Jason sighed and,trying to stop himself from smiling,came over and knelt besides Puck. He held a hand out gently to him. "Come on.Up-it-y-up." He then looked at Ash and couldn't help but smile,it was nice to see a slightly playful side of this icey friend.

Puck took it, grumbling some not so very nice things about Ash.

"Now is not the time for playing," Grimalkin said from his perch, watching them disdainfully. "The witch will not follow us here. Now is the time for resting." Turning his back on them, he leaped higher into the branches and disappeared from sight.

Settling against a trunk, Ash pulled his sword and laid it across his knees, leaning back with a sigh. Step one, complete. They'd found Grimalkin, a task harder than he'd thought it could be. The next task would be to find this seer, and then...

Ash sighed. Then everything became fuzzy. There was no clear path after finding the seer. He didn't know what would be required of him, what he would have to do to become mortal. Perhaps it would be painful. Perhaps he would have to offer something, sacrifice something, though he didn't know what he could offer anymore, beyond his own existence.

Narrowing his eyes, he shut those thoughts away. It didn't matter. He would do whatever it took.

Memory trickled in, seeking to slip beneath his defenses, the icy wall he showed the world. He had once thought his armor invincible, that nothing could touch him...until Jason had entered his life and turned it upside down. Reckless, loyal, possessing the unyielding stubbornness of a granite cliff, he'd smashed through all the barriers Ash had erected to keep him out, refusing to give up on him, until Ash finally had to admit defeat. It was official.

He was in love. With a dragon.

Jason stayed by Puck,once in a while glancing at Ash and feeling the need,as a friend,to go and sit by him incase he was lonely. But eventually after a few minutes he was pacing a little,pulling at his hoodie and just walking around despite his limp. Mostly just around the area,sorta in a circle,and really not to far. Not to far,he didn't dare it. He tried to just think of his mother and happy things to try and calm this weird restlessness he felt both it didn't help,it only made him a little fidgety.Jason didn't get fidgety,he didn't fiddle with the hem of his left sleeve or run his tongue over his fangs this much. He didn't shift though and he didn't make any little ice things to play with instead.He just...paced.

Puck stood in Jason's path, taking him by the shoulders. "You need to rest, too. Give your body a chance to heal. Jeez."

Ash smiled bitterly at the thought of being in love. The old Ash, if faced with such a suggestion, would've either laughed scornfully or removed the offender's head from his neck. He'd known love before, and it had brought him so much pain that he had retreated behind an impenetrable wall of indifference, freezing out everything, everyone. So it had been shocking and unexpected and a little terrifying to discover he could still feel anything, and he'd been reluctant to accept it. If Ash dropped his guard, he was vulnerable, and such weakness was deadly in the Unseelie Court. But more important, he hadn't wanted to go through the same hurt a second time, lowering his defenses only to have his heart torn away once more.

Deep down, he'd known the odds were stacked against them. He knew a Winter prince and the half-dragon prince didn't have much of a chance to be together in the end. But he had been willing to try. He'd given it his all, and he didn't regret any of it.

Jason was a little shocked,pulled from his thoughts,and sighed softly,giving a small smile.He was thinking a lot but not paying to much mind really to the thoughts.He just let them go,not really giving a whirlwind to grab them and hold them still. He nodded. "Fine...but do I gatta~?" He said,tilting his head a little limply in a playful way.

Jason himself with emotions had tried to uproot them,tried to remove them so that he wouldn't give a blink or glance if someone died,or was hurt or tried to hurt him.He had wanted nothing to do with feelings,and therefore he'd avoided a home.Because you often care for the others in your home,and so he didn't want to care.But then he'd met Ash,he'd not known it at first but his feelings took a stubborn liking to him,little had he known that he'd also taken a strange liking toward Puck as well,but he'd not seen it enough to know. He had only given his feelings for Ash a chance to bloom when he'd given...no,taken that first kiss in that trod.Ash had made the spark of this wildfire killing him inside. That one kiss,and Ash had taken his first kiss,had triggered off his feelings to bloom like a rose bud,but no matter what that flower was always attacked by affids.No matter what,his love wasn't allowed to just be.And so after a while he'd tried to just kill it off,but unlike his real joy it had proved hard.And like uprooting his real joy,it was killing him inside,slowly but surely. He wasn't like he used to be,he was different in ways now,and that was something to say about this flirty jock.But unlike Ash...he...regretted it a bit.He regretted letting himself feel and so shatter,he regretted kissing back only to cause his own pain and then cause the pain to only be more-so.But...it was hard for him to regret just loving Ash.Because ... he couldn't,he just...couldn't.Just like he had a hard time hating,and how he had a hard time keeping his anger under control.

Ash had expected to die that day. He had been ready. The Iron Realm just about killed him itself. If he hadn't sworn that he would find Jason again, might've done something suicidal, like challenge Oberon to battle before the entire Summer Court. But now that he's made my promise, there is no turning back. Abandoning his vow will unravel him, bit by bit, until there is nothing left. Even if he wasn't determined to find a way to survive in the Iron Realm, as well as the human one, he'd have no choice but to continue.

He will be with Jason again, or he will die. There aren't any other options.

"Hey, ice-boy, you okay? You've got your brooding face on again. You and Jason both."

"I'm fine."

Jason crossed his arms. "I don't have a 'brooding' face." His scales turned frustrated orange for only a moment before it was smothered by dark purple then faded to trying-to-be-calm lavender. "I just have my weird expressions of being a dork and new 18 year old."

"You're both so full of crap." Puck lounged in the cradle of a tree, hands behind his head, one foot dangling in the air. "Lighten up already. We finally found the cat--which we should get a freaking medal for, the search for the Golden Fleece wasn't this hard--and Ash looks like he's going to engage Mab in single combat first thing in the morning."

"I'm thinking. You should try it sometime."

"Ooh, witty." Puck snorted, pulled an apple out of his pocket, and bit into it. "Suit yourself, ice-boy. But you really should try to smile sometimes, or your face will freeze like that forever. Or so I've been told." He grinned and crunched his apple. "So, whose turn is it for first watch, yours or mine?"

"Yours."

Jason didn't want to listen to any of their small conversation,knowing they might fight at some point. He felt a little pushed to the side as Puck only asked if the first watch was him or Ash. He would be fine with a watch,but he didn't speak. He just let his tail shift into view and then climbed a bit up a tree and hung by it,sighing softly. He let his arms hand after tucking his hoodie so it wouldn't fall,and rolled his neck a bit,causing small popping sounds of the joints.

Neither of them wanted Jason to get hurt, so neither of them offered him the first watch.

Ash stared at his sword. This sword was made for him by the Ice Archons of Dragons' Peak; his blood, glamour and a tiny piece of his essence had gone into its creation, and no one touches it but him. He tuned out Puck's incessant chattering, and let himself drift.

He almost never dreamed. Dreams are for mortals, humans whose emotions are so strong, so consuming, they spill over into their subconscious minds. The fey do not usually dream; their sleep is untroubled by thoughts of the past or future, or anything except the now. While humans can be tormented by feelings of guilt, longing, worry, and regret, most fey do not experience these things. They are, in many ways, emptier than mortals, lacking the deeper emotions that make them so...human.

In the past, the only time Ash had dreamed was right after his lover's death, horrific, gut-wrenching nightmares about that day Ash let him die, the day he couldn't save him. It was always the same: Ash, Puck and Ian chasing the golden fox, the shadows closing around them, the monstrous wyvern rearing up out of nowhere. Each time, he knew Ian would be hit.

Each time, Ash tried to get to him before the wyvern's deadly stinger found its mark. He failed every single time, and he would look at Ash with those clear blue eyes and whisper his name, right before he went limp in Ash's arms and he jerked himself awake.

He learned to freeze out his emotions then, to destroy everything that made him weak, to become as cold inside as he was outside. The nightmares stopped, and he never dreamed again.

Until now.