It has been a hell of a three-day night. Three dog night? Whatever it was. Gwilym stirs, body as close to entirely limp as it is possible.

     "Come with me," the Holly King tells you, wine running like blood down through his hair and dripping from his mouth. "I will guide you and show you the way."

     A hand comes up, tugs lightly at your hair, and she sighs, going quiet. Love is a son of a bitch. Remind me, if I ever run into that fat diapered freak that's Cupid, to kick him in the balls...

     She's suddenly shy, taking the paper back and setting it aside. "I have a lot of faith. I mean, it's not religious faith; I don't know how you'd explain it. It's not religion, though. I just, I do believe there's something more to the universe than atoms..."

     She bends her head to peer blankly at the papers, golden hair falling in a veil before her eyes. "Thank you," she says quietly. "I'll ... see you in the morning, then."

     Hope you allow yourself the odd bit of happiness, even though it's scary. That's all I want for anybody. I just want everyone to be happy. I must be the biggest masochist of all.

     "Ian and I leave tomorrow night. Would you care to join us for a drink tonight? We like to drink brandy while our servants pack for us. It makes us feel useful."

     It is painfully honest. If he were holding anything now, it would have dropped again by this point. Hansl wears his confusion like the finest of clothes - askew to imply the nakedness beneath.

     "...It is as though you are trapped in marble, and I am here with the chisel and hammer," he grins again, "... trying to find you. Yes? Just as Michelangelo said. The body is in the marble. I am only trying to free it."

     "Now, I am an engineer. I have built many buildings, castles, cathedrals. But I do not know how to reconstruct this friendship. This family. It's broken. So... he has made a new one." Frowning, he shakes his head. "Maybe that is all we can do. Make new families, and leave the rubble where it lies."

     "Fear," he continues softly, "... is selfish because it is the expression of the body's and the soul's will to survive. It is necessary. Do you think anyone is without fear? Do you think you should be? How unreasonable a thing to ever expect from yourself. How unfair you are being to yourself..."

     Deep blue, serene aquamarine, stormy grey, tranquil turquoise -- the confluence of all the world's oceans, and of the oceans yet to be, come together here.

     His hand cups your face. "The best antidotes for ghosts is illumination," Agapios murmurs, his fingers stroking your cheek. "They cannot abide the clear light of examination. And so... we will vanquish her. I am confident of this."

     He stands there, waiting for you to move to the sofa as instructed. Who's the servant here anyway? "Would you like anything to eat while I work?"

     Where you touch, her hand upon your arm, there is a gentle connection, and an instantaneous soothing, spiritual balm. Zafirah wanders with you, content to walk in silence for a few moments.

     "...One night, one day maybe you will look up and you will understand why. For now... just... believe it."

     "Well, I have a heart like a raisin. A prune. But... I will tell you something," he whispers now. "When I am with you, I can feel it growing plump again with blood, Gwilym. I can almost feel it beat again, like it did when I was young. And alive."

     "You are in my blood," he groans, "... like Caravaggio's disease. You burn there, and I find no rest from my want, amice."

     Iowerth smirks. "Worried, Distressed and Confused." His eyebrows arch up and he exhales. It does sort of suit him at the moment...

     "If only we poor human creatures could be guided by the Logic and Reason we crave. Your solutions are not new, they are simply not acted upon. Not so quickly. They say things are changing, more children heard playing in Venice these days. I hope it is so. At night, late," that mouth of his spreads in a smile as he lights up his cigarette, "...you can almost hear the collective breath of the city being held..."

     From the labyrinths of London's shadows to those that exist Between Places, leading lastly to Otherworldly covers of darkness, I began to walk.

     "With so much complexity, the more one struggles the worse it gets. I struggled, quietly and not so quietly. I'm sure I shall again. That's the nature of life."

     To defeat the darkness, one strikes a light. The poisonous shadows swimming in his blood cannot bear such light; purity is the enemy of poison. Gwilym cannot see, cannot sense it; cannot hear the howls of terror, defiance and finally, defeat as that light shreds away at the dark.

     "Before you answer, you do know that happiness is not guaranteed just because you want him to be happy. I want him to be happy, and my other boys. You, of course. But while we can all sit around wanting everyone else to be happy, Life has its own rhythm. Things will come and go, including joy."

     I am your Star, oes? And maybe, just maybe that is part of the problem, Io. Your boy ... you made him your chamberlain, your seneschal. But what is he to you, in that sense? It isn't enough to love, sometimes. Sometimes, it needs to be given a name.

     "On the contrary, I think you are doing your father very proud. You seem to be an intelligent young woman, crafty, capable, able to carry on any number of conversations. Why should that cast a negative light on your father? Rather, he should thank you for making his kingdom seem learned and accomplished..."

     "No no, Gwi, you're working too hard," Iowerth drolls low and wry, "...you should slow down, brawd, before you pull something."

     After the call, brief as it was, came to an end, your captain showed himself again. Lift that pillow, tote that blanket! What had been efficient tidying before, following several hours of complete and utterly decadent dismantling, now had to be the very spic of the span.

     You are leaving me...

     "I wonder what is going to happen now," he says, dreams in his cadence. "To all of us. I am not worried about myself," Galadriel says suddenly, softly. "I will answer Dominic's questions, but this time I will not be afraid."

     Andrealphus chokes on his words and weeps, "I did not even speak to him. I failed when I could not save her. When she left, it was my failure. And I could not face you. And then I heard the lightbearer say: See what Love has done today..."

     The rare few plan to be a harpy or become The Harpy because they know the true path - poise first, influence second, power follows. Only then will the crowd point and say - That is the one you need to talk to. That is the one you should impress.

     I coughed my way onshore like an asthmatic seal, gorging up sand and gagging on sea water. The sun baked the liquid off my shoulders. I could feel it igniting each strand of my hair. I have become the roman candle I always seemed.

     The sun will rise... there in the distance it is promised, the paling line against the otherwise dark. All things must come to an end, every end is another beginning. The sun rises, and it sets, but it always rises again, a daily resurrection.

     Davydd both chuckles and sobs to hear that. Turning his head to his friend, he gives a vipered grin, his eyes creasing in the corners. "Now that's the William I know and love," comes the croak of his voice. "On my ass to the end of time."

     "You attuned to the Outcast," Madian says dryly, with only that momentary pause to signal his surprise, "and you spoke to him. What did you do, firstly, to make this happen - to, as you say, the best of your abilities?"

     Rhodri chuckles. "You are so uncomfortable with intimacy. Are you certain you're pregnant? It could just be a case of bad gas, you know."

     "You are really improving. Perhaps we should take a trip to Tokyo some time. You can study the masters of Eastern Art, and I can have tea waiting for you." William smiles to think of it. "I can be your samurai, waiting. You? The emperor, of course."

     "Part of me wants to beat the shite out of him and anything that had anything of anything to do with any of it," Edward waves. He knows he's not making sense. "Part of me wants him to..." he exhales, "...just be my enemy so I can kill him.

     She shifts, making a quiet sound as your mouth finds her earlobe. The colour pink travels along her skin in a trail along the side of her throat, behind her ear, rendering her almost incapable of speech - soluble in that touch as if to dissolve in water, becoming disparate nothingness within the greater body and volume. "...There is something I must give to you as well."

     "You have endured much, Sentinel. I have come to give you my personal thanks and appreciation for what you have done." Something genial in the midst of all this. "I want you to remember this when times grow more difficult for you again."

     Albizzina moves to stand before you, she reaches to take your hands. "Blessings on your children, Cosimina. All new children in this City are blessings. Visible and tangible agents of this Hope. That all is not lost. That we may salvage the future. I believe it. If We believe it, it is possible... hmm? Even love between you and Paolo is possible..."

     Think not of what cannot be done
     Think not of what cannot come to pass
     For none of those things exist
     On earth, in dreams, or in the highest heaven

     And then, almost as an afterthought, there is a thought to Huw... Heard much of my valor? What did you tell him, about my trying to break Davydd's nose?

     "...It is time for Avalon to return to those who need it most. This body is theirs, I give it to them. With it my soul. With it, my being. For this land and I are indivisible. I am Avalon..."

     "Hindsight is clear-sighted," Davydd exhales, cigarette crushed and the fire is out. "And all the things I have done, there's not a single one I'd repeat but one, and that was lodging the king's sword in Mithras' chest."

     It is the first time he's discussed it. Perhaps it is the safety of this cove, the liberating waves. "Which is the lie and which is the truth?" Giancarlo shrugs. "Is this truth?"

     You know, it isn't you, amours. I do not need to impress you. I am not trying to impress you. It is worse even than this. I want a ghost to be proud of me. And it is something I shall never feel. A validation I am doomed never to receive.

     "...Whether it wears the veneer of art or the cloak of insurance or shipping conglomerates. It's the same game. And you know ... how I play, oui? I ... do not have a business such as I do, and control such as I have it, because I am good-looking and lucky."

     I love him, says the look. Yes, this was a Caravaggio that was meant for William to repair. No one could bear more longing for a golden youth than he does his own.

     He isn't dead.
     He isn't dead, and he hasn't left...

     A man in his early thirties, Etienne glances up at the sun, stopping near the zoologist and crouching low. He pulls a handkerchief from an inside pocket and offers it.

     It has been a long two evenings. Edward's hand tightens, nodding at the notion of being alright. His disposition's improved, but the situation has not really been solved yet.

     William looks from the sky to his friend again, this time his gaze remains there. "If you cannot remain in Our World, and we ... cannot go to yours... shall there be a middle country? Will Earth do, Davydd?"

     The kiss is accepted as tenderly as given. Giancarlo smiles weakly and nods, hearing the words from you, but perhaps not yet taking them to heart. Brown eyes still look slightly downcast. "God...does not care for us...does he, Alire?"

     "Goddammit," Edward says, sitting up from the bench near the Sforza fountain by his room. "Does this place ever shut up?" He glances at his watch, then shoots a look over where the end of prayer is being sung, far across buildings and walls.

     "She had me believing her little mirage of learning and civilization. She and this place, it is a lie. It is learning with blindfolds on, the kind of learning that you memorize prayers and call it Enlightenment.

     The way I have been. The stress. The...whatever it is... that makes us fight from time to time. My uncertainty. "Also... I will say... I wish I could go with you," Valan whispers. "I wish I were a warrior suddenly. I ... am worried." A pause. "I am frightened. A little. For you."

      "What did Maria say," Edward keeps rambling, "...when you said you'd be staying here with her for a few nights?" His earlier explanation of a friendly family visit apparently wasn't taken as truth, somehow.

     Alire looks to you for a long moment. No... you are my Giancarlo and not my Giancarlo. You are my Michele and not my Michele. You, like me now, are some ...creature in between. "Dreams?"

     "I have dealt with the Past," he says it defiantly, though how can that be true if he is still so affected by it. "I have had my anger. I have had my sorrow. I do not want it anymore... again... I am ... not haunted. Have I not ... put those things to rest?"

     Truth is the sharpest implement of all. It cuts the deepest and the surest. But without it, what are we? Who are we...

     "We light candles to remember." Samuel's expression remains unchanged, that almost kindly smile still focused on his guests, but there is, for a moment, a light that has died behind the shrewd gaze.

     Have you thought of how this sounds? How crazy this sounds. And you have only known him for... what is it now? A week? And you are telling him this, and you are acting like this. No wonder you have been alone, Alire d'Avignon...

     "God infinitely understands," Alire murmurs, "It is men who are short-sighted." I don't want to think about this. The short-sightedness of men. Closing his eyes, he leans in. Mouth parted, he takes the grape.

     "In the end," a voice lower than you have heard him speak replies, "...it will not matter, D'Avignon. Not at all."

     There are butterflies in his stomach today. A nervous excitement. A buzzing anxiety. For Alire d'Avignon has a guest...

     Perhaps prayers will be resumed. Perhaps he's just stalling...

     "Maybe... we have been... because I had to realize it. Sometimes..." his voice goes soft. "...sometimes I have heard it happens that way, Brother Hope. Would it be wrong of me to say I was hoping for something a bit more... dramatic?" Kit tries to laugh, but he cannot. It's not funny.

     This is sanctuary. A pocket of peace in a world that still struggles to comprehend it. Not that it has ever been his particular business to comprehend peace. Sometimes he buys and sells it. Sometimes he dashes it to pieces. Sometimes he craves it like a man craves water on his fortieth day in the desert.

     "The sun rises early in the north, my love..." A lament. "Hurry home."

     "But you do know that you should be forgiven," Darius quirks. "God has already said and done so. You are forgiven. His Son has already died for that. It is Done."

     "While my prayers may be heard by God..." and he doesn't count that as a certainty -- only as a hope. "...I cannot confess... to anyone else. I... want someone to answer to..."