Walk. River. Portal. Bench. Grey.

Life.

I ran to the coffee shop. Luckily the place was still open, still warm and welcoming, just like I left it.

“Hey girl. Long time no see.”

It was the silver fox haired guy, wiping cups behind the counter.
“Hi Stephen.” I scanned the room – no sign of Niall.

“He's home. Ill”
That wasn't good.

Stephen moved toward the counter, leaving the soapy, wet cups behind:
“Listen, I don't really know what happened between you two, and I don't really want to know, but he wasn't in a great shape when he came back to work, the day after you met. He went home early. It's been ten days now, and he's still not coming back. He calls me every morning and every morning, his voice gets worse. Refuses to see a doctor. I can run the place on my own – I called some extras and we're working double shifts. I don't mind, but I am worried. What happened when you were with him?”

Stephen thought it was my fault. And to be honest, it may have been.

“I want to check on him” I replied
He was dubious. Of course he was.
“Don't break him, girl.”
“I'm here to fix things, Stephen. Believe it or not.”

Silence.

“Look, I said, Niall's illness might be because of me, but I'm here to fight it. I won't go into details just right now, but did he ever show you his art?”

He nodded: “The Dragons and the Girl? Yes. Yes, he did.”

“They're real. It's real. Well, not right now, but it has been, and it will be again if I don't help him.”
“Oh good grief.”

He smiled, though. Maybe he had my back.

I knew where to go. It took me quite a while, but I finally recognised the building. Niall's curtains were closed.
He was in the dark.

I walked the stairs and my heart was racing at the different scenarios my mind played: would he be unconscious? Would the Dark be there already? Did it kill Niall? Was I too late?

I knocked, gently.

“Niall, it's me – It's Meira.”
Nothing.

And then, a face. The palest, faintest face I'd ever seen. He looked like a sleep-deprived ghost. His eyes, so lively when we met, were now soulless, tired.

No smile on his lips, either.

“I knew you'd be back.”
“I told you I would be here to help you.”
“I think it's too late.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”

I followed him – a shadow – into the flat. Plunged in the dark, except for my hands.
“You need lights here, Niall.”
“I can't, he said, his eyes right into mine. They hurt me.”
He looked so helpless, so fragile there. I felt an impulse to hug him tight, close, but something prevented me to do so.

I pulled off the curtains instead, because something, the same something in me knew it was the right thing to do. Whatever the pain, whatever its grip on him, it needed to be fought. My mind knew. My body knew. And the sun shone, an unpredictable ray of light in the room.
Niall moaned and closed his eyes. He was back in his bed, shivering, mumbling songs I couldn't hear. I laid beside him and touched his pale, cold hand. I needed to ease the pain with my own light. I needed to try.

“Little boys play and rest and scream. Little girls stare and sleep and dream.”
I jumped. Niall was singing this song. 

“How do you know that? I said”
“I don't know” he replied, eyes closed, his head resting on the head of the bed. We laid there for hours, maybe, and he looked a bit more like himself. “it's just something in my head. It's been in there since you left.”

“What happened when I left, Niall?”
“I need tea first.”
I nipped to the kitchen. An avalanche of cups and plates was waiting for a catastrophe in the sink. It reminded me of home – I wasn't the most “domestic goddess” kind of fairy; if Aidan wasn't there, the sink was often a cemetery of dishes.

On the table, a dozen of unfinished drawings.

The energy I felt home rushed again in my brain.
I started to do the dishes, just to have time to think. I scrubbed, watered, wiped, until I heard Niall getting up and swearing upon every move he made.

I stayed silent, put everything back to its own place, made some tea, and went back to the living room.

“I have been drawing a lot” Niall said, almost apologetically, as I gave him his cup and sat on the bed. I had brought the drawings with me. Same theme, The Dragons, The Girl, and the blur...But so much more alive and so much more precise. Like a story unfolding upon my eyes, I could see the blur becoming a silhouette, then a shadow, then a consistent shape, menacing and grey.

“This is the last one I made before getting sick. I don't remember a lot since. Mostly pieces of dreams. You...” he stopped.

“Carry on”. I was curious and scared at the same time.
“You killed me, once. With a sword.”
I sighed.

“Niall...What you have been drawing, all these years, and now...What you have been dreaming of...It's trying to kill you. And me. And my world, actually.”

“Oh. I thought it was depression, see.” A faint smile appeared on his lips. At last.

“This is serious, Niall. I think The Dark -
“Is that how you call it? That's accurate.”
“The Dark is using you as a messenger. I am the only one who can see this. I thought I would be sent to save people but...”

“But you've been sent to kill me. Hence the drawing, and the dreams” He said, more to himself than to me.
“That's not why I am here.” I protested.

“Are you here to save me, then? To put some magic in me, and to get rid of your Dark and my demons?”
“Something like that, yeah.”

I looked at him, ready to throw a smile. He was asleep, again.

And I could feel the Dark beating him, in his dreams.

I stayed there, lying at Niall's side, for minutes, hours maybe. Time became a detail. I just wanted to see the Dark. I could feel it in Niall's soul, I could feel it trying to invade my veins, my brain. My body was suddenly aching for the breakfast Mother used to prepare. Memories from my childhood were popping up like bubbles, and I started to feel that “grey” feeling, something between nostalgia and infinite sadness. It was intense, a firework of melancholia.

I was lying on a bed next to a Human being I probably couldn't save, in a universe I didn't belong to, far away from a world that saw me as an anomaly at best, and a weapon at worst. I didn't have any family. I felt left alone when I needed people the most. I was afraid of letting anyone go, yet they would all leave, one way or another. I felt betrayed, useless, and incredibly lonely.

Enough.

“Niall, wake up.”

My mission, that beautiful human soul next to me trying to survive, moaned grumpily.
“Why?”

I was up and getting on my boots
“Let's get out of here.”

I wasn't letting that feeling win.
Niall reluctantly got up and put some clothes on. I noticed again how tall he was, compared to me or to the people I knew. His face was so pale, and his eyes so dark. Fairies always had that glimmer even in the darkest colour. The Humans didn't.

Different races looking for the same thing.

Niall stumbled and nearly fell when we hit the door outside the building. He was probably light-deprived, having spent almost two weeks consumed by the Dark (and the dark).

I helped him to get on his feet and his smile found its way back on his face:
“Any idea where we going, young lady?”
“Your city, your choice, wise man”
“Well, what do you want to do? “
“I want to see people.” I replied.

So we walked. Niall was slow but steady, and it was good. He was alive.

He was fighting.

We needed a walk. We needed that rush of energy that hit me the last time I was in this world. Earlier in Niall's flat, I figured that the only way to defeat that Dark energy – whenever it was – was to feed our souls with positive energy from the outside world. I was already feeling that dizzy sensation in my body, that weird certitude that everything was connected. I was hoping that Niall could feel it too.

We stopped for food – Niall picked strawberries on a stall somewhere. It reminded me of Aidan. We ate in silence, enjoying each other's company.

The night was slowly covering the streets, and the energy coming from the bodies walking the pavement was powerful. I thought about the Dark, and the thoughts it was sending me in order to feed from my despair. I thought about my mother. I wondered what she would think of this, of her daughter facing a long lost enemy of her. But it didn't matter.
It never really mattered, anyway.

We soon arrived in the busiest place I had ever seen. Hundreds of souls walking, under artificial lights and the still very impressive buildings. Music was blasting from all corners of the square. Shops, bar, restaurants, all full of the buzzing energy I needed. And the noise, a delightful sound of life.
“Welcome to Covent Garden, fairy!”
A kind of parade appeared in front of us, a colourful group of people dancing and chanting, and the beat of the drums resonated in my body. The energy was more palpable than before.

People were pressing against each other, a happy chaos to let the parade go through. The Humans weren't very different from us, the OtherWorld fairies, in the end: we all craved the same connection to something. For us, it was Nature. For them, human warmth. I felt Niall's body against me. He looked at me, his face a bit less pale, and his eyes and soul showing a spark of light.

“It works!”
“What?”
“How do you feel?”
My voice louder, to try and get over the joyful buzz of notes.

“I'm good!” He yelled back.

I wasn't sure who was protecting who anymore, but in this moment, nothing was more important than the guy with the restless soul finally at peace, and the girl with the glowing hands feeling the rhythm of home.

And then my necklace started to burn, and Niall fell to the ground; a loud stump right in the middle of music, people and chants.