Prince Nuada Silverlance

June 18

Nuada felt the strange pull of the transporter. Oddly it didn't further aggravate his wound as he materialized prone on the transport pad. Doctor Baltar was standing in the transporter bay right next to him.

The station felt cold. Uncomfortably so in his soaked clothing. He looked about and saw Newt just past the transporters, kneeling next to Kasumi.

"Looks like another round of crazy went through," Newt looked at the painted walls and signs of destruction. "See, I was probly safer down there."

"Still in house arrest," Nuada stuttered out. "Doctor, can you get the Acrobat to the science lab, or do you need assistance?"

Not that Nuada could assist even if the small woman looked 90 pounds drenched, but someone could be found. Shepard and Arturia were sure to be along any second.

He, himself, just needed someone to keep him from falling over as he walked. Blood loss was making him light headed. Combined with the small level of iron poisoning he was also nauseous and if his shoulder did not pain him as if afire, his head would be his undoing.

Nuada was unsure what to make of the note he found on his dresser. His first reaction was pure anger that someone had gotten around the lock on his door and violated his sanctuary. His golden eyes had immediately darted to the vent near the ceiling that had had more than one conversation through.

The scrap of paper was definitely not from the Wall Mouse.

The problem was that the paper roses left behind made his chest tighten. The note indicated the author knew something of him, but it was a fact that was no secret. He had no idea who would have left such a strange, yet touching gift while breaking into his rooms.

He sat on the edge of his bed and examined the paper flower. Origami and masterfully done.

Nuada had been thinking of moving part of Bashir's garden here to have that small touch of nature near where he slept, and to both honor and remember the Doctor.

He had told no one. But this gift was serendipitous.

He was still uncertain of how he felt, or should feel, even as he wondered if he could nail down the rich velvet and embroidered cloak come bedspread he had claimed.

There was a certain peace in preparing for war. In his long life he had spent all but the first 200 years becoming the warrior the Fae needed. In the last two thousand years he pushed himself harder, longer, becoming the best... and the last Warrior Elf.

As was his custom he had stripped his shirt and left on his leather bracers protecting against strikes at his wrists.

He used a long bow stick and a a bamboo short sword held above the cross-guard to manage the best approximation of his lance. The shortened version was what he worked with now. In his mind he recalled battles past. He envisioned four humans in the old armor, the time of Arturia. The steel in their hands being as dangerous as the elf silver was to them.

He spun hos shortlance in a figure eight movement before slicing at an invisible opponent to his left before performing a jumping spin that would force multiple opponents back or slit their throats. He felt slow. He knew he was still faster than a human but he was still moving as if against a current. He scowled even as he landed still twisting to slice open the gut of an enemy standing to the right of where he started. His hair whipped about, fooling others into thinking it would blind him, but in fact it kept others from seeing where he was looking and unable to guess his next target.

He dropped onto his shoulder and lifted his legs into the air, kicking out in a spin as he placed his body beneath normal weapon strike and still did kicking damage before rolling into a stance on the balls of his feet.

He ran to the wall and two steps up it pushing himself in a stabbing leap. He should be able to make six steps up the wall and make a flip over an enemy's head, but the lack of strength and speed cut that from his repertoire.

He was in a place with little thought, just the pushing of muscle and ligament of his entire body to it's current limits. His weapon was an extension of himself, not a separate thing. His movement as fast as he could now manage. With the battle he imagined inside his head he became unaware of anything around him that was not in his way.

He was somewhat at peace.

Nuada entered the lab the day after returning from Venice. It was empty for once and he walked over to the plant boxes and lights Bashir had set up. He had brought the seeds of the raspberries and strawberry with him and set the small bowls he'd separated them into beside one of the boxes.

The makeshift garden seemed to have been a success. Some sprouts were peeking through the soil, young and the fresh to the world. Nuada reached in and gently touched one. Where he had not been able to sense a thing from the soil, he could sense the life of the plant, feel the two hair thin roots protruding from the halved seed beneath.

Being able to sense the plant was a relief. He couldn't feel them from the doorway, and he had to be almost touching the greenery, but there was still a connection. He was still a Son of the Earth.

He decided to experiment, choosing the four seedlings closest to him, tomato. Closing his eyes, Nuada spread his fingers and touched the soil around the plants. He called to the seedlings, asking them to grow for him, weaving the spiderweb thin tendrils of magic he could call. It took total concentration and he began to feel his personal magic drain from him as the seedlings uncurled slowly and stretched upwards as tiny leaf buds started to sprout.

But it was taking much too much effort and he felt his energy pour out, making his cease and grip the table as a wave of dizziness and weakness crashed into him.

He wanted to hit something. He should be able to coax a seedling into full bloom within minutes. These four had only advanced perhaps three or four days worth of growth and it took all the magic he could access.

So engrossed had he been in his own experiment he never even heard someone else enter the room. And knowing Nuada's constant awareness, that said much.

(*from: A Seed by William Allingham)

(April 10)

Nuada looked at the length of metal in his hand. He had thought to attempt to forge it into a sword or spear with burners in the labs. However, it was not a proper metal. It was some bastard amalgam of plastic, metal and resin. It could not be forged, and it would not hold any kind of edge. Indeed, it bent if hit too hard and too often.

Wooden stand in weapons did well in practice, but he felt all but naked without a proper blade. The scalpel he kept tucked in his sleeve was not a proper weapon.

"Mr. County said you're a person like anyone else," a childlike female voice came from the wall, "and that you aren't scary."

He had seen the child briefly from time to time. She seemed, on the whole, to stay out of sight of anyone.

"He is mistaken," Nuada set the useless pole aside, "for I am not like anyone else, and I am very scary. Some of my closest friends would eat human children to wet their appetites. Especially nosy little creatures who spy on others. I am one of the monsters under your bed."

The child had the audacity to laugh. "I've seen scary. Seen monsters. You aren't either. What are you?"

Nuada felt his pride stung. A child found nothing to fear in him?

"I am elf, human child." He looked right at the vent near the floor. It would be almost impossible for an adult to fit in there, but a slender child... "And I do not speak to the walls."

There was a shuffling noise and then silence. Apparently she had tired of him.

He was proven wrong in moments when there was a knock on his door. He had seen to it that his rooms were locked and coded. He debated ignoring the girl.

"'M not going away," she knocked again.

"Come in," he half growled. The door slid open at the invitation and the girl walked in, looking around and assessing his seating room. She was dusty and had dirt smeared across her face. Her forearms and the knees of her pants were blackened from crawling about. She spotted the Father Tree he'd added to the wall and stepped closer to it. "It's pretty. You drew on the wall in the first level 'servation room."

He just raised a brow.

On the table before the couch dishes full of gears, springs and screws sat along with a set of handmade tools. "You take things apart."

"I put things together," he corrected.

"You don't look like an elf," the girl turned to face him. Impertinent little thing.

"I assure you, I am. Have you ever met an elf before me?" the challenge was in his tone.

She shook her head. "You don't like humans very much."

The girl apparently crawled everywhere and overheard more than she likely should.

"I've had no reason to. Your kind destroy my kind. I destroy your kind. I protect my people." Matter of fact. He would not play to childish ignorance.

"There aren't any of your kind here, is there? So we're all one kind. I guess that makes us on the station your people for now." The child smiled brightly.

"Do you have a name?" She peered closely at him, obviously taking in the royal scars.

"Of course I do. Doesn't everyone?" He teased as he tilted his head.

"I'm Newt," she announced.

"Nuada," he relented.

She smiled and backed towards the door. "So, I'm part of your people now."

She darted out the door and left him with a headache and far too much to ponder.

( Cut for those who wish to skip )

After the third week he'd completed the art on his wall and decided to start one on the wall behind the seats of the observation deck, as it was one of the public places he spent the most time. He worked on it late at night (or what the computers claimed was night) when most were asleep so no one could see who was doing it. Some may have figured it out, but it was amusing to hear others try to answer the riddle.

The riddle he tried to answer was how the marker seemed to have an endless supply of ink.

[March 4]

It had been days since had come to this hell. He was unsure of how many. When one lived as long as he time sometimes got away from one. Days, months, what did they matter but to measure sleep or plan an attack in darkness?

When he had set off to explore he'd eventually found a weak flashlight. It helped a bit. His night vision was not as it should have been either. It had always been marginally better than humans. Now, it was just another way he had been diminished.

When he first saw the giant window to the stars he had stood there, hand against the glass, for hours. It had driven reality home. He was really in the vast, unknown blackness. No soil, no green anywhere, most likely for unfathomable spans. It would account for his connection to his sister being gone. Such was never meant to endure such unimaginable distances.

The stars. He recognized none of the constellations, but why would he from a different angle and remoteness? From all he had heard the others were all from different times, different worlds. Different realities.

In some what he had long witnessed had come to pass. Humanity had greedily used up the world and went off to devour other ones. The realm of the unseen had passed.

He had made a perfunctory examination since then. He'd found living quarters where some of the others had settled themselves, and then found his own as far away as possible. In cleaning the place he had found a gold ring on the sink in the bathing room. It was the kind humans used to mark themselves married. They were sentimental of such things and he wondered why one had left this. He had also come across a infant's pacifier in a hallway.

He'd hears the soft scraping in the walls and on occasion sought sight of small movement in the shadows. Likely rats. Where vermin went other vermin followed.

In the poor light he had mapped the corridors, noting maintenance plates and testing doors.

He had found this treasure. It was as dusty as every other area which is why he was working now to clean it. The padded floor spoke of it's purpose, and the size was impressive enough to allow free range of techniques. He considered the mirrors foolish. Any decent use would shatter them. At least if there were made of common glass.