When we got to the cottage Angie shooed Tosh off to the bathroom for a hot bath while she checked on Ianto. After making sure that all he had were bruised ribs and a few shallow cuts on his forearm, which she quickly cleaned and bandaged, she handed us each a towel and a clean t-shirt and pointed us in the direction of the garden pump.

            The water was chilly and by the time we had gotten ourselves cleaned up and dried we were both shivering. Angie, bless her soul, was waiting for us back in the kitchen with hot coffee and a pot of soup simmering on the stove. I slumped down at the kitchen table, hands wrapped around a steaming mug, watching Ianto sniff curiously at the coffee. I took a sip.

            “Another Torchwood theory confirmed,” I said, taking another as the wonderful warmth sank in and spread, “there is a Jones coffee gene.”

            Angie snickered. “Of course there is. Did you think… there you are, Tosh. I was beginning to think that you had fallen asleep in the tub.”

            I looked over my shoulder and my breath seized.

            Tosh was wearing an unbelted llaeswisg in a deep green edged in gold at the lower and upper hems. The flower-and-leaves necklace she usually wore – a gift from her friend Hame – nestled elegantly in the scoop of the neckline. Angie had even provided matching sandals that peeked out from under the fabric pooling at her feet. She looked every inch the perfect Tylwyth lady ready to receive guests.

            I stood up and pulled out the chair next to mine. “You look gorgeous.”

            She smiled shyly. “Thank you.”

            When she came closer I noticed that the robe’s gold trim was embroidered with bluebells and primroses picked out in gold thread, and the shoulder pins were in the shape of harps. I aimed a nasty look at Angie and got back a tiny little smirk and eye-roll.

            Was everyone around me turning matchmaker?

            Angie ladled out the soup; there was bread, butter, and fruit on the table. Suddenly I was starving, and by the way they were wolfing down the soup, Ianto and Tosh felt the same. I wasn’t foolish enough to think I had dodged the inquisition, but I was glad to have postponed it for a while.

            Angie’s little trick had set me to rehashing the same old question I kept asking myself. Did I have the right to ask Tosh to marry me? I knew that I had much less to offer her than I would be taking away. She had faced down horrors I could only imagine. She had travelled the Universe with a being whose word could topple empires, and I knew she had a standing invitation to do it again. If we married she would be bound to an alien culture, tied to this little backwater planet for the rest of her life. And worse, she would see herself grow old while her husband never changed.

            “Andy? Andy?”

            I looked up to find the others staring at me. I realized Ianto had been trying to get my attention for a while.  “I believe I said explanations were due.”

            I took a big breath and let it out slowly. “My people believe all the Universes were born from the same primordial energy. This energy is the binding agent of time and space. It infuses everything and can be tapped into in many different ways. These ways were encoded into each Universe very early in its evolution. In some you must release the energy using physical methods: electricity, nuclear power, gravity. In others you can use more elemental ways and tap into it directly. In some very, very few cases the Universe will partake of both. Ours was one of them. This is another.”

            “That’s why your people came here,” Tosh mused.

            “When you are born into a dual energy Universe your cells require both to survive. Physical and elemental cannot be separated and must always be in balance. Terrible things happen if they aren’t.”

            “That’s very interesting.” Ianto neatly peeled and sectioned an orange. “But it doesn’t explain about your… title?”

            “Actually, it does. Some people are born with the ability to prevent the primordial energy from becoming unbalanced. It’s an unusual talent and one that runs in families. Thousands of years before we came here my people had developed a ritual that harnessed that ability to cleanse and purify the energy and allow its manifestations to reach perfect equilibrium.”

            “You can do that?”

            I shook my head. “Not by myself. I have a marked affinity for elemental energy and much less for the physical. In order for the ritual to work, another man is necessary. Someone whose talent is the mirror image of mine.”

            “Man? No women allowed?” Tosh asked a trifle acidly.

            “It’s not a sexist thing, Tosh. We tried once. It was a disaster. The Rift cracked wide open. There were ice storms in summer and sudden thaws in winter. Crops failed and what managed to grow was trampled in the battles to contain what came through the Rift. It only ended when my clan grandfather, my grandmother’s father, sacrificed himself to rebalance the energy. I am named after him.”

            “Andrew?” Ianto asked.

            “Andrew is my human name. Among my people I am Avallach, son of Gwythyr,  son of Urien, direct descendant of the Lady Modron, daughter of Avallach, Eldest of the Tylwyth Teg until his death in battle against the Beast’s child.”

            Ianto sat back, chewing his orange sections thoughtfully, saying nothing, but it was clear he was adding two and two and coming up with a reasonable facsimile of four. Tosh had that faintly mulish look that told me she had sunk her teeth into something and wasn’t about to let go.

            “It had nothing to do with intellect or innate ability, Tosh.” I told her. “The people performing the ritual thought they would be able to overcome the fact that the female system naturally carries an excess of elemental energy. It has to, otherwise it wouldn’t survive the energy drain during pregnancy and childbirth. It worked at first, but as she got tired, her natural energies reasserted themselves.”

            “Tired?” she asked.

            “The ritual involves combat,” Ianto said. “Two days a year, all day, sunrise to sunset. Which one are you, Andy?”

            There was no point in dissembling. “I am the Summer King.”

            “Who is the Winter King, then?”

            And suddenly I knew. It was the reason for the beldames’ reluctance to discuss Achren’s quarrel with her family; my grandmother’s reticence; the tywyl’s attacks; and the bowing from the people of Dynogoddeu. I looked at Angie, who was smiling, amused and proud.

            “You are, Ianto. Or at least, you were supposed to be.” I laughed at his horrified expression. “Aunt Achren really did let the cat loose in the hen house, didn’t she?”

            “She will be pleased you approve,” Angie said. “We should get started. She’s waiting for you. All of you.”