The light was dim and it looked to Gwen as if they'd stumbled into the Faerie Mound.
"Where are we?" Harry asked.
"I dunno." Gwen replied. "I don't think this is really happening. I think this is just another trance."
They held hands as they groped in the darkness, trying to make some sense of their surroundings. The ceiling of the room was short, the walls low and there were no windows to be found. The wane light seemed to transfuse the entire room; it didn't seem to have a source it simply was. There was no door, no way out.
"What is this?" Harry asked, laying his fingers gently on a dark slab of granite.
"Don't touch it." Gwen said. She had the sneaking suspicion that they were visiting the unsellie court, and the table before them was for dining. The old legends said that if you ate fey food you could never again leave the mound. And if they were amongst the unsellie that would be a very bad thing.
"You recognize this place?"
"No, but my intuition never lies. But if this is just a trance then nothing should be able to..." She stifled her speech when a host of terrifying fey entered through the wall, cloaked in white home-spun robes. Their faces were dark, which Gwen was thankful for. They were too wild to look upon without feeling your knees go weak.
Harry and Gwen shifted back towards the wall, but they found that they fey did not see them. This was indeed a trance and nothing they said or did could be heard or seen.
The court circled around the table, blessing it with herbs and flowers, a bit of water from the lake and an interesting black sand Gwen had never seen before. The Stag King entered in his deep, dark cloak his head wrapped in ivy sprigs, accenting his tan horns. His hair fell in a black tangle around his shoulders and his face was dark, covered in a shadow that seemed to move wherever he moved.
He was carrying in his arms the body of Gwen, not much older than she was now. She was pale and looked almost dead, as Harry had described her in his dream. The king laid her on the table and began to speak over in a strange fey tongue long since dead.
The real Gwen and Harry were squashed against the wall, hardly daring to breathe or move a muscle.
Gwen on the table stirred softly and the king placed his hand over her eyes. She fell back into a deep slumber and the pain creasing her brow ceased. The king caressed her cheek, spoke once again in the same strange language and exited through the same wall he had entered. The little hooded fey took guard around her to stand watch.
The dimness was beginning to dissolve.