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"Ellen, wake up lass, I want you to see something."  Kane's voice stirred me, and I groggily came to.  The car was still moving, and I wondered how long we had been driving, and how long I had been asleep.  I looked at the clock - I had only been out 7 minutes.  I was still feeling weak from my recent experience in the loch, and a little jittery, but the small power nap in the warm car had helped to restore some of my wits.  We were driving down an incredibly narrow road that looked to be nowhere near the town.  The road was surrounded by firs on both sides, so that I felt I was amidst some sort of magical forest cave.  And had he just called me lass?  Perhaps I had been imagining that part.  History majors often are prone to quite large imaginations, and since I was a history major in an imagination-inspiring country, I often times had to really question what had been real and what had not.  Sometimes I felt as if I were really living the history I was learning about.  

"Where are we Kane?" I asked him, enchanted by the wild allure of the winding, forgotten road amidst the wilderness.

"The highlands, lass, home of the highland warriors."  He said it with a mischievious glint in his eye, as if the wild allure of the country had charmed him as well.  

He had called me lass.  I smiled and looked over at him, eyebrow raised in intrigue.  "Lass?" I asked him.  

He chuckled.  "Aye, tis a Scottish custom to call a girl lassie when ye enter the highlands."

"Ah" I said, and then with a half-smile, "so does the same custom apply to men, then?  Shall I be callin' ye laddie?"  I laughed at my own inane prodding, and my attempt to imitate his unreplicable accent.

"NO."  He said definitely, trying to be serious, then laughing despite himself.  "The term laddie isna so endearing as is the term lassie."

"Really?" I asked, intrigued.  "And why is that?"

"Weel," he started, hesitating, "ye see, men called laddies are...weel...thought of as...weel they're just na known as well endowed men."

I just sat there, staring at him in dumbfounded expression, not knowing whether to burst out laughing or chastise him.

"What?" he said, trying not to smile.  "Doona do that...it looks like you're trying to catch flies with your mouth.  And I can promise you, I am not a laddie."

Then I did burst out laughing.  The fact that he even felt the need to reassure me of his qualified endowment was simply hilarious.  The man was 6'4", 200lbs of natural brawn, and his thumbs were very sizeable.  Some people find it ridiculous to use other body parts to determine a man's degree of endowment.  However, since my mother is a doctor, and she says that the correlation is usually accurate, I have no reason to doubt her.  Amidst my laughing I wondered how on earth our conversation had literally drifted so far south. 

"Well then, sir" I said, "if I cannot call you laddie in the highlands, then what shall I call you?"

"Och" he said, thinking for a moment.  A gleam was in his eye, and I knew he was probably contemplating something uncalled-for.  Then he stated, with a straight face, "Phantom Lord of Ultimate Darkness."

Then we both laughed.  Right.  Like I was going to call him that. 

***

We came around a very narrow turn that lead to a long driveway, at the end of which was an enormous stone mansion that jutted out of the green hills like a king on its throne.  I gasped.  It was absolutely magnificent.  "Kane, is this the thing you wanted me to see when you woke me up?"

"Aye" he said, quietly, humbly.  

I grew suspicious.  "Kane, is this your father's house?"

He smiled and looked at me out of his peripheral, "And if it is?"

"Then God in heaven," I said, "it is the most beautiful place I have ever beheld."

"Ach, no" he said, and then he looked into my eyes for a moment, "I've beheld greater beauty."

A shiver ran through my body, that tingling sensation again, one where the power from eye contact can change a person's emotion within a millisecond.  

"Still cold?" He asked me.

"Uh...only a little." I replied.  i didn't know whether his question was directed towards my situation in the loch, or meant to imply that he had noticed my reaction to his statement.  I averted my eyes, struck by the intensity of our skinless contact.  We didn't say anything else until we'd reached the mansion.  Thus, I figured he had asked the question for the later reason.  He had felt it too.