone grasping at him without permission is to put a bullet between their eyes and kick their corpse.

With Rosie, just like her brother however, something in Reaver—or someone—dampens all of his usual instincts.

He tells himself that it's because he does not want to deal with Sparrow and her axe. It has nothing to do with those enormous blue eyes that share every line and lash of his own, including a the faint green freckle in the left iris.

He does still have to dislodge her fingers to keep his sanity. With a smile, of course.

"Whatever do you mean, ma princesse?" he asks, distracting her with a tug to the end of her braid.

The look that Rosie levels up at him nearly makes him laugh; a six-year-old should not be so adept at a deadpanning. Well, unless Logan is to be counted, but the boy has always favored his mother so that goes without saying.

She crosses her arms, chin jutted out, all business. Give her a few years and she'll be rendering waves of grown men to their knees with that pretty face and the ire sparkling in her eyes. "Mummy's been gloomy all week, since the last time you visited."

If Reaver were a man with shame—he isn't—or a sense of propriety—definitely not—he would probably choke and turn scarlet. The last time he visited Sparrow he had nearly broken that big (and thankfully sturdy) desk in her office. Amoral as he may be, he doesn't want the girl to have heard or seen anything in relation to that.

"And how did you know that I visited?" he asks. "I believe I stopped in for a discussion with Her Majesty whilst you and your brother were out?"

Rosie has the audacity to roll her eyes and he has will just strong enough not to laugh. If her eye-color wasn't a dead giveaway on where she came from then her attitude would do it.

"I saw you leaving," she tells him, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I was bringing her cocoa and pudding; Walter even let me carry them by myself."

A moment or two blinks. He can't decide which point of this conversation is more comical that a little girl is interrogating him or that for once, he is not actually at fault.

Yes you are, Robin whispers. They wouldn't have fought if not for you…

He swallows down a growl. Ridiculous. It isn't his fault that Hammer or Hannah or whatever that lumbering lout was calling herself this days, is so ill-bred as to pop in without warning. Nor is it his fault that she had to quarrel with Sparrow about what she walked in on as if it were any of her business.

Robin remains unconvinced and will not allow the image of Sparrow weeping in the row's aftermath to fade.

"Why is she sad?" Those tiny, quick hands have found the expensive linen of his breeches now. Their grip is harder, more insistent than before and he doubts extricating himself from it will be so simple this time around. A split second passes in which he considers throwing her off and running but Reaver isn't sure that she wouldn't be clutching at him again just as soon as he turned his heel.

Speedy chit.

The softness of her eyes and trembling lower lip have no bearing in the matter. None.

Reaver sucks at his teeth as he kneels down to meet the girl at her level. It takes a bit of stooping but on the plus side it gets her clinging to cease. It's only once he's down and locked in that expectant stare that he realizes that he has no idea how to answer her.

"Your mother…" It's been a very, very, very long time since he has been at a loss for words. At another time he might be amused by the novelty of it.

There is no way to tell her the truth; he isn't even tempted to. Something in Reaver's chest, something that does not wholly resonate from the wretched wisp of Robin, turns black at the memory of Hammer's face when she had realized just who the father of Sparrow's children was. The disdain toward him he couldn't care a whit about; Hammer is and always has been a brute with one use. With that use fulfilled he would consider her obsolete, less than a footnote in the annals of everything important i.e. his preferences.

And yet her snap decision that Logan and Rose were now "wrong" sticks with him, uglier and more rotten than the stench of a Kraken in a storm.

He should find out where that bloody temple she's holed up in is and raze it. Or better yet, buy it, leech her order dry with rent, and then raze it. And the village around it. No, that would leave too much to chance. Better to just burn down the whole countryside. Oh, that would needle her big, self-righteous craw…

Later. The girl needs an answer and her impatience has her fisting the collar of his jacket. Honestly, how as Sparrow allowed this child to learn such disregard for fine clothing? How has he allowed it?

"Your mother…has many things on her mind." Reaver has never experienced such difficulty in lying before. Those mirror-image eyes and their expectant light make him feel chaffed, raw, and very nearly exposed. It prickles every nerve ending and yet he cannot find it in him to despise her.

"What things?" Rosie demands.

The fact that her supposed best friend could not graciously accept the fact that I sired you. Or that your mother is human being and not a cause, with desires, needs, and a breaking point.

Reaver does not say any of this aloud of course. It takes some tongue biting not to, but he manages to swallow back the vitriolic truth of things. Instead he offers the explanation of, "Grown-up things," along with a blithe smile.

Rosie crosses her arms again, face puckering. "That's what everyone who is a grown-up says when they don't want to tell the truth."

He chuckles, genuinely charmed by her frustration and the way it wrinkles up her nose. "Is it? Well, I assure Your Highness, that the truth is the last thing I'd ever want to hide from you. Truly."

A single eyebrow flags high and Reaver is thankful they're alone in right now; there would be no denying to common riffraff that he'd fathered the girl if they weren't. Not with her distilling his own bullshit-face with such incredible precision. There's no stopping another trickle of laughter from escaping though.

Rosie is less entertained. Her little booted foot stamps the floor and her chin goes out again. "Fine be that way. How are you going to make her not sad anymore?"

Now that takes him aback. "I beg your pardon?"

He gets another roll of her eyes. "What are you going to do to cheer her up?" she asks bold as brass, as if he were the child and she the adult in the hall. "You're her friend, aren't you? Why else would you come by unless it's to see her?"

The laughable matter of Rosie labeling him as Sparrow's "friend" aside, she's got him. Court isn't being held today, he has no proposals that require royal attention, and there certainly isn't an emergency on hand. Not unless crimes of fashion that abound around the Winter Holidays are to count, but wretched as those are, they're hardly a reason for him to be about. Sparrow had turned down his proposal on fining the nobility for prancing about in garish ensembles the first year of her rule anyway.

Why is he here?

Robin is quick to answer. You know why, coward.

While Reaver is debating on whether or not he could possibly carve that foul little voice out with a rusty knife, Rosie has lost her patience with him again and is now pulling at him with all of her might. It takes him aback for a moment, knocking him out of his thoughts because aside from being damnably persistent, the girl is strong. She can't budge him much, but a child of six shouldn't be able to budge him at all.

It's a good thing that she has such a sweet disposition; the other children around this place would not survive her otherwise.

"Come on!" she whines, continuing to tug at his gloved hand.

"I beg your pardon, Your Highness, but what is it I am to 'come on' about?" he asks it even as he stands and allows her to lead.

"I'm helping you," she says. "This way!"

Again, it crosses Reaver's mind that if this child were not made of sunshine, she would utterly destroy everything in her path. The giggling little imp is like quicksilver and while it is no trouble at all for him to keep pace with her, he cannot imagine how her caretakers with their very un-Hero blood manage day to day.

Hmm…perhaps that's why Sparrow has a team of nannies. He's always wondered about that, perhaps they take shifts so that exhaustion doesn't kill them. That shouldn't make him so…sort of proud, should it?

No. It should. It definitely should.

For a moment Reaver thinks to ask her where they're going as she leads him along empty corridors and stairwells through parts of the castle he's not traveled before. He refrains though, surprises are much more interesting and somewhat of a novelty to him anymore.

The girl doesn't disappoint, he'll say that much. When their journey finally comes to its end, they're standing at the large, glass and brass doors that lead to the palace greenhouse. He cocks an eyebrow down at her but Rosie pays him no mind at all, marching up to the large doors and putting all of her meager weight into wrenching the right handle down until it clicks and swings open.

Rosie has done this before, he realizes as the warm, heady, perfumed of the air within wafts out and caresses his face. Reaver wonders if Sparrow knows just how agile the girl is. He recalls the way that she looked back in late summer, at the ball in Logan's honor; the ardent way that she protested either the boy or the girl being marked as Heroes. She has to know in her bones though, Sparrow is many things but not naïve. She can be stubborn though, and prone to tunnel-vision, he remembers that from the days when Lucien was mucking about.

Why does her refusal to see the truth make something curl in his stomach though?

"Well, don't just stand there, silly!" the girl blots out the reply gathering from Robin's wispy, formless mouth. Reaver blinks and she's across the room, climbing one of many very pretty—but not all that sturdy looking—trellises. She climbs just as fast as she runs, unimpeded by her ruffled skirts and pretty shoes, and something in his chest lurches when she leaps from the first ivy laden frame to another.

He almost orders her to be careful, worse, to come down this instant. Instead he follows her along, hovering beneath where she's chosen to dangle (Sparrow will murder him if she falls, he has no doubt) and says, "I do hate to appear such a dunce before you, Your Highness, but what exactly brings us to this lovely place?"

Rosie stops at once, whirling about on the precarious lattice that she stands upon. He readies himself to catch her—Skorm and Avo she is so small, her head would crack like an egg!—and only receives her glare, from where she remains, perfectly balanced on the tips of her toes. Her hands are on her hips, brow pinched, and in this moment she is every tiny inch her mother.

"Flowers!" she says that one word if it were summary answer to all of the woes in the world and as if he had the brain of a tortoise.

Why does that make him even more fond of her? That's not normal.

"Flowers?" he repeats.

"To make her feel better!" Rosie all but shouts. In a blink she's hanging upside down from the bower, her little knees wrapped over and through a wrought iron bar. They are at eye-level when she does that, albeit her eyes are upside down. Her arms cross as she continues to look at him like he were a fool. "You're not very good at being a friend."

From the mouth of babes…

Truer words, Reaver knows, have probably never been spoken about him with only the cursory knowledge that the girl has. Certainly they've never been spoken to his face and met with laughter rather than the roar of his Dragonstomper. Sparrow excluded, of course.

"No, ma princesse," he says, still chuckling. "No. I do not believe that I am."

The girl's eyes soften when he says that, going all wide and bright. Reaver loathes that look that pity in her familiar eyes, like he's a lamb with a bad leg and not a wolf whose teeth shine prettily to distract from their edges. Pity and sympathy shouldn't be felt for him by anyone, least of all Rosie. She should hate him. She would be safest if she hated him and kept her distance.

They all would.

For once, he is about to obey the vile ghost forever prowling at the back of his mind. He will leave and give this girl, her brother, and her mother the best gift he could give them; a life devoid of him. One that he can taint no further, he'll rule from his dark underbelly throne, just as he did before and they will flourish in the light. That would be best for all of them.

And then the girl has swung herself down from the trellis and taken his hand again. Only this time, she isn't tugging and before Reaver can recoil and storm away, he makes the mistake of looking down. She still wearing that sad, commiserative look but that isn't what freezes him.

Her hands are tiny. So tiny. Both of them could fit easily within his palm, swallowed up by the embossed, black kidskin of his gloves. And yet, when they curl around his fingers and thumb, there is nothing small in her grip, no frailty, not even a waiver. This child is full of steel and fire, and doe-eyed, sweet, and little though she may be, she is also fierce.

More importantly she is his. Whether or not it is spoken out loud, his blood in part pumps through her body, just as with Logan. Reaver has never been one to willingly give up anything that he held claim to, he will not start now, no matter how better off all of them might be in the end for it, himself included.

"That's all right," she pats the back of his hand. "I'll help you." She does not wait for him to respond, keeping a tight hold upon his ring and little fingers as she points out various blooms. "Honeysuckle and jasmine are Mummy's favorites because of how they smell. She likes red too but never roses. They make her sad. Logan says it's because of Auntie Rose, you know, who I'm named for."

The girl chatters on and Reaver lets her, following her directions on what to gather. She has keen eye for arrangement, he notices, as she sorts the crimson Amaryllis, white jasmine, and honeysuckle he acquires. That's credit to his blood too, he decides. If Marcella were not around to keep things in line he has no doubt that Sparrow would forever be traipsing about in a soldier's kit and mounting Hobbe heads on the walls.

Ugh. Intelligent, powerful, and beautiful the mother of his children may be, but her decorating sense is the stuff of nightmares…

"There," Rosie says after everything has been organized to her satisfaction. She pulls one of the ribbons from her hair tying a sloppy bow to keep the flowers set and then holds them out to him. "Mummy will love it."

Kneeling beside her as she works, Reaver chuckles as he accepts the bouquet. "I have no doubt of your considerable expertise, Your Highness."

She preens like him too, though with a touch less smugness. "Good." And then she surprises him yet again by snapping off a nearby spray of blood-red Sweet William and placing them in the empty buttonhole of his lapel before he can pull back. Rosie grins. "She likes those too."

He's about to ask why that would matter at all but the girl is tugging at him again, urging him back the way that they came toward her mother's study.

They come across Sparrow before returning to the royal wing. She's outside of the throne room, speaking to her little soldiers, the general and the one with the overcompensating moustache. The air of business-as-usual is upheld, she would never show her people anything less but Reaver can see it, the delicate slouch of her shoulders, the melancholy that she guards in her eyes. She's raw and aching from the encounter with Hammer yet still and Reaver can feel it a hundred yards away. That's why he stops them.

The girl looks up at him with an incredulous stare. "What is it? She's right there. Aren't you—"

Reaver is not good, not kind, he is not human in anything but flesh anymore, if even that. He does not love Sparrow as Robin loved Oriole, does not adore his children as Robin would have. Such aptitude was bludgeoned and buried with the fool bird who went singing his pathetic woes to the darkness. What Reaver can do though, is guard what belongs to him, that much he excels at.

Which is why he tells Rosie, "You take them to her, Your Highness."

Her nose wrinkles. "But, you're—"

"Not someone who can lift her spirits," he says. At the continued furrowed brow he explains, "I was being honest when I said I was not the one who upset your mother, dear girl. And I'm being honest now when I say she would rather take that pretty bouquet from someone that she loves than a dashing rogue."

The girl continues to stare up at him, though her glare has turned more to just a sharp start and her face is unrumpled.

"This is a Grown-Up thing, isn't it?" she finally says.

Reaver laughs. "Of course not," he tells her, taking a knee. He grins and tugs the end of her braid again as he leans in just enough so that their eyes are at equal height. "But you are a clever enough girl to know bullshit when it is set so plainly in front of you."

Rosie snorts a laugh and her smile mirrors his as they crouch there for a moment, like conspirators in some grand scheme. He supposes that they are, in a way, and something that is almost like…respect washes over him. Which is ludicrous because the only person that Reaver respects is himself.

She places a kiss to his cheek while he's distracted by that thought. It's quick and his reflexes are superior enough that he could move or intercept her if he really wanted to. He doesn't though, off-putting as her affection initially strikes him, Reaver also can't deny he is charmed in his own way.

Also she her face is very clean. Princess of the realm, his flesh and blood, or not, if there was snot or spittle on her tiny face he would throw her across the room before allowing her face anywhere near his.

Not a second later, she's turned on her heel and dashing down the hallway. Reaver follows her example in the opposite direction. Sparrow will be fine, he's certain. A woman as sentimental as she is, the second Rosie puts those flowers in her arms, the regret and ache Hammer left will begin melting. She will remember that she has two beautiful children whom she loves more than anything in the world, who in return worship the ground she walks upon.

Reaver will return to his manse and press the Sweet William in his buttonhole between the pages of the first letter he received from Logan, the one asking him for shooting lessons. Those will be locked away in a magical vault and he will proceed to drown out Robin's screeching with liquor, opiates, and pretty faces.

And they will both muddle along as they always do.

5.

After Sparrow splits Lillian Lion-Bane's head from her shoulders, effectively cauterizing the Ravenscar Rebellion, they spend a week or two cleaning up stragglers. While he dislikes the company of soldiers, it's a jolly enough time for him; Sparrow isn't much in the mood for clemency so he gets to shoot as many of the upstart rebels on sight as he pleases. She also lets him have his pick of a few of the reclaimed ships. Most importantly though, they're sharing a bed again for the first time since the little incident in Brightwall and sleep comes to him better than it ever has before.

Mostly. Going on three hundred years has had odd patterns develop for him, so there are a few nights, like this one, where in spite of the delicious exhaustion and dreamless sleep her presence has brought to his bed, Reaver's eyes still open long before the sun is up.

He is motionless for a few moments, blinking at the ceiling of his cabin and the mauve velvet curtains that hang around the bed. He closes eyes in hopes that this is just an off-chance awakening and that sleep will reclaim him if he only pretends that he's still tired. No such luck, but it was worth the try.

Against his chest, Sparrow sighs in her sleep but is otherwise unperturbed. Reaver is almost envious of her; she always sleeps so sound. She has that keen Hero sense of danger of course, but unless something nefarious sends that off, her dreams never seem to have any interruption.

Well, it is not always dull, is perhaps the better description, what with the fact that she continues to let a creature such as he slip into bed with her and time again. But he wouldn't have her smarten up and change that. No, no, no. There isn't a chance of letting phenomenal sex like the kind that they have or the sound sleep that (almost) always follows it slip through his fingers.

He studies her slumbering form. Sparrow is wrapped around him, one leg still over his hip and left arm beneath his with its fingers curled against the skin just beneath his shoulder-blade. With her head tucked beneath his chin, her breath puffs against his neck and though the scent of it isn't exactly perfume, the urge to push her away never comes. In fact he clings right back, pulling her body tighter against his with the arm draped about her middle and carding his other hand deep into her ebony hair.

Nearly forty years this tryst between them has been going on and in those many years she hasn't had so much as a gray hair or a wrinkle. No dark bargains required. Sparrow was made for him, just as Oriole had been made for Robin. They are a match set, just carved from darker, harder substances.

He could keep her like this forever, he realizes, as looks down at her so defenseless in his embrace. He curls and uncurls his fingers through the silky black tendrils of her hair, pushing it away from her lovely face. If Reaver only had a whim, if he only pushed just enough, he could keep her all to himself forever. She hates the crown and its insufferable weight; how much convincing would she really need to abandon it all? She stays now only because of that ever-tenuous thread called "duty" that she cannot seem to just snip. And the children.

Reaver's blood begins to race along with these half-mad thoughts in his head. He pulls Sparrow closer, stroking along down her spine, along the curve of her bottom and the back of her thigh. She sighs and he can feel her own pulse jump, just a hair, but she does not waken.

The children will not be children forever. Logan actually has become a man in these last few years, fine and capable; give one or two years more and he will be ready to assume the throne. And Rosie? Hah. Now that one is downright formidable and all she has to do is smile. Reaver has no doubt that if the girl were stranded on a foreign continent, she would have the run of it within a day simply by batting her eyes. Hell, he doesn't doubt that she could defeat a Kraken with her charm.

Rosie and Logan won't need a mother looking after them much longer, he knows, if they even do now. And it isn't like watch couldn't be kept from a distance; that's what he has always done, after all. More of that might even do them all good; he would be kept at bay, unable to muss or taint anything with his selfish impulses even by accident, and Sparrow could perhaps come to see that her methods of sheltering weren't always for the best.

Yes just a few more years, then she'll want to leave. When she notices that the boy and girl are aging, that they aren't the same as the two of them, that their flesh is fragile with mortality. She will not be able to bear the sight of them fading. Neither will she be able to stand by and watch as Marcella, Jasper, and all of her other lapdogs turn to naught but dust on bones. Reaver will barely have to offer; she will not want to be the last and truly alone.

Neither do you.

Reaver swallows against the urge to bite back at Robin and instead dips his head forward, to the hollow of Sparrow's neck. He noses the space where her throat meets her shoulder, breathing in the scent of her. It's beautiful, familiar, and tinged with the scent of their sex. He wants this scent at his beck and call for the rest of his very long life. Wants her in his bed, shielding his dreams, wrapped around him and filled with him. And he will have it, the moment he can find the opening to leverage, he will have it. He must.

"Reaver?" Sparrow's sleep-drunk voice interrupts his fevered thoughts. Perhaps he's gripped her too hard, or moved her too much, or maybe it was just the feel of his breath against her neck. In any case, she is awake.

He tilts his head, just enough to meet her stare which is heavily glazed with drowsiness. Still, she's not so lethargic yet that she cannot sense disquiet in him. She doesn't ask him if something is wrong even as she worries her lower lip between her teeth and flags a single brow down at him. He doesn't allow her the chance to either.

He kisses up the column of her throat, stopping just shy of the spot beneath her ear that drives her to madness. He goes slow, waiting for her to push him away, to tell him to stop and go back to sleep, any signal that would belay she does not want to continue. What she does is mewl and coil the leg already splayed over his hip higher, arching into him.

They move seamlessly together, like honeyed-wine as it is poured, maneuvering until Sparrow's back is against the sheets and he hovers above, carrying his weight but pressing so close that breath can barely be taken. Both of her legs encircle his waist, locking him in place as if there were anywhere else he could ever prefer to be. The fingers that rested beneath his shoulder now dig in, her short nails adding an exquisite sting.

Made for each other. They have to be. Nothing else could suffice as an acceptable definition of what Sparrow is for Reaver, not when all he has to do is rock his hips just so and he is sliding into her. In unison they cry out as he slowly hilts. When he is as deep as he can possibly go, when he has given everything, Reaver rests his forehead to hers. They breathe, nose to nose, mouth to mouth, and Sparrow steals the air from his lungs giving him fire in return.

The pace is languorous, not to torture but to feel and to show. He doesn't need to tease or play to make her unravel, the body beneath him belongs just as much to him as it does her. She knows this too and in the guarded bubble of this moment, she makes no stubborn attempts to pretend otherwise. All she does is grasp him more tightly, her right hand mirroring his to rake through his hair and cup his cheek.

It is not rare for him to meet a lover's eyes while they are in the act. Reaver's ego is always well stoked by seeing his own reflection, particularly while his name is being cooed breathlessly while pleasure builds. Pride is not the right word for what overtakes him when he locks gaze with Sparrow and finds those big brown eyes are filled with him and only him. It is more, it is possession and completion, and the addiction that he has for it should be terrifying. It is terrifying, but desire outweighs good sense, as almost every decision in his life (lives) has, so he only holds her tighter and fucks more determinedly.

His. His and his alone. That is the mantra chanted in his bones even after he has brought her release and found his own. It goes through him like a drumbeat, just beneath the pounding of his heart when he falls asleep still inside of and wrapped around her. He just has to wait, to be patient for her to see it too. Reaver hasn't much patience but for Sparrow he can scrounge up an infinity.

Because that is what they will have in the end.

6.

"We need to speak."

There are better ways perhaps, to go about this, than sneaking into the Royal Chambers. Sparrow's nature is a forgiving one, more often than not and Reaver knows that she loves him. Unwillingly and unwittingly perhaps, but her heart has been in his hands for a very long time. He feels it there now, though the beat is dulled, as if in a vault with no key; still in his clutches but inaccessible. Given enough time, he could find a way to pick that lock, he knows that he could.

But he cannot wait. These last few weeks since the incident in the Spire has seen Reaver maddened by nightmares and lack of sleep and a needto see her so intense that his chest feels as if it were banded by a leaden cinch. It burns in his blood hotter than any craving that he has had before.

He can fix this. Explain it. Lie. Whatever he has to do to make her see he will do and he knows that he can—if only they speak!

He had not expected this battle to be an easy one, in fact he knew it was going to be the opposite. And yet when Sparrow whirls about from her map table with lightening on her fingers and hellfire in her eyes, something in him lurches. Something deep and sharp; it shudders his pulse and if he were not the prime specimen he were, it might just knock him back.

"Get. Out." The words are spit at him like the bite of an asp but a hundred times more potent. A snake's venom Reaver is sure that he could survive. Sparrow didn't give him that certainty when they were on amicable terms, let alone when death is on her tongue.

He does not balk however. There is no room to retreat. Not when he's come so far, scaling walls and creeping through shadows in the dark of night like some common burglar.

She will listen to him. She must. She always has.

"I will be happy to oblige your request, Your Majesty, once we have spoken," he says, one hand on his Dragonstomper. He doesn't want to shoot her, that is the very last thing that he wants in fact. But if that lightning in her hand strikes toward him, he can't just stand around. Besides, he won't need to kill her, just clip her knee or an arm, just something small to slow her down.

The cold, frightening rage on her face only intensifies. She gestures toward her door with a crackling hand. "Now."

"No."

Reaver waits for her to sling a spell at him. For the blistering heat that charges in her palm to whip in his direction. Sparrow might not be a true sorceress but she is not unskilled with her magic.

She surprises him. Lightning is thrown not at him but behind him. It still close enough that instinct sends him leaping to the side. The same side that Sparrow is flinging her map table at. He dodges—what kind of incarnation of speed and skill would he be if he didn't?—and finds another surprise once he has regained his bearing: she is bolting from the room.

Something seizes up in his chest as she runs from him, dark hair flying behind her. When has she run from him? Not since…

"What did you do?!" Oriole demands amidst the unearthly cries rising up from the town. Grabbing fistfuls of Robin's shirt she yanks him down to her level. Her eyes blaze with terror, hurt, and anger. She has never looked at him like this before. She shakes him. "Dammit, Rob, what did you do?"

His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth, sandpaper upon cotton. He cannot tell her, cannot say the words, cannot admit out loud the sin of betrayal he has committed this night.

All that comes out is a pathetic, tremulous, "I'm sorry."

Those two dismal words are far worse than any confession or lie that he could have laid before her. His apology only contorts her features all the more. Worst of all they bring tears to her eyes as realization sets in. She knows what he has done. Perhaps not the shape but enough to see that the bloody outcome.

It breaks him and he reaches for her. "Love—"

She shoves him back. "Don't touch me!" Oriole screams. "Monster! Vain, selfish vulture!"

He would have preferred her to strike him. He would have preferred death. Anything but what he sees in her eyes—a reflection of himself that is so grotesque so evil so…unwanted. Robin has only ever truly liked himself in Oriole's eyes and he has now shattered them.

He sinks to his knees as she turns, hefting her axe and sprinting toward the village. Her black hair flies behind her and all Robin can think is that the Shadows cannot keep their bargain now. Disease and old age cannot come to a man who is already dead.

Reaver follows at once. This will not be like the last time. She will not leave him again.

Through the study down into the treasury room Sparrow goes, and while her speed is no match for Reaver's, her head start makes a difference. The great, ungodly heavy doors to the treasury slam shut in his face and he hears a bar slide into place behind them.

She has to make this difficult. Of course she does.

Reaver doesn't waste time with pleading or begging—not that he ever would intend to. There are a thousand hidden passages in this bloody castle and he is going to see her even if he has to raze through each and every one. Which, if he does not hurry he will have to do. Hence, he presses the barrel of his Dragonstomper to the center of the doors.

He is desperate, rending the wood to splinters with a few blasts and then kicking the broken remnants wide. Desperation does not serve him well, if it has ever done so for anyone. He's prepared to evade fire, ice, lightning, blades made of light, and possibly corpses. Stupidly, so very, very, very stupidly, he forgot her calling card spell, the only one that he knows full well that she will call on in a dire situation.

Maybe because he never thought for a second that she would consider him a dire situation.

Of course she did, Robin chides, the first time the fool bird has opened his mouth since Sparrow uttered his name in the tower. She always knew what you were. You just never pushed her into holding it against you before.

The thought sends another pang of something not-right cleaving through Reaver's innards as Sparrow freezes time.

He realizes, as she approaches, step quick but lacking the key note of panic, that this was a trap. She expected him. Perhaps not tonight but she knew he'd be here sooner or later.

Clever as she is lovely, that's his Sparrow. One of his very favorite things about her too. Or so it usually is. When she jabs a wicked looking syringe into his neck and injects its contents into him, he is far less enamored with that shrewdness.

She stops time again and again, just shy of him regaining true momentum, and Reaver is only helpless to watch as she takes his weapons and binds his hands and feet.

"Sparrow," he tries again once she allows time to resume. His vision is blurring at once and his knees are rubber.

"Shh," she waves him off, looking just a bit smug beneath her tightly controlled fury. Her arms are crossed, his Dragonstomper still in hand. It looks ungainly dangling from her fingertips; she is a rifle woman, after all. "Don't worry, darling, it's not poison. Just enjoy your nap."

He would compliment her craftiness but alas, his tongue no longer works. Or his rubber knees. He hits the floor as the world spins and turns dark, Sparrow looming just out of reach.

#

He is naked and tied to a tree with a head that feels as if it has been stuffed with cotton and bees when he comes to. For a moment, Reaver believes that it is still nighttime, what with the area being so very gray and full of shadows. Then the cold and the damp of the air register and upon looking upward, he finds an iron melded sky glutted with doleful clouds.

He knows that he isn't alone, he can feel Sparrow nearby. With a little effort he turns his still pounding head. It is an action that that he comes to regret at once.

Robin kneels in the bloodied dirt, cradling Oriole's body until it is as cold as the shadowy silence around them. She is beautiful in death, just as she was in life, even with the hole in her chest and the blood dried to her chin.

He can't move his hands from the death wound. They had always said that they had taken one another's hearts, and Robin had sincerely believed at least in part, that the organ in her chest was his.

And now it's been cut out and rent to pieces while hers has grown cold inside of you, a terrible, cruel voice coos at the back of his head. How very tragically romantic. And useless.

"Shut up," he whispers to the nothingness creeping over him, seeping into his bones. Robin would weep but all of his tears have been spent. Besides he doesn't deserve the relief of crying.

The voice is right though. It is useless. He is useless. He is dead, his body just hasn't realized it yet.

Come now, the voice returns. Don't be that way. We're free now. We have that.

Robin would argue that he doesn't want freedom or agelessness or physical immunity. But Robin is weak; he has always been weak, and that's all that it takes for him to be squirreled away while Reaver steps forward.

Reaver stands, still carrying Oriole's lifeless figure. He could leave her here, like the rest of Oakvale, food for carrion, but that won't do. She was his, after all, and Reaver takes proper care of his belongings.

He carries her the mile or so to the Clearing. The Nest awaits, freshly painted, its new windows open, to let in a breeze, as if this one spot overlooking such desecration could never be touched. Well, it won't be.

He lays her out on the parlor settee; against the wine-red cushions she looks more perfect than ever. Reaver smooths back her hair and kisses her forehead before going about his work. Sawing open a hole into the parlor floor so that the cellar is opened, he then hacks through the stone foundation that Oriole, her father, and various siblings had worked so hard to lay. He digs deep, until he has cobbled a hole that's as tall as himself.

Going upstairs, Reaver begins the tedious process of taking the bed apart then transporting it all down to the hole. Reassembling it is even more tedious but he doesn't rush himself. It isn't like his running out of time now after all. He arranges everything as it was meant to be on Robin and Oriole's wedding night just a month ahead. The embroidered eastern silk sheets bring a smile to his face as he neatly arranges them over the feather tick; Oriole and Robin would have worn these to rags on the very first time.

Climbing back out of the hole he fills the large copper tub that's in the little room attached to the bedchamber. Someone, probably Dahlia, had already arranged quite a cache of soaps and oils along the walls there. Honeysuckle and violets had always been Oriole's favorite, so those are what he uses after stripping away her gore-caked clothes.

He takes more time cleaning her corpse than he did with the bed, emptying and then refilling the tub twice, until there isn't a bit of pink in the water. He pats her dry just as thoroughly.

Her wedding dress, arranged neatly in cupboard all its own, still has pins in it from the last fitting. He removes them; Oriole would rather have an incomplete dress than those sharp little points upon her skin. Wadding bandages into the hole in her chest, Reaver is grateful for the first and only time for the voluminous cowl-neck of the gown that her mother had raved about. Around Oriole's neck go the string of pearls that Robin brought back on his first solo voyage to Bowerstone along with the earrings that had returned with him on his fourth.

Death and the draining of her blood make her pale and she is paler still in all of that white; it doesn't feel right. Oriole was always dark and nutty standing next to him, now her tawny skin has the pallor of wax. There's nothing to be done about it, though Reaver does paint her face as she would have before attending a party. It helps a bit.

He draws a bath for himself once she has been taken care of. Reaver scrubs all of the dirt, blood, shame, and regret that is left of Robin right off of his skin and then puts on his predecessor's best clothes.

Once he has gathered what few things that he will be taking from the remains of Robin's sad, pitiable life, (mostly gold, weapons, and ammunition) he lays Oriole down on the bed, in the hole. The ring she would have worn as Robin's wife is slipped onto her finger and he curls the one she would have given to him into her palm. He lays the cards the old woman gave him at the crossroads with her as well.

The little fool never deserved anything so perfect, he thinks as he kisses her icy lips for the last time.

No. No we didn't, Robin agrees.

Powder kegs were already stored in the cellar; Reaver arranges them just so before knocking over nearly every oil lamp in the Nest and then shooting the last from outside. The Nest burns, then booms, and then crumbles in, creating a proper tomb. Reaver watches it all from beneath the great magnolia tree where Oriole and Robin had carved their names decades ago. He runs his fingers over the scars in the wood as he watches the Nest smolder into cold coals.

Oriole and Robin. Birds of a Feather. Now and Forever.

There are a few stones, a rudimentary indication that there was once foundation for a home on this cliff-side clearing. Sparrow kneels over it now, almost quite literally walking over her own grave.

"She loved him," she says without looking up. Her fingers keep carding through the grass, picking up pebbles and flicking them from hand to hand. "Even in the end, even when he had destroyed everything that she held dear—even when he destroyed her—she never stopped loving him."

For once, Reaver has no witty remark at hand. For once, all his tongue wants to tell is the truth.

His throat feels like sandpaper when he speaks. "She was a fool then. He was never worthy of her."

Sparrow shakes her head, still focused on something in the grass. "He was what she wanted. The only thing that she wanted. All her life." She glances at him finally, just a side-long, pointed peek. "And he was worthy; but what hope does a puppet have when their strings are in the hands of something so vicious as a prophet?"

A fair point. Perhaps.

"Is this forgiveness then?" he asks.

Sparrow shakes her head. "I'm not her any more than you're still him. Forgiveness for what he did isn't in my power to give any more than it's in your power to accept."

Again, fair point.

"So then, what is this?" he asks, testing the bonds. The ropes are enchanted, he can feel it. There is no way that he would be able to cut through them, even if she had left a knife on his person. "Revenge?"

He says it and is surprised to find that he isn't afraid. It isn't because she couldn't kill him—Sparrow could have ended him a thousand times over. She could do it right now if their positions were reversed because she doesn't need her hands, just a twitch and she can light a blaze, unleash a storm, or freeze time. She has always been his most deadly opponent.

Fear refrains from gnawing at his bones because Reaver knows that while Sparrow could kill him she will not. Not for kindness or love but because of the thing he so admires about her and loathes in the same breath. Killing would be easy and she is smart enough to see that.

Sparrow shakes her head, standing and wiping her hands on the material of her breeches. He notices that she is dressed like she used to in the old days, comfortable leathers and padding. The arms of an adventurer without the responsibility of a crown, of a young woman free to roam the countryside with her mutt.

"This is a warning," she says, and though there is no lightning arcing about her, Reaver knows that she means it.

The wind picks up and her long, dark hair is lifted in the breeze. It halos her head as if she were underwater. For just a moment, as she stands in the rubble of their old lives, ebony hair billowing against the hopeless Wraithmarsh sky, Sparrow and Oriole are both there and that is terrifying.

"You will not seek contact with me, my children, or my court ever again," she tells him. There is steel in her words, unyielding, unbreakable, and uncompromising. If they were a spell, Reaver would be ribbons. "Do what you will in your own affairs so long as you keep anything that might warrant the Crown's intervention well hidden. We will not speak again."

It isn't an unfair bargain, in fact it's one that he himself knows should have been in place decades ago. But the reality…does not sit with him well now. Tiny claws furrow the spaces between his ribs, as if trying to dig a hole from the inside out.

They are his. Sparrow, the boy, and the girl. His and his alone. Love might not be something that he can give them or feel for them, but that does not diminish the fact that Reaver knows they are his. And he is not the sort of man who is so weak that he will relinquish his possessions without a fight.

"And if I do not follow Your Majesty's royal edict?" he asks.

Sparrow does not waiver. "Then I will bind and gag you and lay you out before the Shadow Court." She steps closer to him, and he can feel the power inside of her, the potency of her Will, boiling beneath her skin, barely contained by her flesh as it slowly breaks out into swirling blue lines. Like a volcano in the Southern Isles, she could erupt at any moment and destroy the both of them.

Pausing before him, so that there is less than a hand's breadth between them, Sparrow doesn't so much as blink as she continues. "I will wait in that tomb with you for however long it takes, until they know that there is no sacrifice to uphold the bargain."

"And then?" he asks.

"And then I leave whatever is left of you in the darkness where you belong," she says.

Tears run down her cheeks. Like Oriole so many, many years ago, she stands there with her broken heart illuminated in her eyes. Just like Oriole again, she will not be swayed from this course which is yet another mirror upon the paths of their former lives. And as Robin was powerless against temptation (or was it destiny?) so Reaver is powerless against the repercussions of it now.

This is the end. A nearly three-hundred-year-old torch is being snuffed out.

Reaver is surprised when she leans into his restrained form, sobbing a little into his shoulder. His arms itch to pull around her. He settles for ducking his head down to bury in her hair, breathing in her scent. As if he would be able to forget it.

"Do you know the most pathetic thing?" she asks. She doesn't want him to answer so he doesn't. "If it were just me, I wouldn't care."

He stiffens. "You think I would harm them?"

To a child, a random, wailing, waddling creature on the streets, Reaver poses an exceptional danger. Not a second thought would be given to shooting one of those things if it were in his way. He hasn't any issue admitting to that either. But Logan and Rosie? No. Never. He would not see them damaged for any price.

Is that really true? Robin whispers. If the Shadow Court offered enough, offered an eternity free worrying from more sacrifices, just for the blood of your offspring, would you be able to tell them no?

"Yes" doesn't come to mind fast enough. Instead his stomach twists itself tighter than the ropes securing him to the magnolia tree.

She continues on as if she doesn't feel the conflict within his head, remaining steadfastly pressed to him through the barrier of rope. "Robin didn't mean to sacrifice Oriole and their future," she points out, almost calmly. "Yet he did." Sparrow looks up at last, cupping his jaw as she does. He almost can't bear to meet her gaze, so earnestly heartbroken and alone. "I will not risk my son or my daughter to muddied intentions. I've enough to do foiling whatever plot Theresa has designed on them."

He wants to offer his assistance. The Blind Witch used Robin—used him and Reaver cannot let this slight pass. He especially refuses to let her play puppet master with either Rosie or Logan. They at least, will be free of this vicious circle.

Before he can so much as attempt to convey these intentions to Sparrow however, she is kissing him.

Upwards she leans, on the tips of her toes, until their lips brush. Reaver angles his head as best he can, pressing back ferociously. Their last kiss. Salty and sweet and hopeless, the perfect encapsulation of an ill-fated romance spanning two lifetimes.

Sparrow retreats slowly, her whole form trembling with each rapid breath she takes in. Reaver licks his lips, savoring that last taste of her while denying the nigh overwhelming impulse to try and catch another kiss. That would not do either of them any good.

As if she could sense that impulse—which, given how well Sparrow does know him, she rubs her thumb across the apple of his cheek, a thin smile of gratitude flashing through.

"Your things are over there," she nods towards a chest that's been set alongside the tree. "Plus a few silver nitrate torches to get you to Bloodstone." She steps back a pace or two, just out of reach of his arms should they become free. Which, of course, is the next action. Fire dances on her fingertips then whips out, slicing through his bindings. He lurches forward and she disappears.

Standing in the ruins of two lives—or is it four? Just three maybe—Reaver contemplates what he should do next. After a time, he decides that putting on pants is a good enough start.

Then he is going to find a way to knock down a tower and burn a witch.