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.

     "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..."

     ...But I will be your escape when you need it. That's what Black Jacks do best...

     "But," he exhales, a smirk trailing after his breath. "I cannot sit here while he is possibly bleeding somewhere, can I? So I will stay in the royal palace and demand special treatment from mother. It won't be a completely wasted endeavor."

     He seems ... not to remember me. I do not understand it, but I recognized him when he lowered his hood. It gave me a very bad turn. And he invited me... he wants me to join the Hunt.

     Amice, my heart is like a fig left to dry in the sun. It is shriveled and small. You could serve it like pesto on a cracker, it is nothing. Flavorful but then gone in an instant. And yet, in it is pumping new blood, humming with the power that is in your blood. I feel something. I do not know what it is. But I feel it like pleasure and I feel it like pain. It is a confusion, a puzzle. What is it, what is it -- it beats with that question.

     "...Duw... you look...I don't know that I've ever seen you this way," Iowerth remarks suddenly. "You are in your own power. You are radiating strength and confidence."

     "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."

     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.

     Duw... I want and I want, and I go on wanting. Io, if ever I could hate you for falling for a man, now's the time. What would you think, to see me here, to know what thoughts are going through my mind? I don't dare put them into words, not even to myself.

     He crosses to one of the other tables, sitting on the edge of it, letting his legs swing. "I'm scouting for an apartment over one of the little clubs. Music in the evening, cheap vodka, easy women - all the things mother'd warn me against. I don't plan on avoiding you, Io, I just ... I don't know. I have - things to figure out."

     I'm lost, and I don't know how to find myself again...

     Davydd rolls back, landing on his back with a mighty groan. He looks at you then at the ceiling. "I used to be a wretched thing," he murmurs. "Just between you and me," he murmurs. "I used to be quite wild and wretched. An untamed creature. Strong, mighty, full of confidence..."

     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.

     "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."

     "Oh oes, about the king. He was belched on shore, entangled in the lettuce of the sea and pushed up by the waves onto the sand. Well, he was lucky he came in with the evening tide, or he would have burned up for certain."

     Inside, there are hundreds if not thousands of tiny glass spiders swirling across every surface. When the door opens, they begin to immediately skitter towards the mirror, pushing through the glassy surface and vanishing.

     "...I broke a friendship of lifetimes because I thought someone else was going to do some... thing. When... yeah, yeah... I'm a regular Dorothy. I had the power all along."

     The dreams of places, do they not also dream? Each universe is a multitude of parallels and What Ifs. What if -- two magic words to me. What if I had looked within myself just once instead of foisting all my cares on those around me?

     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.

     His body drifted downward as it shifted weightless in the water, buoyed by the salt-stuffed molecules of the ocean. Until he started trading air for water...

     Folding his arms against his chest, Rhodri pushes off the door. It's like the start of a new adventure. Not just a new morning. Not even just as the first morning of his marriage. It's... well... it's the first day of the rest of his life, to be honest...

     She sighs, going silent, tipping her head back to look up at the sky. "I once told you," Fiona says finally, "that there would be a war coming. You didn't believe me, then. But there will always be wars, Davy. Right now, your war is with yourself. I can't win that war for you..."

     "Both of your children are healthy. And growing." Both. Two. "As befits a queen with two husbands, you are having two children. Two boys. An heir, my lady, for each king. Because you cannot choose between them, your heart a matter of loving two equally, now you do not have to choose."

     "...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.

     It must be why her shades are pulled down, her windows shuttered, the daylight pouring within the chamber subdued and tea filling a cup instead of espresso. Albizzina wanders from the backroom to the front room, kettle in hand and pouring yet another cup of orange tea. In it, she grinds nutmeg and drops three drops of vanilla into it.

     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

     "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."

     From crescent to quarter to full, the moon will show its variable face, donning one mask after the other. So, too, myself, but in terms opposite.

     "Well," he exhales, pausing to remove the jacket after a moment later, losing nothing by the shedding of a layer. "I think it is a meaningless challenge."

     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...

     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.

     Beauteous the crowned head that tilts to the voice of the salmon. The water sloshes as he walks within it, becoming in mere moments, a salmon himself. Trying to prove? What makes you say so, Gwydion the Blessed?

     ...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.

     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?"

     He smiles softly, "Well, that's magic for you. ten impossible things before breakfast, and a hundred more once midnights come and gone."

     The Oak King doesn't so much as blush. The look is more blasé. Hey, once you find out Edward Meurelle, Vicomte of Blois and all around man's man is taking it up the back nine, nothing is shocking.

     The woods shivered with a large wind (me) and we stood upon fertile ground of a different ... View of Wales, Cymru. The red-towered castle still there, still symbolic, flowers and green grass everywhere. And there he was, the Oak King himself, bending to kiss the slip of a girl....

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

     You may think that I am not paying attention to him. I am, really. You might not believe it, but it's when we are like this, that he has my full attention and I often have the best epiphanies. What is more important than now?

     His words are sing-song power, and here that power is everywhere. As the myths say: the land is the king, the king is the land. Red-blushed and golden apples grow, dip delicately from blossom and fruit-heavy branches as you sail by.

     She falls silent again, blushing as if she's about to burst blood vessels, eyes still tightly closed, so tightly that she must be seeing sparks behind her eyelids. After a few moments, she very cautiously opens her eyes to slits - as if expecting to see something she doesn't like, with her lower lip caught hard between her teeth.

     "As for the curse - at its heart, what it means is you can't go out during the day. That's fine, I never was much of a one for a tan myself - how is it, really, any different from finding out you're a vegan, or allergic to penicillin? It's magic, not science - but it's you."

     He crowned you and you crown him, a mutual coronation, and two kingdoms fall to a hush for it, like a awed crowd.

     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.

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

     It's an echo that quivers, but an echo - caught in the stones, as it were, as if a shell being lifted to one's ear, miles and miles from the shore.

     The hand belongs to the slender arm that is attached to the slender figure of Albizzina Contato. The proprietress of Libri di Magia e di Mistero is reputed to be a true witch. There are many legends about the bookstore, some more fantastical than others. Some even say that she is hunting for the Doge's lost treasure of gold.

     A crystallization of Valan Montague. Part truth, part fiction, part pure myth. But it happens to everyone, doesn't it. Everyone for whom the clock no longer ticks. Outside of that most human of states, time-bound civilization and reality, We become Something Else.

     "The past must be examined," Sabine remarks, and a gradual progression to lead to the present and future. Under the circumstances - only the Celtic Cross will do."

     The world is topsy-turvy tonight. Lust out of whack, Love out of season, arrows off the mark, and faerie men rebuffed.
     What's the world coming to?

     It's like a fireplace throwing off sparks, in some ways, isn't it? The magic in the song is as real as the song itself, rolling through the room, even if most of the room can't sense it.

     "I have missed having a woman on my lap. Long has this playboy," a wink flickers indigo, "...been without a bunny. I have had nothing but hare," men, "... for years now. I will say I do not miss the drama," eyes widen a touch as he grins, "...but I do miss the blushing, giggling, perfumerie of it all."

     And even in his Holly Winter, when the Oak King himself is most prone to Banality, to the disillusionment that can come so easily from so modern a world, he is radiant.

... [The two gentlemen are seated swiftly at a table outside, on the roof, overlooking the brilliance of the South Bank. Menus and waiters appear, glasses are filled, all without a word. They depart as silently.]

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

     And drags his finger down your chin to the hollow of your throat. And the feeling spirals. Pleasure with a capital P. It fills your entire form. Every cell copulates. Every molecule is hard. Every atom, every electron squirms, orgiastic chemistry.

     It has now been several earth years since the Sentinel has been to the Celestial Realm. He has not even opened his mouth to ask permission, not even to go skinnydipping with Soldekai in Oannes' Grotto -- though he was several times tempted! And now... he is going to ask...

     I love you...
     I don't want to forget...
     I don't want to forget this...

     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.

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

     It's been a while now since he stepped onto the scene here. When he first came in, his English was atrocious, his blood was new, but he was good, very good. Good with epee. Better with saber. Edward Meurelle's childe...

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

     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.

     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've seen your flag on the marble arch
     love is not a victory march
     Its a cold and its a broken hallelujah..."

     "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."

     Soldekai's eyes drop to the stone upon which he sits. He had not thought of things as you say. That there are others who wish a new home. Who would want to be with him and his Word.

     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.

     "Incroyable," William says, voice carrying as he appears, he grins. Incredible, he says. Unbelievable, he means. "It is good to see you," he says suddenly, warmly in English.

     There is a glance back past the foyer's reach and into the living room, but then he turns with you and heads out the front door. Behind, two sets of bags sitting with the ghosts of bags past all around them. But this time, their destination is the same...

     L'Enfant Terrible, the rebirth of the Sun King. Even his skin is golden, like it is brushed with gold leaf powder or saffron, a nice effect from the saffron silk robe he wears.

     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.

     "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."

     He looks at you in the mirror for a moment, then says, "You alright?" He's going out in a while. A planned recon meeting to check out heroin dealers who may have supernatural backers. Edward smiles a little, continuing to tuck in his shirt.

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.

He tried to take a step, begin walking again, but he couldn't. His legs held fast to the ground. In some forgotten corner of his mind, church bells began to toll. Each great sounding was louder than the last, and pulled the paralysis farther up his body. The last bell was like a year's thunder, and he was no more.

     If a raven can really look like a drowned rat, then this raven achieves it, royal girth or no. He's as big as a hawk, really. A true rook. As you speak, he tilts his head at you, rocks back and forth on his taloned -- quite formidable at that -- and then he hops down...

     In more sobriety, then : you had the opportunity to take from her much of herself - of her mind, of her body, of her heart, of her soul. For whatever reasons of your own, you refrained, and for that, I thank you.

     "Holy shit," Davydd thinks to say, and his hand comes up and rubs his unbearded chin. "I see what you mean. Not saying you look bad, you're just very..... puckish. Huh."

     "Guillaume FitzEmpress!" the screeches go. "I know you're here. Hiding." A stop. Boots silent. "Gah, get yer hands off me. Yes, I know I can't come in like this. Yes, I know he's busy. Fuck. I created the word 'busy'." A sigh. "Hey," Edward chirps, "God, you're getting all your oils on my jacket!"

     Goddess! You're going to consider this?

     You and he walk the chessboard gallery, two knights, no kings in sight. But as you so adroitly put it: Fuck 'em. Who needs 'em. Hands slide into his pockets as he watches the tiles moving slowly by.

     Your vagabond sister: Victoria. Vagabond because since she left the 'new world', she's not yet settled. Never staying in one place for too long, almost stubbornly refusing to stop and relax, Tori continued to travel over the last year or so, seeming to be searching for something.

     She's been considering it for days, now. Weeks. Something like that - some sort of human time scale which is meaningless, and logically, she knows to be meaningless, to him

     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.

     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.

     What else is a Celt to do when heartbroken and brooding but sing? Hell, we invented the lament. No one sorrows like a Welshman. Not even an Irishman...

     William inclines his head again, his eyes drifting over you. "You wish to see. You fear what you may see. Tell me... is the price of seeing more costly than the price of being blind?"

     The paper's folded a few times, shoved into a pocket, and she climbs onto the ledge, poised there for a moment with a quick glance around. And then ...

     "And ... I'm in a lot of trouble, Dot. I'm just, I can't keep up this pace. It isn't working anymore, but I don't ... have anywhere else to go with it."

     Drancy swallows once, nervously, wrapping the cord of the charm around her fingers and letting the talisman itself drop into her palm, and then conscientiously banishes any sign of nervousness or unseemly emotion. "Huw... Huw... Huw...?"

     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.

     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...

     A thrumming in the back of the head, fluttering, follows the clocks. A ripple in the floorboards, imperceptible to most. The sound of something rushing forward at incredible speed.

     "Babi is the quite busy semi-deity," comes a perturbed voice... from the heretofore still statue, "...who can't be seen without an appointment. Do... you have an appointment?" And the airy voice of an Eternal Bureaucrat settles its emphasis on the two intruders. Eyes open and a stony eyebrow lifts angular. And skeptical.

     His Being swells, his wings outstretched as he is now within your Light. A Master of Night and the Archangel of Brilliance and Lumination? "I am.. very proud," he says, angelic tongue as Song. "Of you... and of the Healing of Our Father's Heart that he should set you thus. I am proud of This Heaven..." Molten eyes of stellar matter look to you and the Herald nods. "This Heaven pleases me...."

     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.

     Pulling her hands away from her hair, Drancy speaks slowly, in a low tone, still leaning up out of her seat. "Way I see it, there's only one way to deal with things like this, and that's to push on through to the other side. Maybe I'm going mad, and maybe I'm not - you say it's magic. Right, then." Her hands shoot out, intent on grabbing your wrists, bare skin to bare skin. "Let's break on through."

     Davydd pauses, green eyes turned to darkness, a moment before crossing into Picadilly to head to parts southwest. Just a glance for traffic, but then it lingers. A rush of pricking skin, like a shiver up the spine. Something on the wind...

     Spinning glass. A globe suspended in midair rotates with a glassy glare. Casting colors to the walls. The lighting low, but for the candles sparking here. Flickering there. And so a constellation forms upon the ceiling. Two fingers holds a silver chain.

     "I hope that is how it goes," Soldekai says, a whispered hope of his own. Only you know them...as it goes. "I ask for the day that we no longer...are as we all are..."

     The Mad Danes have long since left the makeshift stage. The college crowd has come and gone. The true drunken poets and philosophers yet remain. The last few patrons lingering, loitering, waiting on that Last Call.

     "Soldekai...I am not blunting your purpose...I hope. You know...it is my choir's ...nature to attune to individuals. And...I..." am attuned to you. "...I do not wish my fastening devotion to get in the way. It will be a concern." Of and for Others.

     With that...the shadow seems to dissipate behind the image of Soldekai. And instead, the dream version of him remains. It closes, the hand rising again. This time...touching softly.

     "You are Blandine's," Soldekai teases, even as the space between you is covered. He smiles as you near him and opens the necklace out so that your throat would walk into it. "From me," he says, "...personally."

     The Mad Danes consist of four musicians. All coming from very divergent backgrounds -- jazz, celtic traditional, classical. Only two ever sing. Hotspur Hal, the bassist -- and Kit Marlow. Guitarist and violinist.

     "Desire is ...a portion of a Wish, of a Dream. Inspiration, your mistress, is another part. Subdivided, a dream is a lover with a horde of concubines. Why should we, therefore, be solitary? One is the dream...the other inspiration...together, intermingling...they can become prophecy..."

     "Gwilym!" she beams, hands curled at the rail, "You're here! Ach, lad, it's been a long while!"

     This is the nature of art. Art, the sphinx. Art, the oracle. Inexplicable and full of meaning...

     Encourage me. Encourage me in the oldest sense of the word. Strengthen my heart and resolve to do what I have to do, Valan. What we've said we wished. Even now, as you slacken, my eyes fill with tears and my body sinks. I know what that means; how you feel in my arms.

     Happy are we, that have learned to love and be loved, teach and be taught, to depend and be depended upon. Happy are we that have learned...that nothing else matters.

     "The Council did not use you, signora. What do we have to gain by suffering?" Girault settles upon the chair. Yes... the We was intentional.

     You miss the look, and it's a pity because it's truly priceless. No one shocks Plantagenet. With nonchalance he smiles and seems to know. Unaffected, even by the most orgiastic visions. But, you've mentioned Dunross... not only by name... rather than the more common epithets of him or even the more common... simply leaving him out altogether... some four or five times.

     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?

     Hazel eyes lift, not to a sound but to an expectation. He is waiting for you...

     I find that I could do this for a hundred years. If I had a hundred more. I will never look at the world in the same way. I will smoke cigarettes with a difference. Remember something with every sip of brandy. And smile inanely at passing crowds. Yes, I know something you do not. I know there is something else besides Television and discussions on the weather. I know there is something between the folds of cigarette smoke that you are missing. This is what my smile will say. The children will say, Valan Montague... he is mad. And I will laugh and agree with them. What are you to do once you have tasted meaning in this life?

          She looks up, her golden-white hair cascading around her body. Aphrodite's daughter...she is nothing of Eve. "Will? You...alright?" You are indeed...confused. She peers at you, and then smirks, "Wow, forgotten already?"

     Comforting like a pair of old but familiar shoes -- is that how the saying goes? It is a strange saying, is it not? For is a friend like a pair of old shoes... or should be? But perhaps it is that feeling of... being worn in. Familiar. Known. What's better than a pair of old slippers, formed perfectly to the feet? Or a visit from an old and dear friend...

     They do not know. Those who look at him and wonder: Why Dunross? They do not know what he knows. They have never seen it. They could never understand it.

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.

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

     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.

     It was again, his home. And you witnessed William embrace it. He stood in the snow and then created angels as he watched the stars rise over the Northern Sky...

     And it is as if Cadiz knows you shall soon be leaving... that it makes itself as brilliant, if not more splendid, that the first evening. Incense is lit. Corridors are rimmed with beeswax candles. And the young men of the house are attentive to your every care. And somewhere you hear a song is stirring.

     Oh, all of you above who hate me, let this be real. I have not asked for so much, just...him. Stars shine upon the kin silver of Ian's eyes, perhaps twinkling their assent and giving intercession to those higher who hold sway.