"...I need to stop trying to live the life I imagined I would be living right now and think about ... just... right now."

     "If only there were a market for itinerant former kings..."

     ...Seventh Day of Summer. After several short excursions to test The Wyvern and my rusty abilities, I am finally en route to the Barony of River's End.

     It is a sight that those on Philosopher's Island have come to expect. In the retreating afternoon sun, a lone, familiar figure walks from harbor, past the campus and up the hill. He doesn't stop for drinks. He doesn't shake hands or exchange greetings. They all swear the figure is the ghost of the king.

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

     What is, after all, to be done? Nothing. Time is slipping away, and he is ever more conscious, acutely conscious, of how little time he has left. He stands looking out the window, though he sees nothing in the evening gloom of winter. Perhaps there is nothing to be seen, as much as there is nothing to be done.

     Iowerth rises, his eyes full of grit, his throat closing with the silt of a king's guilt. He puts a hand to his eyes, pressing and rubbing. Oh, there is anger -- but it's not at God, and it's not at Tiernan, and it's not at you. It's not even directed to Fate. The sea is angry with itself.

     He knows the water is breaching his hull. He knows he's sinking. And he can hear the thunder in the distance. The time is coming. But he'd rather hear the band on deck. He'd rather have a cup of tea. The Captain looks to his First Mate, his eyes begging, silently: Lie to me.

     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.

     You can't kick the throne of God but you can kick me. You can't shake your fist at the stars, but you can beat upon my chest. Duma accepts it. I love you, and I will be wherever you are.

     Just now, mother, the universe can take its way and shove it up its dark matter.

     "I was hoping there'd be more time," Tiernan whispers. "Years more. Decades." It is to himself and not to himself; it is in answer to what you have said and to what you have not said.

     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."

     "Ultimately, you cannot make someone happy. Happiness is a choice each of us must make. But you can be there to remind him of the goodness of the universe, of how much he is loved, of how much he has yet to offer his children, and their children. You can love him. But you cannot fix it, Gwilym."

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

     His thoughts slap him like waves, and the spray of it leaps from his eyes in his anguish. Swift, swift salty waves: the ocean of this has no ending...

     The rocks and hazards were there, mapped out, the ones he knew. He wasn't expecting this black ice. I'm run aground. I'm shipwrecked. The thoughts aren't broadcast. They are held in his silence, cast adrift with the planks of his heart. He watches them all sail away as he feels himself bobbing in the remains. "When are you leaving..."

     He exhales, and then he drinks, and if it weren't for the refilling, it'd be empty now. Ordinarily he might make some crack about Cuchulainn and the sea, but not today. There was a time when I was almost have welcomed this news, except for the pain it will cause my brother. And now? What do I do now?

     "I know they'll be devastated. I don't think they'll detonate," he qualifies. "Iowerth and Balthazar?" He gives you a look. "Do they make asbestos suits?" he asks it seriously. Wrapping you up in his arms, Davydd sighs. "There are ascensions and then... there are ascensions. It's hard not to treat it like a death..."

     "My flesh was meant to be sloughed off a few years back," he tells you. "I was not ready to go; my family was not ready to let me go. And so with the aid of healers and through Love, I remained. But there is work to be done, and ... I have outstayed my time."

     "Bianca showed him your crib. You floated out like a flower petal down the river to the reedy banks of Avalon. How she found you, and how the Orphan Queen was rumored to have disappeared were a perfect match," he whispers. "As perfect as myth and legend can be when shown to be true."

     "First of all, we have both been laboring under misconceptions, and I think we have been talking past one another, misunderstanding the other's viewpoint. This is something I would propose to change, if you are willing."

          Lord Fox gently smiles. "Do not spend long thinking yourself an idiot," he advises. "First, it is an untruth. Second, it wastes valuable time better spent reading and learning or... making sure that a good man knows that a good woman finds him attractive, and is interested in him..."

     In all this world, I am ...a solitary kind. Large eyes lift to look at the moon, his turbinate horn seeming to point to it. It is just you and I, fat moon....

     Aeron looks to you, his famously bland face still quiet in aspect. "I have been his pantomime. I know the dance." He gives you his hand momentarily. "What is to be done?" he wonders as if idly curious.

     "I know Lord Lugh would shudder to think that I could be so easily distracted, or would, shudder to think, invite distraction. Distraction is typically deadly for kings," his mouth slants slightly. "But," green eyes lower to his hands again, "...maybe we should make time for distraction, now and then. The world does not have to be ...so serious all the time."

     "...I did what I sat here, in this room I think, and told you I wouldn't do. I abandoned you. For reasons that are no longer clear to me, actually. I'm not sure what all the fuss was about. I guess... I saw rocks and hazards that weren't really there."

     Without expectations, and certainly without much hope, he met her and upon meeting her began to think: why not? Why not a fairytale? But when he received the summons to the garden, he knew why not. Fairytales, as romantic and fun as they are, seldom work their way into reality. They will be so disappointed, if I am right about being wrong.

     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.

     "...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."

     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.

     "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.

     Resting his chin on a folded hand, Anierin moved a tiny model ship, a miniature of The Draigamor along the ripples of a woven rug and over the swell of his father's boots.

     Aeron will allow you to grieve. It is important. He will allow you to sulk. At least a little. He will not allow you to run, or to quit. Wherever you go, he will be there with a mirror.

     Eventually your words do circle around in the canals of his ears. Anierin looks at the flowers, and then at you again. A bit shocked, a bit glassy-eyed, but like you, he has to face that time does, indeed, march on.

     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.

     ...You are looking for someone to blame when there is no one. You blame yourself, without need. He made his own choice. And if he is happy where he is, if he is at peace and does not blame you, then why do you persist in blaming yourself?

     It will disappear, just like everything else does in Time. Footprint, fingerprint, fine art, and memory. I just want to be alone...

     Aeron sobs into your mouth, the kiss a tangle of mouths and breaths and a quiet groan of despair. I have designed it, built it since I was ten years old. And a bright shining light has ruined it all.

     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...

     "Let me try this again, chronologically. I met this guy in a bar..."

     I don't want to be wrong again...

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

     But he's not worried about Loki just now. He'll visit him later. Aeron's gaze and Aeron's thoughts are on his king. "Brother-king," he murmurs, "...you are too hard on yourself. Do not do the Universe's work for It."

     "...These days I'm spontaneous if I grab rum and Coke instead of Mac 'n' Jack."

     "I want to rig a credit card scam," Pres answers bluntly, "to siphon off enough cash somehow to pay for my operation."

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

     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.

     His scar is vehemently visible - an actual indentation about half an inch deep in his calf, about four inches long and a quarter or a third of an inch wide. "It's just so stupid," he mutters. "...I shouldn't need help."

     "I have never closed my door to you. It has always remained politely ajar," Iowerth notes. He speaks his own truth. "You're my brother. It isn't so much a door as it is a curtain."

     "... I was trying to listen to Gwilym as he talked. But ... the sound of my blood rushing in my ears made that difficult."

     It is the dead of winter. I am coming closer to you, and already, I miss you. And already, it is a distant ache. Am I detaching to protect myself, I wonder? Or is this ... another machination of fate...

     A hand comes up, tugs lightly at your hair, and she sighs, going quiet. Love is a son of a bitch. Remind me, if I ever run into that fat diapered freak that's Cupid, to kick him in the balls...

     "Seventy-five years," William repeats. "Non non non, we will have to remedy this." He does not grin as he says it, though there is nothing in his expression or energy to say he is upset. It is merely something to be rectified.

     The earth is in a constant state of reincarnation. Everything but me is changing. The bud becomes the flower becomes the leaf. I am the same width, the same weight, the same density as I was eight-hundred and twenty-eight years ago. Even an English Oak would have grown, would have changed in all that time.

     The green eyes judge the face that holds them, and the morning's ritual shave is ignored, the 12th Century beard left to stand as a mark, a raise of a flag to his internal, remnant humanity. His mea culpa.

     Here stand two kindred spirits, bound by family, blood, bad habits and emotion. But though they speak the same language, and though they stand not ten feet apart, there's a chasm between them, these men, neither of them a bridge-builder.

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

     "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."

     "Fear," he continues softly, "... is selfish because it is the expression of the body's and the soul's will to survive. It is necessary. Do you think anyone is without fear? Do you think you should be? How unreasonable a thing to ever expect from yourself. How unfair you are being to yourself..."

     "...I know what it is to suffer and to search for meaning. You want to know who you are... you wish to know why what happened to you happened. A reason, an understanding. Don't give up,"

     "The audience is over," Fiona says lightly. "And his Majesty must return to his duties. You will make a grand king, Iowerth. It is not much consolation, I know."

     Deep blue, serene aquamarine, stormy grey, tranquil turquoise -- the confluence of all the world's oceans, and of the oceans yet to be, come together here.

     His hand cups your face. "The best antidotes for ghosts is illumination," Agapios murmurs, his fingers stroking your cheek. "They cannot abide the clear light of examination. And so... we will vanquish her. I am confident of this."

     "Oes," he grunts softly. "I feel like I've been in a wine press. Run through the wringer like an old rag."

     "...One night, one day maybe you will look up and you will understand why. For now... just... believe it."

     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.

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

     I am your Star, oes? And maybe, just maybe that is part of the problem, Io. Your boy ... you made him your chamberlain, your seneschal. But what is he to you, in that sense? It isn't enough to love, sometimes. Sometimes, it needs to be given a name.

     "It is like you are ...preparing me for your not being here. If something is inevitable, I should rather face it than to convince myself it will never happen."

     Without you, I do not think I could have survived. Hells; I know it. I would have been on this plane, not that, when she died, and it would have taken me with her.

     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.

     I gave the command. I won my own battle, and I felt the life ebb from her. She was dead before my men ever reached her kingdom. There were losses, I'm sure - it was a battle, a minor war, even if won overnight. How many people are celebrating because of me, today? How many mourning?

     "I need...to go...Alfonso," Edward begins. Odd shift. "I...I..gotta go."
     The sound of something familiar. And something bad.

     Gold gaze is suddenly given to you as he reaches the doorway. He doesn't shove his love at you like a child. It is there, commingled with all the rest, a Pandora's Box of his emotions.

     You are leaving me...

     "Thank you for showing me," he whispers. But now that we have both seen ourselves in the clear light, what shall evening have to offer us. Foolish mistake, Alire. Foolish, and you know better, prince.

     You may be remade for your service if your Heart is True. You must be willing to give up your very identity in this, your very being. If you cannot submit, the metamorphosis will rip your being apart and you will not survive. This is spoken with reverence. For the Hellborn, it is the first time they hear the full power of the Symphony. But for the two of you, those once Fallen, it is a return Home."

     Andrealphus chokes on his words and weeps, "I did not even speak to him. I failed when I could not save her. When she left, it was my failure. And I could not face you. And then I heard the lightbearer say: See what Love has done today..."

     And apple trees would come and go. When the first ones died, their children took over. It's a copse within the garden now. Covered with blossoms in the spring, apples in the autumn, pink leaves turned to brown in the winter. No stone to mark her spot but a plaque engraved with a Welsh poem. The title? To Penelope...

     "There is no plan, because you do not need one. This is not your situation to handle, Gui. It is someone else's, if he chooses to do anything about it. And," Ian nods, "...you must be prepared that he cannot fix it either..."

     We are the death and the birth of every year.

     Davydd both chuckles and sobs to hear that. Turning his head to his friend, he gives a vipered grin, his eyes creasing in the corners. "Now that's the William I know and love," comes the croak of his voice. "On my ass to the end of time."

     Blood rolls from his eyes, in his tears that come, the grunting sobs of a man in desperate pain, the grief pulled from his soul through his eyes and his throat.

     "You're talkin',' Edward notes, his voice lacking humor, "...cos I'm not. And I'm not cos..." and Edward looks sadly to you, "...cos I've got nothing to say to you, Davy. I've known you through a million lifetimes and we've done a million things. And I got nothing to say," Edward laments, shaking his head.

     He leans forward, he blinks his eyes. Those old ways of knowing his mind, particularly revealed when he is quiet. Elbows on his thighs, Alire puts his head in his hands, his flaxen hair displaced. "How is that not failure, that silence?"

     Alire kneels upon a velvet cushion made for that purpose. He removes his buttoned shirt, and with eyes closed reaches for a dark object near the altar covered by a Templar flag. A cat of nine tails...

     "I think of my friends. And of the wrong I have done them when I bolted from my position...and how they will feel when I have to leave them. That's my one regret," Davydd nods to himself, and he looks to you and to the departing sun. Even that much of it burns his eyes. Even in dreams.

Day after day, it reappears
Night after night my heartbeat shows the fear
Ghosts appear and fade away

     "...And I started to - hear things. See things. It was - as if I'd been taken outside of myself while still being inside of myself. I saw ... people."

     "Hindsight is clear-sighted," Davydd exhales, cigarette crushed and the fire is out. "And all the things I have done, there's not a single one I'd repeat but one, and that was lodging the king's sword in Mithras' chest."

     William looks at you and Ciardan for a time and he shakes his head. I'm not busy. Not now. "It is hard when friends leave us," William offers quietly to the air. The wind will carry his words to you.

     It is the first time he's discussed it. Perhaps it is the safety of this cove, the liberating waves. "Which is the lie and which is the truth?" Giancarlo shrugs. "Is this truth?"

     "...Without Life, Death has no meaning. Without Death, Life has no lure..."

     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.

     "The Never...has no place here," Edward begins, not really sure of where he goes with this.

     A man in his early thirties, Etienne glances up at the sun, stopping near the zoologist and crouching low. He pulls a handkerchief from an inside pocket and offers it.

     "I know what has happened to your Darius, and who was responsible."

     "You are close to Il Dignitaro. There are those who would use that - use you. Or they would try to harm you, to get to him, or out of jealousy, frau. That is the way of our existence. I have been... trained well to note such, and avoid it."

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

     Pastoral delights, indeed. Why, sir, do you mean 'country matters'? Why now, all of the sudden, Shakespeare? You are too much like the Dane, perhaps. Yes, sad over the loss of a father. That's it. And no uncle, not even Villon, can pull you from your mourning.

     Faith has seldom failed him, though gods and priests and popes have come and gone...

     Oh, god, god, god - if there even is a god. Why are human hearts so fragile? Why do they hurt - why must they break? Why do I long continually for that which I cannot have - or that which will not have me? Lift this cup from my lips, for I'm damned by the taste of it, and so tired...

Guillaume: [Nods.] There is no fairytale in this, Montague. The only happy ending is the one walking here with you. I got to live, you see. Though, incidental to my own story, at times, my fate and destiny not my own, I am the only one with the happy ending...

     But then you respond to the subject of Darius and he glances into the fire. Gazing there, he murmurs, "They were very close. Closer than you realize, perhaps."

     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.

     I did not even know how much I cared until I was slain. Now I am staring at you, Anaia, watching you from below our castle window, reflected in the umber light of the fire. I am so cold. So tired, my countess.

     Open the window
     It is close, that voice. Closer than before. More powerful than before. Issuing from your blood, springing up in your mind like a sudden flower.

No more will the Wolfe howl.
I am half of a whole.

     Arms go wide, green eyes -- Cymru green -- go wide as well. And so too the smile. A triad reaction, how fitting. "Mad Peter!" he exclaims, the whiskey, brandy, scotch and mead -- yes, mead -- getting the best of him for a moment. "Boyos, look there... my old soothsayer, messenger of The Lady...go greet a friend..."

     So this is goodbye, then. And hello. And all I may do is wait... wait and see... I thought my destiny was done eight hundred years ago. Thwarted by the Roman, I thought. But maybe that was all just a long preparation...

     She's been crying, and her eyes have that slight hint of puffiness - but the most recent tears were enough ago that maybe it could just pass as exhaustion. Maybe.

      "Of course it matters," Alire continues. "And you are correct. You are not going to hurt yourself or him. I will not allow it," and the command that comes through is not a Templar's command, certainly not one that Alire would normally assume, but it is a vampire's mantle. That of a prince.

     And a glass that was sitting on the coffee table explodes. Green eyes lift to you. And with a whisper of something Welsh, something old, the glass is whole again. As if nothing had happened.

     "I knew," his French comes, "...you would not forget me, Alire. You would not leave me. I asked God to help me, to help us, and my wish came true." Michele smiles weakly, the tears sliding down his face. "Say that we will be together always. Promise me, my Alire..."

     He has been quiet since Ibiza. Barcelona. Venezia. Content to practice his hand at watercoloring, still his favorite. There were a few sudden phonecalls, he suddenly rising and heading within quarters upon loud, flat steps.

     ...The news of Johann Arnaul's death spread quickly from the borders of Germany and France to Italy...

     "Maybe... we have been... because I had to realize it. Sometimes..." his voice goes soft. "...sometimes I have heard it happens that way, Brother Hope. Would it be wrong of me to say I was hoping for something a bit more... dramatic?" Kit tries to laugh, but he cannot. It's not funny.

     Brilliance has left Venice. Soldekai off on Heavenly errands, those as archangels have -- whatever they are. The sun hasn't been seen in days, and all of the record-breaking snow has turned to rain.

"If you wanted to go to the church I would've taken you there in the morning, Christopher. This cloak and dagger shit isn't going to fly..."

     I have taken the back ways, the maze of small walkways and smaller bridges. Past the smell of bread baking -- truly, the very best definition of 'warmth' -- and the sound of a television set as I move past a cafe. I have come to speak with the ghosts of Monteverdi and Vivaldi. And to listen to the dreams of children. This way... the only way... to find my own...

     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.

     How long was he in Michael's comfortable prison? Guarded on all cardinal points by the four-headed lions of gold and brass? How long did Dominic's questioning last? How late did he sleep in Blandine's quarters before he decided he could not sleep to avoid it forever...

     There's no escape. In a thousand guises, I insinuate myself into a thousand copulations. Dawn into dusk, dusk into dawn. Bed to bed, nation to nation. I forget by not having time to remember. But what happens when the solace becomes so used that it's hollow. Even the solace becomes part of the act. The endless fucking act...

     "I will have what you are having. You look very good, doing very well. You are... beautiful and strong and in the fullness of your Word. I would be proud of you, Julian, except that we are both damned. It is hard to be proud of that..."

     Violet fire and amethyst flames. These, the eyes of the Faithful Fire. This, the gaze of Urfiel. Piercing, like a sword to the skin. Strong, like the faith of children. Captivating, like a soul in song.

     "A loving hand, a tender thought should all...belie...a giving heart..."

     "I love you," comes the man's voice, golden light flickering in the small room. It is not much, with hardened dirt for floors and mud stone and thatch for walls and roof. "I do," the older voice reiterates, laughter following from two. One older, one younger.

     William frowns, confused. Aching. "You acted in passion they all should have expected, but I am missing the fucking point, Ian. Should I not do this and think of you? When can I go a day without thinking of you. Goddamn it, if I didn't love you I wouldn't think of you. What the hell do you want?"

     Her hand moves. Long the nails, like talons. Claws. And when her eyes open...they are the color of fathoms deep. Unending ocean. To swallow you. To drown you...