A/N: Just something I thought up while reading the fic 'Broken Strands' by Lamia of the Dark. :)

As You Lay Down To Sleep

It is only for a moment, but it changes everything.

Rae rests her head on the cave floor, feels her eyelids droop and sleep descend. Soon, the dreaming comes. She can see her body on the floor, pale and unconscious, but thinks nothing strange of it. After all, it has happened before.

She wanders. She can't tell how far. You can never tell, in dreams. It's all beautifully alive and vivid and colourful and though all of her being is screaming at her to go back to the cave, she can't. And then she sees him. He is a kind man—she can tell by just looking, though he refuses to admit it. He calls himself Devlin, a faery, assassin and keeper of order in the High Court. Run, he says. Get away from here. It would be the wisest choice, she knows; it is the choice her family would expect her to make. Young women should not dally with strange men in a strange land. It's dangerous, as well as unseemly. How many times has she heard those lessons of theirs? Too many times to count.

She is tired of choosing wisely.

She is tired of not fitting in. For once, she'd like to belong. And she can sense, though he can't, that this man feels the same way. She feels an odd kinship with him, all of a sudden; they are two people who only want to belong somewhere.

She stares at the man. The ethereal creature in front of her. Despite everything he says, he looks like a kind man.

She smiles at him, and tells him that she is staying. He doesn't question it, but only bows and promises to keep her safe, as per her request.

She only laid down for a moment, but it changed everything. She, however, does not regret it. She will never regret meeting Devlin.