"Young sprout," Gary heard the call in his mind, distantly, as though he himself was far removed from his own consciousness. It came again, and then a third time, leading him like a beacon back to the world of the living.
A myriad of pleasant aromas greeted him, and a thousand sounds, birds and animals mostly, and a quieter, more solemn humming that Gary knew somehow to be the song of the Tylwyth Teg.
Gary opened his eyes to the glory of Tir na n'Og. The sun was fast sinking in the west, but that did little to dull the vivid and beautiful colors of the magical forest. Mickey was beside Gary, and Kelsey, as well, along with the pony that had carried Kelsey and Gerbil to Gondabuggan, the valiant steed that had nearly given its life for the exhaustion. Like Gary, the pony was on the mend - who wouldn't be in the splendor of Tir na n'Og?
"Welcome back," Mickey said as Gary propped himself up on his elbows. He found that he was out of the armor, back in his clothes alone - and these had been sewn in several places to repair the tears and (Gary nearly fainted away again when he thought of this) dagger holes. The armor lay piled not far to the side, with the spear a short distance beyond it, leaning against a birch tree on the edge of the blueberry patch.
"How'd we get here?" Gary asked.
"We walked," Kelsey replied. "At least, some of us walked."
"Tommy carried ye, lad," Mickey added.
Tommy? It took Gary a moment to recognize the name, and then he glanced all around anxiously, dearly wanting to see his giant friend once more. "Where is he?"
"Not about," Mickey explained. "He and Geno went back to the east to prepare for the coming o' the witch."
Gary winced, and everything that had transpired over the last few days rushed back into his thoughts.
"Robert is dead?" he asked.
"Of course," answered the cocky spear, from its perch against the birch tree. "Aye," Mickey answered. "Ye slicked that one good."
"Does that mean that he's banished for a hundred years?" Gary wondered. "Robert is no witch," Kelsey answered. "The dragon is simply dead."
"Aye, and a good thing for all the land," Mickey remarked. "We taked his horns, lad, and a few o' his teeth."
Gary's face twisted with confusion. The last he had seen, Robert was a man, and no horned monstrosity.
"Of course the wyrm went back to being a wyrm when he died," Mickey explained, understanding Gary's confusion. "His human form was magic, and no more."
"Then where are the horns?" Gary asked. "And what happened to Baron Pwyll?" he added, suddenly remembering that the man had been somewhere about the vale wherein Robert the Wretched had met his doom.
"The two go together," Mickey replied with a chuckle. "We gave the horns to Pwyll, for 'twas he who slew the wyrm."
"Pwyll?" Gary balked. "I killed ..."
"Pwyll killed the wyrm," Kelsey interjected. "For the good of Faerie."
Gary started to protest again, but stopped, digesting Kelsey's last statement. Baron Pwyll had been branded an outlaw by the throne, and Dilnamarra, by all accounts a strategic position, had been given over to a puppet ruler. But if Pwyll could be manufactured into some hero, some dragonslayer ...
Gary nodded. "For the good of Faerie," he agreed.
"We knowed ye wouldn't mind, lad," Mickey said cheerily. "Pwyll will return the missing spear and armor, and return as a hero."
The words led Gary's gaze back to the pile of metal. He could see that the magnificent armor was battered. One of the arm pieces lay in plain sight, its metal torn. Gary looked down to his own forearm and saw a similar scar. He realized that to be the broken place in the dragon scale shield, a crack that Robert's fiery breath had apparently slipped through.
"Don't ye fear for the armor," Mickey remarked. "The Tylwyth Teg'll clean it up good, and any dent it's got, it rightly earned." "Cedric Donigarten would be truly pleased," Kelsey agreed.
"It will look better if I'm in it when Pwyll brings it back to Dilnamarra," Gary reasoned.
"Aye, ye might be right," Mickey replied. "But that cannot be, since ye're leaving now." Mickey glanced to the other side of the blueberry patch, where a group of fairies had gathered and were now forming into their dancing ring.
Not so long ago, particularly at the moment he was forced to face the dragon, Gary would have welcomed those words. Now, though, his emotions were truly mixed. How could he leave, he wondered, with Ceridwen about to come forth, especially since he had been the one to release her?
"No way," Gary remarked firmly. "This isn't over and I'm not leaving." "But ye are, lad," Mickey replied. "The witch'll be free in the next season, but she'll find a different world awaiting her. The folk're rallying around the Baron, both here and in the east, and, don't ye doubt, Connacht will find a fight on their hands that Kinnemore and Ceridwen never expected."
"I should be here," Gary reasoned. Looking for some support, he sent his thoughts to the sentient spear, reminding the weapon that he was the rightful spearwielder and that it was the only weapon in all the land which could truly harm the witch. To Gary's dismay, no reply came forth, and he could sense that the spear had broken off contact, even the continual subconscious contact, altogether.
"Ye go back to yer own place," Mickey said. "Who's knowing how long our next war will run? Ye've a life, don't ye forget, a life beyond the realm of Faerie."
For a moment, Gary couldn't decide if he wanted to remember that life or not. He was playing a monumental role here, in this land. He was the dragonslayer; he was making a difference. What could he do in his own world to possibly make any difference?
But the line of reasoning inevitably led Gary to remember Diane, and his family. He made a difference to them.
In the end, it wasn't his choice anyway. Kelsey helped him to his feet and led him over to the dancing fairies.
"Go on, then," Mickey said, and it seemed to Gary as if the falsely cheery sprite was on the verge of tears.
"This is not finished," Gary said determinedly. "I should be here." "Ye never know what the wind will blow," Mickey answered with a smirk.
"Now get yerself in the ring, lad, and go back where the fates determined ye belong."
Gary stepped in and sat down. He looked back to his friends and saw that Mickey had popped his long-stemmed pipe into his mouth. The fairy song compelled Gary to lie down, then, and close his eyes, and he fell asleep with that peaceful vision still in mind.
When Gary woke up, he found that he had left the realm of Faerie, but not the soreness of his exploits, behind. He was in the woods out back of his parents' house again, up in the blueberry patch, with the sky in the east growing lighter shades of blue.
"Diane," he breathed, and he rushed over the edge of the vale, heading for the mossy banking. To his utter relief, he found Diane sleeping still, groaning and stretching and about to awaken with the approaching dawn. Gary skittered down the hill and fell into place beside her, closing his eyes and pretending to be asleep.
Diane woke with a start, and looked all around, her face crinkling disgustedly. "Hey!" she said, and she punched Gary hard in the shoulder, then put her hand up to cover her nose. "I can put up with morning breath, but ... did you get sprayed by a skunk or something?"
Gary opened his eyes and regarded her curiously, then took the moment to sniff at his armpit. He nearly fell over backwards. "No, just breathed on by a dragon," he replied with a chuckle.
Diane punched him again. "You must have been dreaming and kicking," she reasoned.
You run around for a week in heavy armor, under a summer sun and through soaking rains, Gary thought privately, and let's see how wonderful you smell! To Diane, he simply offhandedly replied, "Maybe."
Diane waved a hand in front of her face. She stopped short, though, her eyes locked on Gary's hip.
"What?" he asked, and when he looked down, he got his answer. Across the side of his cotton shirt was a long stitch line.
"What happened to that?" Diane asked.
"It's an old shirt," Gary stammered, trying to tuck it in quickly and put the stitch line out of sight. Diane grabbed it from him and tugged hard, pulling the shirt all the way out and revealing, to her horror, the scar of a deep wound, a knife wound.
"What happened?" she demanded again. "An old cut," Gary replied, though he, too, was obviously horrified to see the wicked scar.
"No, it's not!" Diane growled. "And don't you lie to me!"
"Do you think that you would believe the truth?" Gary replied evenly, his green eyes locking an unblinking stare into Diane's similar orbs.
She understood, then, remembered all that they had talked about, remembered the flowing script in The Hobbit and the tiny arrows on the windowsill. Gary had gone back!
"Don't ask," he said to her before her lips could form the obvious string of questions. "I don't believe it myself." Gary rolled to get up, and felt a lump in his pants pocket. He shifted and reached down, and produced a tooth, an incisor several inches long. He held it up, both his and Diane's expressions full of disbelief.
"Lion?" she asked, her eyes wide.
Gary shook his head slowly and corrected her. "Dragon."