Unconditional Surrender

Author: Lomelindi

Rating: R

Chapter 3: Metamorphosis

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In the months following Nuada's departure, the king worried about his daughter. She barely spoke, barely smiled, barely looked... alive. Her pale complexion had lost what little color it had and she always seemed distracted and distant, as if she was constantly reaching out through her mental bond for a twin that she could no longer sense.

"'Tis so sad," her handmaidens whispered amongst each other, "How is one to behave when they have lost their other half?"

The king heard this and felt his own heart stir with pity. Nuala had never asked him for affection, nor chased him for it. Her twin had always been the more aggressive of the pair and Balor had spent most of the time focused on him, attempting to control a prince that was as crafty as he was dangerous. The princess, for the most part, spent her times in the shadows as a nice intermediate between her father and her brother, reaching out to both with so much unconditional love that Balor wondered if she ever took the time to take care of herself.

The king had a sister once that died in an unfortunate accident before she was fully-grown. From what little he could remember of her, he thought she had been terribly vain, always playing with her hair and demanding treats from her servants.

Nuala was different. She was as soft and gentle as a spring brook, capable of calming Nuada's temper with a few loving words and equally capable of quelling her father's heavy heart with nothing more than a tender smile. As strange as it was, she seemed happy to let Nuada take the spotlight. The princess had no space for jealousy in her heart and she was happier bathing in his shadow and waiting her turn than she was being his equal.

Now with Nuada's forceful presence gone from the palace, the king realized something startling --I don't really know my daughter.

Naual was always there, of course, and always loyal to any choice he made, but she spent far more time with her twin than she did with her father. It was as if she was some hidden treasure that Nuada hid from him and never let him see.

It is beyond time to change that, the king thought as he approached the doorway of her chambers one afternoon and pushed them open without further ado. Her handmaidens gawked at his appearance (as big and ancient as he was, he could be stealthier than he looked) and quickly fell to the floor in a deep bow.

Balor ignore them and glanced at his daughter. She was sitting out on the balcony in a lovely dress of green and amber, her head bowed to the wind as the autumn breeze danced through her hair. Her eyes were dull and subdued as they peered out into the surrounding forest, not really looking at anything in particular but just... there. She looked as lovely as she was sad and it pained her father's heart to see a lone tear roll down her cheek.

When she sensed a sudden stillness in the air, the princess quickly slid off the balcony railing and bowed. "Father! I... didn't hear you come in," she apologized quickly, making a motion to wipe her face clean of her tears.

Balor moved with creaky limbs, but he eventually lowered his hand to her head and stroked it gently. "Come, child. Let us take a walk. We will not be in this place for much longer and I would prefer to spend some time memorizing every detail."

His warm tone surprised her, but in her anguish, the princess only mustered a tiny smile that didn't reach her eyes. Standing, she kissed his hand. "I would love to, Father."

They wandered to the rose garden outside the west wing of the palace, a place that Nuala knew her mother once loved. She couldn't remember her mother, nor could Nuada. The Queen passed away in labor, but in doing so, she gave Balor the two greatest and most troublesome gifts of all --his twin children. Not for the first time, the elven king wondered if his children, especially his heir apparent, might've turned out differently had they grown up with a mother. Nuada, in particular, would've benefited from a mother's affections.

As for his sister... The king glanced behind him. His daughter's heart was apparently too heavy to be lifted by the sight of pretty flowers and she had spent most of their walk behind his right shoulder, her hands clasped demurely in front of her and her head bowed just enough so that her father couldn't see her eyes over the hair down the side of her face.

Eventually, the king grew weary of the silence and paused. "Does my presence bore you so, child?" he asked, though he knew it was not the case.

She looked up in surprise and Balor could see that her eyes were a dull, exhausted red.

How long has she been crying? Weeks? Months?

"Nay, Father, I do not mind your presence." Her voice was small but sincere, and he believed her.

"Hmm." The king noticed a small, marble bench nearby and sat elegantly, smoothing out his many layers of robes before he patted to the spot next to him with one gnarled hand. "Then tell me, what is troubling you so?"

She hesitated before sitting gingerly next to him. "The... trees are dying, Father. I can sense it."

"As can every elf," her father corrected her gently. "We have felt it for centuries now. You cannot fool me, my daughter, as much as you try."

Nuala bit her lip and looked away.

Can you not survive without your brother by your side, my daughter? Balor thought sadly. Is that any way to live at all? "Is there no room in your heart for one more male?" he asked quietly.

It was dangerous ground to be treading on, since the king was not blind and had seen the moment many centuries ago when the tight connection between his son and daughter blossom into something much more than just familial. Of course, with the war occupying his mind and the steady decline of his kingdom, the king let it go with nothing more than an irritated shake of his head. He would deal with it in time, he told himself. Upsetting Nuada was dangerous, for his son was one of his best generals and he needed the prince in tip-top shape out on the battlefield. And upsetting either of his children was simply not something the king, a father, ever willingly wanted to do.

His daughter looked back at him with a pained expression. "You have always been in my heart, Father," she said with a trembling voice. She seemed hurt that he thought otherwise.

"But your brother owns most of it." The one-armed king put his one working hand over hers. A wave of anguish and grief that was not his own washed over him and made his heart skip feel of it --his daughter felt so much pain, so much grief. Was there nothing he could do to make it better? Was the presence of a father nowhere near as comforting as the presence of a brother? "Nuada has grown on you for far too long, my daughter. You must learn to live without him, as he must learn to live without you."

Nuala pulled her hand back and hugged herself, fresh tears prickling at the edge of her eyes. The mere mentioning of his name made her ache all over, and the painful longing in her heart seemed unbearable. Her twin was gone and, somehow, it felt like he had ripped out a huge part of herself with him. "I do not know how to live without him, Father," she whispered honestly. I don't want to.

"Then you shall learn," the king said firmly. He lifted her chin with two longer fingers and looked at her with ageless eyes that had seen more battles and lived more years than there were stars in the sky. "It will feel like a cripple learning to walk, but as far as I can tell, you have two perfectly good legs and you are more than capable of running."

Though her heart flared with warmth at his verbal support, the princess smiled a little at the sappy attempt. "Father, Brother has better jokes than you do."

Balor threw back his mighty head and laughed, a grand sound that echoed through the flower garden and made his daughter stare with awe. "I bet he does. I'm sure that he has a wicked sense of humor, but he rarely shows it in front of me." His voice trailed off into something quieter and almost... hurt. Though he knew his son loved and respected him, he wished that they spent less of their time arguing and more acting as father and son truly should.

This time, it was Nuala's turn to comfort him. "He thinks he does, Father, but his sarcasm is too complicated for me. I do not understand it."

Balor laughed again, looking at his daughter with renewed respect. Despite her quiet nature, it was clear that the princess had spirit and wasn't afraid to be honest when she wanted to be. Like her mother. He wondered if this was why Nuada, who could probably snap his sister in half like a twig, adored her so much and so often changed his decisions based on what she wanted. Something about Nuala was wise beyond her years, and Balor was glad to know that such strength had endured through the heartbreaking loss of her twin.

His laughter seemed to have confused his daughter, and she looked at him with wide, puzzled eyes.

How little she understands me, the king thought with a silent sigh, We really know nothing about each other. Changing the subject away from the painful topic of Nuada, he looked around at the beautiful roses that surrounded them. "I will miss this place when we are gone," he said finally. "Your mother tended to so many of these roses with her own hands."

Nuala's eyes grew wide. "Truly? Even with the thorns?"

The king looked at her oddly. Elves were creatures of the woods --did she honestly fear the pinprick of a flower? That slight discomfort was probably nothing compared to the pain she felt when her brother was injured in battle and she laid in the palace, bleeding from a wound that no maiden should ever have.

The princess flustered a little. "I never touched the roses," she explained slowly, "Nuada always picked them for me." He didn't want me to get my hands dirty.

How typical of him, the king thought, unsure whether to be touched by his son's gesture or worried that her daughter, an elf, had never once tended to a rose bush with her own hands. "Come then, I will teach you," he said suddenly, standing and stretching out of his stiff limbs.

Nuala rose with him, looking alarmed. "Father, you-- Your robes... But..."

"A king was once a prince, my daughter," Balor said, using his good arm to roll up his sleeves as best he could. "What Nuada can do, I can do as well." It was a silly and rather childish proclamation, but for an instant, he saw a spark of real mirth pass across his daughter's eyes.

She smiled at him. She truly and genuinely smiled.

The king smiled back with no hesitation, but in his mind, he couldn't help but wonder if that was why his son was always so overprotective of his sister. Perhaps Nuada wanted to keep that smile of hers all to himself.

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It was not an easy transition, not by a long shot.

Some days were better than others, and occasionally she felt well enough to smile and laugh as she used to. Most of the time, however, the pain of losing her brother kept her quiet and moody, and her handmaidens often found the princess crying herself to sleep.

The king tried his best to be there for her as often as he could. When she wept, he would hold her hand and tell her what he remembered of the past, of beings that had long gone extinct to stories of a mother she loved but never met. And sometimes, just sometimes, it was enough to make the pain a little more bearable.

As time passed, Nuala kept herself busy as often as she could, for now she had both Nuada's duties as well as her own. She never once complained about the double burden, but the king could see that it was taking its toll. The princess may no longer weep, no longer wither away in the public's eyes, but the chores of a prince were never meant for a gentle-hearted maiden to bear. Nuada may be well respected and even feared amongst the bureaucrats, but his sweet and quiet-voiced sister met quite a lot of opposition when she tried to step up in his place.

Many times, Balor would find his daughter in the library, pouring over books on military tactics and ancient history that he knew she had no interest in learning. He would set his one working hand on her shoulder and feel her tremble with exhaustion underneath his fingers. "I'm not asking you to replace your brother," he told her quietly.

Years ago, she may have held his hand and wept in misery, but now the princess only looked up with tired eyes. "My people need me," she said quietly.

Balor smiled a slow, bittersweet smile. That is something your brother would say. "Then you must try your best, my daughter, but you must find your own way"

In time, he was right. His daughter had spirit.

In her own honest, straightforward way, Nuala began to make a stand for herself in front of her father's council. Little by little, she adopted her brother's tactic, learning to use a well-shot frown or a glacial word or two to get what she wanted. Her will strengthened and her tears tried, and for the first time since their prince vanished from the kingdom, the elves saw their princess put down her foot and step up to take the burden of crown heir upon her slim shoulders.

Balor watched with beaming pride as Nuala won her first debate and came up to him with an uncharacteristically wide smile. "Nuada would be proud," he told her quietly, and for the first time since the departure of he twin, the princess could bear the sound of his name and smile instead of weep.

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Decades passed, then centuries. The elves and other creatures of the earth moved often, fleeing the exponential growth of the humans and their cities. Countless generations had passed since the war with the elves and the humans no longer remembered it nor honored the truce that stopped it. Throughout the years, more than a few creatures would approach the elven king and plead, as Nuada did, to fight back with the gold crown that the king and his beloved daughter held closed to their hearts. Balor, however, was a very old elf and he could remember the ocean of blood that had been caused by the Golden Army as if it happened only a few days ago. He did not fight the invasive human population and instead ordered his people to flee further and further into the darkness of the forests until they became nothing but a legend.

Nuada was never far from Nuala's mind when she watched her people fade with each tree that the humans cut down. She wondered about his life often and could feel his grief and his rage when he sensed another elf fall victim to the greed of Men. He was still too far away for them to converse casually, but when she was alone and in a quiet place, Nuala would reach out with her mind and feel his suffering.

And oh, how he suffered.

He was always somewhere cold and dank, usually in the tunnels that ran under the human cities. He hated it down there, but it was the only place he could find peace and comfort away from the filthy creatures that lived above him. For the most part, his lance was his only friend. The prince practiced it with an obsessive passion, and as his skill grew to legendary proportions, as did his hate.

Balor sometimes asked about his son, when the king and princess enjoyed a quiet moment's rest. "How is he?" he would ask out of the blue, knowing that she instinctively knew which 'he' he was referring to.

The princess would give him a sad smile. "He is healthy," she would reply, and though the answer pleased the king, they both knew that Nuada was far from 'well'.

Alone in the human world, away from elfkind and all things beautiful and green, the prince grew obsessed with studying the humans and finding new ways to abhor them. Nuala could only watch through his eyes as Man moved from an age of stone to an age of strange things like televisions, phones and computers. Their buildings grew larger than the largest tree and towered over their people like some alien temple that Nuada loathed to tear down and destroy. Humans began to separate into visibly different races, then into little things that they called 'countries'. In the eyes of an ageless elf, this was complete idiocy --who needed hundreds of countries with thousands of different languages? Who wanted to fight amongst themselves and squabble like children over petty things like money and wealth? Certainly not us, Nuada thought grimly, and his sister could only sigh at his views.

The prince continued to watch in disgust and disbelief as humans pulled wild beasts from the forests and forcefully tamed them through repeated torture. Wolves that were once proud and free were now little more than whimpering, whining servants to Man. The sight made Nuada's blood boil and he did what he could to stop it, often sneaking into the human town to free their dogs and their sheep and their cattle.

Nuala sensed him doing this often and prayed that he would never be caught, but she allowed herself to rejoice in his victories when she saw packs of dogs and pigs running free. Like they were meant to, Nuada told her, though he was more focused on the humans' confusion and anger over their loss than she was.

With patience that only elves had, the prince waited. And waited. And kept on waiting.

He continued to watch, learn and listen with his sharp elven senses, eventually picking up multiple human languages through sheer observation. Nuala, in turn, learned them from him and giggled at the humans' silly dialects and strange ways of pronunciation. Men once understood Gaelic, the ancient tongue that the elves still spoke, but now they had modern speech that sounded foreign and harsh to the elven ear. Nuada loathed English in particular --it had too many miscellaneous words that made no sense, too many words were taken from other languages and adopted into this one.

Out of all the things that he had learned, however, the prince learned the most about the human weapons.

Nuala remembered the day that her twin discovered guns. And oh, what dreadful, terrible things they were.

Humans had accidentally stumbled upon Nuada's living space underground and the prince had emerged from the shadows to punish them, his wrath swift and deadly in the form of his ever-faithful silver lance. The rifles the Men pointed at him were strange and hollow contraptions, and in his confusion, the prince paused to stare at them.

The hesitation almost cost him his life.

Nuala's scream sent birds flying for safety and had her father and her handmaidens rushing to her side. For an instant, Balor thought his children were dying. Both of them. The princess bled from a massive wound to her abdomen and in her delirious pain, she pleaded with her father to send a scout out to the human world. "Save him, Father," she had cried, caring nothing for her own pain, "Save him, he suffers!"

She saw the humans scream in her mind as her brother reacted with reflexive, blind rage. He cut them down with less than his usual grace, their blood and his own mingling as he staggered against the tunnel wall and clutched his side in a desperate attempt to stem the bleeding.

Alone, dazed and in so much pain that he could barely think straight, Nuada had been frightened for the first time in a millennia. Thousands of miles away, Nuala could sense her brother's bewilderment over this strange new weapon and could feel his agony as he picked the metal ball out of his flesh with nothing but his own hands and small, elvish tweezers.

He drifted in and out of consciousness for a while, too exhausted to pick himself off the floor as he hoped --pleaded-- for his elven body to recover.

Sister... Sister, my love... Nuada had called out to her then, when the loneliness and the pain grew too much for even a prince to bear, I'm sorry...

Tucked into bed as her father and his physicians tried desperately to save both the princess and the prince, Nuala heard his whisper ghost over her mind and stirred in surprise. Her brother apologized to no one and for nothing, and yet there he was, delirious with pain and reaching out to her as if apologizing to her would make her --them-- feel any better.

For what? the princess whispered, unsure if he could hear her. She sent out a wave of love and warmth, or what little she could muster as she struggled with her own agony. What do you apologize for, Brother?

Everything.

To this day, Nuala still didn't know what he had meant. Perhaps he believed that he had killed them both with that incident and had too much on his mind but too little time to speak of any of it before he thought the wound would claim them both.

Nonetheless, it took them both a good two weeks to recover from the wound. By elven terms, that was an abnormally long time, but then again, elves never knew about bullets and guns before that time. It wouldn't take long before the elves and every creature of the forest loathed the thunder sticks with a passion.

Her brother was careful not to be shot again after that. He mastered his speed until he could knock the humans down before they pulled a trigger, but every time Nuala sensed those terrible weapons in her brother's presence, she feared for him with all her heart.

He, in return, only grew more and more angry. So angry that even his sister, who was half way across the world, could feel his rage seep into the core of her very being. It made her feel both sick down to her stomach and saddened her that she could do nothing to soothe his pain. She longed to hold him in her arms, if only briefly, so she could kiss him and make him forget about all the things that he loathed so much. You have been alone for so long, Brother, that you do not remember what it's like not to hate.

He didn't hear her. Even if he did, Nuala knew he would not listen, for her brother had been consumed by his hate a long time ago.

It made Nuala miserable to know that no one was there to hold him back.

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She learned to use the knife as she had promised. Granted, she delayed learning it as much as possible, but she eventually had no choice when the elves ran out of trees to run into and found themselves being pushed into the world of Men. Creatures of the fae world could avoid being seen by mortal eyes if they wanted to be, but there were simply too many dangers in this strange new world for Nuala to walk around empty-handed. There weren't many warriors left amongst her people, but she sometimes watched them fight when she could and eventually learned the basics of dagger work.

She was careful to keep this knowledge out of her father and brother's mind, for she feared that her father would not approve and that her brother would worry immensely that she had reached a point where she felt threatened enough to use the weapon he gave her.

Still, Nuala wondered if Nuada would ever come back for her. Elves may be immortal, but a millennia apart was a strain on anyone, even those that were ancient and ageless.

There are so many things we had not considered, my brother... So many secrets we now have between us. She wondered if her brother knew how close her father and her had become. Would he approve of her growing close to the one parent they had left, or would he hate her for listening to the elf that, in his eyes, was dooming their people to a long and painful death? She could sense his annoyance sometimes that Balor occupied so much of her time --not that he was there to occupy her time, of course, but his loneliness and his possessiveness seemed to only grow with each minute they spent apart.

Of course, Nuada had his fair share of things he didn't tell her about. Nuala occasionally sensed other fae creatures by her brother's side and came to realize that he had companions. Friends, even. While none were elves, some of them were wise beings that were just as ancient as the children of the earth and liked speaking to Nuada because of his silver tongue and his cunning arguments. Others were lower fae creatures like trolls and animals that marveled at the power of the elves and would never once dream of questioning an elf prince.

Nuala was glad that her brother was not alone, but it was a bittersweet feeling, for she never imagined that there would come a point in their lives when their closest companions were not each other. We once said that nothing could come between us, she murmured sadly to the winds, but I don't think we ever considered a situation like this.

For a while, she forced her lonely thoughts out of her mind and contented herself with taking care of her people. The elves were few in number now and had no choice but to live in the darkest, most forgotten remnants of the human world. It was a disgusting way to live, but Nuala quelled her complaints for the sake of her father and tended to her subjects as best she could. They moved from city to city, year after year, never lingering in one place for fear that the humans may one day find them.

Though the circumstances were dire, the princess couldn't help but feel relieved in knowing that every step they took into the human world lead the elves closer and closer to finding her brother. Their lost prince...

Oh, how glorious it will be he finally returned to them! Nuala could see it now --her father's proud smile as he embraced his son, her own tearful eyes as she rushed out to greet him with her best blue dress on and a shower of kisses.

She found herself dreaming of his return so often that she almost --almost-- didn't notice when his presence suddenly sharpened in her mind.

That night, she burst into their adopted throne room in a whirl of excitement. Her eyes were brighter than they had been in years. "Father! Father, he's returning!"

Balor looked up with tired eyes and Nuala instinctively knew that something was wrong. His councilmen hovered around him and were abuzz with whispers, their attention tuned in to the black crows that sat cawing on the king's makeshift thrown.

The princess's heart fell like a stone. The birds must have brought news from outside."What is it? What has happened?"

Her father's voice was deathly quiet. "Your brother has broken the truce."

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Nuala spent that sleepness night pacing within her room. She barely ate, barely drank and barely responded to her frantic handmaidens when they fussed over her and tried to ask what was wrong. "You will see tomorrow," the princess had replied in a tight-lipped way that was unlike her, "We shall all see tomorrow."

In the middle of the night, a letter was passed under a doorway by one of her father's personal guards. Memorize everything this letter says, it said on the top, and burn it after you're done.

The princess's fingers shook as they opened the parchment. Balor's neat script leapt out at her from the page, and she could feel her heart pounding in her ears as she began to read. Every sentence felt like a slap in the face What was this madness that had overcome her brother? What was this madness that her father spoke of?

Nuala closed her eyes and pressed the letter mournfully to her heart. My brother returns, she thought mournfully, and he brings open war with him. Am I to be joyful or fearful of his return? Her father's words were full of love and reassurance, but there was a dark undertone to his letter that made his daughter's insides turn to frigid ice.

Her hand trailed down to the crown piece that she carried in the gold corset around her waist. No, it cannot be... Perhaps her father was merely being cautious, or had grown paranoid in his old age. Nuala yearned to be joyful when her brother returned, but now... Now her father spoke of things like death and forgiveness. Was her brother going to do something terrible? How did her father know such things for certain? How did any of them know anything for certain?

Her knees weak, Nuala sat at her chair with less than her normal grace. She stared at the letter in her hand, unsure whether to believe it but too fearful to deny what it said. Father... You are wise, but you speak out of speculation, not of truth. You mustn't tell me it's true! I do not want to believe it!

"Milady..." One of her handmaidens had knelt by her side and had taken her hand. The princess felt cold to the touch. "You tremble. Are you well?"

Nuala jumped at the touch, then looked down at her handmaiden with unfocused, dilated eyes. "The letter in my hand... Burn it," she whispered, what little color in her face having vanished the ashen whiteness of her skin.

Her handmaidens responded quickly, one of them fanning the small fireplace in the corner while the other pulled the letter out of Nuala's hands and placed it within the flames. The two watched the parchment burn to a crisp before returning to their princess's side. As one, they knelt in front of her, the shorter of the two placing a comforting hand on the royal's hand.

"Milady..." the maiden whispered fearfully, "What is wrong? What did the letter say?"

Nuala suddenly took both their hands with a strength most elves did not know she had. The handmaidens jumped at the touch and looked up at her with wide eyes. "Pack a small bag for me," the princess commanded, with an urgency in her voice that they had never heard before, "Put my best blue dress in it and a cloak big enough to hide my features. Be sure it is ready by tomorrow morning."

The handmaidens were alarmed. "Your highness...?"

Nuala tried to smile, but the gesture came out uncharacteristically cold and distant. "'Tis a precaution, nothing more. But... if something happens tomorrow and I am not here, I want you two to be safe." She emphasized that last word with a squeeze to their hands. "Fall back into the shadows and hide. You will know when it is safe to come out." Or when all that we love is lost. The mere thought made her shiver.

Suddenly, the warmth from the fire couldn't banish the sudden chill in the air.

"But milady... Where will you go?" one of the handmaidens whispered.

Nuala's thin fingers hugged her corset, tracing the edges of the gold crown piece that she had carried so faithfully for centuries. She wasn't her brother. She didn't have some long journey planned out for herself, she didn't have some plan that would span hundreds and thousands of years. She had nothing but the strength of her will and the pounding heart that raged in her ears, and she could only hope that they'd be enough. "I... do not know."

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AN: Oh god, that was long. This chapter was definitely the hardest to write since there is absolutely NOTHING about this span of time from the 'storytelling arc' in Hellboy's childhood to Nuada actually showing up in the movie.

Also, I'm terribly sorry for the lateness of this chapter, school and real life caught up with me. I'm also falling behind on writing this story in general so the next chapter won't be up for a bit, since I have absolutely nothing written after this chapter. Please be patient! (A huge, HUGE hug goes out to all the people that have read and enjoyed the story so far. You guys make my day!)

For the next chapter, Balor's letter will be partially revealed and, of course, we go into what happens in the movie. Bear with me though, I can't remember all the specifics of the movie and since it's not out yet on DVD, I'll have to guess. :p