Niabheara nearly froze in her tracks--Seth? Seth didn't hug--but followed him, hurrying a little in the chill. "I don't believe you would have known the Duke--" she stopped herself from adding 'back then'. "He's not much older than my father." She looked curious. "What trick?"

"I guess that would explain it. Shame," the youth said with a shrug, smiling pleasantly. "I still have... well, maybe you won't think of the whore-haired tallfolk as family," he paused to wink there, to show he was joking "I hope you won't mind if I think of you that way, anyway."

He closed his eyes, clapped his hands together and rubbed his hands against one another quickly, "I never learned any glamourie, but I can do a thing or two..." and as if the friction from his hands had been at work on her clothes, the water on them evaporated off in a little puff of warm, humid air.

Seth exhaled a puff of breath, opening one eye to make sure it worked.

Niabheara, who had an hour ago thought she might not laugh again until some time in her third century, let out a surprised, pleased noise. "Good neighbour." She touched her hair, which, dry, was starting to uncoil into its usual waves. "You're . . . " She didn't know whether to be happy or not about this development. "You're a changeling." She didn't know if that was the right term for it either, or if someone could rightly be counted as a changeling if they started off as an adult.

"A whichnow?" He laughed a little, half-sure he'd heard the word before. Something whispered.

Something he was pretty sure he was told not to worry himself about. And, having been so worried about going back and wasting some of the time he had? He'd not worried about it.

Either way, he warmed himself up, long-practiced fire magic helping him rid himself of the water, even if it did keep drip-drip-dripping down his back from his braid.

"Changeling. A human bairn that was crib-stolen." Something stirred in her memory and she glanced away briefly, as if she had seen something out of the corner of her eye. "They get to be like halflings, a little, except that you're . . . " Well, not.

"Well, like you said. Maybe it's because I was eleven when I got nabbed? Or maybe it was the magic training?" He pondered it quietly for a moment before shrugging. "I saw the Queensman once. He was a halfling. Seemed... well, except for being the only person in the kingdom as tall as me... he seemed pretty together." Seth smiled and shrugged. "I mean, I'm... I'm pretty okay. Should I be worried?" He tilted his head a little, watching her with a little smile.

"Wait." The smile fell away then, "Was that what mom and Maitu were talking about? Me not being able to leave?"

"I always thought that people had to be babies to be true changelings. Or at least very very young." Although, she granted, that eleven was young, especially to a Tuatha. "They told you? That halflings can't leave?"

Seth frowned a little, "Well, when Morgan--my biological father, have you met him?--and mom were having their fight before I came here, Mabhe said that I couldn't leave. Then Maitu said I was like a halfbreed and might be able to survive outside..." He frowned then, "Gods, that's kind of a scary thought. Not being able to leave."

He shrugged a little then, "But I like it here, so I don't think I need to be too worried, do you?"

She nodded gravely. "I have met Morgan, aye. I don't think--"

A very sudden realisation came over her: Seth, through some twist of fate, now had a very roundabout claim on Cnoch-na-Niall. The thought amused her at the same time that some fiercely possessive part of her psyche snapped shut like a clam around the idea. "I don't think either of them were quite right," she continued, trying to ignore the instinctive lack of charity. "I should think that if I can leave, you could if you wanted to. And I was born here."

"Oh, good," said the youth, apparently not picking up on the hate-radiation inside the woman. "I was hoping that would be the case. Not that I really have much to do in the tallfolk lands, as it turns out, but it's nice to know that I could."

He smiled at her then, "So that's that cleared up for the moment." The smile grew just a bit larger before he tilted his head, "So what brought you out here in the middle of this miserable down-pissing, anyway?"