Darkest Day, Brightest Night

He was Lord of Shadow and Ice.  She was Lady of Light and Heat.  He was the King of the Unseelie Court and all its peoples.  She was the Queen of the Seelie Court and all who resided there.  One bright and shining, loving and caring.  The other dark and gloomy, hatefilled and spiteful.  Towards all except one.  Towards all except her.

Their love was taboo, unheard of in the long histories of the two courts.  She was the only one that could thaw through the ice surrounding him, the only one to reach him.  Her's were the only rays of light to shine upon his shadow darkened face.  Her bright lights cast even darker shadows into the corners of the room, in the crevices of his clothes.  His shadows encroached on her space.  Her light pushes them back.  Ice covers the surfaces of the room, a chill creeping out from his body.  Warmth slowly radiated from her body, gently melting the ice around them.

It is a delicate balance between them.  If he were to be without her bright light and gentle warmth, the halls of the Unseelie Sithen would be filled with icey crags.  Shadows would drape across the ice, hiding the dangers and if one was so brave as to walk through a shadow, one would never be seen again.  It would be a dangerous place, wrought with peril, where none dare tread the halls.

Without his cool calm to temper her firey passion, heat would creep through the halls, like a panther stalking its prey.  Suffocating heat, the likes of which one cannot walk through for the invisible weights it hefts onto one's shoulders.  So it stands to reason that they make a good pair.

But there was dissension among their courts.  Whispered rumors that the two courts were to be made into one with an up coming marriage between the two rulers.  Many among both courts despised the very idea of having to share daily life with any one from the other court.  Because they knew that once the rulers were married together and the courts were married together, that the people themselves would be expected to follow their leaders' example, and marry someone from the other court.  And that just was not an option.

So whispers were spoke and secret plans were made.  And the downfall of the Seelie Queen and the Unseelie King was plot.  They kept the whispers quiet and their plans simple and away from any that might still be loyal, lest they have to kill them before they are ready.  The planning only stays as a group project for so long and then they go off in their own direction, since no one wants to bow down to anyone else.

Plans went into effect.  Attempts on her life were made.  And they failed.  She survived every simple attempt on her life that they had planned.  Survived and punished those that would betray her.  The consequences of those actions were not pleasant.  Many of the immortal Seelie were tortured to the point where they wished they were dead.  Too bad for them, they were incredibly difficult to kill.

So, plans were changed and the target was changed, and the demise of the Unseelie King was set into motion.  Enraged as he was at the attempts on his partner's life, it was no easy matter to get close enough to touch him, let alone do anything damaging to him.  Several in his court were punished severely for attempting to dethrone him.  They spent a very long time in a very dark room with icicles pinning them to the floors, walls, and even some on the ceiling, the shadows stealing light and sound from them.

It was then that he decided he needed to protect her better.  And something that hadn't even been thought of before by him was now something that was the only way he could think of to protect her properly.  So he proposed marriage to her, and she accepted, and their two Sithens were made one, half light and half shadow.  A sweet balance was struck between the two polar opposites, a blending of the Sidhe as much as he and she had blended their lives together.  Everyone ignored the screams coming from sealed rooms of those that had conspired to betray them and they co-existed peacefully, happily.