"Well, why did I leave in the first place...?"

She rolls the question in her mouth. Not uncertainly, not like she's considering it for the first time. This is a question that has driven her, animated her, pulled her across the world. It dragged her from the mist and green and took her to where the sun reigns and the rivers bow and the glass shimmers in all the colours of the rainbow. Her hesitance is not because she hasn't answered it, but because she's never had to convey an answer to anyone other than herself.

"Why does anyone go to fairyland?" she murmurs as she looks out across the barrows.

"You go because you're bored. You go because you're impatient. You go because stories get their hooks in you. But most of all, you go because a pretty dragon with ruby scales grins and promises you wonders. You don't go because you've thought about it. You go because your cheeks are burning and your heart is pounding and you can hear music in the distance. There's no reason, there's just [i]want[/i] and those too brave to not want dangerous things."

She let her gaze rise above the tombs of ancient kings to watch the golden moon, swathed in her cloudy gown and shining as brightly as a borrowed sun.

"But the thing about fairyland is that for all the wonders, there must be blood," she said. "You leave a little of yourself behind with each step you take. You leave safety behind. You leave happiness behind. You leave childhood behind. You leave innocence behind. You leave ideals behind..." her hand brushed the hilt of her axe gently. "I have done many things unbecoming of a knight. I have seen... others... do worse. And with blood, this axe went from being a tool for providing light and warmth to an instrument of death. I was on a path where I might have been convinced to do the same. And that's a different matter when your cheeks aren't burning and your heart isn't pounding and you've had your fill of music. So you turn back."

She stopped in uncanny time with Apricot, and turned to look up at Constance. Her smile, though shadowed in pain and weariness, was illuminated by eyes bright with moonlight.

"But the strangest thing of all is that you start to find some of those things that you left behind as you return. You remember what it is to fight for something greater. You remember what it was like to eat a meal without fearing a dagger or poison. You see again a friend from childhood days and it's like a piece of your lost soul slots back into place. Patchwork changeling though you may be, you know that no faerie promise or dragon smile will ever part you from your home again."