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.

     "When do you get started? Right after Yule? Father Christmas Strikes Back?" Davydd cackles at that and reaches for his whisky. That was so good, he has to drink to it.

     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...

     "...I can't go on pretending to be Saint Peter to make all of you love me, or forgive me, or need me. I'm collapsing under the strain of it..."

     A moment's pause is all there is. I'm not trying to make you feel guilty. I understand your part of the argument. I can understand his regret. I ...appreciate it more... what he was going through, or I imagine he was going through, when we were young.

     "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."

     You made me order it, watch it, regret it. You made me kill you. And I can't forgive you.

     The green eyes judge the face that holds them, and the morning's ritual shave is ignored, the 12th Century beard left to stand as a mark, a raise of a flag to his internal, remnant humanity. His mea culpa.

     Here stand two kindred spirits, bound by family, blood, bad habits and emotion. But though they speak the same language, and though they stand not ten feet apart, there's a chasm between them, these men, neither of them a bridge-builder.

     "Ask me again," Iowerth says quietly. "This time, ask me without your hands in my pants."

...Rest assured that I have not forgotten you...

     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."

     "So if you're ordinary, Io, then I am dullness incarnate. Shall we be two grey pebbles on a sparkling beach together?"

     "Oes," he grunts softly. "I feel like I've been in a wine press. Run through the wringer like an old rag."

     "His family here has grown, but the family he has had for the last six centuries is struggling, Fiona. We are... I am," he counters, "... grappling with trying to understand why. Why .. in that moment... he sacrificed one for the other."

     It was good that they removed themselves. The energy was stifling between them, despite their good intentions. What they needed, what they always need to clear the air, was a battle.

     "So...does he still want to kill me?"
     "He doesn't want to bake you a cake," William chuckles.

     The explosion consisted of his foot, the private quarter's door, and a round of darts. With short swords.

     His smile is as lopsided as yours and your brother's usually are, but it is there; and then he releases your hand and looks away. "Here's hoping we can keep the news of your mother's cat's pregnancy from her better than we did the news of our relationship, yes?"

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

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

     "She offered me a game of chance. If I won, she would grant to me access to a realm beyond my imagining; if she won, she would get me to do with as she saw fit, her slave forever. My soul, essentially. And we played at dice."

     Without you, I do not think I could have survived. Hells; I know it. I would have been on this plane, not that, when she died, and it would have taken me with her.

     "You are important to me, Io," he says quietly. "Y' are, oes? But ... I need to learn this, this thing. You - are going to go off in other directions. I've been ... using you for balance, all my life. And now ..." You have gone off in another direction. And my equilibrium is suffering.

     "Why can't you just take something, for once in your life, at face fucking value?" Davydd remarks, amused and exasperated all at once. "I mean, how often do I," he's grinning now, "...apologize for anything?"

     "Brother," he drawls, "I do love you dearly, much as it pains me to say it, but what pains me more is how everyone keeps insisting you're the smarter of the two of us. The obvious escapes you."

     "When the time has come for me to empty myself of all of my tales, I swear to you, good gentlemen, that your stories shall not remain untold."

     You may be remade for your service if your Heart is True. You must be willing to give up your very identity in this, your very being. If you cannot submit, the metamorphosis will rip your being apart and you will not survive. This is spoken with reverence. For the Hellborn, it is the first time they hear the full power of the Symphony. But for the two of you, those once Fallen, it is a return Home."

     It'll be a long journey, ap Owain, but you've made those before. You can't protest your feelings and expect things to change. Well, they'll change sure enough but in time. In time.

     "I fought my demons literally. My selfishness, my fear, the nine-headed beast of Chaos. I even burned in the sun once. Unpleasant, but you know... I needed it. I needed to just be... reborn. So... I was. Again... and again...and again...sacrificing myself over and over, only to rise again the next evening and assess my state." Dark eyes lift to you. "It was my bridge, I guess."

     The folded towel is set upon the rock beside him and he looks out to the surf. Lastly to you. "It has been good to ... put my head back on my shoulders. To replace the noise with the sea. I needed this."

     The silence is reassuring. Out here, there is nothing but me and It. We can both forget our crammed souls, the ocean and I. It can forget the fish swimming under its skin. I can put aside these thoughts that have been swimming in my mind.

     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.

     "There is no plan, because you do not need one. This is not your situation to handle, Gui. It is someone else's, if he chooses to do anything about it. And," Ian nods, "...you must be prepared that he cannot fix it either..."

     "I'm going to kill Davydd ap Llewelyn. Fucking bastard."

     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."

     "Don't look like I just gave you some bad tasting medicine," the waitress smiles again, with sparkling blue eyes that don't look the least bit reptilian. "Let's call it a brief respite from Purgatory," she drolls, "...and an opportunity," such a word! "...for you to reclaim that which you believe is lost. I believe the word you're looking for is credibility."

     Oh well, you say, sitting in the comfy environs of your room, reading over the fucked up details of my life, you are fucking mental Davydd -- everyone knows that. Everyone knows that but you. Only I know it. I've always known it. But then, no one's immune...

     "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."

     "What the fuck did you do to your hair, boyo?" Davydd rattles out, standing and heading for the stew. He shakes his head at his son. "What was wrong with the color I gave you, by virtue of my stunning genes..."

     Blood rolls from his eyes, in his tears that come, the grunting sobs of a man in desperate pain, the grief pulled from his soul through his eyes and his throat.

     "...Does brotherhood end... does love end... when it is needed most? Or does it in such trial confirm its rightness?" William takes a breath, then his undecided look returns. "Am I a fool for caring, Ian..."

     He leans forward, he blinks his eyes. Those old ways of knowing his mind, particularly revealed when he is quiet. Elbows on his thighs, Alire puts his head in his hands, his flaxen hair displaced. "How is that not failure, that silence?"

     "And not all lingerie. Though," his eyes crack open again, "I will need you to have a separate wardrobe for that, too." No, he really doesn't want to see you in something that Rhodri sees you in. It would be strange. It would likely make that famous Welsh temper erupt.

     Davydd ap Owain moves within the white void. What has he to fear? If the floor falls away, he will become a bird. If it rains water, he'll become a fish. If it turns to fire. Well, if it turns to fire he's fucked, but at least it will be quick.

     This was once the great hall. We had our Christmases here, our battles here, he would stand at the fire there and not eat his dinner and never see me.

     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.

     His weeks of counseling have not gone unnoticed. A quiet has settled in the lowest levels of Notre Dame, seeing that St. Etienne - a joke amongst the Malakim and Cherubim who walk the halls - has withstood the drama flamed by the latest arrival.

     "I'm not lazy," Davydd contends. "You were right the first time, Fiona. I am afraid..."

     Davydd stands upon the third terrace down, the Aviary Terrace, the flowers blossoming behind him, the birds flying in and out, calling to the evening, calling to their mates, and he is the stillness amid the blossoming, orgasmic world, standing beneath the flowering vines, his hands upon the red stone of the terrace's railing.

     The more peaceful on the exterior, the more tumultuous the internal. The more hectic, war-crazy the exterior, the more peaceful he is within. That is your man there...in all his paradox...

     There is a smile. That is all I want. It's all I want and it's good enough for me.

     One such green and silver wonder lands beside you, skitters along the stone and slaps against a rampart, leaving behind a paler, but no less charismatic and balls-to-the-wall Welshman, hair disheveled and clothing rumpled.

     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.

     "...Heaven's... complexion must change, too, Soldekai. Or we will forever be fighting real and imagined shadows..."

It's not What you thought When you first began it

     "Tell him," Edward chimes, mostly together, "...I hope it works out like he wants." Have a nice life.

     It is the look of a man who knows he has been wrong. You've seen the look enough to know it for what it is. But for the first time in... well... this time it isn't about some wrong or other done to you. It is about a Prince (and a duke) knowing that he has acted in a very deplorable way.

     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?"

     "So, to friends, yes?" He lifts the glass again and turns back to the kitchen. Who would know the enmity that exists beneath the pleasant smiles and genial conversation? Who would know indeed.

     Open your eyes, and you will see it is no dream. Where you and he have lain has become flowered, purples and blues and pinks. Wild flowers of wild summer. And if you looked at him now, where he lies, he would shine, golden as sunrise in July, his tattoos vibrant as the day they were first made.

     He lifts a hand, he puts it gently to your face and he kisses you once, briefly. "I love you. Find me." And with the trailing touch, his hand falling away, Pharzuph turns to go. Follow me, he pleads. Even as his eyes plead such a case before, he pleas again. Follow me.

     The being outside, man that he is at the moment, peers at the insult-tossing door. Impertinence. Charming. "It is not so much about what you want," comes the very refined accent back to you. Or the door. Who am I speaking with? "I am here to see Jack. He lives here," he says this as if he knows it for absolute fact (which he does).

     Have we not been trying to fill it since? Have we not doubled back on one another in war because of that ...emptiness...

     And the Marches exploded in Love...

Guillaume: [Nods.] There is no fairytale in this, Montague. The only happy ending is the one walking here with you. I got to live, you see. Though, incidental to my own story, at times, my fate and destiny not my own, I am the only one with the happy ending...

     "Alright news," Ian nods, smirking for the close interruption. "I am much like Midas," Ian observes, "...though saddled with the electrons of this age." He sets the PDA down near his leg. "How is young Montague?"

     "That's all there was, was the ending," he snorts. "And then I have to see her while waiting on Sandrine to close the shop. A city of millions. What's that line: of all the gin joints in all the world, she has to walk into mine." He smirks. Then he frowns, "Bah, to hell with her and Mortimer."

     Oh, God, forever is too long.
     Help us...

     Andrealphus waits. In red and gold he waits. Upon cushions created out of rose and violet petals, with cups formed of the tigerlilies, with lotus blossom lamps and columns of bird of paradise, he waits to hear the words.
     And Love Shall Set You Free...

     "I call this...making up for lost time," Ian explains. His fingers slide into yours and he stands, pulling to bring you with him.

     For the past few years, I've looked at restoration from a purely selfish angle. The paintings, my hands, my work, my life...

     As if you stay in the Oasis always, living only there, in that place. Seeming as stuck as William, each of you in your own realities. But that is not so, is it. That is not really so.

     "I have to submit to domination. To have the knowledge of my working on it stripped..." Whatever it is, it is huge.

     "Penance done," Ian whispers, his tongue leading his mouth to yours once more.

     At least...did you enjoy it...Your Majesty? Somewhere in all of that, Ian felt the king find his crown.

     It's like a breeze, when change comes. The doors fly open, the windows lift, and a wind barrels through that takes the stale, stolid air away. When it's a hurricane, all you can do is hold on. Ian just held on for a few years, not knowing what would happen when the winds died.

This prison place tastes damp, the smell of stone ? cold and unforgiving ? and the faint scent of anger and frustration. This world is so empty for the nose and lips. Through countless short eternities these two lovers grow bored. They complain, to the others, that the fingers and eyes have worlds to explore while they have nothing. The ears, though, envy them their empty world, and thus the two are silent.

      "What is that like?" he asks. "Being in love with your favorite subject? To love a canvas and the person?" A not so simple question, though simply asked.

     Last night, a package arrived. A couple of glossy magazines with Yours Truly on both the cover and the center spread. And those words in type. You could hear them whispered at your ear as you read them, flecked with Occitan.

     The song, well - it grants insight, in part, perhaps, but there's hesitation paired with it. No jumping to hasty conclusions, here. When the song morphs, she smiles faintly, though a troubled expression still holds on her face. Maybe, maybe tonight, she'll tell him.

      "Our Lady stands, and so do we. If nothing else, I should think that victory would please."

      "Of course it matters," Alire continues. "And you are correct. You are not going to hurt yourself or him. I will not allow it," and the command that comes through is not a Templar's command, certainly not one that Alire would normally assume, but it is a vampire's mantle. That of a prince.

     "I knew," his French comes, "...you would not forget me, Alire. You would not leave me. I asked God to help me, to help us, and my wish came true." Michele smiles weakly, the tears sliding down his face. "Say that we will be together always. Promise me, my Alire..."

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

     Was he not the one desired? Last year ... not far off in time from this, just after Yule I think. You were longing, bored. Even as you are now. And he arrived like golden fucking dawn, with all his Goodness. And you wanted it.

     And for all of that time, Alire did not move. He did not move at all. He did not breathe. He did not twitch. He did not shift in his sleep. There was Nothingness given shape. He became a statue. Sleeping Adonis on the riverside. Until the slipping of the sun...

     "I'm over 600 years old," he murmurs, the warmth of his hands on you, as they have been all the while. The touching does not end. The fingers curl and uncurl against your skin. He wonders what you shall do. "I was a knight, a... guardian of Pope Clement V."

     ...it is not then, Alire...we are different now, you and I...and we have all the Time in the world...

     Nothing that shall cause him harm, surely. For that I could never do. Even if he turned against me. I should rather be struck down by his hands than to harm him.

     And that's just what the young man beneath the blanket does. A sign is near him, saying, "Reading in bed is boring," and a book has been tossed aside. He's attempting to sleep, but something stirs him.

     It was once hard to pass along this stretch of road without stopping to look out over the sea, the wonder of the Mediterranean. It was an aquamarine jewel stretching out forever. I would see it in the sunlight, I would wonder how any man could look at it and not find it beautiful. Some in my company found it frightening, others were unaffected by it. But not Michele. Though, he would wonder how far a man might get before being swallowed up by the huge five-headed seadragons.

     He clears his throat, and his hands unlace and find his pockets. He looks at the floor. "I have... met someone... recently. Very recent. I do not know what I am doing, Ian. He is... mortal... and a magician... and he is moving to Poitiers..."

     But he has to ask. "Did...did they check everything, Alire? Top to bottom?" This makes no sense.

     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...

     It is an evening full of lights and life, of old touches and a new spectacle. There is activity here...

     Alire lifts his gaze from the crinillation at hand to the wood and the wild earth. A clear night...

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

     ...And then, holding out the package, the slender smile turns to an almost grin. "Ventrue Express..."

     Will he still want to speak to me? Do I really want to speak to him, knowing it might not have been him? I don't know what I want...
     Worse than a child in a candy store, and with less reason, isn't she.

     "Thank you, O Shiva," the naga whispers, his dark. Only when he thinks he is out of sight, only when he may barely see you between the wide leaves of the mangrove, does he whisper adoration. My love, whom I have so wronged.

     There is something... a sound... like wind in the leaves. Perhaps the hissing of a serpent. Laughter? "Joy and sadness..." The consonants linger. "Well, musician, if you can bring true pleasure to Misfortune Himself, then I will grant you the wish of one secret's revelation..."

     The wind moves through my Most Beloved. Through the cavernous holes I have created, whispering. Through the great leaves, through the canopy that hides the sky. That hides the stars from my eyes. Issuing, ten-thousand scratches upon the soft bark of my mangrove tree, I mark my way even as I make my way. Slow, upward for another evening. Unseen in the branches, though a living city. The hotel windows nearby, clear views of the garden. But the tree, O my Most Beloved, is a protective tangle.

     "Meanwhile," Soldekai smiles, "...practically...I ask the Council to remove the lions and any proscriptions. That...will take a bit, I think now." After talking with Yves. He will say what the others cannot...what Blandine cannot. Ignore them. The proof is in our actions. Politic is Nothing.

     Kit lifts his cup in a little salute to you. "Purity... that is something we can aspire toward, hmm? Some choose purity, others truth, others honor. We all have an ideal that we chase, like birds chasing after a comet. But it is the effort, I think, that is rewarded. Not the capture..."

     "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.

     "Anyone can change, Galadriel. If they can Dream it, they can Wish it, they can Aspire to it." Do you understand what you have shown the Symphony? What last lesson We all had to learn?
     "...even Malakim." Even Lucifer.

     "I.... don't ...remember..." comes the melodious voice. There is a soft laugh to that. "It is... too much to remember, perhaps? God... Prince Brilliance... is ....Merciful..." An Archangelic joke. I don't remember, Soldekai. There is... no story to tell. Only... Peace... and so... It Is True. Where else could he have been so long? And to remember nothing?

     "When I saw you arrive," the other night when you and Montague disappeared... not to be seen again until tonight. "... I realized what it is that I had done, frere. Without intent, and yet... intent or no, it was... a moment," a pause, "...moments too dear for me to dare take them. It would be as if I had had a camera, hmm?"

     It is not long after the sun decides to slip out of the sky for its nightly rest that the one known to some as the Goth Diva slips out of her hotel room for a night on the town. Still staying at the hotel, as though she is still unsure as to whether or not she will make London her home once more. It has been so long.

     Have I won? After a thousand years? I think so, but it is hard to tell. We have such a long way to go.

"...A time will come soon, bella, when we will have to leave Ireland... and face our foe together. We should... take this time now...just for us..."

     But you know all this. Just like you know good old Nicu. Old old Nicu. Older than Waterloo, from some old family in Romania. You felt him coming in, to be sure. How could you not? And apparently the whole tavern's full of immortal-types for he's eyeballed all the way to a chair...

     "'K, um..." Edward's French comes, eyes narrowing at the woman, "...this is the part where I ask you who the hell you are and what are you doing here..." the barrel of the Browning shaking violently as Edward tosses his hand lazily in cadence with his voice, "...and whether or not I need to kill you or whatever..."

     Et vous, Eduard. The last words to leave my lips and they did so ... with so little thought. Distracted. Non. Confused. As if the heart and mind rose up together in concert and in unison spoke. Why now? I should not feel this way. My brother and my friend making... honest outreach. Non, it is ... not important -- the past, that is. And what did... or in this case, did not ...happen. He is happy. I am happy. Oui, it is enough.

     "I want to apologize," Davydd's voice, quick in its intonation of your Gaelic with his Welsh phrasing, lingers upon that word. Yes... you heard it. "I... owe you an apology, and... I want to make good on it..."

     The fountain speaks with an audible and inaudible voice. It is ancient. Older than these walls. As your hand touches the white marble, images trickle like water...

     "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..."

     And he rose from where he sat. He rose without goodbyes. A stained glass shadow, he abandoned the remainder of the reminders. This is what it is like to be without you.