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.

     ... You are staring... uncertain... wary and wise...

     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..."

     "You have no idea how brightly you shine. How ...tempting your energy is. How to tame it, for an instant, is one of my greatest pleasures and delights. You are like holding lighting. Like putting one's head in the tiger's mouth."

     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.

     The door to 12 d. Rue de la Comtesse opens, and the tall figure of a man turns, his fingers flipping another page of the book -- a book of sketches. You are on time. And it is a good thing. A moment later, and that would have been wasted dramatics.

     Outside on the docks, he pauses to take a look around. One never knows what the future will hold. He never once thought it would ever bring him here, or that he would ever have fought trolls and ogres on land in the company of Tiernan of the Winter Diamonds.

     "...In either case, we should take our fates into our hands, make our choice, and deal with it. His hatred is not an inevitability."

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

     If I'd known that the last time I saw you would be the last time I would hold you, the last time I would be held by you, I would have done so much differently. But if I'd known, I wonder, would I have had the nerve to leave...