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

I know you'll miss me
I know you'll miss me
I know you'll miss me blind...

     "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.

     "When I first met you, that night at the L'Empereur, you were pressing a blonde man against the stairwell wall." Golden eyebrows lift and he tilts his head. "At the time I did not know Ian, but I do ...and I like him... so I am wondering...what you were doing with your tongue down another man's throats and is this something you make a practice of when Ian is not around?"

     William exhales slightly. "I know...we have been more open since returning from America. And I have needed that. And I appreciate how difficult it is for you." He adjusts your towel around your shoulder. "There's a part of me that ... wants to take the Directorate by storm one night. You and I... secret marriage... not so secret anymore."

     A sudden grin flashes at Edward's lips though his eyes remain closed. "Ami...don't worry," Edward says again. It's an exercise in futility for you, his smile says, but for him, it is the exercise that keeps him on the Brujah path.

     As garden parties go, it went rather well. There was a string quartet set up on the paved stone area in front of the chapel, allowing for those who wanted to get in a waltz to do so at their leisure. But, in general, the gathering was more low key.

     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.

     He is fairly certain that the fountain was never meant to be used in that fashion.

     "I am not interested in chandeliers, I am not interested in business. I am interested in you. That is what I asked about and that is what I am interested in."

     She's shifted gears on him. It takes him a long moment to catch up. Plans? What plans? I seem to have forgotten everything but this pen. Brilliant he may be, attentive, however, is something else.

     "Alright," Raymond says, shaking his head. You are a strange duck. He glances behind himself, then moves around the room slightly, to spend a last bit of time at the chateau in relative peace.

     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.

     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.

     Little is known about her other than her association with the earlier owner of the castle, her profession as a psychiatrist, that she has only visited the chateaux briefly this fall for a few hours in the span of her ownership, and that she is (unfortunately) American.

     Your senses are sharp. You must hear the intake of a breath. Hear the sparkling of a fire drawn in. The smell of a pipe. The thump of a samoyed's tail. "It is a good night for a smoke," comes the even, deep voice of Georg the Swiss. It rumbles in his chest as he inhales at his pipe again. "What better way to spend the unending night," as it was once called, "... than smoking on a mountain ... Come... pull up a dog, Meurelle..."

     Only then does Edward's face come upright to see you. There you go. I said it . "I do love you. And I want you to stay with me, for a long time." For longer than you perhaps can. How do I make this happen without ruining you and what I find so perfect about you?

     The skiis slide upon the snow and ice, and the mortal upon the edge of the world. This is what knowing Life and Death is. It is beautiful. To be so close to the sky. Upon a spire-point of earth. This is one of the few acts where a mortal may stand, throw his arms wide and hug God. And to say: Here I am... Here I am, one of your small children...

     Such stories begin this way. No fable should be without its chateau and a winter landscape. And so it begins...