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.

     He sits heavily on the first couch he comes across, staring into space. He is shell-shocked, a little. There's nothing he needs to do about it, and, in fact, little he can do about it, and so he just sits there.

     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..."

     "The day after tomorrow - no, tomorrow." Maddie blinks, and gulps, going ashen. "Oh god. I should be practicing right now. Time got away from me!" She begins scrambling to brush crumbs off of her lap. "Thank god it's not today. I'd never forgive myself if I'd missed my audition!" She is all sixes and sevens, now...

     Gillian's accent is still as precise as ever. She's calm, but the tension crackles for a moment, irritation flaring in the grey ice eyes. "Anyway, I'm not here to yell and scream at you. I'm here to talk about the future."

     Tilting his head, Davydd looks to Fiona. "Sounds familiar doesn't it," he grins. "I'm getting misty with the memories."

     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."

     "Have a safe trip, Gillian West. The woods are wild and thick with thieves." It is a snippet of a poem, a part of a riddle, a realization spoken with bittersweet softness, a sadness for a brother, and sing-song truth.

     "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."

     "Well, whatever we're going to say, we better think fast," Pres mutters, slouching down again. "Here she comes." Maddie turns, eyes and lips rounding as she spots their sister.

     "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.

     Really, the most unexpected part is that it's in Wales, in a castle, and not somewhere more expected for a scion of Prep such as Preston Oliver West III.

     "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...

     "...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."

     What's behind the curtain, Jack? Choose door A or B.

     "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."

     "I'm not sure how to talk about this, period. I thought maybe it would get easier once other people knew, but..." Loki shrugs, and slouches back in his chair. "I wasn't entirely fair to her. Other people's problems always look easier than your own."

     Maddie's in the back seat, lazing on the cushions and staring out the windows. Both Wests are a little bit unusually quiet, but eventually Pres speaks up. "So, Mads. Loki. Magic."

     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...

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

     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.

     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.

     "You do not have to feel weak. The power to feel strong is in your grasp. It is up to you. You determine your self worth. Being with a man, intimately, emotionally, sexually, does not make you a girl anymore than it makes you a banana."

     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..."

     "It's not true, of course. People are born with talent, they get ahead because of their families, all the usual inequalities. But it's what everyone wants to believe. Here--your entire family is vivid proof that it's not true. People are born naturally superior to everyone else, with inherited power that matters."

     "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.

     He drinks his coffee slowly. "Working backwards--magic still exists because it has no reason not to? I don't know, but even allowing for fun with entropy, things don't just stop without a reason. So there'd have to be a reason for that to change, and all you need for it to keep going is a lack of that reason."

     "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...

     "...You are on the Hero's Journey now, Loki. And I'm sure you realize that it's not exactly the easiest road to follow. The clues are obscure at best," Aeron drawls out, "...the gods occasionally fickle and prone to obfuscation..."

     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?

     "...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."

     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.

     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.

     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.

     "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?"

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

     "Faith," he answers quietly, a hush between. "What you need tonight is faith. And so... I will give it to you."

     "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."

     "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."

     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.

     Loki watches the bird a moment, then turns away, taking his cup with him. Whiskey goes better with coffee than alone, especially at this time of day. If you say so. There's only a faint undercurrent of the weary adolescent, Whatever.

     Loki slides back, dragging his foot away. "Sure." And on tonight's episode of Seventeen Synonyms For Yes... He stands up, momentarily shaky for reasons that have nothing to do with general ability to walk.

     One hand comes off the door, held out to you for an American four-square handshake. Intelligent grey eyes meet yours over the rims of her glasses challengingly and thoughtfully. What do you say, Professor Davies? Do you want to play with me?

     Gwilym takes another step forward, his hand on your shoulder and his other hand threading into your hair with electric speed. One moment he's out of range, the next, he's in range, bending in close with unwinking attention. "Get over it."

     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.

     "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."

     "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."

     "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."

     "You know," Gwilym tells you, his face upside-down relative to yours at the angle he's bending, "this isn't satori you're building for yourself. It's not even a very good escape, is it? It doesn't defend y' from feeling a damned thing."

     Gwilym smiles again, and he stands straight, moving to your side of the table, moving towards the corner behind you, looking over his shoulder and down at you. "So. Now what, Loki, no man's son?"

     This news is to tidbits what the Hope Diamond is to rocks...

     Okay. So this isn't precisely what usually happens. But the principle is the same. Candy, strangers, see "Do not take" and go from there.

     You have kidnapped me and you have rescued me.

     "Why is he treated as an adult, when he has a far more reckless history than I, and I am treated like a child asking my younger uncle May I, Might I?"

     Up above, a squat raven settles on the Crow's Nest (where else?). Ugh. Romance. I think I'm going to be ill.

     Fresh off of the shower-inducing hug given by the squealing young girl -- that's going to keep him up for hours -- the shock of seeing is grandmother (and grand-aunt) as the offered chaperone is enough to send him reeling. "Nainie?" he proclaims in shock.

     Dear Commander Izzard, in the off-chance that I am being held up at gun point by a hooded pirate, do me the favor of sending a charge toward the castle's main gate. Don't let's panic, however. Just... very quietly...send a detachment to meet me. No running. You know what they say about running with scissors. I'm sure that applies to swords as well.

     A moment of peace. In such ambassadorial journeys, such moments are rare indeed. And so, for a moment, to enjoy the moment, Gruffydd does not rush off headlong into other entertainments. Instead, he lifts his gaze to the boughs of the tree at hand, and reaches up to select a worthy apple.

     It has been a hell of a three-day night. Three dog night? Whatever it was. Gwilym stirs, body as close to entirely limp as it is possible.

     For a moment, his smile moves a bit in his eyes. You are growing up. But not that much. You are a boy still. "Being crown prince makes it difficult. It was so for us. Do you want my advice on what you should do, or just to listen?"

     "You've made a right mess of a perfectly evil tower," Aeron says, leaning back with his hands propping him upon on the stone.

     They helped him finish what he started. They helped him kill Mithras completely, each one of them, with Blois giving the hardest blow and with Plantagenet giving last rites. Without the Queens, Davydd wouldn't have survived the battle with Mithras. Without the Kings, Davydd wouldn't have survived the battle with himself.

     "When do you get started? Right after Yule? Father Christmas Strikes Back?" Davydd cackles at that and reaches for his whisky. That was so good, he has to drink to it.

     "Brawd." He rises and he takes a look at you. You, Your Majesty. He felt the crowning.

     "Come with me," the Holly King tells you, wine running like blood down through his hair and dripping from his mouth. "I will guide you and show you the way."

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

     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.

     Rhodri clasps his son's arm and then draws him in for a hug. "It's good to see you, boyo," he murmurs. "You look ..." balanced, he finishes beneath your skin. Your father's smile hangs at the corners of his lips and in the emerald of his eyes.

     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.

     "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."

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

     When they shake hands, it is like the Captain of All the Ships of the World shaking the hand of the Pirate King...

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

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

     "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.

     "You are in my blood," he groans, "... like Caravaggio's disease. You burn there, and I find no rest from my want, amice."

     Havoc's son rushes at you, its various mouths clamping. It lets loose gargling strangles, like someone choking on blood. Its breath is worse than even Iovis can describe. It smells of chaos, fear, and disorganized guts.

     "In these heels? The bull'd catch up with me and then where'd I be?" Fiona angles her face up to kiss you emphatically, a hand going up to your cheek.

     The alley's darkness surrounds him until he dissolves in it, a glance given in the direction he believes you to be. And he slips away with a taunting chuckle. You want me? Catch me. Kill me. Thrill me. Iovis Macarelli steps into the Void.

     "No whining on the astral plane," comes the intonation of his voice. Rhodri looks at you, cocking up an eyebrow. He saves whatever other commentary he may have for later. "What are you drinking?"

     "I told you I was moody." There; there is a faint quirk of a smile, and he sighs, turning and sliding his arms around your waist. "I am overreacting. I don't know why. Just ... it hurt."

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

     "If only we poor human creatures could be guided by the Logic and Reason we crave. Your solutions are not new, they are simply not acted upon. Not so quickly. They say things are changing, more children heard playing in Venice these days. I hope it is so. At night, late," that mouth of his spreads in a smile as he lights up his cigarette, "...you can almost hear the collective breath of the city being held..."

     Gwilym rolls his eyes, his hands lifting to scrub at his face. "He looked ... almost Arabic, or Greek, or - something. But not quite. And I looked at him, because he was looking at me, and he didn't look away when he saw me looking at him. And his eyes reached out and hit me. And oes... oes, my ears are still ringing..."

     "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."

     "With so much complexity, the more one struggles the worse it gets. I struggled, quietly and not so quietly. I'm sure I shall again. That's the nature of life."

     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.

     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?"

     He hangs his head with a moment of exhaled resignation, then sits back. "Not the birds and the bees speech, I hope," he murmurs and he smiles a little. No, he knows what is coming. For weeks, he's been preparing himself.

     As you napped, your father stood over you smiling a moment. You look like you've worked hard. You've at least worked hard at looking like you worked hard (he knows the well from which you sprang).

     "No no, Gwi, you're working too hard," Iowerth drolls low and wry, "...you should slow down, brawd, before you pull something."

     So goes the dictation on a busy, busy night. At the borders of the corrupted kingdom lies a great and untamed wilderness. No kingdoms or queendoms hold sway here, but the loose confederation of subjugated villages, villages that now suddenly find themselves free of their dark burden.

     "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."

     Sitting in the chair, Iowerth lingers in his unsilent quiet, his weary brain pulsing with conversations and consequences.

     "... 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.

     My head is swimming. I have navigated the worst seas imaginable and have kept my head while doing it. Only to lose my head on land.

     After the call, brief as it was, came to an end, your captain showed himself again. Lift that pillow, tote that blanket! What had been efficient tidying before, following several hours of complete and utterly decadent dismantling, now had to be the very spic of the span.

     "It's not about being nice," he grumbles, "...it's about honesty...and about discretion. And knowingly allowing a potential corruption. That'll look nice, right next to all of my other wise decisions in the last few hundred years."

     "You are important to me, Io," he says quietly. "Y' are, oes? But ... I need to learn this, this thing. You - are going to go off in other directions. I've been ... using you for balance, all my life. And now ..." You have gone off in another direction. And my equilibrium is suffering.

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

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

     That's the look on his face as you come at him with a sword. He can disarm you -- he's not worried about that -- but he doesn't want you to hurt yourself. "Now, sweetheart... put the sword away and let's talk about this rationally..."

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

     "An angel's feather falling, I have such, from the Plains of Chaos, the Outer Rim of The Great Marches." She makes a motion to the other woman. "It will be very dear indeed," she smiles beautifully, "... the most expensive item in the entire City, I should think. Second only to a night with me."

     If this is the seduction, if this is the information you wish, my spy... you will have it. More than you need.

     You will be the prince's favorite...the first courtier of his fledgling court... a prince of your own standing... it's our way to freedom, Tiernan. The hold of his arms tighten around your waist.

     Drink ... I need a drink. My head aches, and my mouth is dry - a hangover of the soul. I am restless. I hope someone attacks me tonight; I could use a good fight.

     "Brother," he drawls, "I do love you dearly, much as it pains me to say it, but what pains me more is how everyone keeps insisting you're the smarter of the two of us. The obvious escapes you."

     "We will have to conspire against her for your freedom or your joy, I'm afraid. And will likely need assistance doing it. Either you betray her with subterfuge or direct defection. But either way, Tiernan, to love me is to turn away from her. There's no avoiding that..."

     The ship pitches and rolls, even as you and he pitch and roll on the bed. It sends you deeper inside his mouth, it makes his weight land on you, it rocks you back and forth into one another as it rolls upon the skin of the sea.

     We shouldn't here. It is risky. But ...Life is risky...

     My compass. It tells me where I am, constantly where I am. But where am I with you?

     He relaxes, very slightly. Ah, so he's not to be immediately tossed to the curb; though what answer should he give? The truth? There are shades and shades upon shades of truth. "I can accept being a Leon Tamer better than some slurs," Tiernan murmurs, his hand shifting to scoop up the little clockwork lion.

     "You know, it's one thing to have doubt in your children and the world they face," Davydd looks to his hands, and then to you. Your looks are sharp; his are blunt as Welsh oaks. "It's another to wish ill on what they do. Who they love. She's marrying well. She seems happy. He's a good man. What else could you possibly ever want for her? Your job is done, it was done well. Mostly, that happens despite our best efforts."

     For all his droll humor and his reserve, even his stubbornness (and he's most stubborn about the topic of love and all you have had to say. It'll take a while to sink in. Like father, like son. Poor boy), he comes to you with a look and he bends to give you a hug and a kiss. "I'll keep my eyes on him," a nod back to Gwilym. "I am my brother's keeper..."

     "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."

     "I... treaty with older women," your twin continues, "... but they're not icy fingered death maidens sittin' in a dark room with cowls," he inherited this ability to rant and rave from his father, "...you must be mental..."

     "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.

     "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.

     It's been a long time since there was a king. Not a king of mere kingdom - someone who could merge with the land, and more than the land. Someone with the power to command souls. Too long, mayhap. I don't know that we're still what we were, when we were, then.

     And below, an ocean of water transforms to an ocean of sky as starpocked below as it is above. It parts, shimmering as the ship cuts through it. This is where the ocean has yet to dream itself into being. Here, on the frontier of Forever. It is where the End and the Beginning meet.

     It is the kingdoms of fairy and dreams dotting the Imaginary Landscape, with the dark oceans of future dreams dotted with heavenly stars and creatures. There, the plains of chaos, roiling midnight blue clouds of Unknown Possibilities -- both Good and Evil -- both unformed and waiting for God... or the dreams of Man... to shape them.

     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.

     "Across the ocean, there is an island that bathes in moonlight, continual twilight where all days and all nights come to rest. It is full of silver watered rivers and moonlit pools. It is the kingdom of Iowerth Rhudd Ddraig, the heir of High King Davydd." Edward the Red Dragon.

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

     "The Winter Diamond." Peter shakes his head. "Since it wouldn't be the Summer King - that's the same as the Oak King, the Winter King being the Holly. And there are no others right now that involve seasons as part of their names or titles - not that I can think of, and it hasn't been that long since I hung up my reins."

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

"If I put it anywhere obvious, he'll find it. If I put it anywhere devious, his mind will lead him to it by instinct."

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

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

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

     "Shall we talk about the hippopotamus in the room, or shall we continue to ignore it and make with more small talk?"

     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."

     Fiona smiles, then rises to her feet upon the shallow dais of the throne. "It is my very great pleasure to become acquainted with all of you," she says gravely. "I thank you for the introductions; and now, if all is quite prepared, I will walk the line and then make my address. Lord General, if all is in readiness?"

     Her hands go to your shoulders and she pulls herself up to be at eye level with you, the blue seas of her gaze dancing as her smile widens, pulls, opens. "My two husbands have given me two little boys," Fiona whispers.

     "If you are not here for a book, then I do not know how I, a bookstore owner, may help you. But... tell me what the problem is. Perhaps there is something," Albizzina finally looks up, her dark eyes fixing forward, her lovely olive face tilting, "... I may do for you, Miss Higgins. Would you like a cappuccino?"

      "It is business, not love. You are Italian. You understand this. Do not forget what we are and are not, Paolo. Whatever you pretend for the sake of the children."

     "Notte," the Italian says, lifting his voice so that the person may hear it. "Excuse me... do you need a ride?" He tries it first in English. Has to be a tourist, right?

     "Venetian. From Venice. Your parents ... met there." One eyebrow raises quizzically. "And, of course, your parents met by some startling, astounding series of coincidences that made for a hell of a story in the retelling, didn't they."

     Rhodri chuckles. "You are so uncomfortable with intimacy. Are you certain you're pregnant? It could just be a case of bad gas, you know."

     "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."

     "As for why it's you..." The smile begins to wander and the emerald eyes begin to glint. "Because you are unique... you are yourself... you weren't trying to impress anyone. Mostly, when I saw you, you wanted to be left the hell alone. You have a certain... fox-like quality... that I recognize in myself.

     She shifts, making a quiet sound as your mouth finds her earlobe. The colour pink travels along her skin in a trail along the side of her throat, behind her ear, rendering her almost incapable of speech - soluble in that touch as if to dissolve in water, becoming disparate nothingness within the greater body and volume. "...There is something I must give to you as well."

     As he stared into the distance past his own window, to the accompaniment of his queen's own pleasured sighs and moans, his visions stretched as a vista before him. Those god-given visions, and others more faint, just the impressions of things to come, things taking shape. Coins borne forward by cresting waves now become the ships that come in, loaded with rich and promising cargo.

     It hurts to talk. It hurts worse to think. A bloodied hand moves from his hair and braces the bowl. But there's no twisting toward it, no groan, no muttered Welsh curse or wracking of his body in nauseated discomfort. Davydd opens his eyes to the sound of water. "My head is on fire..."

     "...Tonight...for the Holly King... it was a night of sacrifice. Giving up the present," his dark green eyes settle on you, and he is sad. "... for the promises of the future."

     Rhodri does not hear him, not from where he lies upon the bed, stretched out and equally glorious now in nothing, his changed tattoos a wonder against his skin. Opposite to his father again, he is nothing but energy. It hums around him, buzzing like bees around nectar.

     From the moment I brought him into the material realm, my hands guiding him from the safety of his mother's womb to a wild world, I have loved him. He is my best work, my best mark upon the earth, the best thing I have ever made or accomplished.

     His hands rest upon his thighs, his head bowing a moment, and then he looks up to the sky. "Yes, I am ready, Cosimina. I ... must hear it. There is no point running from fortune, fate or time. They will always catch you." Dark eyes turn to you, his face shown to you and his expression.

     "But you are the most amazing wife," Cesare explains, "...on a horse, with a sword, with food, in conversation, in politic, and in bed. This is no shame," the knight remarks. He grins and feigns innocence. A sigh follows as the diversion ends. "I do not know what to do, bello. Not yet."

     "...Ron? Don't tell me - you didn't." Hermione Granger has put two plus two together and come up with eighteen. Exasperated, the wand is lowered the rest of the way. "Honestly! Did you really think that those stores wouldn't protect themselves legally one way or another?"

     "And when they have found you, you shall find that while you may have done with Venice, Venice has not yet done with you."

     "Oh, cheat. You want me to cheat..." Rhodri grins, as if to say: moi? Cheat? The knee comes up with a great grunt and a wicked slant to his grin. "How's that?"

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

     That is the name of your husband this night. As the excitement of the early morning fed into the furor of the afternoon and the frenzy of gossip, gossip of orgiastic proportion -- Caligula-like gossip, fitting for the event itself -- and now spills into the torrent, the whirlpools of the evening. Like the Scylla and Charybdis, he churns in epic proportions.

     "You must decide on what this means, gondolier. Anything which I say at this point will seem to you now or later to be intended to guide you for my own dark purposes. Your conclusions must be your own. You have been played false..."

     Albizzina moves to stand before you, she reaches to take your hands. "Blessings on your children, Cosimina. All new children in this City are blessings. Visible and tangible agents of this Hope. That all is not lost. That we may salvage the future. I believe it. If We believe it, it is possible... hmm? Even love between you and Paolo is possible..."

     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.

     Do old piers dream? Do they stand in murky water pondering the past days, of clippers and caravels and boxes, ropes and men? With feet at the edge of the pier, Davydd ap Owain reaches into the darkness with his left hand, sinister fingers plucking at the air, and it pulls elastic in his grasp like the skin of a balloon.

     "I have recalled myself to the Hunt in honour of my cousin, Isabel the Fair, the Queen of the Seven Towers. She has departed this world most unkindly, her death hastened by the malice and planning of others. With me go my brothers; the Wild Hunt shall ride no more."

     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.

     The white fringe lowers as she looks down to begin picking loose the plastic seal on the bottle. "Open it and find out. Or maybe Miss White," her, "will kill Captain Crimson," you, "with a bottle in the living room..."

     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.

     Think not of what cannot be done
     Think not of what cannot come to pass
     For none of those things exist
     On earth, in dreams, or in the highest heaven

     "I would ...respect her enmity and her power, but I would not as of yet worry about it. We will arm as any kingdom should, and prepare as any kingdom should."

     And then, almost as an afterthought, there is a thought to Huw... Heard much of my valor? What did you tell him, about my trying to break Davydd's nose?

     "Tumult," Sabine decides, voice still careful, "you have seen great tumult. The Emperor is not a light card to have laid upon you. There were responsibilities in your life, and your goal was to ... conquer..."

     The kettle starts whistling again as he sets it on the burner, a wolf call of sorts, one that matches his suddenly sparkling look. He ignores it, patently, and moves to you. Just shy of your embrace, Rhodri pauses and he makes a courtly bow, 17th century for yours in return.

     "What we enter into, no man may put asunder," Davydd whispers. His mouth finds yours again. Another mouth brushes against the side of your neck. "You will have us both," he speaks in a hush. "Tonight, and to the end of Time."

     I'm a better sailor than I am a pilot. You might want to give me a little room! There's a laughing, windy sound that comes with that, the sound that both is and isn't your lover's voice. Riotous -- oh, he gets that from his father! -- and merry and warm.

     You seem to have something to say and he's waiting to hear it, the sound of the other shoe dropping. "I don't want you to wait a hundred years in solitude," Davydd shakes his head slightly, tapping away the ash again.

     "I don't know. I have to consider his feelings in this." Davydd is the trickier one of the two pieces of news to be broken. "I think if we tell him together, he is going to feel confronted... betrayed..."

     "Fear searches, it is searching, it has searched and will continue until it finds the one who is trying to leave the Darkness behind. They have a ...traitor... and they are combing the lands invisible for any and all who may be hiding or helping him. It is taking our power and our concentration...our kingdoms on the fringes..."

     His fingers lace against his metaled stomach. "I am hearing in the air the subtle sounds of a Proposition..." The smile alights on his face. "You thought of me... I am flattered. How may I be of assistance to you?"

     Fiona scowls at you. She's just aware enough, dim though the light over the porch is right now, that you're cutting her off. "If you don't appreciate my custom," she says majestically, "I can go drink somewhere else. I'm not drunk!"

     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?"

     "I love you both equally," Davydd drawls out with a grin straight from the Devil.

     "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..."

     "Do we know what freedom is?" Giancarlo wonders softly, stepping ahead and taking a seat on a rocky outcropping in the water.

     He looks at you as though he were peering over a professor's glasses, then smiles. "It appeals to the Scientist in me, however poor or mechanical, to be able to help you by sorting things out into groups, categorizing and being able to help you find a way that works for you, yes? Some better understanding..."

     Before, where proficiency of centuries collaborated openly with musical passion there is now virtuosity. And he is the music that he plucks, and he is the notes he plays, solidified.

     Davydd stands upon the third terrace down, the Aviary Terrace, the flowers blossoming behind him, the birds flying in and out, calling to the evening, calling to their mates, and he is the stillness amid the blossoming, orgasmic world, standing beneath the flowering vines, his hands upon the red stone of the terrace's railing.

     Hazel fruit fall from the pregnant trees to the swollen, running river. A land that sings of Death and Harvest, but everywhere there is Life. Life not in its beginning but in the fullness of its power, in the wealth of it, a land in bounty, limitless.

     A single starling lifts from his rest, a single starling takes to the wing, a single starling flies to an open window. The herald, the totem of the Holly King...

     ...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.

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

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

     "This mean anything to you?" It's a simple enough question, but the image held on the page is far from simple... there is a figure of a man amid a myriad of threads or strings.. perhaps even within a web. Some strands are cut. Some are not.

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

     He smiles, but you don't have to miss it. It presses at you, making itself known beneath the surface of your skin, felt in the five senses as the picture of it comes into view behind your eyes. I'm looking a little Oxford Professorish tonight...

     "Quit stonin' me," Davydd mock-protests, "...it's not as if I danced around saying 'Jehovah', 'Jehovah'," he can barely get through that without laughing.

     That voice is rich as it is earthy is capped off with a grin, and the fingers that finished the song on the twelve-string start another in the in between. For those who can See, he's a wonder in gold. A loitering fairy king on a chair of oak. Everyone is mesmerized, like the legends of old Tam Lin...

     "Bah, revenge," Davydd rolls out, earthy and low, the sound lingering in his chest, "... you wouldn't," he teases, he challenges, he grins.

     Davydd's voice drifts slightly as he stares openly, feeling the rush and want, the magic, the need that you inspire and the apples that will forever taste of you, your skin, your mouth, your thighs. "... I like the idea of you dripping in the jewels I stole... "

     Be my Queen...
     Bear my children...
     Grow apple trees in my instruments and make music on my pots and pans...

     It's almost like watching one of those nature films, except, of course, that it's not usually coming out of a piano, is it? The budded tips open and spread, the scent of apple blossoms rich and fragrant, the pale pink-and-white easily recognizable, the only part of the piano visible that of the keyboard and tray of it.

     "We will figure it out, and piece these things together with logic. There has to be an order, a pattern. You and I will find it, Giancarlo."

     The kiss is accepted as tenderly as given. Giancarlo smiles weakly and nods, hearing the words from you, but perhaps not yet taking them to heart. Brown eyes still look slightly downcast. "God...does not care for us...does he, Alire?"

     There is a flicker of the willow wand, and Sabine steps back, onto the path after another quick glance around. "I release you," she says in a formal voice. "You may fly, Marshall, to wherever it is you best find yourself."

     Dodge, feint, counter, spin... and then quiet applause from the corner as a certain red-haired professor steps out of the shadows and into the light. "You're quite good, your highness," Bill offers, as he lightly flips his wand in one hand, as if testing its balance.

     "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.

     "You...don't like him..." Cesare observes, saying it directly. He smiles though.
     "No, I don't." Nate's honest answer.

     Either she's just randomly telling people, or she seems to think that at least you'll maybe have some clue or sympathy or something as to what's going on. Being nearly as strange as the rest of the people she's met around here if nothing else, "I think he might be even more daft than me."

     Paolo looks to the passengers in glances timed with the stroke of the oar, in rhythm of the motions that make the gondola sail forward. "Ah... so you, too, are bound by a destiny, a fata," Paolo says.

     He remembers the look on her face when her little summoning of a demon actually worked, so many centuries ago. And again when she was first sent to kill her first man. Good times -- good times.

     "I merely wanted to make sure you were well after that ordeal in the Garden." It was rather... well messy. Lowe nods to the older woman as he takes Wendy's order for tea and adds, "A teacup for me as well with a little brandy in the bottom please." See at least he's not drinking a lot.

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

     Mentioning Valdemort is rather like screaming Macbeth! in a theater. Some names are curses of their own.

     "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."

     Her thoughts have flavour to them - soft, like yoghurt with just a hint of vanilla essence and a fash of frangipani, then rich and sweet with just a hint of bite - chocolate truffle with a dash of pepper to it. But now they turn tart and crisp - cranberry flavoured thoughts, perhaps...

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

Davydd smiles and his mouth lands on your skin, a brush against your forehead and he murmurs there: "Dw i'n ti caru," he says there.

"They love all night and with the dawn,
the lady wakes and her Davy is gone
What a fool she's been to have tagged along
And be known as the Black Jack's Lady..."

     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.

     In the drawing itself, there's a little shape. Not unlike a small hunchbacked man hiding behind the stone and peeking around with a little winsome grin. Though not so very defined. When the flashes of glamour come through, however, it's nearly blinding.

     "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?"

     "Perfectly alright, " The voice is Spanish accented, "It is not possible to win everything that one might want. It was a worthwhile night, none the less."

     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...

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

     "I see that you are without entourage today," Sabine resumes in English, voice cool, expression as remote and detached as if she were offering up a comment upon whether or not it might rain. "How ... tragic. Your arms must be quite cold."

     A spiraling stair. It circles twice more for him than it does for others -- a total of three times. But the trip is worth it. Below, an ever expanding field of rosewood shelves carry the wisdom of ten thousand years of human civilization. Around him the hidden power of glamour. He had found the Baron's court. Now to find the entrance.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

     "'Ello luv!" comes that high pitch voice, almost lecherous in it's intent. Perched atop your easel in a feat of balance that should be impossible, is a small old man that could not be more than four feet tall, and most likely a few full inches less than that.

      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.

     I hope this letter finds you well and will find you in Trallwm for my visitation. I am very much looking forward to having the opportunity again to speak with you. The Sisterhood wishes me to convey their greetings, their esteem and their hope that you will join us.

     The image is alive. Flowers bloom in the subtle turns of the colours, glowing as a translucent layer over the surface. The castle glows, imbued with life and magic.

     Davydd ap Owain, the Oak King himself, is for all intents and purposes as regular as the next man in Wales wandering through his yards in rubberboots, a slicker, with a shovel, followed by two very fat and very happy Welsh corgis.

     The Welsh country side is always such a contrast. Lush green country side surrendering to dreary grey skies at the horizon. It is against this somber backdrop that a crumbling old castle rises up from the emerald green hills.

     He skips, almost, happy in this atmosphere. There is a glamour to the air, a scent of wonder that draws people like this man. Tibalt. Never ask him his full titles, he'll lie for hours.

     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...

     "A fortunate man indeed." Idly it draws a hand up, regarding it stark light of the street, turning rings and bracelets in the streetlamp's glare. "There are many who yearn for such a life. Many who dream of dreamless lives."

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

     And then from shadows, Davydd comes, popping air punctuated by the march of the Cymri. His aura could light half of Welshpool. If you view it, ever, but certainly now, it'd fill the aviary full of bright white light. And in it, swimming, dragons of blue light in nine locations.

     Valan Montague smiles. A clear-headed night? And, with clarity, perhaps an even greater delight? The senses neither dulled nor augmented. Strength and beauty in what one is, and in the true beauty of the partner.

     "Pakistani?" Edward suddenly says to himself. Assamites. Setites. He looks at himself again in the mirror, the exhale this time deflates his chest.

     Aloud, again, she recites a cellphone number, and she sits seiza, closing her eyes. Emotion rushes forth to fill a void, and then, Fiona Arundel, known to some as Drancy of no other name, watches candles burn out to blackness.

     "In less than a year and a day, you will find him. You will find Answers, though they won't be the ones you are expecting." His words filling the space of those crawling moments, before the coin falls the scant foot to the table.

     In other words, Kit Marlowe aka Christopher Cherub of Dreams and Sentinel of Aspirations is on vacation. A stay at home sort of holiday, with an iced latte, overlooking Gabriel's Wharfside, his boat, and all of London's teaming tourist traffic.

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

     There is one more in the club, now, than there was a moment before. The vertigo and emptiness shifts to a momentary feeling of claustrophobia, then flees entirely.

     "I don't know, Marta. I don't know what it is." Davydd stares forward, actually thinking of it. "Maybe... it's just that she came. She was ...brave enough," he suddenly thinks, "... to show up unannounced on my borrowed doorstep. She found me, she reached out. She's ... brave," he notes again. "And frightened."

     "Here is her name," Soldekai flashes, pages opening, a book from the Library. An image of eyes scrolling. Arundel. Fiona. London.

     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?

     At the water's edge, she stands, looking out into the distance. A breeze has stirred up, casting long strands of hair about her, licking at her form like flames. She, who was there so long ago at his making, is one of two left of three.

     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.

The man, lost in thought, rests against the trunk of the tree. His cheek against bark, his fingers travelling along it, as if it were the body of a lover. It is the body of a lover.

     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.

The beetles move in unison, even if their eyes do not. They scan the room, with those too-human eyes. The eyes of children stolen at a very young age, they watch the world with an innocence that borders on frightening. More so, considering the being that these eyes reside upon.

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.

     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.

This place is secret. Special. It hums with its own self-importance. The rocks themselves know that they guard something from ages past. Those that travel here, amongst the fallen carvings of the past, lose their way. The rocks conspire to confuse and ensnare. Soon, a traveller will venture within the cliffs, and succumb to the chill, inviting darkness.

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

     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.

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

      "Tell him I am here and ease his worried heart," Christopher all but sings out. "And tell him that... for Heaven's sake," a ribald twist of his mouth at the pun, "... he should join me here and pull up a carpet..."

     "I don't mind being asked, but unless there is going to be some sort of action, I really must insist that you make up your mind. I was in the middle of a dinner party. Do you know how long it takes to have a white dragon actually answer an RSVP? No, I should think not.

     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."

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

     Using a thousand masks, Beloved One, I have gained the secrets that shetan has used, your Adversary, and I have gained it at the cost of my soul. But I deliver it to You, Allah, You Whom I Love above all things, and with my blood...

     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...

     Restoration is a strange process. Often, it is so subtle as to go largely unnoticed. But with the passing several nights, from last year to the next in a single sunrise and sunset, it lies everywhere, obvious.

     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.

     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.

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

     Somewhere not too far away, wandering about in the inclement season, is a well-dressed man, vestments suited for the weather, with a long overcoat of heavy wool, beneath this a white turtleneck of handwoven knit, wool taken from the backs of Welsh sheep and made specifically for him.

     "So...we're straight, I think. As straight as two hopelessly crooked things can be," he rumbles, then laughs.

      "Our Lady stands, and so do we. If nothing else, I should think that victory would please."

      "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.

     "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.

     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.

     Alire looks to you for a long moment. No... you are my Giancarlo and not my Giancarlo. You are my Michele and not my Michele. You, like me now, are some ...creature in between. "Dreams?"

     Truth is the sharpest implement of all. It cuts the deepest and the surest. But without it, what are we? Who are we...

     "We light candles to remember." Samuel's expression remains unchanged, that almost kindly smile still focused on his guests, but there is, for a moment, a light that has died behind the shrewd gaze.

     Sandrine just frowns at you, shaking her head. "I have been patient, Davydd," she says, "...and have let you...go on with her about whatever..." hands wave, "...whatever you go on with her about. But, I will not have her thinking that I am...not normal."

     "A very long time ago," Samuel comments, voice quiet, gaze intent. "Hundreds of years - a passage out of history, one might say." He moves forward, footsteps suddenly quick, and holds a hand out over the figure of the boy, hovering between him and the knights. "Shall I change it?" An odd thing to ask...

     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.

     His eyes are almond shaped, slightly slanted, and dark. A shade deeper than night. And he stands some seven feet tall one's eyes may think. In vestments made of shadows and earth, fur. Fox, both grey and red. Wolf at the edges of his cloak. There are talismans of fairy metal, and of claw and tooth and bone.

     "Oh, there always is. For every good, there is an ill. The universe depends upon balance. But what's the downside you see? My only being able to be with you for nine days after you call me? I have a week left, by the way."

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

     And for all of that time, Alire did not move. He did not move at all. He did not breathe. He did not twitch. He did not shift in his sleep. There was Nothingness given shape. He became a statue. Sleeping Adonis on the riverside. Until the slipping of the sun...

     "I'm over 600 years old," he murmurs, the warmth of his hands on you, as they have been all the while. The touching does not end. The fingers curl and uncurl against your skin. He wonders what you shall do. "I was a knight, a... guardian of Pope Clement V."

     ...it is not then, Alire...we are different now, you and I...and we have all the Time in the world...

     Nothing that shall cause him harm, surely. For that I could never do. Even if he turned against me. I should rather be struck down by his hands than to harm him.

     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.

     And that's just what the young man beneath the blanket does. A sign is near him, saying, "Reading in bed is boring," and a book has been tossed aside. He's attempting to sleep, but something stirs him.

     He clears his throat, and his hands unlace and find his pockets. He looks at the floor. "I have... met someone... recently. Very recent. I do not know what I am doing, Ian. He is... mortal... and a magician... and he is moving to Poitiers..."

     But he has to ask. "Did...did they check everything, Alire? Top to bottom?" This makes no sense.

     Have you thought of how this sounds? How crazy this sounds. And you have only known him for... what is it now? A week? And you are telling him this, and you are acting like this. No wonder you have been alone, Alire d'Avignon...

     "God infinitely understands," Alire murmurs, "It is men who are short-sighted." I don't want to think about this. The short-sightedness of men. Closing his eyes, he leans in. Mouth parted, he takes the grape.

     "In the end," a voice lower than you have heard him speak replies, "...it will not matter, D'Avignon. Not at all."

     There are butterflies in his stomach today. A nervous excitement. A buzzing anxiety. For Alire d'Avignon has a guest...

     It is an evening full of lights and life, of old touches and a new spectacle. There is activity here...

     Perhaps prayers will be resumed. Perhaps he's just stalling...

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

     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.

     "I'm no different than you," Davydd murmurs, chin lifting in the tipping of his head. An inclination of strength, and in those green eyes there is little mirth.

     My universe. My carefully crafted universe, the architecture of nearly a thousand years is crumbling at my feet. All I can seem to do is stare. Evenly. Blankly. I do not know what to do now. Maybe none of it matters at all. None of the secrets. The mysteries. I am unravelled.

     Will he still want to speak to me? Do I really want to speak to him, knowing it might not have been him? I don't know what I want...
     Worse than a child in a candy store, and with less reason, isn't she.

     "I love you," Sandrine murmurs, closing her eyes to enjoy your lips at her skin.

     The West Wind can get a bit blustery too, you know...
     "Why are you so obstinant anyway? Were you a slave? Did you have to serve a master, shackled in chains?"

     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..."

     He eats bread and honey, beautiful creature that he is, and drinks honeymead. His eyes are sharp, exacting and there is a kind of hawkish quality to his demeanor. "My guess is that someone was watching you already. While we knew that Isabel had progeny still in England, had no idea it was you until that night. You have shadows all around you, you know." He plucks at the honeyed bread. "You need to learn how to defend yourself..."

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

     Then a knock on the door. Perfect to the ticking of the clock. The man is out there, waiting. A small slip of paper in his hand on which is written this address. And a name.

     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.

     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..."

     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.

     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.

     With the tuning note, in time with it, she slams her fist back, into the wall. If Huw needed another spike, well, he's got one in spades, now - that energy which had gone so deceptively quiescent rises, tearing out through her skin.

     It is settling into Almost dawn. Who the fuck could be calling me at this hour? Someone'd better be dead or dyin...
     There's an exhale, a clearing of his throat, a rough but soft, a warm and not-entirely-awake voice that greets you. "Mmm... no one I know would call at this hour," the earthy voice is edged by a thick and drawling accent, flicked with a lilting tongue.

     "Alright, little missy," he mutters beneath his breath as he looks ahead, "... it's going to end tonight. You and me and the game makes three."

     Slender fingers light upon the napkin and draw it toward him, fingers that, curling, lift it. He reads it. He tucks it away. Safely, in a pocket. Andrealphus looks at you through his mortal shell. A mask that he does not move away, but do you know just how transparent it feels? O, what would it be like...
     What would it be like to Love again...

     "I...I don't understand what has happened to you, alright?" her brows arching. "You are...different. Everything about you is different. And it has only been a few months..." since we got together.

     "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."

     Consistency is great, if you realize it's being consistent. In Drancy's case, she has no such assurance, and being tossed over a shoulder to make the world go topsy-turvy, well, her world's already gone topsy-turvy - this just makes her anger flare up again. "Put - me - DOWN!" She beats ineffectually on your shoulder, squirming and struggling.

     "Tybed, Davydd, ai ti gwneud a gorfoledd cystal fel tristwch er myn hon enaid." The voice is ancient, ageless, trickling out of her from years ago, and oh so familiar, and not just because it's a recognizable voice, of I've heard this before. The words are familiar, personal and informal. I wonder, Davydd, if you have to do with joy as well as sorrow for the sake of this soul.

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

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

     According to various students of the topic, if one is to believe the legends and stories, there would be over six thousand varieties of faeries alone. As such, it should be no great surprise that one of the few trees, fenced in against the sidewalk as they are, left in London was both old enough and weakened enough to contain a lesser denizen of faerie.

     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...

     "Death and Taxes," the laughter's returned. He visiting you is now as certain... if not more certain... than those two fates...

     "Can't a man wear a green shirt without being called a raving poofter or tree hugging bender?" The red brows fly up and Davydd grins. Fuck ya, Meurelle.

     "It was a key," comes soft Latin, "... it had my name scratched into its surface... it had a note 'Those That Lead Us Forth'... it's like looking at death and greatness in the mirror, you look away, you close the box, you don't dare stare at Fate too long. Or it will freeze you..."

     "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.

     Effortless. So effortless. Grace and magic and some subatomic communication. Knowing. In an instant, where each will be. And fingers of the justicar moved, and fingers of the Dignatary were poised and waiting. In seconds between seconds. Even to you, such motions are apparitions.

     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.

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

     "Oh, great!" screams Edward, "That wasn't really even fuckin' necessary." Fucking Plantagenets.

     "She," the man seems hesitant to say, to explain why a broken-off flower would need be given to you, "...she...claims that it was as this...after she took the clothing from...the wash."

     I am a wicked man ... I am a wretched man...
When Jesus was upon the cross I never was this alone ...

     As people head into the ring, Edward turns to see you and gives you a smile. "Hey there, cos!" he yells, "Whatcha doin?" as if nothing's happened and you're walking towards him down the street.