Watcher from the Shadows

Summary: The young princess Alexia of Albion is the daughter of Queen Sparrow and the famous (or infamous depending on who you're talking too) Reaver. These are his thoughts as he watches his child grow up and fulfill her destiny from afar.

Pairings: good Sparrow/Reaver, Princess/Elliot

Rating: M for Reaver's dirty brain

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Prologue

Queen Sparrow of Albion sat alone on her throne, the court session was over everyone else had left and yet the queen remained sitting alone, lost in thought. Suddenly there was a white flash and then the queen was no longer alone, a blind seeress was now standing in the room with her. "Theresa" the queen growled as she narrowed her eyes in anger.

"Come now, Sparrow" Theresa reprimanded her

"Is that any way to greet the woman who saved your life and raised you as her own?" the queen's glare intensified, Theresa sighed

"I see you anger remains as strong as ever, I suppose I should have expected such. The reason I came here is to warn you-"

"Let me guess" the queen interjected "you and your selfish manipulations have created some big new evil threat that will destroy Albion unless I get out there and stop it right?"

"No, this threat was none of my doing; it is an evil that was ancient before even I was born. It is gathering its forces to attack Albion but it will not strike until well after you have died. Your child is the only one who will be able to defeat it."

"You're crazy, I love my son dearly but he is no hero, and I'm sure you know that as well as I do." The queen countered

"Indeed Logan is not a hero, therefore the only hope for Albion is for you to have a child with Reaver." Theresa said

"no way, that will NEVER happen." The queen refused, she despised Reaver; she was not about to let him anywhere near her body.

"There is no other choice, the hero blood has become so diluted over the years, that the only way a child can be a hero is if both of its' parents bare the blood of heroes, which your husband does not." Theresa explained

"then bring Garth back from Samarkand. I'd sooner sleep with a troll than Reaver." The queen ordered

"I could, but I'm afraid it would do no good, Garth's numerous experiments with will powers have rendered him infertile, so he could never give you a child. There are not very many men out there with the blood of heroes flowing through them, are you really willing to doom Albion and the rest of the world to eternal darkness, because of some grudge against Reaver?" Theresa responded and then disappeared as mysteriously as she'd come. The queen fumed, Theresa knew her too well, knew that Sparrow would do whatever she had to in order to protect Albion. She desperately wanted to believe the seeress was lying but her instincts told her otherwise, besides she was not willing to risk Albion's future on a gamble.

The next week

It was the end of another boring court session people were beginning to leave when the queen said to Reaver. "Reaver, I'd like to speak with you in private, if you have a moment."

"Of course, your lovely majesty, I, the dashingly handsome, Reaver am always at your service." The queen glared at him but motioned for him to follow her. She led him through the lavishly decorated halls to a section of the castle he hadn't been to in a very long time; so long in fact he didn't recognize it at all. She also seemed to be taking great pains to make sure they weren't seen by anyone. When they reached their destination Reaver thought he knew what she wanted but he'd learned before that Queen Sparrow was a hard woman to predict, so he decided to keep his suspicions to himself for the moment.

Once there inside the apparently unused bed chamber, the queen spoke "all right, Reaver, I'll cut straight to the chase, I need you to give me a child." His suspicions confirmed Reaver smiled, he'd known this day would come eventually, no one man or woman could resist his charms after all, although she'd resisted far longer than most, but that had only made the chase all the more fun. He was a true rake, one who enjoyed the chase much as he did the capture.

"Well, that's a novel way to put it, I must say, but my dear I always knew you'd come around eventually." Although he didn't like the queen that much as a person, she was the queen and having connections to royalty was always useful so he'd worked hard to improve their relationship. Besides she was rather attractive despite her advanced age plus it was one of his activities there was no way he'd say no.

"Get over yourself, Reaver" Sparrow snapped at him "I'm not doing this because of your non-existent charms, I'm doing it because I had a visit from Theresa." She practically growled the name; he knew full well how intense her dislike of the blind seeress was, because he had been forced to listen to her rant about how the seeress had manipulated the whole mess with Lucien, even her sister's death. The intense dislike of the blind woman was something he and her shared, in fact it was one of the few things they agreed on. "She said that if I don't have a hero child to face this coming threat all of Albion and the rest of the world will fall into permanent darkness." Okay, did she think he was stupid or something; there was no way he was going to believe such a ridiculous story. He said

"you really don't need to tell such stories my little minx; I'm always discrete about my conquests, you don't need to make up some vision to make sure Adrian doesn't find out about our little escapade." Sparrow's eyes narrowed in anger

"I don't lie Reaver as you ought to know by now, besides Adrian already knows, in fact he's the one who convinced me to seek you out."

"Really? What kind of husband tells his beloved wife to go sleep with another man; I don't think he deserves you." He said.

The queen now looked angrier than he could ever recall seeing her since the death of Lucien; Oops, might have pushed her a bit too far there, he thought, he had a tendency to do that sometimes. She slapped him as hard she could, hard enough to send him to the floor in fact. "Don't you DARE talk about him like that; he's a million times the man you'll ever be." She shouted. Quickly Reaver tried to think of a way to defuse the situation.

"If you say so, my dear" he replied let her take that however she wants. She relaxed a bit as some of her anger faded.

"You realize that once the child is born, you will have to stay away, the people will never accept the child if they know you're its' father, you're aware of that right?" she asked coldly, her anger was always cold like a glacier. He considered briefly and found that it didn't bother him, the act of siring the child would be no burden, sex had always been something he enjoyed very much and he didn't like children, snot-nosed little brats the lot of them. It was why he usually took great pains to make sure he never sired one, his bedroom was full of condoms all over the place so one was always handy whenever the mood took him.

"That's fine; I don't like children much anyway." He replied simply as he began disrobing.

"Somehow that doesn't surprise me" she responded sarcastically and she too began removing her clothes. That night they laid together, the hero of skill and the balanced fourth hero and a new hope began for Albion.