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

     "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.

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

     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...

     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."

     "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."

     "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?"

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

     If I could whisper in your ear and have you hear me, I would say but this: Believe, Gillian.

     Nature hates an echo, Bran...

     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...

     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.

     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."

     "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."

     "They both have a problem with doing. One is doing well, but thinks he does not do enough. The other does too much and thinks that everything he does is suspect. So... through doing... they will learn. You were right in throwing them together. The future Oak King must know the ways of the Holly King if he is to take his position."

     She rises, moving further forward, peering into the gloom. She gasps sharply. "Oh. My god. Is that what I think it is? Loki, tell me if that looks like marble to you!"

     "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."

     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?"

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

     "I had no idea that they were," he frowns deeply, "... set against us. I do not like being treated as a criminal. What have I done but give my life for their kingdom?"

     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 exist," Aeron posits philosophically, "...merely because we think you do, and thus in your reactions," he glances back to the healed wardrobe, "...do you find solidity. You are the shadow of the shadow, brother."

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

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

     He has been roosted on the news of this all night and well into today. Messages back and forth, hush-hush escorts into realms of shadows for quick-quick appearances. And all because of something Gruffydd was doing, or about to do, or at least was considering the doing of. Imagine the fun! O, Calamity!

     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.

     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.

     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.

     ... You are staring... uncertain... wary and wise...

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

     "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.

     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...

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

     "... I have chained my every dancing atom into a divine seat in the Beloved's Tavern. What I have learned... I am so eager to share..."

     "No matter the temptation," Gwilym murmurs, "I do not want to hurt you, Prospero. Or us. I try to funnel my temptations into what you will not be harmed by, even if exasperation might occasionally make your eyebrows lift at me."

     "You have no idea how brightly you shine. How ...tempting your energy is. How to tame it, for an instant, is one of my greatest pleasures and delights. You are like holding lighting. Like putting one's head in the tiger's mouth."

     A moment's pause is all there is. I'm not trying to make you feel guilty. I understand your part of the argument. I can understand his regret. I ...appreciate it more... what he was going through, or I imagine he was going through, when we were young.

     Here we are, two refugees from the old Axis of Evil, evil things ourselves. Or maybe you are not, Hansl Arnaul. But I am. And I am content with this, my lot. Which was not much more than a gutter from the time I was born. And now look at me! Dining with princes with my pinky raised as I sip from the neck of the world.

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

     I could cheat. I could cheat so well that I could rob you blind and you would never know it. I have diced with such devils and won, kept my skin and bones intact and lined my purse with money not only from rascals but from reprobates.

     "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."

     "It's a good deal more goddamned interesting than cricket..."

     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.

     "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."

     "Would I be happier in knowledge or ignorance? Let's ask Adam, shall we? I believe that is the quintessential question of the universe, my brother. For now, give me the illusion of ignorance. If you are still seeing him in a year, then... come confess, my door will be open for you as always."

     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.

     Now you see it. Now you don't. He is a veritable illusionist in the exchange, the sleight of hand and redirection covering the slide of the envelope into the inside of his coat.

     A guitar pick rolls and flips, finger to finger, leaping, effortlessly leaping, faster. And faster. It is a blur of motion, faster and faster until it becomes a streak of red and blue hovering above his hand like an aura. The pick, a guitar. Are you playing me, shadow-lord?

     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.

     He moves faster than any human. So fast, that human eyes would catch only one motion in five -- and this is all without breaking into a run. He is simply walking but at the speed of shadow...

     "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?"

     Putting the hearth's poker back in its stand, Iowerth turns to you. "It is an outer cold," he assures. "Winter is a season for contemplation."

     From the labyrinths of London's shadows to those that exist Between Places, leading lastly to Otherworldly covers of darkness, I began to walk.

     "The last time, I ended up tied to the bed with my own necktie, you six months pregnant and ... wait a minute," he chuckles, "...that was a fan-fucking-tastic night. Alright, you drive a hard bargain. I'll sleep with you...but I want to be respected in the morning..."

     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..."

     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).

     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.

     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."

     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...

     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.

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