"It was a Telltown wedding. That could mean anything. A marriage isn't lawful until there is at least one child. Except for a true love-match, like me and 'Daig."

Baine's words drift down around my spinning skull from somewhere above me. They float like feathers and I only catch a few. Wedding. Lawful. Child. There is a faint stinging where Faramir's sword cut into my ear. My chin aches under me beard. From that, I know I canna be dead. Or is this what it feels like when yer head is chopped off?

"At least one child?"

Another voice, this one squeaks a bit. No need to open me eyes. It's my maggot-brained son. I sink down onto the softness of wherever I be and let the warm, sweet smells fill this splintered head. Steamy green smells that fill up the bee stings where my ear used to be and the black and blue ache that throbs in my lower jaw. There's a whiff of something else warmer and sweeter yet and I know I must be dead or dreaming now, for its the musky scent of woman, very close by.

"Wedding? Child?" SUddenly it hits me like a war hammer. My eyes fly open. At first I am off-balance, unable to move. The accursed hump on my back forces me to flail my arms and legs like an overturned beetle before I can sit up. Baine stares me in the face. Was I really sprawled across her lap?

"Da!" Sean points and grins, then doubles over laughing. I see two of him, then three, then, if I shut one eye, only one again. Without wanting to, I fall back against Baine again.

"Ahhhhh, me head feels like its swathed in clouds," I groan.

Baine giggles. A gentle jostle. "All the whisky you had before Keu put you to sleep, small wonder you're a bit drifty yet. I fixed your ear, Nion. The clouds around your head are just the wrappings that hold the healing poultices in place."

"I thought I heard something about Sean and the toad-witch having children," I moan. I take a swipe at the wrappings to knock them off but Baine is quicker. She grabs my hand and scolds me as if I'm a naughty child.

There's a sneeze just then. In the doorway of the cave. A tiny, child-sized sneeze. By Dagda's long stick! There's the elf-bride and she's got - toad children!

It makes me howl. "How long have I been asleep? I'm grandfather to -"

Laughter is the last thing I hear as I fall backwards into the black well of a banshee's shriek.