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

     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.

     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."

     Ah, yes. This is the Llewellyn genome for self-pity and self-sabotage. Tiernan recognizes it well; he's spent decades, now, dealing with it.

     "You are not sure about me." His mouth forms a smile. "With the exception of frustration and ... perhaps a little contempt." Duma leans in toward you. "Yet you have not dismissed me, so there is room for me to 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.

     Around here, ask the universe a question, and one is liable to get an answer back. Duma appears as if from a carnival, holding (and enjoying) a caramel apple. He is dressed in dark denim, a white t-shirt and a black blazer, his shoes a brushed charcoal suede. The shirt says: No, your other left.

     "Right. I've left a note for my wife and a letter to be sent to my lawyers if I'm not back in time," he grumbles. It's easy to see where Pres gets some of this from. Bright blue eyes, as bright as Maddie's, cut to Tiernan and then to his family. "Let's get this show on the road, eh?"

     Gwilym relaxes back on the sofa again. His look towards the ceiling is that of a man who knows full well he's unleashed unspeakable mischief upon the world.

     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.

     "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.

     "...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."

     "This too shall pass," he sighs. "It doesn't make it any easier, of course," there is a smile for that. "I would recommend speaking with your sisters after lunch," he gently says. "I find that the less time something like this has to sit, the better. Generally speaking."

     "You can always choose to quit, Loki. If you do not wish to be a priest, then you will be doing my king no good with your service. You will tax his energy, and your own. And you will both be less for it. Be honest," Aeron murmurs as he takes the 8-ball and rolls it down the length of the table, sinking it into the left corner pocket.

     "Reincarnation is not about fairness, you see. India is not fair; life is not fair. And, by extension," Valmiki's smile includes and encompasses a wince, "the universe itself... there is no true fairness save that which mankind attempts to impose upon its surroundings. An argument can be made that doing so is a mistake; even if it is not a mistake, it is a quixotism. I am, myself, a quixote."

     "...Just as all myths exist, and all dreams, all religions are valid expressions. No one is right," he smiles to you. "And no one is wrong. God did not create religion. It created the universe. The rest is ...cave painting and storytelling. From Stonehenge to Notre Dame, it is all the same."

     The only trouble with world-views is that they tend to narrow one's view on everything. And so... goggles off, Preston West. The world's just gotten a great deal more interesting...

     "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..."

     "Sex is a joy and a comfort. It's also fun." Gwilym grins and sits up now, looking over at you. "And it's also entirely possible to fuck up human relationships without it, so not having sex isn't a get out of trouble free card."

     "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.

     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."

     He glances to you and then to the dog. "Intelligence is a curse. But you have earned a right to know things, Loki. So - go ahead and ask."

     "The legends do say I was born at night," Aeron's voice is a somnolent murmur, dreamy and even and droll. "But not last night."

     "...Enjoy him when he comes to you to show you a part of the universe, to teach you. Please him, because you love him and have faith in him. Please him, because you enjoy it. When you surrender yourself to serve him, you will find yourself freed."

     "Run."

     "I could slay a dragon for y', if that's what you want," Gwilym offers easily. "Or I could show you a dragon. One I'm not related t'. Why are you standing in the dark watching trees?"

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

     "Psychologically, I'd say the significance of the snow is your lack of resolve. You're confused, and you don't want to make a decision because the choices available to you either suck or are too unknown in their long-term consequences. You do not want to shut the door, but you have not yet decided to open it, either."

     "I happen to like portions of my so-called life," Loki says, and leans back on his hands. "But by all means, let's pick up where we left off." The very brief flush covers where leaving off happened, even if that's not quite what he meant.

     "...Sleep, and realize that even for all the troubles and sorrows you have taken upon yourself, this one sorrow has been answered. You are not alone."

     Loki follows Gwilym without further question or complaint. Maybe one glance to Aeron, before he moves. The promise of coffee ahead helps, but more of it is that he only has so much energy to give to irritation at his own confusion when the world is busy being very strange around him.

     There is little that is more enjoyable than the prick of the holly leaf. Little that is more potent than the bitter balm of the holly berry. There is little that is more stinging than the potential loss of the Holly King's favor...

     "Well, that presumes you really are driving, and that changing stations isn't better done by the person who isn't supposed to be keeping his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel," Gwilym answers promptly. "No man's an island, Loki, no man's son."

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

     As big as it is, Powis Castle is becoming intimate once more. All that's left are a couple of cousins, and your husbands two and children three.

     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.

     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...

     "... 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..."

     She can get into the talk of art. It helps her to distract herself from how you look, sleepy or otherwise. Distract herself from her own imagination, the urges it inspires in her. The things she wants to do, such as plopping herself down in your lap, sleepy as you are. She is trying very hard not to think about that.

     "...I was High King there for a while, but all things must pass, yeah? Besides, the real work's back in the Other-Other-World."

     "Now, I am an engineer. I have built many buildings, castles, cathedrals. But I do not know how to reconstruct this friendship. This family. It's broken. So... he has made a new one." Frowning, he shakes his head. "Maybe that is all we can do. Make new families, and leave the rubble where it lies."

     You made me order it, watch it, regret it. You made me kill you. And I can't forgive you.

     In the quiet space of one's soul, there is no place for hammering. Though the London nightscape glitters past the windows and walls of a small apartment, and an Indian kitchen cooks up delights whose flavors permeate even concrete, in this small bedroom, in this quiet space of his soul, Davydd lingers with only one.

     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.

     "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..."

     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.

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

...Rest assured that I have not forgotten you...

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

     The body disappears, pulled into the darkness by loyal hands, and Iovis Macarelli strides away from his evening's correspondence.

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

     "Well, I have a heart like a raisin. A prune. But... I will tell you something," he whispers now. "When I am with you, I can feel it growing plump again with blood, Gwilym. I can almost feel it beat again, like it did when I was young. And alive."

     "I feel like Jove," he says, his gaze going up and down and over you again. "I am the boss, yes? Tonight, Jupiter was challenged. So I had to fight. Sometimes, amice, we have to fight like the dogs we are, to see who is the boss. And you know who that is? Me, that is who!"

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

     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.

     There is something on the air that runs from him to you. Without calling you by name, it invites you. Charisma backed with something else, indefinable.

     "Hmm? Oh... no... we're not just about sex." Course not, baby. I love you for your mind. "I like watching telly with you as well as shagging." He says it so seriously, it must be true!

     "She offered me a game of chance. If I won, she would grant to me access to a realm beyond my imagining; if she won, she would get me to do with as she saw fit, her slave forever. My soul, essentially. And we played at dice."

     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.

     "Before you answer, you do know that happiness is not guaranteed just because you want him to be happy. I want him to be happy, and my other boys. You, of course. But while we can all sit around wanting everyone else to be happy, Life has its own rhythm. Things will come and go, including joy."

     Iowerth's eyebrows quirk up a little at the casual mention of his mother's nipples at the dinner table, but such is the conversation of new parents. "I'm starting to feel a little faint," he drolls. "Is this what I'm in for then?"

     It's in the heart of London; the irony appealed to him, inasmuch as anything has been appealing to him of late. Where does the man who's lost his heart go but to the city whose heart is stone cold uncaring?

     "Your mother has commanded a battle tonight," he begins, no time for endearments or blandishments now. Ramanthus outspreads his arms, his legs also as he stands. "We are raiding the corrupted kingdom of Winter Diamonds. In a matter of hours."

     "... You call the shadows to you, pluck them like strings, and play a tune -- whatever is to your liking. Will you one night cloak yourself thusly and become invisible to all?" He smiles a little, quizzically. Not confused by your gifts but so curious.

     And the feeling continues. One spasm becomes two becomes ten becomes twelve. Gold eyes glance to Edward as he grips his own sire. He cannot speak -- his throat is closed, his ability to voice cut off. It is a Mexican stand-off, ami. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

     "I think," Ian says softly, turning this face to you, "...there is a problem."

     You are leaving me...

     The perpetual gargoyle, Edward sits upon a ledge, smoking the last of his current case of cigarettes. Soon it will be time for another, and he'll have to leave his perch to find the nearest corner store for a top up. The other option is simply to go home, and he's not really sure he's up for it at this instant.

     "What makes you think I am wild? Those who know me would laugh to hear you say that." His lips make a twist as he holds still -- all but his mouth and eyebrows. You'll have to forgive him that much expression at least. "Edward Drago," Iowerth adds, anglicizing his name. "Or Captain Drago if you prefer."

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

     "When the time has come for me to empty myself of all of my tales, I swear to you, good gentlemen, that your stories shall not remain untold."

     "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.

     Lost. He is so very lost. In a maze not of his own creation, not even of his own recognition; this is nowhere that he has been before. Not even with Johannes Arnaul, Saint-Protector of Saarbrucken; not anywhere. Perhaps he is nowhere at all.

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

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

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

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

     "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."

     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...

     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...

     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."

     His hand comes out to take the scotch as it is handed to him. Neat, as it should be tasted. Unpolluted. "At least the first year, I still remembered how to use a telephone," he nods to you with a smile. Yes, it is three years. Tempus Fugit.

     "I...wanted you to know...my real thoughts," Cesare notes, seeming done. "Not the things I may have done or said when I saw you last...first."

     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.

     Are you on crack?
     Davydd peers at you, saying nothing amid your... cascade of words, as many as there are raindrops and about as random.

     You were walking, and it put me in mind of the old song - nursery rhyme - about walking to Galilee. I don't know why, exactly. But you were walking, as if very tired - walking straight, but as if you'd been walking for a very long time and you just - were so focused, so fixed on your destination that you couldn't see anything at all. And the road had been crooked, but now it was straight, ending at the edge of a field."

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

     "...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."

     "...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."

     You speak. He writes. "I do not think it is so simple. Your gifts are your gifts. Your skills, your skills. You should not compare yourself to Nathaniel," the way he speaks that name. An obvious attempt at being civil, but he does not hide the partial frown.

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

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

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

     "I thought for certain I'd fuck it up as usual, go on like a bit of a prat and then pull my amazing swallowing foot technique. But it wasn't half bad now, was it?"

     "This is sounding suspiciously like a goodbye," he murmurs, humor lacing the serious tone of his voice.

     "...It is time for Avalon to return to those who need it most. This body is theirs, I give it to them. With it my soul. With it, my being. For this land and I are indivisible. I am Avalon..."

     Davydd ap Owain moves within the white void. What has he to fear? If the floor falls away, he will become a bird. If it rains water, he'll become a fish. If it turns to fire. Well, if it turns to fire he's fucked, but at least it will be quick.

     You give him license to ask and he goes quiet. He seems to mull over his question as he looks at his biscuit. He takes a bite of it and washes it down with cooler (though still very warm) cocoa. "Are you happy, Fiona?"

     It is a plate of crow, son, that's what's on the plate, the fork's in your hands, and you're the one eating it, Llywelyn.

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

     "I think that I am bored," Ian laments, filling the air. His eyes look up above, gazing there. A careless rest, filled with his usual thinking. "Well," Ian exhales, somewhere deprecating his inaccuracy, "...I find myself, not really looking to do much of anything. Very odd," he says to himself. In truth, he's probably talking to himself more generally.

     We have been together for a few years now. It is time, I think, that we have Our places and Our things and Our hopes and wants and needs. I am not going to be afraid anymore.

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

     "...I've learned a lot about my own choices recently. They haven't been the best. The trick is not to repeat them. There's only the potential of forever. Forever... really only exists if you're God. And I'm many things, but I'm not God."

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

     "I hear that I am somewhat delightful," in the tasting, let alone the knowing, "...hopefully I will suffice," Ian stands, sauntering towards the keep's antechamber, but looking over his shoulder to make sure the guest of honor follows.

     ...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.

     It has been a long two evenings. Edward's hand tightens, nodding at the notion of being alright. His disposition's improved, but the situation has not really been solved yet.

     Ian nods, then looks in the mirror again. Hand lifts to adjust his collar, but then he sighs, lowering his hands. It'd be the fifth time he's made corrections.

     "I have a job for you. I need you to drop whatever it is you are doing for this. It is something that must happen immediately... if it is to succeed..."

      "We embrace him," William murmurs. "We solve a multitude of wrongs, of problems, we halt a multitude of suffering. For everyone..."

     This is a William you haven't seen in a while. Not since he retired in fact. It has been a brutal two nights. For everyone. "Well... I'm not angry," he murmurs. "I don't know what I am..." he says suddenly. "...Afraid, I guess. Worried."

     "Tell him," Edward chimes, mostly together, "...I hope it works out like he wants." Have a nice life.

     "I don't talk about it all that often. People," Audi explains, "are afraid of death - they don't like talking about it. I don't think they need to be afraid of me. But you're not afraid of me. So why not talk about it?"

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

     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?"

     "I'm not a vampire, Edward... Mithras cursed me, for certes, but he never killed me..."

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

     "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."

     "Who is he? Or was he?" Her eyes go wide. "That Hugh fellow? Or the blonde? Or that bloke, the rich one... the one with the castle," she snaps her finger, "Mr. Big...."

     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.

     "So, to friends, yes?" He lifts the glass again and turns back to the kitchen. Who would know the enmity that exists beneath the pleasant smiles and genial conversation? Who would know indeed.

     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.

     Two gentlemen sit inside a cafe, the windows giving view to a northwestern American city still glistening from the last rainfall. For this moment in time it could be any city on earth, or no place that has ever existed.

     "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."

     "Why," William begins, "... are you here then. At all?" He leans his head on his hand, fingers propped up against his temple. Maybe he has a headache? It is a thoughtful pose, perhaps. And indigo eyes do focus on you. Peer at you. You are a strange creature.

     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.

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

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

     "That's not what has you upset, dear Victoria. That's not it at all. What has you upset is that that decision is so far out of your hands, you can't even imagine what it would take to make it come about." Mick watches her evenly.

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

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

I'm a breather... a receiver and I don't know where I stand not since someone informed me that my house was built on sand... And its not the earth beneath me, just some concept of the land...

     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.

     But beneath the fashionable black layers, hats, and scarves, there must remain glamour. Can Caine's childer do without it? For when they stream darkly into the lowest levels beneath the Tate Modern, they reveal their True Selves.

     "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."

     "Something's going on, William. There are two here... who really aren't here."

      And now there is no doubt in her mind that she is not safe with either group of men. "Shite," she curses on a breath, then spins on her heel to run, jabbing frantically at her cellphone's faceplate.

     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."

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

     An old-fashioned Bacchanal. With attendance by Athens, no less. Under the watchful eyes of Athens, Gaul gives its own tribute to the vine and wine god. Yes, with all the furor of a truly Gallic happening...

     In each vineyard, there are feet crushing grapes, juice that is tasted, wine that will be made from the old-fashioned labor of feet. This wine will be used next year, in hopes for a better harvest than some have seen due to the strange late summer weather.

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

     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...

     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 feel..."
      That was no tap, it was a punch...
     "...violated..."

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

     "When you talk like that, Davy," Edward murmurs, turning his eyes back to the punching bag, "...it happens like that. Is that what you want?"

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

     "What th--" he starts, leaping from his seat to grab the duffle bag. "What the fuck?" he finally gets out, shaking the bag to and fro until the file comes out. The bag's tossed aside, and Edward stands, flipping through the folder.

     Dearest Emily. Herein is a goddess from the sands of dead Aegyptus. She spread her wings, in centuries past, to protect her King. Let her now wrap you in her aegis of feathers.

     There is a chuckle as you mention Sandrine pruning your plants. "Well, it could have been worse." Glancing to you, she murmurs quietly, "How will you tell her? How do you think she will take it..." ...take us?

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

     Of course, underneath the tweeds and silks, she's a lot less comfortable.... Was this a good idea? I feel like a circus sideshow freak. Maybe I should've worn the leather instead.

     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.

     "Goddammit," Edward says, sitting up from the bench near the Sforza fountain by his room. "Does this place ever shut up?" He glances at his watch, then shoots a look over where the end of prayer is being sung, far across buildings and walls.

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

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

     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.

     The last hour or so was rather uneventful, as most of it she spent as a ruby, as red as the one she wears on her finger. Time passed and she was returned to her normal state, but she remained still and unconscious. Her small body instinctively curled into the fetal position and then stayed there.

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.

An eternity of nothing. No thought. No cares. No memories. Nothing.

Then pain. After so much nothing, this brought focus into an otherwise empty mind. Pain. His shoulder was on fire. His leg burned. Bells were fading into the distance of his mind. Somewhere, someone was chanting. Not here. Somewhere else.

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.

     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.

     The change was subtle, perhaps. Could you discern when she had finally crossed that line between lucidity and her current state? Even when she awoke, she was quiet, reluctant to speak much. But at least she was calm and without incident.

But that's changed.

     William opens his eyes. Slowly. You have stopped? Indigo eyes are a shock of violet and blue -- after so much opium, absinthe, tainted blood -- the colors have separated into separate flames, each roiling, color wavering to create the wave-lengths of Indigo.

          Creepy eyes. That can't be a good sign. Fuck. We may have to kill her. Like when Old Yeller came down with rabies.

     Do vampires dream? Certainly. But this one just hasn't done so in a while. But now she is troubled, plagued by a storm brewing. The dark energy within is tightly coiled, ready to spring forth. So far, it's only done so in short bursts. However, her mind has been left splintered, broken, shattered.

     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.

     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.

     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..."

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

     "What will El-Adar mean for you? What do you think it means for Edouard?"

     I am heading into the Caliph's Land. Or to quote the Unnamed Poet of the tome at my feet, that sun-kissed land, rich in dark-eyed girls, and water that springs silver from the golden ground. I have never been to this part of Espana. Only the vineyards of Castile, the exclusive villas of Madrid, the discos of Barcelona.

     Shite. You immortal fuck, I forget you can't move. The light is so bright. I can feel it. I can see it with my eyes closed. Now I can't tell if they're opened or closed. There's nothing but light. Shite. And heat. Oh shit, this is what it feels like. I'm going to be a pile of ash on the carpet. The fucking cat's probably going to use me as a sandbox. Fucking cat. Fucking exploding in sunlight vampire curse bullshit.

     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...

     Hands lowered, Valmiki stumbles, tripping over his own feet, and winces. Oh, this will hurt, when he hits the ground... except the ground isn't where it ought to be, and instead, his forehead catches against a door, producing a hollow clonk, paired by a muttered oath. "Vishnu's balls!"

     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.

     Sometimes I don't know if the music I'm hearing is actually playing softly in the background, or maybe in the neighbor's bedroom, or if it's something ringing in my ears. It starts when I speak your name around your tongue and it rolls like the sea. Right over me.

     Edward smiles again at the photographs. "It's good to be reminded sometimes..." he whispers softly. "Good on ya, lads," he grins at the trio again, giving the men a nod of confidence.

     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.

     "M..maybe...maybe...I am not the type of person you need," she whispers, not sure what to say. Maybe I am not like others. Maybe I have failed. Maybe there is something wrong with me.

     "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 closes his eyes and he listens as you speak, his mouth brushing your forehead, kissing your eyelids. An amorous benediction.
     I am your protection and your shelter...

     In the coalescence of dust and light, there is the faintest of outlines, a presence asserting itself. There is a shimmer near the doorway, something like the shine of sunlight against the gold of hair.

     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.

     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.

     "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.

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

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

     O, amice. I cannot get the thought and feel of your blood upon the marble of your gallery out of my mind. I have wandered now these past weeks. I have attended meetings in your stead. I have tried to tend to your business for The Clan. I have expressed regret, sometimes diplomatically, sometimes passionately. But your death, amice, has left a hole in me. And who shall fill it for Antonio?

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

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

     Through another set of doors, the labyrinthine halls. Until there is peace. Quiet. And simply a feeling of power. It is not until you reach this area that Girault speaks again. "For all that I tease him, amice, he is one of our prime voices. If we were to form a choir, a symphony of Who We Are and Why, the Circle may set the key... but Villon, amice, is the measure..."

     There is a visible exhale from Christian. Among the Justicar, he must indeed be the most sociable. "Sabbat in Paris suggests other forces in Germany. I think this is why Messereich is as he is right now. Well, he is as he is, because he is Ventrue," Christian drolls out. "However, that is of concern, and the organization of Tours and Poitiers. Of that, I am sure Girault will have much comment," he motions to the returning companion.

     Past the entrance to Montemarte itself, there are still old gates marking your entrance -- much as one would expect to see sign-posts in hell, and not so far from sacre coeur, there is a gated mansion, very old. Very steeped in the bohemian legends of Montemarte. La Tanire de L'oie D'or. The Lair of the Golden Goose.

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

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

     "Finding the Doge's Gold," the one across from you says in all seriousness. "Maybe..." he smirks, turning around to see you, "...I can become wealthy and you can haunt me in better surroundings," a smile growing.

     We all have our sorrow. We all have our joys. We have our reasons to smile and our reasons for tears. The Song of Solomon still rings so true. I was once a poet, too. I wrote psalms. But in the ash and in the fire of the birth and death of stars, I have not had a moment to do so since. Not since the time of David of Israel. Strange. Why did I let that go? To whom did I surrender it...

     While your little feet sounded out the measure of your steps until they ended...well, wherever you stopped... the cherub -- for that's what he is -- quickly closed his eyes. Not attuned to you, he knows nothing about you, nor can he grasp who... or better yet what... you may be, little girl who moves quick like swallow. But he can, and therefore does, trace his Master's sigil on the nearest wall. Finger dragging the stucco and plaster in quick calligraphic swirls. "Just in case," he whispers to the stucco there...

     Sakir's eyes widen slightly. You can almost read his thoughts from that expression: Great, lunatics. I'm fucking trapped with lunatics.

     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.

     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...."

     That brings a smile, curving. Then pursing. "I know the devil, lady. To be sure, I do. He is not half so thoughtful, and a good deal less fair. Though even for him, this was not always so. Things are never as we expect them to be. And more."

     "However dark your paths, Davydd... think you not that our own paths contain no darkness. Wherever she goes, she is a flame, and shadows will approach. We cannot take her from this waking world o'erlong - for a span of time, and no more, any the more can we you. Her spark will continue to burn, Davy-bach. And where a fire burns, there will be those that seek to warm themselves."

     "So basically, wot you're saying is that you can't be bothered to commit, so you stick with people you can use and toss away without worrying they'll come after you with a shotgun." She turns to look over her shoulder, her smirk having more real warmth in it this time, even as her eyes are challenging. "Funny, that. I always thought that's what Kleenex got invented for..."

     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...

     With every muscle's motion, no matter how slight, they seem to shift. Celtic, the patterns of interlocking, eternal lines that become the interlocking forms of Celtic dragons. Cobalt. Blue royal. Deep and brilliant. Bright. Brighter than they should be...

     The laughter begins again, a mist between the tinkles. A man's gentle amusement, a girl's trippling chuckle. Between the spates of giggles, a rustle and gentle purr.

     What a great old place is this. A hand of Montague strays over his coat as he draws away from the chair and takes a seat near a bookcase. His eyes stray over the titles there. His thoughts stray some six hours southbound. I wonder, mon ami, where you are in your task now. A hand reaches up and fingers toy with the garnets strung at his throat.

     He always does as you suggest, Valan Montague. Your advice is as good as gold. Edward's made amends with his William, and has seen to Davydd. All is over, but the shouting...and something else that has had him occupied.

     "Mmm... oui. You are a perfect specimen, are you not? A work of art, perhaps. I would love to meet your creator to thank them personally for gifting the world with one so... magnificent. But, alas, I have not introduced myself," the woman says with a cat-like grin. Her moves are also very feline in nature.

     Falling water. It chimes to the senses. He can hear the voices in the water. Soft and lilting, like the sound of his own singing. He can feel the water by the coolness of the air as he passes. He can taste it, as scent captures flavor and spills it upon his tongue.

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

     It was deliberate. We stayed inside because we feared going out. No, that wasn't it. We stayed in because we were tired of going out. No...
     We were tired of my going out...

     God, though I am a grievous sinner, spare me from that fate...

It was a dark, mysterious, and sometimes terrifying world that Morgan introduced me to. To suddenly see that humans were actually not at the top of the food chain was both shocking and deeply disturbing to me. It took me quite a while to accept that I was a vampire, let alone to get into the habits of one.

Why did I have a physical relationship with William especially when I knew he was already with someone, you might ask? It's complicated, really.

Perhaps I'm breezing through all of this too quickly, but time has a different meaning to my kind. Days sometimes pass like minutes, years pass like weeks, decades pass like months...

Thinking back, I'm surprised I survived New Port. I had so many weaknesses to take advantage of...any one of those around me could have manipulated any of them to destroy me, my status and position. Yet, they didn't.

I really should speak of the beginning if I am to tell my story properly. Without the beginning, it's like watching a movie from the middle -- key elements would be missing. Motive and direction would often get lost.

     Now the tall man is a handsome man, with a charming smile. He also has an Aura that exudes malevolent bad-ass as much as it does awe inspiring virility. To most people the initial response is going to be to cow away. To Guan Lao it is means only one thing: He must be a warrior. I will ask him.

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

     "Stop me... sometime while we are here... tell me No. It will be good for me." He chuckles quietly, half-turning from the glass, and the things it holds to ... others equally nice.

     Nicu sets his coffee down. "I believe that it may be one offending individual... and one... facilitator of some fashion. Immortal, Watcher," he shrugs. "This I do not know. There is much more to discover. And not a lot of time."

"...A time will come soon, bella, when we will have to leave Ireland... and face our foe together. We should... take this time now...just for us..."

     "Your rights to Poitou actually come through my mother... and my grandmother's name was also Aenor. Eleanor's mother..." And suddenly the universe makes sense. It is right to tell this story. It is right that this becomes Truth. Known. Tasted. Swallowed.

     But you know all this. Just like you know good old Nicu. Old old Nicu. Older than Waterloo, from some old family in Romania. You felt him coming in, to be sure. How could you not? And apparently the whole tavern's full of immortal-types for he's eyeballed all the way to a chair...

     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.

     He'd prepared himself rather nicely. A bath, a meal. A walk around the outer gardens. You know his habits, when he rests, when he rises. Edward dressed in blue and black, his favorite colors. Slacks are dark linen, and his shirt, the finest of shimmering indigo silk. He took his time tonight, thinking that this is the beginning of forever.

     It is chaotic. It is beautiful. And in everyone of them you can see the man you love.
     Valan looks to you then exhales. Ah... home...

     I have narrowly escaped being a midnight snack...

     Yes, it is a woman singing. But the sound is not that of just any woman singing...
     ...it is the voice of an angel. A dark angel.

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

     As the last tendrils envelope his face, Edward scoots snow over the ember. "Okay..." he smirks, "...I think...you'll like this..." his brow furrows, look lingering at you. Edward bites his bottom lip and pushes goggles back over his eyes. Follow me.

     "Yeah, but..." Edward goes on, "...what if I waited...and something happened to him??" his voice nervous and animated. "What the fuck then? Spend an eternity wishing I'd had done it...and he'd still be alive? They're so fuckin' fragile Will. Anything'll kill them."

     I am standing in the exact center of the world. Between Life and Death. Between the Mundane and the Extraordinary. It is not easy.

     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.

     How can it be true, Valan ...
     "And so... it is true..." I did not dream it or in some sort of plum brandy haze hear something that was not there.

     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..."

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

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

     The king deserves love as much as the peasant... we are lucky, perhaps. But we have worked hard for this luck. No one else knows how much, how hard.

     "Ah well... it could have been a worse ending. She could have done worse than William Plantagenet giving her Last Rites, Davydd Llewelyn staking her breast and Edward Meurelle of Blois landing the striking blow..."

     "Do you like...that I cannot help but stare at you?" Do you like tempting and teasing me? You shouldn't, young man. Edward's face holds no anger or threat, but instead curiosity. What happens to moths? Should he not fear me...why do you not fear me, Valan, with what you have seen and felt...

     Blancheflor. White Flower of Blois. In her day, it was said there was not a more beautiful woman in all of France. She was the Medieval ideal. The high-forehead, the small nose, the cherry lips, the apple breasts. Her grey eyes. After the Schism, she took the name of a Saint.

When I first ran from him, he tormented my mind, telling me there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. How could I hide from a voice inside my own head? He was my constant companion as I ran from Paris. By night, he was a constant monologue, planting doubts and fears in my conscious mind. By day, he fed on my terror as he orchestrated my daymares. Always there, always present, he truly made me believe I could not escape him.

In a way, I don't completely blame him for his bitterness. When they should have been praising him for his discovery, they praised me directly for my Gifts instead.

     "Put it this way. We..." both of you as hunters, "...just won't tell each other all about it in dirty detail." He laughs and steps out of the closet. "How about that? Don't ask...don't tell?" As a policy. And he chuckles, shoving gloves into a large side pocket.

     The other? The experience rests in the replay of one's own helplessness. A hunter whose connection rests in self-identification and sympathy, and thus, each hunt is a hope to restore something tarnished to himself. Perhaps, this time, the one hunted will have another ending...and perhaps ease of heart will come.

     William is quiet for a time, holding his cup in both hands...his elbows resting on the arms of the chair that holds him. His head rests back against the chair's own backing, and with a smile lingering he looks to you. Studies you. Beautiful.

     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?"

     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.