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.

     Ravens and years both fly, and flocks like months have ticked across the sky of time. You are king of ever growing territories, hillocks and mounds, meadows of former chaotic and corrupted earth, now transformed to the renewal that the Holly King brings, always with the sacrifice of blood and toil.

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

     They helped him finish what he started. They helped him kill Mithras completely, each one of them, with Blois giving the hardest blow and with Plantagenet giving last rites. Without the Queens, Davydd wouldn't have survived the battle with Mithras. Without the Kings, Davydd wouldn't have survived the battle with himself.

     "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.

     "Brawd." He rises and he takes a look at you. You, Your Majesty. He felt the crowning.

     "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."

     "... I have chained my every dancing atom into a divine seat in the Beloved's Tavern. What I have learned... I am so eager to share..."

     "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."

     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."

     "Stretta," William commands. His voice is quiet but it carries a command that resonates through both lovers. They halt their motions, their faces twisting with the pleasure and the agony that stillness brings. But they do not move. "There is your picture, yes?"

     "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.

     "Consider this your invitation," he says after a moment. "When you're ready to join me out here," his gaze trails across to the wide horizon of Infinity, "...you will. When you are meant to. It will be good... not to walk the shadows alone."

     "My phone rang all night. Fairies, vampires, wolves, shivering nuns -- you name it, they rang me."

     The sun rises, the sun sets. Rhodri is with you during your days; Davydd, your nights. With the trading off, it is beginning to seem as if each husband were simply different aspects of the same Man. Never existing at the same place, at the same time.

     I hear it in you, amice. I hear the drums of a ritual. The bacchanal, orgies beyond human comprehension. They twist in your gut. You want to lose yourself, you want to find yourself, you are afraid of who you will find there in the dark, are you not? Not me, no. But you.

     Will the taste of your blood spring to mind? The immediate kiss might be recalled, but what of the piercing shock of the suckled lip as it was taken, tasted? A match to oil, will what started the fire be remembered?

     "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..."

     "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.

     He hangs his head with a moment of exhaled resignation, then sits back. "Not the birds and the bees speech, I hope," he murmurs and he smiles a little. No, he knows what is coming. For weeks, he's been preparing himself.

     It has almost been a temptation to ask you to meet me on the material plane, brawd. Back at the apartment over Black Jack Davy's. But just as our mother now is reluctant to come here, so I am reluctant to go there; the noise I have in my head, I do not know if it will come back or not. And with you...

     I do not know how to define it, nor myself in reaction...

     So goes the dictation on a busy, busy night. At the borders of the corrupted kingdom lies a great and untamed wilderness. No kingdoms or queendoms hold sway here, but the loose confederation of subjugated villages, villages that now suddenly find themselves free of their dark burden.

     Maybe that is what this is. He realizes it suddenly, even as he gives the sea back to the sea, salt tears finally falling as you kiss him. One gives oneself to the sea, and there is no turning from that. Everything else is worn away by the sea; the ocean will have its due.

     My head is swimming. I have navigated the worst seas imaginable and have kept my head while doing it. Only to lose my head on land.

     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.

     "How's the wedding coming along? Is your mother still alive?" He snickers at that as he takes a seat on the sofa. His thighs spread out and he slumps back against the stuffed leather. Davydd spreads out his arms along the back of the sofa. He grins and pats the leather. Come to papa.

     "It was an ... interesting image. He burned as a dark sun. I ... would not trust him with my soul, I do not think, if I had one. But it made me wish to paint. Not him, perhaps. But to paint."

     There are eddies in the dancing throng of The Odeon, noticeable only to those who can feel as well as they can see. The charge on the air is tight, electric, openly sexual. And at the center of it is a golden Caligula.

     "I have known for some time that only a man would move me. You, Greydon, have moved me; to you, I respond. Your words hold me spellbound, and your touch enslaves me. As an individual, removed from my sense of self, I wish to study under you; with you, as the object of my study and as my instructor. I wish to work with you. As a man..."

     Relax...
     Relax, hell, you don't know...

      "Plucked flowers die, unless transplanted," he murmurs, quoting something he once was told, when still in Saarbrucken.

     "Layers and layers deep. I fall in, he falls in..." Valan's voice trails off. "We fall in."

     "Hmm...what is interesting..." What could be more interesting than you in my arms? William is watching his hands move against you from over your shoulder. You sparkle in the water, and like an elusive dream you ripple beneath his touch.

     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.

     Davydd lowers his head, red hair vibrant against your ivory skin as he bends down, kisses travling southward. "It doesn't matter where," he breathes between your breasts. You feel a sudden unhooking as his fingers make the fabric give way. "Here is good," he chuckles.

     It's been a long time since there was a king. Not a king of mere kingdom - someone who could merge with the land, and more than the land. Someone with the power to command souls. Too long, mayhap. I don't know that we're still what we were, when we were, then.

     And below, an ocean of water transforms to an ocean of sky as starpocked below as it is above. It parts, shimmering as the ship cuts through it. This is where the ocean has yet to dream itself into being. Here, on the frontier of Forever. It is where the End and the Beginning meet.

     It is the kingdoms of fairy and dreams dotting the Imaginary Landscape, with the dark oceans of future dreams dotted with heavenly stars and creatures. There, the plains of chaos, roiling midnight blue clouds of Unknown Possibilities -- both Good and Evil -- both unformed and waiting for God... or the dreams of Man... to shape them.

     The air moves behind and around him as he cuts through it. There is such power in his wake, that stride of Mars always madcap before is straight with purpose. And backed by something tremendous.

     "Across the ocean, there is an island that bathes in moonlight, continual twilight where all days and all nights come to rest. It is full of silver watered rivers and moonlit pools. It is the kingdom of Iowerth Rhudd Ddraig, the heir of High King Davydd." Edward the Red Dragon.

     "The Winter Diamond." Peter shakes his head. "Since it wouldn't be the Summer King - that's the same as the Oak King, the Winter King being the Holly. And there are no others right now that involve seasons as part of their names or titles - not that I can think of, and it hasn't been that long since I hung up my reins."

The shadows have been drawn closed, patrolled by slinking yellow-eyed cats and black-eyed mongooses. She is alone here, in a circle upon her topmost tower. And she beckons, and they come.

     He plucks a grape with a gloved hand, the grape is purple and full of juice. In even the lightest grasp, some of its juice leaks out. "Are you here to tell me you love me again so I won't cry when you are walking down to the shore with the Oak King?"

     "I didn't want more before," Cesare understands of himself. But that was then. This is now. And now is different. He sighs, not really belaboring the point. He knows there is no need. "Power corrupts though, bello. And I am feeling...already corrupted. I have thoughts now that are new."

     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."

     "...Tonight...for the Holly King... it was a night of sacrifice. Giving up the present," his dark green eyes settle on you, and he is sad. "... for the promises of the future."

     Rhodri does not hear him, not from where he lies upon the bed, stretched out and equally glorious now in nothing, his changed tattoos a wonder against his skin. Opposite to his father again, he is nothing but energy. It hums around him, buzzing like bees around nectar.

     From the moment I brought him into the material realm, my hands guiding him from the safety of his mother's womb to a wild world, I have loved him. He is my best work, my best mark upon the earth, the best thing I have ever made or accomplished.

     But he expects it shall cause no ripple whatsoever, this night at the De Ville, his appearance in the sumptuous halls of his own Clan. Why should it? Would they not have to care first, in order for there to be such a thing? And when have they, exactly. He came in a Plantagenet to a Capet party. This he knows. And as long as he is a Plantagenet, it shall be so.

     I am thinking of you, Ian. Of course, always of you. But I am also thinking of this young artist. Of his blood in my mouth instead of this brandy. I am terrible, I know. Mais oui, so terrible.

     Ah, Paris. Is it ever lovelier than when it is an escape, as from some prison, even if of one's own creation?

"And when they have found you, you shall find that while you may have done with Venice, Venice has not yet done with you."

     There is no greater rejuvenating power than that of blood. And yours, so magical, moves though him as powerfully as the act of taking it affects you.

     The white fringe lowers as she looks down to begin picking loose the plastic seal on the bottle. "Open it and find out. Or maybe Miss White," her, "will kill Captain Crimson," you, "with a bottle in the living room..."

     And it is alive. Though Yew trees and Blackthorns are there, reminders of Death, Life is everywhere. For without Death there is no understanding of Life; and no Life without Death.

     "There are many different beings on the earth, in all its incarnations. More universes than one. There are those who are more like I am now than as I was. And, yes, largely they should be avoided. You've... managed less well than you know, but fared better than I would have imagined."

     "What we enter into, no man may put asunder," Davydd whispers. His mouth finds yours again. Another mouth brushes against the side of your neck. "You will have us both," he speaks in a hush. "Tonight, and to the end of Time."

     "Eat of the fruit of the tree and I will learn something..."

     "Drop your robe," the Welsh is deep, earthy, sensual and soft. "When the Maiden stood before Death," his mouth threatens a smile, "...she begged for her life..."

     "...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."

     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.

     Hazel fruit fall from the pregnant trees to the swollen, running river. A land that sings of Death and Harvest, but everywhere there is Life. Life not in its beginning but in the fullness of its power, in the wealth of it, a land in bounty, limitless.

     A single starling lifts from his rest, a single starling takes to the wing, a single starling flies to an open window. The herald, the totem of the Holly King...

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

     ...Where once there were oak trees, holly trees sprout suddenly upon the earth both wide and tall. Branches spring with taloned, evergreen leaves, and the forms of living dragons surround the roots and trunks, etched even into the skin of the trees. Same as he.

     "Shite," A large hand hits the steering wheel and the phone is tossed into the empty passenger's side seat. "Why am I the only one making sense," and now I am talking to myself? Hockley. South? South... somewhere...

     "It did take me longer than it should to realize that though I have been consigned to darkness I do not need to remain in it. In the end, the curse is only as good as the belief one puts in it. Same as faith..."

     Davydd's voice drifts slightly as he stares openly, feeling the rush and want, the magic, the need that you inspire and the apples that will forever taste of you, your skin, your mouth, your thighs. "... I like the idea of you dripping in the jewels I stole... "

     Yes yes. This is all very nice, my dear, sweet Victoria. But it doesn't help me one whit. You see, I need something to do. I can't kill people. Toying with you is now libel to get me into more trouble than I really want, just now-- don't worry, we'll come back to that at some point.

     So many seasons ago, almost to the day -- it will be to the day, when the feast occurs -- that Tybalt lost himself to the Queen of Summer's charms. Lost himself in a way that no one would ever wish for themselves.

     Lightning strikes a tree just outside the window at the exact same time a freak gust of wind comes in off the river. The sound and the pressure combining to blow the window inwards in a deadly rain of glass and water.

     "You...don't like him..." Cesare observes, saying it directly. He smiles though.
     "No, I don't." Nate's honest answer.

     Karoly's gaze is hidden - perhaps she glares daggers, but she does not weep; no tears become visible at the veil's edge.

     "Very well, then I consider our pact sealed." But he sighs slightly, "You know, you really take all the fun out of having a soul bond sometimes. You know that?"

     I am not toying with you, my dear, I am only delaying you... Karoly, murderess of Johannes Arnaul of Saarbruken. My name is Toreador, and I have come for the blood you owe me...

     "I see that you are without entourage today," Sabine resumes in English, voice cool, expression as remote and detached as if she were offering up a comment upon whether or not it might rain. "How ... tragic. Your arms must be quite cold."

     ?Perhaps upstairs.?
     A spiraling stair. It circles twice more for him than it does for others -- a total of three times. But the trip is worth it. Below, an ever expanding field of rosewood shelves carry the wisdom of ten thousand years of human civilization. Around him the hidden power of glamour. He had found the Baron?s court. Now to find the entrance.

     There is the delicate rise of vanilla in the air, with a hint behind it of something more exotic, Eastern. Ceylon Vanilla, it is called, and distilled by the hands of only one woman in Europe, Constanz deWitt.

     The most elaborate and the most exclusive of Carnivale events awaits you all, each of you traveling there. You may see it around the bend of the Canal...

     He skips, almost, happy in this atmosphere. There is a glamour to the air, a scent of wonder that draws people like this man. Tibalt. Never ask him his full titles, he'll lie for hours.

     "You can move to Europe, if you like. Stay here. Stay in Strathfayr. Stay in Switzerland. I don't care. Just...do something. Choose. If you like it here, stay. Who cares about the rest." Whatever that is.

     Edward grins at the young man beside him, nodding his head. He gives a shrug and looks back to the Prince hovering over the dais. "He is no stranger, this one," Edward affirms. "He is Valan Montague. A Brujah," Edward says with some pride, "...of a rare line, and We all are honored by his very presence among you now."

     Your nights are spoken for. You are risen gently just past sunset. You are led into a great hall and made to sing scale after rising scale, stretching your vocal chords, working your vocal chords. Sometimes with Girault there correcting you.

     In other words, Kit Marlowe aka Galadriel Cherub of Dreams and Sentinel of Aspirations is on vacation. A stay at home sort of holiday, with an iced latte, overlooking Gabriel's Wharfside, his boat, and all of London's teaming tourist traffic.

     He emerges from the unnamed club, wiping the last vestiges of dinner from his mouth, needing a drink of something else. Valan Montague runs his fingers through his golden hair, mussing the Hipster 'do.

     Your homme, not your lord. Your man, your husband, if that word may even come close to describing the relationship. He will be in his boots in the sandy mud.

     Did I jump across for nothing? Are you tired of me already? Are you going to pull that 'I realized I'm not gay' line? This is what you get for sleeping with straight, dead boys, Valan.

     The white cotton suit. A suit tailored for warmer climes, its light colouring and weight making it almost entirely unsuitable for London. And yet this man seems comfortable in it, not noticing how out of place he seems.

      "I think it is self-fulfilling prophecy," Ian begins in medias res, "...that We," the vampire sort, "...are doomed to destroy any chance of contentment in our damnation. What little fire there is, we snuff. I - I will admit - am very good at such. And I've learned to realize it. I did not expect it to see it today."

     "Being with you," Edward says softly, such a contradiction to the body before you, "...has changed me, Valan. Wanting you and being yours, has made me," he frowns at your mouth, finding words, "...more than I have ever been."

     I was looking at a man at a bar one night and it was like I slipped beneath his skin. Further, beneath his blood. No, further, into his soul.

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

     You can teach an Old Plantagenet new tricks. Perhaps you thought he might never understand. He might never get it. That all of that information was wasted. That those heated conversations in Seattle and later in New Port were just exercises in releasing consonants and vowels to the atmosphere.

     "Ragazzi bei, entrambi voi...li avro bisogno ancora, presto. E quello che cosa desiderate?" Ian stirs at the lingering touches across his skin, smiling in comfort.

     Ganymede striding to the shallows, water lowering from chest to waist to hips.

     Girault must steal a look, still it comes with the air of Platonic, See I Am Only Looking, William -- I Have Eyes. There is nothing outwardly lascivious about it. Are you beautiful? Yes, one of the world's most beautiful.

     .... When I came to stop below a hill that marked one end of the valley that had pierced my heart with terror, I looked up toward the crest and saw its shoulders already mantled in rays of that bright planet that shows the road to everyone, whatever our journey...

     "I guess we call a Toreador we trust." A pause. "The list is short. Girault..." He pauses again, corners of his mouth upturning. "It is a short list indeed when Il Gatto di Firenze floats to the top of it."

     "I thought you might like some company," his voice reverberates against the mist, echoing, melody found in it. He seems to sing, even when he does not. And when the face of Girault looks upon you, he beams.

     "I know... what it is to lose. I understand this loss," he says. "I have been where you are now, three times..."

     "I don't mind being asked, but unless there is going to be some sort of action, I really must insist that you make up your mind. I was in the middle of a dinner party. Do you know how long it takes to have a white dragon actually answer an RSVP? No, I should think not.

     He's a small man, topping five feet only by perhaps four inches, and his storm-grey eyes crinkle as he regards the Norman. "It has been a few years, hasn't it, lord."

     The large tome of Alhambra rests upon a table, there beside it a glass that has been used intermittently and throughout the day. And another book beside it, the Story of Pi and another Zero.

     For me, amours, the ride was sufficient, the quiet time with you, it was enough. So simple. So much meaning.

     Somewhere not too far away, wandering about in the inclement season, is a well-dressed man, vestments suited for the weather, with a long overcoat of heavy wool, beneath this a white turtleneck of handwoven knit, wool taken from the backs of Welsh sheep and made specifically for him.

     Another point of truth, laid down in a solitaire of them. She's no idea what she's in the middle of...

     My universe. My carefully crafted universe, the architecture of nearly a thousand years is crumbling at my feet. All I can seem to do is stare. Evenly. Blankly. I do not know what to do now. Maybe none of it matters at all. None of the secrets. The mysteries. I am unravelled.

     Isabel strokes her fingers through the long hair, so familiar and yet not. "My being here is a riddle for someone else's education, you might say," she replies, clearly amused and pleased with herself. "You will learn of it later, if you remember... but remembering is a hard thing, at times, and I doubt you will. I am not she, and she is not me, but we are kin, and you..."

     Julian's face cracks its present placidity, a smile angling at his masculine features. "Needing. Wanting assistance." He nods in familarity with such terms. Lavender eyes look at you again, sorting out negotiable items. Julian begins at your head, with its curl, and works his way down, pausing occasionally.

     The threads illuminate one of the white washed walls, something like stucco only not, and the heretofore random peelings and cracks in the wall become a crackling smile. "Put a kettle on, Karoly, prop your feet. Tell me, how have you been. What have you been up to..."

     The orb of invisibility drops, and Christian sits in the seat, as if he has been there for hours. He smiles; the mature world knows his bad habits of walking the Earth unseen and unheard. "Forgive me," he offers, "I did not expect you so soon." Christian sits up and allows the chair to make its normal noise from shifting weight. "I also do not think I have been anywhere so peaceful in a while, Johannes," lines around his eyes forming with the grin,"...you are a lucky man." He informs.

     Contrast. A gathering of saints, then ... Saint Arnaul, protector of Saarbrucken chases away enough of his thoughts to join the century present rather than centuries passed by, and - there are those who would be shocked - answers his own door. There are not many he will do that for, any longer...

     Essence is what is given. Essence is what pours out of the one collapsing back on the sand, singing today. In sound audible to all ears. In power felt by some more than others -- that is the nature of this song. It continues, with its call and answer to Allah in a tongue that is of no tongue but understood in all nations.

     With the tuning note, in time with it, she slams her fist back, into the wall. If Huw needed another spike, well, he's got one in spades, now - that energy which had gone so deceptively quiescent rises, tearing out through her skin.

     "It's alright," he says, "...it'll be alright..." Such words, such famous words. But he doesn't stop, and a hand reaches out, lightly moving against a reddened cheek. And he kisses you anyway.

     A pause and turn, though. Something else he wants to say. "Take care, Davydd," Sebastian says evently. "Two weeks is a long time. Two years, is an eternity. It is best, we all do those two years on the same page." Not a chastisement to you, but a reminder to you all. "Just watch yourself, because others are doing it for you."

     Girault pivots. An eyeful of Christian. The rest of the world should be so lucky. "We claim him in the name of Italy and..." Dark eyebrows sweep upward even as his eyes make their own exploration.

     "So, how goes, chicky? Guess all's well in bells now?"

     Effortless. So effortless. Grace and magic and some subatomic communication. Knowing. In an instant, where each will be. And fingers of the justicar moved, and fingers of the Dignatary were poised and waiting. In seconds between seconds. Even to you, such motions are apparitions.

     When I should want to rant and rave, you still me. When I wish to thunder and storm, you steal the wind and with the slightest touch dissolve the lightning.

     That look. Priceless. And with you, he doesn't have to be so... civilized. So civil. It is ... pure Plantagenet. "I can put the bullet back in, Meurelle... pussy or no..."

     "'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..."

     A lift and a touch of his gloved hand against his partner's cheek as he leans in. A kiss that, though it is brief and for public consumption, is also without shame. A kiss, love, and see my smile? "Handsome, without compare, beautiful. I like this..." Distraction is spreading. William touches his hand to Ian's indigo. You wear my colors. As easily as you wear me .

     "Vicomte," Edward chuckles, "...I...never became Comte," he whispers, voice lowering. A reason why. "My...brother did..." voice is softest, almost as if his lips move without sound.
     "...six hundred years ago."

     Her skin is so pale. She moves past you but her eyes are caught by something else. A feeling? Copper hair glistens and the bob flips with the turn of her head. Just as a yellow light passes by in a stream. She sees the back of a head familiar. A strong arm circles around her small waist, and she turns. Can you hear them, Edward?

     You can feel what has been stirred. Worry, for the first time, that he might lose you to another. The energy was so strong. I want Tavish gone. For a while.

I am a wicked man ... I am a wretched man... When Jesus was upon the cross I never was this alone ...

     As people head into the ring, Edward turns to see you and gives you a smile. "Hey there, cos!" he yells, "Whatcha doin?" as if nothing's happened and you're walking towards him down the street.

     There will be no sadness for it, just an ultimate realization that his completion comes from one source only. The body has enjoyed the rides, the spirit is lifted and soaring, but it flies homeward, seeking the comfort and bed of its True Heart.