Author's Note: For those of you wondering how canon the cold-drake is: "Now the least mighty [dragons] - yet they were very great beside the Men of those days - are cold as in the nature of snakes and serpents, and of them a many having wings go with the uttermost noise and speed..." Turambar and the Foalókë in The History of Middle-earth vol. II The Book of Lost Tales II

Also, according to the Enc. of Arda: "In the year 2589 of the Third Age, Dáin I, King of Durin's Folk, and his second son Frór were slain at the gates of their halls by a Cold-drake… Four hundred years later, at the time of Bilbo Baggins' journey to Erebor, they seem to have left the Grey Mountains." It is reasonable to conjecture that they emigrated westward, to the land of the Lossoth in the far north of Arnor, where Faith and Buffy and the rest encounter them in this tale.

Blue on Black, Chapter 13
by CinnamonGrrl

"Faith," Wesley Wyndham-Pryce had once commented in his more priggish days, and her more evil ones, "is a footnote."

And she had been. A footnote, an anomaly, something barely noteworthy in the longer-term scope of things. Except that now she wasn't. By divine intervention, by hook or crook, Faith had been rescued from an obscure destiny as a footnote and transformed, both figuratively and literally.

It was times like this when a girl really could use a vision or two. Visitation by a guardian angel-type demon, dream featuring the first Slayer—really, Buffy wasn't picky. Any clarification would have been much appreciated.

Buffy returned to life flat on her back in one of those igloo-huts the Lossoth lived in, Legolas nowhere to be seen, and just when she thought things couldn't get weirder than that, she realized that Faith and Glorfindel were there too, both of them sleeping like it was a competition sport. The elf's hearing was so acute, however, that her first movement woke him and he shifted, pushing back that glorious mane of hair that Buffy would have killed for and blinking drowsily for a second before his senses sharpened fully.

"Ah, you are back," he said warmly, and smiled. Even though she had lived with elves for over twenty years, and indeed was married to an elf considered one of the handsomest of them all, the startling beauty of Glorfindel could still amaze her at times. It amazed Faith, too, if the dazed expression on her face was anything to go by on those odd occasions that Buffy caught her staring at her protector.

"Yeah, I'm a bad penny. You just can't get rid of me," she joked, crossing her legs Indian-style and watching with interest the tender way Glorfindel shifted Faith from his arm so he could sit up. Yeah, it wasn't just Faith looking dazed, by the looks of things. Buffy hid a smirk, and instead said, "So, how did things end? I doubt you'd be sleeping peacefully if things went south after I died."

"Went south?" He frowned. "No, the drake flew eastwards, toward Angmar, as I suspected it would."

Buffy, who'd been frowning down at her tunic, stiff with dried blood, looked up at him with a grin. "I forgot, you're not big with the Earth lingo like the other guys." Sighing—the tunic was pretty much ruined—she said, "It just means that everything became bad."

He nodded. "After you died, Bronwë became... upset and had to be calmed down." He frowned then, and gently turned Faith's face to inspect the faint bruise on her jaw before proceeding. "Then the rest of us faced the cold-drake, but its wound was grievous indeed, thanks to you. It flung down your sword and retreated, knowing it could not withstand us, injured as it was."

"So, what then?" Buffy asked, mind racing a bit at the thought of Faith "upset" over her death. To hide her confusion, she busied herself by tucking her chilly hands under her arms to heat them up. Wherever the enchanted clothing touched, she was toasty-warm but whatever skin was bare got cold, fast.

"The Lossoth have revealed they know of one of the stones," Glorfindel said softly. "I asked Legolas to question them, as I was feeling too unwell to do it myself."

She eyes him carefully; it was nearly unheard of for an Elf to be sick. "You ok now?"

He nodded firmly. " 'Twas just a bit of fatigue. Absorbing darkness from another is a wearing task… which is why it is not often done. Now that I am rested, all is well."

"Speaking of which…" Buffy trailed off, a little uncertainly. "Legolas told me that what you saw in Faith's head was… ugly."

He swiveled his head to gaze on the other woman once more. "It was beyond ugly," he murmured. "That she could endure beyond it, and still struggle for life instead of embracing death… she is an unquenchable flame." He turned back to face her after a moment. "You must learn to let your past stay there, Dagnir. The Bronwë that betrayed you was herself betrayed. She has paid for her sins, a hundred times, and a hundred times more." His gold-green gaze locked on hers, utterly convicted. "It is time for your forgiveness."

Buffy swallowed. "I don't know if I can."

He stood, impossibly graceful even in that cramped space. "You can, and you must. For her sake, and for yours."

"For mine? How do you figure that, Aristotle?" She was starting to feel more than a little disgruntled at being philosophized and preached at. Glorfindel might have been in Faith's mind, but he hadn't fought for his life against her like Buffy had, hadn't had her steal his body and…

"One day, you will realize how Bronwë no longer deserves your contempt, and it will pain you deeply. You are a just woman, Dagnir, else the Valar would not place so must of their trust in you." At her snort of skepticism, he smiled. "Ah, the patronage of the Valar does not impress you? Then perhaps this will." He squatted down so he was eye-level with her, his hair spilling over his shoulders to almost brush the floor. "You would not have the love of Legolas, nor the friendship of Elessar and Gimli and the others, were this not so. Elrond and Mithrandir would not respect you so. Your life would not be so valuable that it would be returned to you time and again."

She frowned at him. "I hate when people use that good guy crap to make me do things," she whined. "Just once, I'd like to be able to be a bratty asshole."

He stood again. "Shall we not leave that to Agaradan?" Glorfindel inquired. "He excels at it so." He smiled to hear her laugh, then stood once more. "I will leave you here with Bronwë, for I think now is the best of times for you to mend things with her." Before she could protest, he was gone into the blowing gale outside the coziness of the hut.

"Just great," Buffy mumbled, and leant back on her hands to wait for Faith to wake up. She studied the sleeping girl a few feet from her. There had always been a strange set to Faith's face, a tension in the jaw and mouth that only she could see, as if Faith was endlessly prepared for some sudden attack. Buffy had never watched her sleep before, so perhaps the slack peace on her face was typical, but she didn't think so. There was a newfound tranquility there, a lessening of the tightness around the eyes, a smoothing of the brow. Faith was resting in serenity, and Buffy thought it was due to Glorfindel's sucking of the nasty from her earlier.

Buffy lay down beside her, eyes never wandering far from her face, and just watched quietly until Faith began to stir. Faith's eyes blinked open, huge and dark, and her mouth formed a soft O of surprise at the sight of Buffy beside her, and obviously alive. "You're…"

"Not dead. Yeah." She waited until Faith had pushed herself to a sitting position before continuing, leaning casually on her elbow. "I hear you were a little wigged when I died," she said, and peered at Faith, trying to gauge her reaction. Faith's eyes seemed locked on her with an intensity that was slightly alarming, so she kept going. "I'm sorry no one told you about my little Gift before then, but there I guess there was no reason—I sometimes go years without dying. No need to get worked up for nothing, huh?"

She laughed a little uneasily—Faith was still staring fixedly at her. "So, I hear the drake was run off by the sight of our manly men facing them down, and the village is safe and no one died and you're not really listening to me at all, are you?" Buffy frowned in consternation, but then blinked in surprise to find she was glowing.

Well, her clothes were, anyway.

Her blood-stained tunic and trousers grew more and more bright until all Buffy could see was deep golden light, and then with a flash, everything faded to normal. She gaped to see that the gruesome bloodstains on the fabric had disappeared, and her clothing was perfectly clean, as if she'd just pulled it from her pack and put it on.

But it was... Faith sighed. "Well, better than bloody, huh?" she said, swaying a little from the effort she'd made. "Whaddya think about that, huh, B?" She leant back on her hands and grinned. "Faith's Dry Cleaning Service—when you want it clean, and don't mind it yellow."

Buffy stared at her a minute, then stared down at her newly-yellow garments, and then began to laugh. She sobered quickly, thought, and looked thoughtfully at the other woman. "So, Faith, about me dying."

"Yeah, I know all about it now. Glorfindel told me before we went to sleep. I was just surprised, that's all." Faith's smile faded quickly, and she got to her knees to begin tidying up the area, rolling up the bedding and tying it neatly. Buffy recognized this as classic Faith-avoidance, and fell silent. For a while, at least. "What's going on with you and Glorfindel?" she asked abruptly.

Faith's hands stilled. "What?" she replied, glancing nonchalantly over her shoulder, but Buffy wasn't fooled. "Nothing's going on with us. He's my Defender, or something like that. Just a bodyguard."

"Bodyguards don't sleep curled around their bodyguardees," Buffy said, grinning to see Faith's movements become faster, as if she were agitated.

"It's just because he's an elf," Faith muttered. "They're all touchy-feely, and not as rough as non-elfy types."

"Not if you tell them you like it rough," Buffy quipped, then began laughing helplessly when Faith whipped around to stare in amazement. Then the other woman's face relaxed from its expression of astonishment, mouth slanting in a mischievous grin.

"Good to know, B," she murmured, then glanced up from under her lashes. "Are we getting along? This sure feels like getting along to me."

"Let's play it by ear," Buffy said dryly. "I just—I've been thinking about it for a while, and… I don't know what you've been through, but Legolas and Glorfindel tells me it was pretty bad. Like, really bad. Bad enough to make up for all the stuff you did when you went evil with the Mayor." She dropped her eyes to her hands, fiddling with the fabric of her trousers. "So I was thinking, maybe I should ease up on the hostility."

Faith stared at her a long moment, her gaze inscrutable, before standing. "Sounds good," she said at last, stooping to pick up the bundle of bedding. "Just don't be too nice. I don't think I could stand the full force of your Buffy-charm."

Buffy rolled her eyes, and stood. "Yeah. You're so fragile." She pushed open the hut door, and swirling snow hit her right in the face. "Ugh." They trudged over to the main lodge, a large, beehive-shaped structure, and sighed happily when they entered to a blast of heat from the massive fire in the centre of the floor. Legolas stood at the far end of the lodge, speaking earnestly to a petite woman whose brown face looked like it bore a wrinkle for each year of her long life. Merry and Glorfindel seemed engrossed in their own conversation, whilst Pippin, Gimli and Spike played some sort of dice game on one of the battered tables ranged around the room.

As the women entered, all heads turned in their direction. Buffy beamed a smile at all assembled and went quickly to Legolas' side, tucking herself against his side in a familiar move, but Faith felt awkward and was just about to launch into cocky-swaggering-mode for lack of any other way to handle it when Pippin's voice elevated itself over the general din of the room.

"Whyever is Bronwë standing there, looking as if she hasn't a friend in the world?" he demanded genially, hopping down from the bench on which he sat and ambling over to her. Grabbing her hand, he dragged her back toward the table he shared with Gimli and Spike. "Come, Agaradan was just beating the trousers off us," he continued, reseating himself and taking up his mug of ale.

Faith blinked and allowed herself to be ensconced beside the Hobbit, facing Spike and Gimli. Pippin tried to explain the rules of the game to her, but her mind was whirling too much from everything. First, there was Buffy's overture of a cease-fire in their hostilities—Faith was more than a little startled by it, but a wild sense of amazement bloomed in her chest even as she tried to reason with herself that it wasn't anything significant, just Buffy trying to make their working together toward a common goal less tense. Even so, joking with Buffy had felt… good. Better than good. It had felt right, like it was the way things were supposed to be, and now things were back to normal.

Second was the immense feeling of relief that she wasn't left standing at the doorway alone, with everyone staring at her, and no group to join. When she'd been a kid, Faith had watched Cheers on TV and been almost eaten with jealousy when Norm was welcomed so happily and vocally to the bar each evening. Norm had been wanted; everyone was pleased he was there and wanted him to sit with them. Norm belonged. Faith hadn't ever belonged to anything or anyone before. Granted, being dragged to join a Hobbit, a Dwarf, and a vampire rated fairly high on Faith's bizarre-o-meter, but it was good to be welcomed into a close-knit group of warriors. She felt a smile steal onto her face, cautiously at first, growing in brightness until she was positively beaming.

And last… last was the notion that a rather significant portion of the despair that had lain heavy on her heart for so long had dissipated, leaving her feeling almost as untroubled as she had been with Estë in the gardens of Lórien in Valinor. Back then, she'd had only the merest notion of embodiment, and no restrictions on it. Able to run and leap and even fly if she'd wanted, with no thought for tomorrow, living only in the now, she'd reveled in knowing there were no demands on her.

Then she'd been returned to the hard and harsh world of life. Her fëa had been stuffed down into a body once more, and she'd had a heap of responsibility dumped on her shoulders. They had started to feel increasingly burdened as the extent of her newfound duty had been revealed, and the fact that she'd have to deal with Buffy and her hot-but-cranky husband. Then the nightmares started, and Faith had felt herself slip into the numb apathy of depression once more.

And Buffy had died. Faith didn't think she could be so deeply affected by death, not anymore, and not Buffy's in particular, but she realized how very wrong she was when the other woman had gone limp in Legolas' arms. No matter that they weren't actually related, no matter that Buffy had rejected her in the most basic and clear way possible when she'd sacrificed Faith to save Angel, no matter that Faith wasn't a Slayer any longer… Buffy was the closest thing Faith had ever had to a family, and losing her had made Faith feel like her heart was being ripped out.

It had taken Glorfindel the better part of an hour to convince Faith that Buffy was, indeed, going to return to them. An hour, and all the persuasiveness an ancient elf-lord could muster. Fortunately, that turned out to be quite a bit, and so by the time Faith had fallen into an uneasy and much-needed slumber, she'd felt much better.

Waking up to find Buffy not only alive, but sort of friendly and apologetic… Faith wasn't good at handling great upsurges of emotion. They tended to embarrass her, and she usually dealt with them with either acts of violence or seduction. As neither were appropriate in this case, she'd felt all at sea and channeled the gratitude and affection that swamped her for Buffy in removing the bloodstains from the Slayer's clothing. It was the only way she could think of to deal with it all.

"What is that smile for?" inquired a deep voice in her ear, and Faith turned to find Glorfindel had seated himself beside her, and was himself smiling down at her. "It is good to see you happy; what has caused such a thing?"

Faith felt another swell of unfamiliar emotion, and found herself giving his arm a quick hug as she grinned up at him. "I feel… light," she told him. "Like all the blackness is gone. Does that make any sense at all?"

Glorfindel's smile faded slowly. "It does," he replied seriously. "Quite a bit of sense." He studied her a moment. "All is well with Dagnir, then? I see she wears yellow, of a sudden; have you had aught to do with it?"

Faith grinned some more. "Yeah, guess I'm not going to be doing any anonymous magic for a while yet, huh?" It was the first time she'd been able to mention the whole "Yellow" thing without the use of profanity. She was proud of herself. But her smile began to droop some when she saw how intently Glorfindel was watching her. "What's wrong?" she asked, feeling her euphoria dim.

The corners of his mouth curled a little. "Are you not tired, yet?" he asked instead of answering her. "It has been a hard day for you."

"I just woke up!" Faith protested even as his words reminded her that she had gotten about one day's worth of sleep in the past week, and her body was still screaming for rest. She slumped a little in defeat, allowing herself the comfort of leaning her body against his a little for support. "Yeah," she admitted a moment later, "I'm tired."

"Go back to the hut, then, and rest," Glorfindel told her. "I will join you soon."

"Join me?" Now that the burden of despair was gone, Faith was free to think about other things she'd pushed to the rear of her consciousness. One of those things, her libido, shoved its way to the forefront of her mind and dangled before her mind's eye an image of Glorfindel joining her in the biblical sense. Faith stared up at him, and felt her head swim at the sudden rush of heat and blood to various places of her body that hadn't experienced either of those things in quite a while. "You'll… join me? In the hut?"

Glorfindel's eyes sharpened, the green ebbing from them until they were pure liquid gold. "Perhaps not," he murmured after a moment. "Perhaps it is best if you share with another female… I am sure Amdir will welcome you to her home."

Faith felt unaccountably rejected. "Don't bother her with it," she said shortly, and stood. "I'll stay in the hut by myself, and you can shack up with Spike or the Hobbits." Ignoring those others' enquiring glances, she stalked from the lodge and fought her way through the worsening storm toward the hut she'd left scarcely a half-hour before.

She hadn't gotten halfway before she had lost her way in the storm, snow swirling thickly around her, and tears of frustration pricked her eyes. Then a hand grasped her arm, and she knew—somehow—that it was Glorfindel. He pulled her after him to another, smaller lodge. Inside was empty, but just as bright and warm as the first. "What troubles you?" he demanded, showing a touch of anger for the first time.

"Not a thing," Faith replied, her voice hard. She was tired, and confused, and turned on, and she especially didn't like being manhandled—elfhandled—whatever. She pulled her arm back. Silence fell, and stretched out like a slender thread between them. Her anger ebbed, replaced by weariness and a sort of pained longing for something, she wasn't sure what. "I know what you did before, with the nightmares," she said, her voice low and husky. "I felt you there, inside me. Inside my head," she clarified quickly. "Why?"

"You were suffering," he said slowly. "I could not allow it to continue."

Her eyes flew up again, this time snapping with her usual quick temper. "Of course not," she retorted. "If I'm not in peak shape, the whole mission goes tits-up. And you're all about the mission," she finished, a touch bitterly.

Glorfindel looked surprised. "No," he said, and even in her state of ire, Faith could tell he spoke truthfully. "I had not thought of our quest when I did that." He frowned, as if puzzling over his own actions. "My only concern was to ease your distress."

"Why?" Faith asked again. For some reason, she really, really needed to know. When he did not reply right away, she filled the silence by saying, "Knowing you were there made it all less awful. Like, I knew it was in the past. That it wasn't real. That it wasn't happening again."

He smiled faintly. "I am glad."

"I am, too." Faith plucked at a stray thread on the hated yellow trousers. "But you still haven't answered my question."

"Which question was that?"

He seemed so utterly foreign to her as he stood across from her, tall and Elven and glowing faintly in a way the torchlight could never match. Faith was used to understanding men; most of them were as easy to figure out as the proverbial open book. But Glorfindel… he was a complete mystery. And Faith had never been a big fan of mysteries. "If you weren't worried about the future of our quest, then what was it?"

It was a few moments before he replied; to Faith, it seemed like forever. "I cannot sit idly by and watch someone in pain," he replied at last. His voice was tight, and she figured he was angry again.

Her heart sank. "Is that all it is?" she demanded. "Just charity?"

"What else do you want it to be?" Glorfindel shot back. His eyes were snapping with annoyance, his golden hair seeming to almost crackle with it.

He was the hottest thing Faith had ever seen, and she wondered how she hadn't noticed before. "More," Faith whispered thickly, and knew it to be true. "I want it to be more."