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The first thought to come across Ai's mind as she struggled desperately to stay awake was, "How dare he use my own magic on me?" But try as she might, she could not fight the spell off. One moment she was lying on the balcony, talking with her old friend and her young charge, the next she was wandering a fog strewn path.

"Dream walking..." she swore to herself, shaking her great head. "I'm grounded like a p lucked chicken with this fog and stranded on the dream plane."

She took stake of her surroundings and sighed. She had wandered this realm often enough to know it like the back of her paw, but nothing was striking her as familiar... perhaps because she was more often here guiding people along in their dreams and this time, she suspected he had plunged her into one of her own.

"Damn I've never walked in my own dreams before..." she grumbled testily.

Usually she spent her dream times flying about her home world. It was the only time she got to see it these days and probably the only way she'll get to see it for heaven only knew how long.

She had not only crossed the line in the area of common sense but she had crossed the moral one as well. Well that one was rather hazy. She hadn't intended to cross it, nor was what she done overtly evil. But in some ways she had betrayed the trust of one she had been put to guard over... Kero the younger may not realize it but it had been Kero the elder she had been asked to help along, not him. But her old friend had thrown a monkey wrench into the stew by snagging her into watching over his young reincarnation, while he took a twenty or so year hiatus, but she had accepted the role willingly as she had cared for him even back then. Thus raising him was indeed part o her mission, only she had no idea what the status of her mission was anymore. If the elder was little more than bits of memory and data that the younger could absorb, how was she to fulfill what had been asked of her? How was she to see him safely to the end?

She strained to grow wings, to fly above the fog and get her bearings, but the proscription against shifting had apparently followed her into the dream lands. If she was indeed pregnant she understood why this would be so. Shifting would use energy, placing a strain on her life force, the life force her body was now directing to the child growing within her. This, perhaps even more than the ensuing weakness it had saddled her with, informed her that Lyssan had been right. Her dalliances with the younger had indeed born fruit, and bitter though it be, in a way there was a hidden secret joy to the fact as well.

Snorting softly through her nose, she plodded on, recalling vaguely Kerobian's final fading words: "let another guide you through the problem..."

He had also told her to relax and rest. "Ha!" If only he knew. An angel on the dream-paths was just as active as one walking down a path on one of the primal planes of existence. Surely he didn't merely send her here to get some sleep. Someone else had to be wandering this road, someone he meant for her to speak to, so she had best get on with it.

Sighing heavily, wondering just who it was he had meant for her to encounter, Ai slowly made her way along the misty road.

Ai sinks down next to the fire, more than a little uneasy but grateful for the warmth. She might be a creature of the snow lands, but she would take a heavy snowfall over the bone numbing chill of the foggy path anyday. Snow she could shake off, but rain and the such had a way of making it straight through to the skin.

"You don't want to know..." she grumbles softly, not sure how to tell Tes about her indiscretion. She hangs her head sheepishly and sighs again. "Really, Tes.... you don't."

A dozen ways of telling her flash through Ai's mind, gentler ways and ways far easier on herself as well, but in the end she merely hangs her head and whispers softly. "Kero."

There really wasn't any other way she could reply to the question Tes had placed before her. Closing her eyes she waited for the ax to fall, knowing that she had lost her closest friend that day. Tes would never let her get close to Kero again, no true mate would. It was probably best if she merely faded away, taking the child with her.

With a sigh that springs up from the very depths of her being Ai sits up and and shakes her great head. She had held her secrets close for so long now, telling no one not even her adoptive family until she confessed to Kerobian who and what she truly was. Now it seemed the whole world was beginning to learn of her identity. And it was something she wasn't too happy with. The fewer there were that knew who and what she was, the safer the people around her were. True it wasn't necessary to tell Tes anything much less everything, but the draconic tamer was a canny individual, not only did she deserve to know something of what was going on, but she also would know if Ai lied to her. But where to start and how much should she reveal? That was the burning question. And how much about her did she already know? Perhaps that was where she should begin, finding out just how much about her Tes honestly knew.

"Probably my fault it happened, if it involves me personally there's always a very real possibility all hell can break loose in even the most mundane of matters." grumbles Ai pensively watching her host work. "Tes, tell me truly, how much about me do you know. I... I know you were about during the fiasco. But I don't know how much you know or understand about me."

Ai nibbles slowly at her dinner, too nervous to truly enjoy her food. "I never meant for this to happen, I assure you." And from the way she speaks it is obvious that it is Tam in control, not Ai.

She flashes Tes a tired half twist of a grin, reminding the tamer of a certain fun loving bard, then shakes her head once more. "I won't lie to you, Tes. I've always loved Kero... but he had you and well... I didn't want to come between the two of you, so I never told him how I felt. It wasn't a sudden infatuation. It kind of grew on me... and kept on growing... until... until I did something entirely stupid. At first when Ma introduced us, I wanted only to shove his I'm better than thou attitude down his throat, he always seemed to be playing the one upmanship game.... then I got to know him better and the more I got to know him... the real him, the more I wanted to be around him. Crazy, I know... Hell, he had you, but you were never there. You didn't even show up for the wedding... but I could tell he loved you so very much. Then I met you and understood why. The... two of you... mesh." she whispered softly with a heavy sigh.

"Go on..." prompts Tes tapping Ai bowl with her spoon.

Ai nibbles some more then nudges the bowl away. "Sorry.... I'm really not very hungry. Kero kind of overdid the hunting this morning and we gorged ourselves. As for what is bothering me... I don't know what to do... It was easy to love him when I was Tam... Tam didn't feel things the way I do now... Tam's love was purely emotional.... mine's a bit more physical. But in a way, perhaps that is where things began to grow wrong... As Tam I came to love Kero even more... not as I do now, true, but loving him as he did... first as a dear friend... then as a beloved very dear friend, then as a child... made me wake up... in more ways than one... Supposedly we are one and the same, but sometimes I wonder... you could say I'm the more physical side of his nature where as he is the more ethereal... gradually I found myself more and more in control as that side of me slipped further away, reaching my center became harder and harder to do. Then Kero the younger began to show an interest in me... and what little reservations I had kind of flew out the window. To top it off, I went into heat... without warning."

Closing her eyes, Ai laid back down. "It was wrong and I know it... I've probably damned myself for it as well, but I don't want to damn him... and he wants to raise our child... If he does that he'll never truly be free of me... and he needs to go back to you."

Ai sighs heavily. "I'm scared..." she whispers softly. "And I don't like it. I'm terrified, Tes."

She looks at the tamer and shrugs lamely. "Me... probably one of the oldest living creatures in existence is shaking my boots. I don't really know myself anymore... I'm not Ai... I'm not Tam... Lathander did something to me... I... I am a bit of both right now... I love like Tam... I feel like Ai... I'm finally whole and look at me, I'm shaking like a leaf. I... I knew better than allow Kero's advances but part of me wanted to be loved so much... I... I've not been with someone who loved me like that before... not even Bez. I mean Bez's love calmed me. Kero's sets me on fire. It's different. I can't explain it, but it is intoxicating... like a heady wine and I crave to experience it. When I'm around him I don't think very clearly, do things I shouldn't, think things I know can't come true... but never in a million years did I dream it would come to this and I don't know what to do. I can't tie him up in this. He's too young... for all purposes he has his life ahead of him... I love him... I'm sorry, Tes, but it's true... I honestly love Kero so very very much. And I'm afraid I'm going to hurt him... bad."

Ai grins at her weakly. "I fail to see the humor in the situation, but if you're not going to make a fuss over it, I'm relieved. Trust me, Tes.... I am very very relieved."