Beneath a lonely tree copse on the vast plane, the queen stood solemnly. Nestled between her hooves was a basket, several purple or orange feathers lining the bottom that were slightly damp with rain that had ricocheted off the grass just beyond her shelter. Mecha scorpion clicked and whirred between her ears, seemingly upset with the wind that was jostling her mane about. The machine was having difficulty finding a steady place to maintain its position and, though it was only a robot without feeling, Kahlua had anthropomorphized the thing and justified its actions as annoyance at the wind.

For her own part, she did not mind the chaos of the brewing weather. It felt fitting for her wild heart and the struggles she was attempting to sort through. Love for Kaj... but would love ever be more than just a chain? Love for this egg... but could she ever welcome another into her life so completely? She had no secrets from the world, if only one would ask for her opinion, and yet she was determined to be frightened of something that was supposed to be so freeing and beautiful. So here she stood in the wild winds as rains began to pour, the clouds threatening more violence to come, trying to find answers to questions that would change her mind. But did she really want to change?

A lightning crack made the queen jump, blue eyes looking nervously outwards. She had gotten stuck here beneath the tree's boughs. She did not wish to venture into the maelstrom for fear of her basket catching the wind and blowing clean away but it did not feel safe here beneath the bending branches and trembling leaves. Was there evil in this tree? No, there was no evil in nature. Only the evil that horses put there to ruin the sanctity of what had been created by the gods of the earth. If there was something to fear in this tree, it was only her own heart.

Looking up from the silver egg that shimmered so frightfully beneath her, the queen spied between the trunks of several trees and found a familiar beast daring to try and tame the storm. His golden frame was illuminated by the snap of another lightning bolt and she felt a lightness of sorts in her heart. Still, there was no smile on her face as she looked out to him. Troubles plagued her, more troubles than she had known when he had first approached her, but it was funny how serendipitous life was sometimes.

“Strange, how I didn't know you were the one I needed until you appeared,” she cooed before picking up her basket and moving around several trunks to be on the same side of the clearing as him. Gently, she replaced it on the ground, looking longingly down to its contents. For most that look would have been desire for the hatch of the creature yet growing in it's calcium coating. For Kahlua, it was only a desire to hear the tune that the little music box played when its button was pressed. Unfortunately, the gale that surrounded them would have quickly drowned out the song. It didn't really matter, she knew the sounds by heart already, but to hear them aloud sometimes gave her comfort.

When she looked upon him, she hardly noticed the pained look that might have rested on his own face, so lost in her own sorrows as she was. Without asking, for she trusted this beast immensely already, she dove into her story, or at least a portion of it, her voice just loud enough to be heard over the storm but lackluster in all other qualities. “My past has taught me that love, real love, is nothing but chains and cages.” Not the love between families... that sort of love came with its own set of rules and hardships. The love between two that might cuddle together in the night, hunker down in this storm, press together- love between two whose hearts beat as one.

Sighing, shaking her head, she shifted the direction of her story just slightly, blue eyes looking towards him with pained curiosity, hoping to see understanding there on his face, not the pained look of horror that had found its way onto Kaj's. “Do you know what I desire more than anything? More than friends or family or magic or fame or power... more than life?” She cocked her head, never considering that these deep philosophical musings might be beyond what he wanted to hear or discuss in the moment. “Freedom,” she sighed softly, looking away from him to the darkened sky.

“If you chain me, you may as well kill me... my crown nearly has.” There- she had admitted it. To a living soul, she had said that the queendom was not all she had expected it to be. She had grown stronger and better for her commitment to the herd, to her Moon Goddess, but that did not mean she was always happy. She was willing to suffer for the betterment of the herd, because that was what had been asked of her... Oh, see what love had done to the fool of a queen? “Can I love him and still love myself?” she finished, lowering her nose to press against her basket as the scorpion whirred its distaste for some matter or another. Could she? Or would love always mean chains, and would chains always mean death? She hoped he had some council for her, for certainly she had none for herself. Did it matter if the golden thought she meant the egg or some living soul? She doubted it would change his answer.

If she had known what disdain the golden felt for her, for her simple mind and child-bright views on the world, she might have not have trusted him with all of the terrible secrets that rode in her heart. She might have run away from this copse of trees, into the deluge around them, to shed her sorrows with tears that would be camouflaged as rain instead of words that left her soul as open and vulnerable as they could be to this monster wearing his golden mask. Perhaps someday someone might reveal his atrocities to her and she would cry for a lost friend, but his mask was perfect to her, unmarred, unstained, uncracked… She would find no chink in his armor because, as he had so kindly pointed out, she couldn’t see it at all.

Indeed, she spoke of which she knew not. She wanted freedom… she said it allowed and she could feel it in her heart, but how many times had she called wanderers lonely? How many times had she invited them into her home so that they might garner company and friends? And hadn’t she hated that year she spent alone, wandering the woodlands by day and shivering in the dark by night? Did she really know what freedom meant, or did she only love the idea of freedom? Perhaps, it was simply that the queen wanted to eat her cake and have it too.

No one should ever hand a child a crown- they’ll only break it.

But it seemed she had broken the golden too, who sighed and looked away from her. She frowned, suddenly remember that lady Illynx had had been cruel enough to destroy the golden’s love, whomever she might have been, and here she had come traipsing up to him in this storm and likely brought back every bad memory of the moment, of the history, that he had shared with her. She sighed herself, at her inadequacies. She had not meant to be cruel, had not meant to pain him, but she clearly had and she lamented her inability to even seek council without causing pain. She had broken Kaj’s heart, now Thranduil’s… whose next?

Love, he whispered, and she looked up from the ground she had been staring at. Putting someone’s needs before hers, trusting they will do the same? Her mouth twisted and pursed, her eyes closing. She loved her herd, had proven it by fighting Aurelia, killing the damned snake, putting their needs before her own, but loving the herd was… abstract to the queen, a duty that had been assigned to her that she had taken upon herself. It was forced love- a love she had not been given a choice in when the Lady Moon had descended from her midnight throne in the sky. But this love for Kaj, this love she thought she felt and that she wanted to be able to give him… This was a voluntary love, one she had found in her own heart first- but the golden made her question even her own heart.

Was it really love she felt? Would she really put her own thoughts and feelings before Kaj’s without hesitating to do so? She knew Kaj would, had even, but herself? She was a selfish coward. Was it the selfish coward’s rite, then, to never be able to love, by the definition the golden had given? Her eyes returned to the ground as she tried to work this all out. His next words didn’t help much, giving her no peace in the matter. She did not find this love to be freeing at all. She found it to be the very death of her. Perhaps she had been wrong, then, to say she loved him at all.

She turned, pressing her head firmly against the nearest tree, feeling the bark as it scraped against her flesh, fighting back tears that she knew would come anyways. She wished the pounding rain would disappear, the lightning, the wind, the howling. Strange, then, that as she wished it, it seemed to happen- she could almost feel a sort of magic flowing through her, making it happen. Cautiously withdrawing her head from the trees, Kahlua turned to find that the rain pounding down was building up a wall around the copse of trees, hardening with glass-like clarity, protecting and isolating herself and the golden, an exit from the walls found beyond the trees on the side she had come from.

And, when the structure was done being built, the queen felt exhausted but also whole again. She could craft?! She knew not where the magic had come from, but found it to be a ray of hope when all had seemed lost before. And even the torrential downpour seemed farther away now, as the beads of water beat against the glass instead of herself and the wind blew around her, but not through her anymore. But the questions she needed answers still haunted her, still demanded to be heard. At least now she could speak without falling to tears, as she had threatened to a moment ago. “Can love ever be anything different?”

Her question had no answer except the pounding of the rain against the glass walls. Even Thranduil, who spun yarns of golden silk from piles of murky nothingness could not find an answer to her query. Or, more likely, there was no answer other than the one he had given. She supposed, what it really came down to in the end, was that love was not for the selfish. No matter how she might try to convince herself otherwise, no matter what others might see in her, there was no denying it- her heart and soul were selfish. She cared about herself more than others and given the chance, she would save her skin first.

Oh, sure, there were moments were she would do anything for her herd, but how real were those moments? Had she really been fighting for the herd when she fought Aurelia or Farenjar? Had she really sought out magic from the gods for her family or for her own selfish gain? Had she, had she, had she… So many questions. They just added to the list without answer that she either refused to want or try to solve. They were mysteries left covered by a sheet, left dusty in the corner. And while her niceties and games were no act, it had always been to her benefit that they covered up the worse parts of her personality.

So instead of being upset that there was no answer from him, no reconcile for her broken heart, she smiled at his words and half-closed her eyes in memories. “A massive owl found me at the cliff ledge of my home. He gave me the feathers the egg sits on, and the egg itself.” Then, opening her eyes wider, she even managed to chuckle. “It was quite a sight to see him fly.” Where he had come from and where he had gone to since were yet mysteries to her, for she had never seen him in the Edge before, but he seemed to have some knowledge of her and her home.

“He gave it to me to watch over and care for, so that when it hatches I’ll have a companion… I’m afraid.” The admission was nothing new, the queen was frightened of many things, although this fear was much more abstract than she was used to. “I’m afraid I won’t know how to love him.” That’s what she had told the owl, after all. How would she know? He had seemed to place a lot of faith in her, but now the painted queen was not so sure. At any rate, there were other mysteries to solve.

“Why were you trying to drown yourself in the rain?” she offered with a laugh, trying to lighten the mood as the water continued to beat against the temporary enclosure she had erected. Even now, the queen still found herself looking at it, wondering where this wonderful gift had come from.

What secrets the golden held within himself- about love, desires to crush her egg, and otherwise- were hidden to the queen, her blue eyes only seeing the lonely and wandering friend that she knew to exist. Lonely and wandering and wet, at this point. Would there ever come a time when she learned of the evils that permeated his heart, the twisted and secretive nature that ruled his life? Would she never know that this golden knight was nothing more than gold-plated, a shiny covering for a less desirable center? It was doubtful, for the queen saw only pure light emanating from his heart, casting warmth even where the sun did not shine.

As for his words, the queen could not say she always understood them. He spoke of mysteries that she couldn’t always comprehend, of thought and rational worry that she could not always manage, but she smiled and nodded anyways, playing along with his lecture and ensuring him that he was a good teacher. She would not want to hurt his feelings or alienating him just because she was a fool. After all, she wanted friends and she wanted to be liked. She wanted to be happy and she wanted to be helpful. She could have none of those things if he escaped from her stupidity before she could really ingrain herself in his life. That, or if he escaped before she could bring him back to the Edge. Some day she would- he was sure to be happier there than in the wilds- but she would not press the issue for now.

As for love and letting it pull her… she found that to be the most honest and helpful advice she had thus far received from anyone she had asked. Letting life pull her in its stream was something she understood, something she could think about and imagine she would enjoy. Much of her life before the queendom had been comprised of letting life pull her this way and that. In some ways life still did, although the turns she took were not nearly as random as they had been. Bobbing her head, she was about to respond when something very odd began to take place.

Startling backwards, the queen raised her head in surprise as her companion began to flutter this way and that in the glass enclosure, as though he was seeking escape from the dry location and release into the maelstrom outside. For a moment she just took deep breaths, trying to maintain calmness while the golden seemed to panic, but in the end she didn’t know what to do. Tossing her nose towards the opening she had left on the other wise, she suggested meekly to him, “You can go if you need to?” And indeed, the statement was more of a question than anything else. Stepping forward to stand over her basket, to protect it from the golden’s wild tirade through the glass hut, she waited to see what would happen. “Did I say something?”