There is a sudden, terrible wracking of emotion. It shakes his body. And like a summer storm, it passes just as quickly.

     As hands join from couple to couple, Gruffydd glances to his lover. It's perfect, actually. Just family. Just friends. We're all holding one another's hands. And the promise is a simple one. Love one another.

     No perfect kingdom. No perfect courtship. No perfect wedding. No perfect marriage. Just... the best we can do, just trying our best, trying to love the best way we know how.

     Maria is silent for a moment, and her eyes too fill with tears. "Oh," she answers softly. She crosses to Gruffydd, looking up at him and reaching to touch his cheek. "Tiernan has been the foundation of this family," she says quietly, turning to both the Wests and holding her hand out to Arian. "This will rock us all to our knees."

     "I wish that I could remain forever with you. Unfortunately... my time here is coming to an end, children."

     Gillian sits up, examining you while you are still asleep, for however long it lasts. Her gaze moves over you; her blush intensifies. She leans in, just a little bit. It is so tempting, to try to get a closer look! After all, with Bran, she took all those pictures - but he was drugged. You are merely asleep.

     "Hi, daddy." Gillian is amused and fighting back a laugh of her own. "Nothing too unexpected, I guess. Balthazar proposed and I said yes and we're engaged now. So there's going to be a wedding and I have a rock on my finger only half the size of the Rock of Gibraltar..."

     Balthazar smiles, one hand coming out of his pocket to take one of yours as you come up to him. He brings you in for a morning kiss, brief but very, very warm. "A little magic and a lot of help," he says quietly and with a smile. Your hand still in his, held warmly, squeezed gently, Balthazar looks to you. And then he goes to one knee on the pebbled sand.

     "I've been thinking," he murmurs after another moment, and he smiles. "Which amazingly I can still do while holding you. I'm improving," he teases. "But...the idea occurred to me this morning: maybe we should move our trip to the Cape before the beach party..."

     "My occasion is... the chef threw me out of the kitchen. It's the last day he can really do that. I had to let him get one more in. My brother appears to be sweating out a ... fever..." He nudges his brother with a toe. "Naked..."

     Two stars in orbit, you come together with gravity.

     ..."I wish love would come on our terms, but we don't run it. If we did, we'd have no poetry..."

     And he wants you to know how much you move him. You move him to make palazzi and islands, grand structures down to the smallest, most intricate fountain. All from the desire that crackles from his skin to your skin, that pops upon the air between you.

     Balthazar reaches out to nudge you. "Time is not short. You put too much pressure on it. Let it be. You can't control it anyway. Learn from my mistakes. I make so many good ones, it would be a shame to waste them."

     She hesitates, then gives you a covert, discreet glance. "You realize, of course, that this will make the women and some men attempting to get into your bed go into a frenzy, I hope?"

     He isn't far. You hear the sound of his barefeet, and while the steps are certainly heavier (and longer) than when he was a barefooted boy padding to your room, the cadence of his steps is signature. You know it's him even before you see him.

     "We're brave things," Balthazar murmurs, his arms surrounding you, his head inclining as you move upon his lap. "We can take a little danger."

     And as the sun begins to draw downward in its afternoon stations, word is being filtered and sent, whispered and gasped, blurted and bemoaned from street to street, from Den to market. By tomorrow all this will be known. A storm in the streets. A tryst on the balcony.

     Preston Oliver West the Second looks at this young man a moment more. "I am going to be the first to admit that I'm not very good at small talk, particularly when there is such large talk to discuss, Balthazar. We have heard from Gillian that your affections have switched. We're not at all pleased about it..."

     "...And I remained out of my head for months. I think... two fire-aligned people just...really shouldn't be in a romantic relationship with one another. Now, not in it? I can see it for what it was. When I was in it? I couldn't see anything, Arian, but fire and smoke."

     Balthazar takes a moment just to enjoy standing with you, looking at you. He lifts a hand to gently touch your face, and then that hand finds the small of your back. To guide you with him to the table. "Auntie," he says to Mahasti, "... have you been telling embarrassing stories?"

     There isn't much else to say, especially with her little brother making faces from the driver's side. Gillian sighs as she turns the phone off, holding it to her breast in a cloud of pink haze. She allows herself to linger in it blissfully for just five minutes - then turns to call Parvati. Duty calls!

     "...Prince Balthazar is a wonderful man of intelligence and grace, and he comes from a family by whom I consider myself privileged to be granted the honor of this consideration. I am certain that he would be dismayed if I took him so for granted as to fail to give him the opportunity to display his abilities; but I do not believe that I shall go out of my way to invent tests for him, our courtship already being secure. Fate will find tests aplenty for us both, as it will for all living beings who strive for excellence. My only hope is that we may both achieve a level of such that we may be each other's equal."

     And though he doesn't hold it against them -- who wouldn't rather be doing what they are doing? -- what he does hold (against himself) is an icepack full of crushed and frigid cubes, stuffed down the front of his drawstring pants.

     "Gillian is my heart's delight," Balthazar says warmly, with the assurance of Truth and Love. "And it is time that you met. Tomorrow, she will be announced officially as the Only One I Seek, the Only One I Want. My future Queen," his fingers squeeze yours lightly.

     "Love isn't a fairytale, not even surrounded by fairies," Balthazar notes with a helpless smile. "Even though I extol the virtues of love... it's my job... sometimes love isn't enough."

     After all, every girl has trouble letting go of her first love, even if she has class to get to.

     "The road to Hell is always paved with good intentions, little brother. You should realize that by now," Tanira answers you lightly. She draws the cloth down a little. "Close your eyes."

     There is a crackle of lightning arching across the sky. That's odd, considering the light of rain; and it's not hot enough for heat lightning. There it is again - a little closer this time. It seems to fade away, though, leaving the sky empty again of anything which wasn't there before.

     The general is dressed for war, and he looks as though he has been ravaged. One would never look at him and think him victorious today. "There will be no engagement. To anyone. I want the whole matter canceled." His voice is strong, authoritative, steady, and hurt. He doesn't take comfort just yet. Balthazar swallows. "Madison and I are taking... a break."

     Golden eyes look to his sister, then quickly look away. When we played as children in the sun, it was like Hawaii never ended. But you are right, I am afraid, my sister. There is a shadow on my heart. I didn't know it was there until just right this moment.

     The universe parted and there was Gillian. I made an honest go at it, nainie. And however I might have felt about her there is still one irrefutable fact: she is not and never was attracted to me. Now, I don't know what this deal with her and Bran is. I'm trying to stay out of it. I have problems enough on my own. But as far as fate is concerned? Fate can take a flying leap.

     "Hey, have fun with it. Enjoy your moment in the sun, Sun." He grins, looking to Tiernan. He holds out his hand for his lover, his husband. We should all enjoy our time in the sun...and with our son.

     And then the door opens and he looks around. Shit. Balthazar presses past the door, steps around the sacks, he stands in the center of a mailstorm maelstrom. Amber eyes look to you with smoldering shock. But then the sun of understanding dawns. "Ah... are these ...?"

     "I have been in the shadow of a star all my life," he smiles a little. "And I have made choices, being your younger brother, being the one to come behind you, to avoid competing directly with you. You are... an incredibly difficult act to follow..."

     Not really. I'm learning the Art of Faking It. His mouth, blushed as ripening fruit, curves upward as he cracks open a solar eye. Faking it though he may be, his humor is at least true -- and returned.

     No sooner do I think I have myself together when something happens, and I am thrown into confusion. Now, mind you, I am easily confused so... take it as you like it.

     "...I am very sorry if I made you anxious by blowing up my own room. I'm also sorry that you are going to have to bear the burden of your guise with me. I cannot pretend to dislike you. Without truth, Preston, I am nothing."

     You have peered into the ball of fire at the center of the sun's storm to the heart of the matter. "I can't marry or be a father or a king or even be the brother of a high king..."

     He waits until Preston is safely out of the room, every single look, every minute motion controlled. And when the door ticks closed, Balthazar frowns. And every piece of glass, from bottles containing alcohol to tabletops and windows, shatters in a shock wave of emotion.

     Love must prostrate itself, sacrifice itself, to be known. It gives, without asking for return. It surrenders, without thought of victory. And it conquers all in the end.

     His professional demeanor melts slightly into humor. "I was hoping that pain would be a deterrent. However, he is a ...very determined man." A kind way of saying that he is a stubborn pain in the ass.

     "...You are putting too much pressure on yourself, sweet. That is that West Affliction," he smiles a little. "Way too much pressure."

     She tangles her fingers in your hair, lightly, gently, then withdraws. Her hand remains on your thigh, feeding you energy, powering the healing that is needed. "I think it is time that you built your temple..."

     "Sit down," your grandmother orders. "I know your mother told you not to pick things or they'll never get better. You're not to get up or so help me, I'll break the other one."

     "Is it really necessary to have ten medics? Aren't there wounded people down the hall?" Balthazar glowers, his head tipping back in pain (his pain evident in the tightening of his jaw, the sharpness of his gaze, and the way his other leg bounces up and down on the ball of his foot). "Bit of overkill..." he pauses, gritting his teeth as they prod his leg.

     "You're the best dancer I have ever seen." He turns his head, he kisses your hand, he looks at you, and he gestures with the motion of meteoric lashes. Go on and dance.

     "I think now is a good time to meet... to discuss what might be, what I hope to do, and how I would like to work with you, uncle. Is now a good time?"

     He is not yet Present. He is still in the Future Tense, which is to say, he will have been here, had he made it early, but as he is still in the Future Tense, he will be here shortly. Nobody's pluperfect.

     "He is incredibly brilliant," Gruffydd quietly notes. "Very sensitive. But he's our heart and soul. I'm glad you were able to meet him tonight, Preston..."

     "I hate meditating." Maddie wrinkles her nose. "I'm bored."

     The High King stands with a sigh. "You are so handsome, so confident, so strong... it's depressing," he smiles to his son. "You are not supposed to be this...this yet. I am going to go to my room and cry." He pivots, holding out a hand for his husband to take.

     The crowd rises to its feet as chariots swing around the completion of the first turn and the grand armored figures for Rose and Gold begin to fight.

     Balthazar looks to you, a sigh fresh from his mouth again. "I think I've talked to everyone at this point. Father. Papa. Gwilym. Gruffydd. Maria, Preston, Maddie," he ticks them off on his fingers. "You. Yep, I think the only one left, really, is Anierin. And he's in school. I'm tired of talking, nainie. Nothing seems to work. I only end up more confused. Everyone has an idea. No one has an answer."

     She lifts her glass in a light sort of a toasting movement. "To family, then, and togetherness. And to the future, may it be ever so fruitful."

     "I don't know anything," he frowns. "What I thought I know..." he shrugs. "Turns out I didn't know that either. So I guess... tell me..."

     "Yes, there is another way out, Preston. You can take a flying leap off the balcony," Balthazar calls out. Strike one for Mister Nice Guy.

     He realizes that you would rather do almost anything than to be around him, let alone to ask for assistance, and so Balthazar does not belabor the point. His openness remains -- it is his nature -- even as it is yours to refuse it. "I am happy to help," he murmurs, "... of course. What can I do for you... or the Wests in general?"

     "...I have to find a replacement - sommat else, to fill the gap, before anybody takes too much notice. I have to do it yesterday. If you spot someone before I do - send word that nobody else can hear or see."

     "The Birth of Venus," Gruffydd says suddenly, grand peacock wings making themselves known, spreading with relaxation. "You remind me of the Botticelli painting." He shimmers in his own exotic grandeur, made more so by merely being in your shimmering presence.

     "Hmm..." for a moment that is all Balthazar says: a musical hmm, a symphonic sigh. He is not distracted, as he turns toward the voice. What he is, is intoxicated. But it is beyond drunk; it is past drugged. He is his own opiate, a walking aphrodisiac.

     Heavy, pendulous fruit, glistening with ripe nectar, release their perfumes around you. Bees, butterflies and hummingbirds sip at brandied sugar. Vines of honeysuckle and jasmine tangle overhead and spread over the sand and into the sea.

     She stares at the open box with disbelief and almost with dismay. This makes it all real, it makes it serious. She cannot pretend otherwise; she cannot deny it or disregard it. And, despite herself, she has to admit - she is intrigued...

     "Are you ready? Do you mind if we take a slight detour? There's something I'd like to show you. I will warn you," Balthazar says with a bit of a lopsided smile, "... it is fantastic."

     "What would I do without your wisdom and love. I should wander more than forty years in the desert complaining of the heat..."

     "You don't behave well enough to be a trained monkey," Davydd notes, "...now...shush... listen to your mother. She's onto something. Besides which, even if it's utter rubbish, you'll not get a word in edgewise against it so you might as well relax and pay attention."

     You're so good to know that there's always a Story.

     The air is alive and alight with his energy, but he is taking it in as much as he is expressing it. He feels it, for himself, and through music attempts to find his center. He is dazzling, in his appearance, in his motions. There is an open yearning there. The world longs for love; and the embodiment of Love yearns for the world.

     There is connective tissue between you, the meter of music like a heartbeat you share. He moves with you, supporting, dashing ahead to circle back to you again. The voices of the violins sing in counterpart. Yours, the steady melody. His, the wandering, circling flourish. The raven that circles your path...

     Love and hope and sex and dreams
     Are still surviving on the street
     Look at me, I'm in tatters!
     I'm shattered...
     Shadoobie...

     He looks between brothers and eyes them with the internal weariness of a man who's never had kids. "Time out." Gwilym does the internationally recognized signal for it of the tee of hands.

     Somewhere, houses rain from the skies falling on witches with expensive red shoes, giants trip over golden harps and hurtle out of the sky, and somewhere, somewhere a red-faced queen is hopping down (and a cat hops up and down behind her in mimicry), shouting: Off with her head! Off with her head! You heard what the queen said!

     Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. He doesn't try to put it into words out loud. All he does is reflect a tiny portion of that affection back in your direction, in a small assurance of a friend.

     "But... and I don't know, by the way... we haven't actually discussed it but... what if I become king and... she doesn't want to become a queen? What if it's more than she's bargained for? I don't want to force anything on her, Nainie..."

     "Soon, I'll be calling you Your Majesty. I'm not sure I'm ready for that, to be honest. To me, you will always be the little boy who crept in our bed every time it thundered."

     It is the morning prayer, you with the water in your hair. And in each droplet's bouncing, the water turns to sunlight, turns to honey, turns to pure gold to his senses.

     "Thank you for the welcome, sir. It's very kind of you to open your home to all of us. We'll try not to get in your hair too much. Right, Maddie?" He lightly pokes his baby sister in the shoulder. "We've been touring family reunions this month, it feels like. Next week: the Hatfields and the McCoys."

     "I have an impending sense of doom myself at the moment. Maybe it's contagious. So... what's yours? Maybe we can trade..."

     "Dear God," Iowerth says, turning to you, "...how will we contain our son, the Burning Inferno come Midsummer? This ... is going to be interesting..." But interesting in the way that makes him suddenly tired.

     My god... it's full of stars...

     Balthazar comes up behind you, "I won't drop you, I promise," he says quietly. "It'll just be the best way for you to see." His arms wind around your waist, a hand lifting to brace against your chest. He pulls you to him; the grasp is firm but not squeezing. And you are lifted as he vaults upward.

     It fills you, surrounds you. Is it that feeling or his arms or both? There is the feeling of sudden motion, lifting. Like a rocket, you zoom straight up. Or rather, it feels like up to your brain. But all you see, if you do crack your eyes open, is golden light and Balthazar's face. Are you standing still? Or are you dreaming?

     He is a narcotic, an aphrodisiac, and a stimulant all in one rather delightful package. Balthazar kicks back on the sofa, sitting in the opposite corner to face you, allowing him to stretch out like a languorous sultan.

     "I don't want to be the Man Who Knew Too Much," Balthazar smiles warmly. "Not that I would ever be mistaken for that." He chuckles briefly, lifting the cup of coffee for a sip. He twists in his chair and waves down the waitress. Another refill requested.

     He leans back just slightly, his fingers glancing across the rubies of the orchid. Balthazar lifts his gaze from it to your face. "You write me, and I sing you," he says, his voice soft and deep.

     Maddie shoots Balthazar a look that wavers somewhere between you didn't tell me! and you're a WHAT?. She blushes as the applause and murmur both move around the room with their rhubarbing rumble, and she hastily - very hastily - takes a drink. A large one.

     He is stripped emotionally as well as physically. It is there for you to feel, to see, to hear, to taste. It is in the salt of his sweat. The honey sweet fire of his kiss. Inspiration. Love. Sex. Divinity. What you create between you, where you meet and extending beyond you is nothing short of magic.

     Loki grabs his glass on the way. "A few hours of breathing space. I think. I may be on California time." His phone gets one cursory examination before it's disposed of in a pocket in much the same manner. "Boston time will just have to do."

     Balthazar smirks as he sips. "I suppose it has to be good for something..."

     "How can I assume they will understand any of this?"

     "Well, it's not about people telling you what to do, Loki. You cannot be a passive observer now. You've... made the deal."

     "...It is very strange. It is ...like you are a wave and you wash away all the sand from my skin, you polish me... like a shell."

     He parts the kiss with a tugging upon your bottom lip with his teeth, a light squeeze, the last sting of lighting before being smoothed by the suckling of his lips. Honey and fire; the buzz of the bee in the song of it, and the sting of the bee, however covered in nectar.

     Are you putting on a show for him or me...
     Or is it actually about Loki...

     It is spiritual, it is uplifting. There's herself and the board and the ocean, and if she isn't singing, it's only because her lungs have a different job to do right now. It is sex and philosophy, religion and nature, all rolled up into one package

     "You're used to the sun," he notes easily, without a trace of teasing. "You know how to protect yourself from sun-burn."

     "We'll try to tone it down for the newcomer nonetheless," Pres answers Balthazar with a slight grin to Loki. "I'm the dull one, I'm afraid. My sisters got all the glamour in this family."

     Talk to me. You all invite me to speak but I don't really know what to say...

     Every seat is filled in Shepherd's Bush Empire, apart from those taking a quick break between shows -- ten minutes -- to get refills on beer and visit the necessaries. The old BBC theater is packed and the murmur of the crowd, the babbling Babel of nearly three-thousand, puts on its own kind of show.

     "...You could have been Adonis and Casanova rolled into one, Balthazar, and if it wasn't what she wanted, she'd still have run. I know because I've done exactly that, in the past."

     She smiles at you, in quiet sympathy and affection, her hand lifting from your knee to cradle the top of your head. "You need to let her go," Tanira says gently.

     I really just don't need this. The West Girls should come with warning labels affixed to them...

     "Actually, it seems like I was having a perfectly good picnic in the middle of a city park, with a nice girl, and then all of the sudden it was fucking Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. That's what it feels like, uncle. And the girl's chosen the birds over me. So at this point, I really just don't care."

     When he exhales, it's like the wind has blown through and taken his breath away. He says nothing for a moment. He sits there.

     "Tss," Davydd whispers, "..you're going to burn a hole in my fancy rugs with that temper. Go get some air. Fetch Ani," Davydd pats him on the shoulder. "Tell him it's time for supper."

     "Oes, I'm alright. I'm in love... so there's no hope really, but... I'm not the only one suffering that. You... asked me to call you when it got serious so... here is your phone call..."

     He knows your street so well. He has walked it twenty times or more by now, leaving you gifts in your mailbox and the occasional drawing on the sidewalk. When he approaches it, Balthazar slows the Rover. His fingers lightly brush the palm of your hand as turn signals flash and he pulls over to the sidewalk.

     "I'm not anticipating this show selling out fast," Loki says, and out comes the phone again for another quick note. "It doesn't conflict with any scheduled shows for the band, either. Greek gods interacting with Celtic characters almost sounds interesting now. Not enough that I'd get between the two of you and some Shakespearean bonding."

     "...I think we can ...work around one another. I will be sensitive to what you need with Loki. And... I will just... work around it. Whatever it may be or mean." Balthazar smirks, his hands returning to his pockets. "It's just rock and roll, uncle."

     "Once upon a time..."

     And his eyes go from cinnamon to amber, like the embers of resin popping in a brazier.

     He sets the empty glass aside. "And you still have not said who this person is, this project and this catalyst. Does our... intersection have a name?"

     "Then, by the power vested in me," Balthazar rolls out with a grin as he rises, "I pronounce us band and drummer..."

     In the envelope is a simple note. The revolution begins at eight. Sharply.

     Another day, another dollar - or another ten or twelve books thoroughly researched and discarded as not having what she's looking for, anyway.

     For a week or more, as time in the empire is kept, Balthazar had been in a constant state of Behind and constantly running. A band on the run, he fancied himself, slipping from realm to realm in between gigs and rehearsals, phone calls to a girl, thinking about the girl, and at some point trying to find time to eat and to sleep.

     It was a fantastic night. When the set was done, the last encore given, Balthazar Davies returned to his table to find a boot left behind and a drawing. A glance at the clock confirmed the hour. It's midnight, cinderella.

     Balthazar and Reggie share a look as the woman at the nearby table -- she's not British, Australian perhaps? -- proceeds to unpack her bag at the table. Cell phone, notebook. Who does work in a pub...?

     I'll be expecting you at my location in not more than ten minutes, please. Finish whatever you're doing.