Lorcan

"For your service." I tossed a gold coin over the seat to the taxi driver, who turned it over several times, before he shrugged and pocketed it. It hadn't taken long for Cat to flag down a car, and we'd made our way to the city, where I used a few of the gold coins in my belt satchel to trade for passage home.

Still, the yellow carriage she'd secured was rather undignified. I made my way around the car, and then opened the door, and held out my hand for Cat. She seemed surprised by this, but recovered quickly and stepped out of the car with all the grace of a princess. Then she stopped, and looked a bit sad for a moment as she stared at the small, two-story house before. "Well, this is my house."

I wondered why she didn't say home.

Darkness was falling over a street of orderly, if somewhat similar, houses. I followed her as she opened the door and gestured me inside. Despite my few quick journeys to the Human Realm over the years— usually to capture a warlock or vampire who'd gone rogue— I'd never actually been inside a house, only hotel rooms. I stared around the house with curiosity. It was much cozier than hotel rooms, with shelves of books, and other knick knacks, and pictures on the wall that held people, unlike the strange pictures in hotels of fruit and shapes. The entryway opened to a staircase on the left, and on the right was a wide area with a television, couches, and behind it a kitchen.

"AH!!! Thank God!!! I will never, ever leave you behind again. Unplug from technology, my ass!" She picked up a satchel from the dining room table, and pulled out a device I knew was called a phone. The light lit her face, and she moved her finger over the screen several times, and then snorted. "Ha, figures. I disappeared for three days, and my mom doesn't even notice."

I stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. I'd been trained for over thousands of different social situations, who to address and how, how to avoid conflict, but none covered being isolated with a young woman in her home without a chaperone. Cat seemed oblivious to my discomfort.

"Oh sorry, would you like something to drink?" she waved a hand to the kitchen. Her eyes were still glued to the phone.

"Water would be excellent." I hesitated as she walked to the kitchen still staring at the phone. She came back with a full glass of water.

I took a long drink, before I cleared my throat, and she finally looked up.

"If I may ask, where is your father?"

She snorted. "Wouldn't know."

"And your mother?"

She rolled her eyes. "Prolly off screwing some dentist."

"Oh." I had no idea what a dentist or screwing was. "That sounds painful."

She laughed, and then pulled me after her to the staircase. "Come on. We've got a lot of work to do if you're going to come to school with me tomorrow. Lucky for you my mom used to work as a secretary there, I'll get some papers made up. I'm thinking a foreign exchange student will work as a nice cover, it'll at least partly explain— " She turned, and circled her finger at me, "—all this."

"I'm not sure what you are talking about," I said stiffly, and held out a hand for her to climb the staircase. She grinned, and I lowered my hand slowly.

"Lesson number one: guys in high school are dicks," Cat intoned.

"Dicks?"

She laughed and shook her head. "This is gonna be a lot of work. Lucky for you, I happen to be an expert at high school. Which means we're gonna pull an all-nighter."

"Shouldn't we be properly rested to maximize our learning?"

"Oh Lorcan," she put both her hands on my shoulders. She was one step higher than me, and when she leaned forward, her lips close to mine, my heart thudded. "Lesson number two of high school: EVERYONE is sleep-deprived. And besides, tomorrow is Sunday. "

"How do you pay attention?"

"Trick question, mostly you don't. Also coffee. But you aren't ready for that quite yet."

I took a step higher, bringing myself one level closer to her, so that we stood eye to eye. "So what exactly am I ready for?"

But she only raised her eyebrows, and took a step higher, her teasing smile firmly in place as she leaned forward and said, "Not this." Then she spun and danced up the stairs out of reach.

"Rule number three of school," she called out after her. "Pizza!"

"Pizza?"

I walked slowly up the stairs, inspecting the pictures of Cat as a young child, with chubby cheeks, then as an awkward adolescent, and finally to the latest pictures of her with her mother, both with dark hair and large eyes. By the time I stepped onto the landing and stood outside her room, she already laid sprawled across the bed.

I hesitated in the doorway. Did young women let men they barely knew into their rooms into the Human Realm? She was holding her phone up to her head, and talking to someone, "Yah, we'll take a large meatlovers, one large pepperoni, cheesy breadsticks, Sprite, and brownies." She winked at me and then beckoned me into the room. I did so slowly and warily, like I was entering the lair of some dangerous creature... which seemed entirely possible..

Cat didn't seem to notice my discomfort, staring down at her phone again, dividing her attention between it and me. It gave me an opportunity to inspect her room. It was full of soft, muted pinks and creams mixed with earthy browns.

"So we will be dining on pizza?" I asked.

Her eyes flicked up to mine. "Here's all you need to know about pizza. Pineapple is NEVER an acceptable topping. EVER. Pepperoni is best, meat lovers acceptable, supreme tolerable if vegetarians present. And don't ever let me hear you say you're a Pizza Hut guy. Domino's or Chicago Connection always. Got it?"

"Of course." I hadn't the faintest idea what she was talking about.

She rolled over on the bed, looking me up and down in a way that made me stand up straighter. "You'll definitely need some new clothes. But I think I have some of Bastien's things lying around that will fit you."

"Indeed." I was surprised how casually she said this. Why was another gentleman's clothes here?

"Now, I think the best way to learn about high school, is to study all of the best tv shows and movies set in high school." She propped her head down on the pillows and picked up a small, black box that reminded me of the phone, but without the black window and more buttons. I shuffled awkwardly. Where was I supposed to sit?

"Lorcan, sit down already." She patted the bed next to her.

I wasn't used to being given orders, but she watched me like she was about to laugh. I sat down on the very edge of the bed. She pushed a button on the magic stick, and the black screen blossomed with color, suddenly filled with shapes and sound. I took a deep breath, moving further onto the bed, keeping a careful distance between us.

What a strange place this Human Realm was.

A noise began to play, followed by a voice. "Hey there upper East-siders, gossip girl here, and I have the biggest news ever..."

We both stared at the screen as a story within the window unfolded, filled with voices and people, and slowly I began to get more comfortable and enjoy myself. Cat laughed and smiled at the people on the screen, and I followed her cues, secretly finding her much more interesting than the story on the screen. We watched until the screen went black.

"I don't understand, who exactly is this Gossip Girl?" I finally asked.

Cat laughed, "That's like, kind of the point. Did you like it?"

Her grin was mischievous, but I crossed my arms behind my hand, and hesitated. "Well, for a show about high school, they don't seem to ever actually attend school or learn anything."

She laughed at this. "Yah that's true of almost every high school show or movie. Do you wanna watch another?"

I pretended to think. "Maybe just one more, until we find out who this Gossip Girl is. She sounds like she might be dangerous."

A bell chimed through the house, and I jumped off the bed, suddenly feeling irrationally guilty. What if one of her male relatives showed up and challenged me to a duel for her honor? Not that I had done anything untoward.

But Cat only laughed. "Relax, it's just the pizza."

I followed her downstairs. She opened the door, to reveal a young man stood with spiky hair and a pock-marked face.

"Two pizzas, brownies and cheesy breadsticks for a Catalina?"

"That's me, thanks so much!" She handed him a wad of cash, and said with a bright smile "keep the change!"

"Thanks!" he said as she slammed the door on his face.

"Come on, I'm starved." But instead of going to the kitchen, Cat ran back upstairs. I followed, somewhat confused, and when I came to her room was shocked to see she was eating the food on her bed. The place where she slept.

"You gonna eat or just stare?" She held a piece up over her mouth, biting off the end of it. It did smell delightful... I sat down on the bed, fished a piece out and took a bite.

It was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted.

As we ate on the bed, she sprawled out and me perched on the edge, I decided to take a stab at what I'd learned from the show. "I'm not sure who the Gossip Girl is, maybe some sort of mischievous fairy, or perhaps a troll, but it's obvious who's going to end up with the Serena princess."

"Oh really?" Cat challenged.

"Nate."

"Not Dan?"

"Dan is a commoner," I said dismissively. "Or as close as they come in this realm. Who would choose a commoner over a prince?"

"Who indeed?" Cat grinned, a wicked smile on her face.

I laughed, a feeling of warmth spreading in me that wasn't wholly to do with the food. I'd been a Prince all my life. I'd been expected to be perfect. But Cat didn't treat me like a Prince. And for the first time in my life, I felt like smiling, and laughing, and had absolutely no agenda.... What was the word for this? Fun?

I opened the bottled drink and poured us both glasses, which we clicked together. I took a drink and almost sprayed it out. It was devilishly sweet, with tiny bubbles bursting all over my mouth, like a bubbling spring that had been enchanted into a bottle.

"What are we going to watch next?" I asked.

Cat picked up the magic box wand, and pointed it at the television. "Well there is Mean Girls, 16 candles, Clueless, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off.... Oh, there's Twilight, it's about vampires in high school."

I snorted. "Vampires don't live in the Human Realm. I should know." I'd once been charged with capturing one that had crossed the Realms.

"It's about a girl who falls in love with a vampire."

I almost choked on my bubbly drink. "I've spent my entire life protecting the Human Realm from creatures of darkness, and all the while the humans are dreaming up romances with them. Unbelievable."

"Maybe humans are drawn to darkness."

I met her eyes, and then looked away, suddenly uncomfortable. Yes, humans were drawn to the darkness. Hadn't I seen the eyes of many women, and even men, follow me as I walked among them? But the Realms were held separate for a reason. Light and darkness couldn't mix; it wasn't in their nature. What belonged to the Dark, the Dark had a way of claiming.

I realized she was watching me, and I coughed to clear my throat. "Lets try the Mean Girls one, it sounds promising."

Two hour later I stared at the screen in shock.

"Alright, what do you learn?" Cat said in a teacher-like voice.

Finally, I cleared my throat, "There is a very strict code of conduct in high school. And you must wear pink on Wednesdays, for fear of exile."

I didn't say the one thing I was actually thinking.

High school looked like Hell.

Cat put on another movie, but this time we both just laid on the bed and talked, the flickering light of the television casting a blueish light over the room. We talked of small things, laughing together, but after a night learning of her Realm, I both expected and dreaded the moment her questions shifted to my Realm. And when it came, I was suddenly worried if the truth would scare her away forever.

"What's it like, living in the Dark Realm? How is it different from here?"

What would she think of the truth? But there was only one way to find out.

"There is no sun," I said, pausing, "and the sky isn't like here, it hangs low and dark, like an ever present fog. There are no colors, not like here, just shades of black and grey."

"Don't you miss the sun and all the colors?"

I shrugged. "Most of my subjects have never seen the Human Realm, it exists only in stories, so they cannot miss what they have never seen. I only ever came here with my mother, the Queen, when duty called us, and then only at night. And never when the moon shown."

"But what about you? Do YOU miss it?"

I hesitated. "Perhaps... but there are things about The Dark Realm so beautiful you couldn't imagine."

"Like what?"

"Like the fire of a thousand dragons. Like riding a centaur. Like the sound of the dark mer singing. Like when the fairies dance."

For a moment we were both silent, the light of the television suddenly flickering brighter.

"Still," she turned to me, her eyes and lips closer than they had ever been, "how could anyone give up a world of color? A world without a sun? It seems... a dark place to live."

I laughed. "Yes, The Dark Realm is well-named. But... it is my home. And it needs me."

"That would be nice to be needed. I've never really cared much for my home," she said, her voice hard, almost bitter. I wanted to reach out, to brush a lock of hair back and shatter the fragile barrier that stood between us, two people from different realms. For a moment the world held its breath.

The moment passed. My hand remained by my side.

"Still," she said, as if trying to lighten the mood. "I don't know how anyone could survive eternal darkness."

"There are only two ways. Most choose the first, to become one with the darkness."

"And the second?"

I turned to look at her, and felt the truth slip from me, quiet and tenuous as the dawn.

"You find someone to be your sun."

(Giant shout-out to -CliffhangerQueen- for the awesome banner! Thank you so much! 

Hannah)