Part 20- Ran's Birthday II
[Version 1.1]

***Contains Terra Creole Passages.  Please see the Appendices section 
of http://www.angelfire.com/realm3/crushedviolets/ for translations.***

Valdemar, Three Years Ago

It was still sultry for the late hour of the afternoon, but the dust 
from the walls being torn down that morning had finally settled, and 
now, after that mist, the air seemed preternaturally clean.  Outside, 
the clouds had blown over, and the acidic blue of the sky peered, still 
and smooth as only memories normally could have made it, washing out 
the details of what sunbeams and what puffs of colorless shadows might 
have lingered there.  But the heavens really were empty, except for a 
few dragon trails in the horizon farthest from the sun.  The grass 
gleamed under a murder of Window Panes, all sisters, and so all indigo.  
Cicadas rasped in gnarled trees before the slit where the doors should 
have been.

The trees were being cut down the next day of course- they had never 
done well, for the winters never found themselves inclined to be kind 
to pomegranate boughs.  

Only a few workers remained, sifting through the ruins of the indoor 
balconies for dropped coins that might have settled in the cracks.  
They'd actually found a few so far: most happened to be slicked over on 
one side in the one of the same colors of paint that had been sloughed 
off the floors.  

The shouts hadn't just started, but it was only then that they came 
close enough for the men to hear.

"How many times do I have to tell you!? No! No and no again! I WON'T do 
it! For god's sake, boy! Leave me alone!"

"It's my Villa now, so I can talk to you if I want to until you get out 
that door! I told you, money is NO object here! It doesn't *matter* 
what else we plan to do to the place! Anything you want is yours.  I'll 
pay you my weight in gold! I'll pay you my weight in rubies! All I want 
is one goddamn window!"

"Then find someone else to make you one! For the last time, I'm retired 
and I /WON'T/ do it!"

It was Kaze who came into the remains of the lobby first, staggering 
backwards as he pleaded with his guest and nearly falling over a heap 
of rotting boards on the way in.  He had his hands ground up together 
in front of him like he was begging for the life of someone dear, 
though the glimmer in his eyes was nothing close to sorrow, or even 
disappointment.  When the dust around him lost its hold on his shoe, he 
did fall.  "But no one else will do!"

Lord Vyx stood beside him for an instant, no more moved by his 
clumsiness than any of his honeyed words.  "Then it looks like there 
won't be anyone to do it at all." And then he walked away, his cane 
stirring up white waves in front of his feet as he scanned the plaster 
around him for anything that would send him, billows of amaranth cloaks 
and all, to the ground. 

The Dono, sitting on his heels shouted after him, "Free whores for the 
rest of your life!"

No more dust then.  The purple chiffon he wore stirred a little despite 
the quiet of the evening air.  He was just breathing that hard.  "I 
never cared for such things.  Keep your pretty whores."

"Aaa!  You said they were pretty.  Maybe you would like one?  Just one, 
that's all yours?  I know it's technically against the rules, but how 
what do I care for rules if I'm the Dono and I can have you?" As he 
rose to his white feet, Kaze was smiling.  "If you'll just come back to 
my office, I'm sure we can work something out.  Glass for ass!  It'll 
be fun!  And I've got a LOT more petit fours."

A few of the workers tried to cup their mouths closed with the change 
still in their hands.  They had no luck- it clattered like a chain of 
bells and scared away a few of the butterflies nearest the gaping halos 
in the wall.

The Dono's guest didn't seem to hear them, and if he did, they brought 
him no joy.  When he turned around, he was crying softly to himself.

"Don't you understand, you foolish, foolish child? My muse is *gone*.  
Completely and inexorably gone!" He struck his cane on the ground, 
which then was marble, and so clanged rather than shattered.  "There's 
nothing left in me that knows how to make those windows.  Everything 
about them that I loved died that day too! I can't even stand to look 
at them! To think about them! This is what it does to me!"  

He looked as if he would have gone on had his voice not failed him.  

Kaze's hands hovered in the air in an empty please for silence as he 
walked over his own tremendous shadow to where Vyx stood; came so close 
the sunlight was bounced away from his tears.

"There, there, Vyx-sama, don't cry.  Don't cry."

"I'll cry if I damn well feel like it!"

"Shhh!" 

Neither shrunk from the other when Koichirou's finger lit on the elder 
man's lips, and stained them pale with the powder he had fallen into, 
picked himself up from.  "Alright, cry then."

"You don't even understand what shame is, do you?" the glazier replied 
through his teeth.

"Maybe I don't, but that doesn't matter. I *knew*.  And I asked you 
here anyway.  But not because of anything you'd have heard of."

It seemed only a flick of the wrist, and he had Vyx by the shoulders, 
and was cooing to his wide, soaking eyes now with his own melancholy in 
his gaze.  It looked stunning against the gold of his irises, like 
something wrought only by the heat rising off the sidewalk outside.  

"You see, there was someone I loved once.  It was him or the world, and 
I chose the world, but I wish more than anything he was back in my 
arms.  What you've made?  Those are the only things that last on Terra 
anymore.  You make Ken- my Ken -live forever in one of your windows, 
and everything of mine is yours.  Everything."

A moment more they stood so close, and the few workmen left by then 
were torn between watching and taking their last chance to flee 
unnoticed.  The two men had parted, and Lord Vyx swept over the bursts 
of light.  "You didn't say anything about a portrait.  I haven't done 
portraits in twenty years."

"You didn't let me get that far."

"Didn't I?  Oh... Well, be that as it may, you've told me now.  And I'm 
telling you I don't want any things for this job."

Kaze smiled, and bowed to his guest even though his back was turned.  
"Oh, what do you want then?"

No answer greeted him at first, only the sound of graph paper being 
torn off of the blotter at the table the draftsmen had been using to 
plot the inside of the rose room and just where all windows would have 
to go.  They'd despaired of giving it windows at all, and run off at 
lunch to find an artist who could paint some on.  Lord Vyx swept their 
scribbles to the ground, and made his one, clean paper the sole 
occupant of the table.  When he spoke, it was to himself or someone not 
there.

"I want the whole room.  You'll do exactly what I say with it, and 
exactly how I say it, or I'll kill myself in the most disgusting way 
imaginable the day before the window is done and leave my corpse on 
your doorstep.  You'll put in a mirrored floor, and two staircases.  I 
suppose you'll have to build a second story over the wing of theme 
rooms.  They won't be C curve flight, they'll be S curves.  White. And 
they'll sweep out over the floor just like this, splitting the room 
into thirds if you look at it from the doorway- the space of the left 
staircase, the space of the right staircase, and the space in between."

"Vyx-sama?"  

"And I won't just settle for part of the back wall, I want the whole 
thing, and the hallways too.  But here, just here for now, we'll have 
two rows of three clear panels with colored glass in between.  I know 
it sounds strange, but those in the center should shine through the 
center of the two stair cases, and keep it from looking like the room 
is cut in two.  No wall starts until the halls leading out of the lobby.  
You'll get your angels and your demons in the colored part.  And the 
halls?  They'll have panels of leaded glass running back through them, 
getting smaller and smaller.  Similar subject matter.  I'd like to do 
at least ten a side.  Twenty-one in all." 

"Vyx-sama?"     

"And you will bring me the finest glass there is- if I ask for 
cranberry cut from a Victorian parlor light, you'll bring it to me, if 
I want some from the first trinket they made from the spray of Mount 
St. Helens, you'll bring that too.  If you have to tear some out of a 
cathedral on Antiterra, do it.  As long as it's a new one with one of 
those revolting windows that looks like it's broken."  

"Vyx-sama?"  

"But I'll paint most of it myself."

"Vyx-sama!" Kaze finally laughed, breaking the trance of his glazier- 
for he decided then and there he was his, at least for a little while.  
"That's an inhuman amount of work!  How many assistants do you want?"

"None.  I can do this on my own.  There's nothing left to worry me 
anymore but this."

***

The afternoon chose to end brilliantly.  The heavens, free again of any 
clouds, shimmered like water of their own accord, for it couldn't have 
been warmth that made them gleam so- no, rather, it was almost tepid 
about the long and lingering shade of the hills.  The sun hadn't begun 
to set yet, but a pale glow started to gather near on the cerulean that 
otherwise hung over the city and the forest at that hour which not 
twilight. 

Ken and Ran, just a little more rumpled than they had been before they 
slipped under the rustling boughs, left the woods with their hands 
around one another's waists and their umbrellas at their sides.  Ken 
had a few shiny leaves caught in the back of his hair, and Ran some 
broken flower stalks clinging to his knees, a little earth caught in 
the creases of his palms.  

As they drew near the arch of colored glass that made up the Villa's 
back, someone called to them, and they looked away from each other's 
eyes to find Yuriko- a very sweaty Yuriko in jeans and a hot-pink V-
neck sweater the top two buttons of which were not done and so 
betraying her decision to forgo a bra.  

"Noooooooo!" she yelped.  "Don't come in the front!  Err... the back 
yet!  Or the front! I mean, don't come in through the lobby!" 

Ken perked a little and blinked a bit.  "Prim's already in there you 
mean?"

"Sure is!  Been there for half an hour in fact!  We were wondering 
where you got off to.  Thought maybe you'd gone out for lunch or 
something but all the horses were still in." She regarded the Dono 
whilst pinching his cheek and only waved to his lover beside a hasty 
thumbs up offered when Ken wasn't paying attention to her hand.

"We went for a walk and lost track of time I guess." 

"Ah, I see.  Well, you must have been having a real nice time!  And 
don't worry, you made it back just in plenty of time, but you're gonna 
have to hide in the tower for awhile while we finish.  Speaking of 
which, if you go in the sitting room, don't be alarmed, I moved allllll 
the presents down to the lobby." Here, she smirked, plainly quite taken 
with the idea she would get to watch Ran open them.  

"Ok, thanks!  Ah... we'll wait then!"

The two old friends laughed at one another then, and Yuriko sped off 
back across the lawn.  Once she was out of earshot though, Ken bit his 
lips and spoke through his clenched teeth and forced smile.

"Do you remember what the sitting room looked like when we left?"

The memory of what had remained of their love making fluttered fresh 
before their eyes- the cum splatter, the eviscerated strawberries, the 
wildly strewn cushions on which the cum was splattered and the berries 
so destroyed!  They both swore, and, hand in hand, tore across the lawn 
to tower entrance, threw it open, didn't bother to close it before 
dashing up the stairs, and arrived at the sitting room's double doors 
just in time to find Paul merrily fluffing a dark blue pillow.

Aside from whatever had displeased her about said pillow, the room was 
nothing short of immaculate.

"You didn't CLEAN in here for us, did you?" Ken stuttered.

"Clean? No, not really.  We were supposed to?" The little girl took 
stock of her surroundings once again, claiming a moment to run her hand 
over the table after dust, though there was none, no mark at all save 
that her passing fingers left. "It looked like this when we got here.  
Didja drop something in here, you think?"

"Ah... no.  That's alright.  Sorry.  And um... hi, Paul."

"Hi Ken! Hi Ran!" And then as she skated out the door following a few 
excuses regarding help for her sister, "Bye Ken! Bye Ran!"

The two boys just stood for a few long moments, staring at the room as 
if all the furniture had been glued to the ceiling in the absence.  

***

"She lied," Ran said at last. "They snuck in here when they weren't 
supposed to, and found..." He gestured towards the spot where 
they'd made love.  "And they know. The way Yuriko was winking and 
smiling, how do we know..." He dropped his voice to a whisper. "How do 
we know that they didn't hear us? That they didn't *see* us?"

***

"Well," Ken began, and he quite seemed destined for another fatuous 
remark to add to his list, "because this is what Yuriko does when she's 
caught somebody in a 'compromising position'."

He cleared his throat, and raised his voice at least three octaves 
higher than it ought to have been, not to mention proceeded to squeal 
at the top of his lungs as he skipped across the room with his hands on 
his cheeks.  Having made one complete circuit, he returned to his 
lover's side, and elbowed him in the ribs exactly three times, smacking 
his lips loudly.

To the swat he received on his back for this, he replied, "Well... she 
is a hentai, y'know!  But I checked!  There wasn't anybody here! 
'course I was lookin' for whores mostly.  I believe Paul!  I don't 
know why, but I do.  Whoever else cleaned in here, that I couldn't tell 
ya, but it wasn't her.  For all we know the strawberry Kami gave you a 
birthday present..."

***

In the crevices of the tower room then, a sound not fit for human ears.  

"He's onto us," She was the only one among them who spoke a word of 
earthly language, but nonetheless the only one not inclined presently 
to sigh and hang her head.

"I told you we should have stuck to stealing milk!" and then beneath 
the interrupter's sigh, "Meh, Kami INDEED! As if they'd ever want to 
have any fun."

 "Well, I say we turn them into cabbages, better that than getting 
caught," a third presently piped up.

One particularly small boy in the back of the congregation fused in 
response, "But I don't like cabbages!"

"That's beside the point."

"We could turn them into eggplant!" Pixie dust plumed from her as she 
bounced, this most recent one among them to give the group a piece of 
her mind.  "That would be funny."

The cabbage hater among them was not amused. "Enough with you and 
eggplant! How about we all just SCRAM before somebody SITS on us!"

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!"

All the pixies shrieked and with that tore from the shadow of Ken's 
bottom and straight out the window, leaving only a strawberry scented 
gust behind them.  Halfway over the Villa lawn, the one who understood 
the lovers piped up once again: "Say... didn't one of those humans look 
rather familiar?"

No one knew for sure about that.  They did however realize The Bishop 
of Prydain's Wilds had left his refrigerator unguarded and as such 
forgot all about intrigue and eggplants.

***

"Did you hear somethin'?" Ken asked of his lover as he crossed his legs 
and stretched out over the couch.  

Someone downstairs took that moment to slam the door, so to answer his 
question, they had both heard something, and the whispers Ken imagined 
could have been no more than paranoid whimsy he supposed.  "Aa, never 
mind. We'll just declare tomorrow stern lecture day."

***

"All right. But the lectures might begin at midnight."

Ken looked at him in mild horror, to which Ran replied amidst the 
slapping of his hands over his dirt-stained knees, "It's only fair.  
All the fuss they're making over this birthday.  It's *my* birthday: 
shouldn't mean a thing to either one of them." 

Ran paused by the sofa, looking down at his lover thoughtfully for a 
moment. And then, with another small smile, he followed him down to the 
pale cushions and crawled over Ken's body until they were eye to eye, 
his weight resting on his hands and knees. 

"Now, your birthday...I wonder what they'll do for it?  Hold a parade 
where everyone rides elephants instead of horses?  Pack a room full 
of stuffed toys?  I wonder which animals they'd pick--surely Yuriko 
knows you that well."

***

"E-e-e-elephants...?" stammered Ken, and his mind's eye filled to 
bursting with images of well-tacked beasts of blue and green being lead 
through the narrowest Valdermarian alleys, trumpeting at stray rabbits 
and overturning novelty sex-toy carts every which way they passed! One 
of them stuck its trunk down Crawford's pants and did bad things to 
him, while in the meantime, Prim and Yuriko, atop a purple beast of 
their own jello-y dye sang and laughed and smooched each other, the 
bells about the wrists and ankles of their harem costumes ringing and 
ringing! Above them bobbed a not-so-heavenly host of cake-shaped 
balloons and an SD effigy of himself that was leaking helium and so 
dragged along the rooftops, flinging chimnies this way and that while 
the real him fought to free himself from both his exaggerated pasha 
costume and the bonds keeping him atop his elephant.

Ran had to kiss him again to bring him back to the elephant-free world 
of the present.  

"I like stuffed penguins," he said from the edges of his daze.  "Nice, 
safe, non-pink stuffed penguins."

"I'll keep that in mind," Fiona deadpanned as she popped her head 
through the double doors without before first knocking, both boys 
jumped at the sight of her.

"Aa... yeah.  What's up?"

"Onea your guests got here way early.  He says he's 'terribly, terribly 
and just frightfully sorry' but he doesn't come up this way a whole lot 
and over-estimated how long it'd take.  He wants to wait in the coat 
closet but I figured you might have some vested interest and keeping 
him out of your stuff."

***

The two boys exchanged stunned looks, and then hurriedly removed 
themselves from the couch and each other. Ran shuffled his soiled 
hands along his thighs as he crossed over to where Fiona waited. 

"I don't suppose you fished him out of the coat closet, huh?" 

The girl hitched her shoulders in an utterly "So what?" sort of way. 
Ran rolled his eyes, and stalked past her, catching a whiff of 
raspberries as he did so. Slowing up a bit, he gave her a strange 
look over his shoulder, then headed off to the stairs. 

First strawberries, and now raspberries. It was odd...very, very 
odd. 

As was the fact that when he opened the coat closet's door, he saw 
nothing but an old cardigan sweater with fraying sleeves, two long, 
bulky black raincoats, and a fishing rod.  No signs of life lurked 
within save for a pair of tiny spiders knitting webs in the upper 
corners. 

"Where is he, Fiona?"

***

The girl sidled past Ran, peered underneath the cardigan and behind it, 
poked the sweater, and walked to the back of the closet before replying 
quite honestly- "Woul I left him right here!"

"Umm, Fiona-chan," Ken began, stretching his arms over his head a 
moment as he went on, "it's OK this time, but please don't leave guests 
in the coat closet anymore."

"He went in there himself!" came her protest, and as the case would be, 
her second trip in and out of the compartment which, much like the 
first, turned up nothing, unless of course the dust bunny which settled 
on top of her head counted.  "I really left him RIGHT HERE."

"Yes, and you did remind me that I'd left my handkerchief in the 
carriage!" Lord Vyx proclaimed and with that stuffed the bit of linen 
back into one of his pockets.  "Thank you, dear, I'll just be hopping 
back in with the cloaks then.  I AM sorry about all this."  As things 
went though, he stopped just enough to pluck the fuzz from her hair. 
She just nodded and shrugged before starting off and pushing Ran in his 
general direction.  It was only then their guest realized he wasn't 
alone at all with her.  

The silent wonder between the two boys went on for a bit however- Ken, 
never having beheld the man properly before had ample reason to be at a 
loss for words for that fact alone, but Ran, who knew him, had even 
more.

For Lord Vyx was NOT wearing purple.  

He had gotten himself up in mint green silk- a pair of trousers and a 
shirt with very long sleeves that ended in puffy lace cuffs though the 
collar of it was otherwise bare.  Over it went a brocade jerkin, also 
mint but wearing inclusions of rose and silver thread in a sort of 
filigree; a wild flower design.  His earrings and his choker were fine 
silver flooded with moonstone cabochons that picked up the color of the 
outfit, and he had rings on every finger, not a single one of which 
matched anything else he had on.  His cloak was fashioned of roughly 
cut gauze, no two layers of which swirled together at exactly the same 
time.  He had no hat.  Rather, his hair had been plaited with a bit of 
herringbone chain so that it laid across one of his shoulders.

He looked for all the world like a Saturday morning cartoon wizard.  

But none of his clothing or his baubles did anything for the most 
absolutely stunning thing in his presence.  There was a small, light 
woman with raven hair and midnight blue eyes draped against him, her 
arms around his waist. She had been clad all in white save for a filet 
of silver and what certainly LOOKED like real emeralds that crossed her 
short tresses and had a violin case slung over her back, a package in 
each arm.  She was also giggling every now and then for no apparent 
reason whatsoever.

"OH! Otanjoubi Omedetto Ran!" Lord Vyx laughed.

***

At that, the raven-haired beauty Lord Vyx had in tow floated forward 
and pressed the gifts she held into Ran's arms.  He fumbled with 
them, forgetting in his confusion to return her smile.  

"Arigatou, Vyx-sama," Ran said, nodding once at his companion.  
"I...How did you know it was my birthday?"  

Vyx gave him a twinkling smile, and tapped his lips with the tip of 
his index finger.  Ran gave him a suspicious once over, then passed 
one of his gifts to Fiona.   

"Vyx-sama," he began, lightly cupping Ken's elbow to draw him 
forward, "this is Ken.  Ken, this is Vyx-sama.  He usually wears 
purple.  In honor of my birth sign, however, he and his companion have 
obviously chosen colors more suitable to the occasion."  


***

"That," Vyx went on to say, "And you did say green was your favorite 
color.  I wasn't sure if you preferred dark or light though..." One 
corner of his drifting wrap swept itself up in his hands and he 
regarded it a moment as if it had life outside of little ripples the 
breeze had strewn through it.  Turning then to Ran again, he searched 
the boy's face for some sort of approval, and found just the barest 
hint of a smile there, one he had so been waiting to see!  He nearly 
cast his arms around his host's neck then just for that.

In the mean time, Ken managed to remember where he'd left his tongue, 
and he bowed to his lover's guest, very deeply.  The act seemed to 
somewhat startle the old man, who clapped all the while he waited for 
him to rise, and then met the gesture by taking up the flying trails of 
his cape and holding them out around him like wings as he made what was 
almost a curtsy.  This seemed to put Ken much more at ease with his 
lover's guest, silent as it was, and when he smiled he was no Dono, 
just Ken from the Koneko.

"Konnichi-wa, Vyx-san."

"Ureshii-th‚.  Ohhhhh!  I've been looking forward to meeting you ever 
since I got to know Ran.  I suppose that must be why I left so 
ridiculously early, I didn't mean to intrude, but as such ventures 
ALWAYS seem to go, I only managed to make more of a mess than I had 
before.  And my stars, what a mess!"

They both laughed, and so did the girl in his arms, patting his sleeve 
as she leaned her head against his shoulder.  Fiona heaved a sigh at 
this, mumbled something about all presents having to appear in the 
lobby at Prim's behest and sprinted down the hall as fast as she could, 
sparing one look over her shoulder to the tower door before it slammed 
in her wake.  "Sorry about that!" she yelped.

"S'ok!!! S'ok," Ken shouted once for her, and once for his guest. "You 
can come upstairs while we wait for Yuriko and Prim to finish 
decorating.  They said no peeking!" 

"Oh, I'd like that.  Even if it does sound like your Yuriko and Prim 
expect us to play hide and seek with them.  If that's the case, I call 
the spot behind the door.  I daresay I couldn't make it under the bed." 

"Good thing we got two doors to the living room!"

In procession then, they all ascended the spiral staircase- Ken pushed 
Ran before him, and Lord Vyx played almost as if he had switched places 
with his escort, for she held him every step of the way, more of his 
weight resting on her slender shoulders than his own feet.  As odd as 
their arrangement seemed, they were plainly used to it, and just so 
entwined, they managed to bolt up to the sitting room just as fast as 
the two lovers.  

Ran stood aside for the moment, and let them have first pick of the 
seats.  Much to his surprise, Vyx chose one of the silver arm chairs 
near the fireplace, and his girl in white knelt rather at his feet, her 
skirts fanned out all around her.  When Ken offered her a pillow, she 
shook her head, and so he kept it with him as he splayed himself on one 
of the sweeping couches.

"Really, I don't mind if you want a chair too... ah..."

Lord Vyx ran his fingers through one satiny lock of her hair. "My 
little mouche.  My darling, most precious jewel.  Light o' my heart.  
As that's a touch long, she likes me to call her Veronica."

To which Veronica giggled and pulled a flask of Raibina from a pouch on 
the side of her violin case.  "Yes, and the little mouche is thirsty so 
she thinks the rest of you might be too!"

"Great! 'cause I am."

Before anyone had any time to start a proper conversation, she had 
already fled to the kitchen, returning with a tray of glasses and a 
decanter of cold water.

(OOC: "mouche" is the word a famous, French transvestite used to 
describe the silk flowers on his dresses and Raibina in a black currant 
syrup one makes a drink out of by pouring a little in the bottom of a 
glass and adding water.  It's not alcoholic.)

***

Ran watched Veronica pour a finger of the Raibina into each glass, 
which she then topped off with some water.  A quick spin of a 
teaspoon through the liquid, and it was mixed, a deep reddish plum that 
glowed ruby red when light shot through it.  The taste of it was sweet 
but not cloyingly so.  Ran found it much to his liking.  

"Where did you get this?" 

*** 

"Oh, there's a little British market just on the other side" (he meant 
Antiterra) "that carries it," Lord Vyx replied.  "I couldn't have found 
the place in a thousand years even if I was looking, but my dear little 
mouche came across it at once.  Oh, they've LOTS and LOTS of candy with 
unpronounceable names too."

"And that's the best kind, right?" Ken found he couldn't help teasing, 
just a little.  

"Undoubtedly," Veronica agreed with him in the mean time, and having 
done so, tasted her own glass as she leaned her head against her 
master's lap.  It didn't seem to startle him, the presence of her silky 
hair upon his thigh, though he did glance down and smile at her.  Ken 
caught his lover's hand with his own where the glass had chilled it a 
little, and rubbed, just because he could.  The old man's sudden 
interjection didn't startle his fingers away.  

"I'm certainly glad you like it! It's good on ice cream too.  I used to 
have that a lot before butterscotch VSOP.  

"And you have *that* every day!"

"Ah, I know, m'dear.  I know.  Everyone deserves at least one absurd 
dalliance in their life."

***  

"I've never heard of ice cream as being a dalliance.  I suppose it 
could be. I suppose anything could be." 

He smiled then, very faintly, and the old man's face lit up again.  

"When are you going to tell me how you found out it was my birthday, 
Vyx-sama?"

***

"I don't suppose you'd believe me if I told you I guessed?" Vyx 
parried, a wry simper stealing over his features.  Ran shook his head 
at this, and tucked one of his eartails back behind his ear.  As soon 
as no one was looking, Ken had tugged it loose again and sipped his 
Raibina as if nothing in the world was the matter.  

"Ah, that's a pity.  Because it really had occurred to me it might be 
your birthday, but I had no way of knowing for sure of course.  I'd 
even called in a delayed order to..."

Veronica's hand suddenly appeared on his lips, and plainly, he smiled 
beneath them.  "Lord Vyx! You'll give everything away if you tell them 
that!"

"Oh, I would, wouldn't I? Well, order or no order, I've picked it up 
and that's all that matters in the end... what if... a little bird told 
me?"

Neither of the lovers seemed to put much faith in that.  Not even 
Veronica gave any indication she was impressed with the latest excuse.

"Right, I'm no child of Lorelei, I don't speak to birds."

Ken with that facetiously inquired, "Are you sure?"

"Not at all, my boy.  Not at all.  It might be in fact that the birds 
simply haven't had anything to say to me.  You never know."

As if on cue, a pair of grey sparrows decided just then that the window 
sill looked like an especially smashing place to rest, and in spite of 
all the laughter that heralded their arrival, sat there, one preening 
the other in silence while outside their friends sang and sang.  

"So, what's the news?" Veronica asked after a few moments.

"Oh, nothing except that they think we're a bunch of ninnies blathering 
on half-imaginary cities so.  Birds mustn't have heads for current 
events, but that doesn't surprise me in the least."

***

"And even if they did, I doubt my birthday would be of any interest 
to them," said Ran, raising a brow at his elderly guest.  "Which 
leads me to believe that your bird was about, oh, so high," he tapped 
the side of his hand against the middle of his chest, "and goes by 
the name of Claire.  I know she has...abilities, shall we say?  I got 
a taste of them not too long ago at the shop."  

"I didn't tell you about that," he said, turning to Ken.  "I was 
going to, that night, but..."  

Ken rolled his shoulders in a goofy little shrug, and kissed Ran's 
glass with his own.  

"I suppose it would be pointless to hope that the surprise you have 
planned for me tonight doesn't involve strippers?" 

***

"Strippers?" one bemused Vyx began, "If there are to be strippers at 
this party- my god! They aren't mine.  I'd forgotten about strippers! 
But I don't speak for the other guests of course."

All eyes departed from Ran just then, and took rather to feeling their 
respective ways up and down Ken, who in his turn didn't appear to at 
all believe he could possibly be the center of attention.  In fact, 
before he attempted any rejoinder, he glanced around himself as if he 
quite expected someone to have snuck up along the edge of the couch.  
(It made Veronica laugh, but she tried not to show how hard.)  "What? 
Do I look like somebody who's gonna try to hire a guy or five from 
Ferdinand's on such short notice?"

"Not especially, although I daresay looks are seldom good at revealing 
such... tendencies." Wondering whistles all around at this before the 
handkerchief fluttered out of Lord Vyx's pocket, and melodramatic as 
anything of his, clapped down against his cheek.  "Oh! I'm being such 
an awful guest! Forgetting to bring the strippers indeed.  Well, my 
little Mouche can dance quite well, if you're in it for the 
performance."

His servant didn't agree, and that much was plain by the way she nearly 
choked on her raibina with a nervous laugh, "I had a few ballet lessons 
when I was SEVEN, Lord Vyx.  And besides, I haven't got the right shoes 
for it."

"Whatever happened to dancing barefoot? It's so ROMANCHIKKU!"

"No.  Or should I say, iye."

"I could always strip!" suggested Ken as he made for a moment as if he 
made to get up off the couch, and do just that, one of his vest buttons 
falling victim to his fingers in the process.   

***

"I was kidding," said Ran, catching his lover's arm to stay him, "And 
no, you won't."  

Ken flopped back in his seat, coming to rest right against Ran's 
side.  Quirking his brows slightly, the redhead eyed his lover over 
the rim of his glass, seemingly forgetting about the presence of 
their guests.  Until, that is, when Vyx politely coughed.  

"Of course," Ran added then, turning to their companions, "once 
everyone's been in the wine that Prim-san and Yuriko-san will 
undoubtedly provide this evening, we all might end up dancing barefoot. 
Or most of us, at least."  

The trio chuckled.  Ran set his drained glass upon the table.  
"Something tells me that no one will have to coax you into 
playing your violin tonight, Veronica-san.  I am right?"  

***

Vernoica's dark tresses flickered over her eyes as she shook her head, 
a few threads of it settling about the curve of her nose, and inviting 
her master brush them away.  "I've been looking forward to playing for 
you since I heard I'd get to, it's true! I don't often have any 
audience besides the rabbits and m'lord."

"Ah yes," Lord Vyx agreed.  "But then again, the rabbits are so much 
more smitten with their surroundings than the birds."

The two sparrows at the window glanced about the sprawling almost 
evening, but as might have been well enough expected, went back to 
pecking the whitewash in the end, even there was nothing there for them 
to eat.

"Does yours play anything?" Veronica inquired then, soft and subtle in 
her voice, as if she knew nothing of Fiona, and wasn't sure what 
spirits the idea of her would evoke.  "I wouldn't want to intrude on 
her performance if she does."

*** 

"No, I don't believe she does play.  She didn't have any instruments 
with her when she arrived, so..."  Ran paused, noting Veronica's 
puzzled expression. "Why?  Are attendants *supposed* to play at 
gatherings?"  

***

The look on Veronica's face was nothing short of, "The worthwhile ones 
at least!" though she said nothing, and instead sipped at very edge 
of her glass in the most self-conscious of ways.  It was Vyx who 
answered for her then, "Oh, my boy! We're not the right people to ask. 
Why, we only just met the girl coming in this evening.  It's not our 
place to say such things." 

His own glass now empty, he set it aside, minding that the top of the 
end table where he let it rest was not of varnish or anything else 
requiring a coaster.  "She does... serve though, doesn't she? It seems 
that's the only official requirement for BEING a servant, and why 
they're called servants to begin with, and not snarfleplats."

Ken was therein obliged to steal a napkin from the distant tray, for it 
certainly felt to him as if he had squirted some of his drink out of 
his nose where he hadn't dared laugh.  Snarfleplats indeed.  Impromptu 
veil or not, he went right back to lounging against his lover.  

"She seemed perfectly charming to me, in a brusque sort of way.  Don't 
see many lasses with spunk around here anymore," Lord Vyx concluded 
wistfully with a little pat against Veronica's shoulder which could 
only be deemed a gentlemanly brag.  

***

"But she's not cultured and well-trained as a servant should be." 
Nor did she truly serve him, but he didn't want to admit that out 
loud; both Vyx and Veronica had probably guessed the truth anyway. 

"And I disagree about the two of you not being the ones to ask," he 
added, with a tiny shake of his head. "You obviously know what's 
proper and what's not, and besides, who else would I ask but...a 
friend." 

Ran's stumbling was not born of reluctance to label Vyx as such, but 
because it sounded so odd to say. Even though that was exactly what 
the old man had become.

***

Lord Vyx's thin lips parted for a moment, as if he surely meant to say 
something to his host; something small and compassionate that would 
have been welcomed on Terra or elsewhere; something fit for any 
afternoon where pretenses had been left behind sometime before lunch.  
But he didn't.  But in the end, he seemed to have gone pleased and 
reticent and nothing more.

Veronica saw fit to break the silence, huffing somewhat as playful as 
her words came out, "Who's to say what's so bloody decorous and what's 
not?"

"Ya got me," Fiona replied, having thrown open the door without 
knocking.  She shrugged, and Ken sat up to have a better look at her 
only to find someone had changed her clothing, and it probably hadn't 
been Fiona.  Whoever it was had apparently decided the girl would look 
dashing or charming in a white wrap-around shirt, pink slacks, lavender 
house slippers and a pair of earrings from which dangled pearls someone 
had cut to look like Lilies of the Valley.  

Since no one had answered her intrusion, she sighed and remarked with 
smirk and a bow, "Primera and Yuriko just wanted to let you know 
they're done any time you feel like coming down to the lobby."  

***

Ran said nothing in reply, though he did certainly perk up at the 
sight of her, so changed was she. He'd always thought she was 
pretty, but now she actually looked grown up. He was quietly touched 
over the fact that she'd bothered to fix herself up so.

Ken stood, gesturing for Vyx and Veronica to go ahead of them. The 
dark-haired maid nimbly rose to her feet, taking the arm of her aged 
employer in order to help him to his own. Ken did the same to his 
balking lover. 

"I'm coming," he grumbled softly, though he did not try to wrench 
free of Ken's grip. "I guess it wouldn't be fair to send our guests 
off to view the horror below, but not venture forth to witness it 
myself." 

Frowning in disapproval, Ken nudged him in the ribs. Ran scowled 
back. "I've already had my birthday," he murmured. "A fine one, at 
that. All the rest is just a waste of time." 

With that, he breezed past his lover towards the door, where Fiona 
still waited. He could smell the fresh, spring scent of the perfume 
he'd presented to her the night before, and Ran drew up alongside her 
to cast an appreciative eye over her. 

"Bishoujo," he said, smiling softly as he playfully tugged upon one 
dangling lock of her hair.

***

"Hey, cut that out," Fiona complained, winking nonetheless so all the 
animosity of her words died away faster than her almost giggle.  She 
didn't blush, she didn't shy away, and he gave her one more tug for 
good luck before he slipped away, and Ken came jogging after him.

She stood for awhile in the doorway of the empty room, one of her 
cheeks in her hands, and the lock of hair he had fumbled with still 
dangling in her eyes.  Once everyone had vanished in the curl of the 
stairway, she closed the double doors at her side.  The two sparrows 
looked at her a moment through the glass set there, but like sparrows 
were so wont to do, had nothing much to say about the distant look that 
had come over her face when no one else remained to see it.

*** 

In the hallway and among the long, luminous strands of sunlight there, 
Ken reclaimed his place at his lover's side, and goosed him for running 
away.  Ran gave him a glare in return, only to find himself looking at 
Ken's tongue.  

After awhile though, there was no denying it.  Vyx and Veronica had 
vanished beyond the lip of the hall, and soon they would have no choice 
but the follow.

At least no one was screaming.

Then again, they soon found there was no way anyone could have.  

The stained glass windows along the far wall were all alight now- not 
so immersed in the lazy sunlight that they were too brilliant to be 
gazed upon, but gently glowing.  The puddles of space the views of the 
outside would have left upon the mirror below were filled though, or at 
least, looked filled from where they stood, and where, to them, the 
room seemed to pivot on the glass.  

A long, white table dusted all over with little silver domes and towers 
of pastel glass plates stood within, flanked by a half circle of deck 
chairs their feet wrapped in velvet so they would not scratch the 
floor.  The seats each were empty save for a goblet and a little charm 
of paper and flowers where names had been scrawled in Paul's rambling 
hand.  

In their center, someone had cast a pale blue picnic blanket out, and 
on it were resting the presents from the coffee table, now accompanied 
by Lord Vyx's and a few more, which like the first, had been swathed 
in Moire paper and silver ribbon.

Of course, it turned out they were not the only things so decorated.  
All the room- the pale blue crystal orbs of the lamps gathered in the 
corners; the stairs, the lines of the ceiling; the balconies and the 
handles of the doors meant to go unused  -they were all bound with 
silver and mineral green streamers of heavy ribbon which danced in 
the breeze the open back doors had let wander in to the room.

No one shouted, no one snapped the tie of a party hat under his chin, 
and no one tried to spank him in honor of the day.  Prim and Yuriko 
just stood, half tied up in a bow that had somewhat blown over their 
almost matched mini dresses (Yuriko was in blue, and Prim pink).

"Happy birthday!" they caroled.  

He had no time to answer them for someone tapped him on the shoulder.  
Ran spun around to find Carly at his side, a dove and rose gown trying 
sneak its way from her shoulders no matter how much she cast around to 
make it stay, and a gigantic, flat box draped in purple holographic 
paper taking up her arms.

Behind them, Ken tried not to chuckle too much.

***

Ran turned to give his lover a stern look meant to silence his 
muffled chuckles; his attempt was unsuccessful.  Carly's attempt at 
relieving herself of her cumbersome present by foisting it onto Ran 
was not; she thrust it against his chest, and he instinctively raised 
his arms to catch it.  

She retreated as quickly as she'd advanced, leaving Ran with her 
gift.  He tracked the length and breadth of the dazzling paper, which 
flashed prisms in the light reflecting from the mirrored floor; 
quickly took in again the swathes of silver and gleaming green they'd 
dressed the foyer in; the shining presents awaiting him upon the blanket.  

"I don't know what to say."  

***

"Group hug! Say group hug!" Yuriko sang, bouncing up and down on her 
little rose mules, her arms floating away from the rest of her with the 
motion.  Carly rolled her eyes at this and grinned, and though nobody 
saw it, Vyx had crossed his fingers beneath Veronica's.

Ran just shot his energetic (and evidentially affectionate) companion 
a deft you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me look only made her stumble 
when her lover clouted her on the back.

"Oh, I think 'I don't know what to say' works," Ken finally declared 
once he had found a little of Ran's left arm not occupied by package 
and caught it up with his own.  "It's all... ah... deconstructive 
and...stuff."

"Yeah, and who says describing something based on what it doesn't 
include has gone out of fashion?" Prim here, who had just gathered Paul 
up from behind the swoop of one staircase, and trundled her into the 
little circle gathered around Ran.  Paul was wearing bell-bottoms under 
a wildly-printed gauze wrap around skirt, a gold sequined tank top, a 
man's eighteenth century waistcoat and a peacock feather behind her 
right ear.  Paul bowed, and somehow the feather didn't fall.  

Fiona, appearing behind the crowd as if teleported in, drolled, "I say 
I suspected nothin' else. So... you pick, Ran." Veronica knitted her 
brows in puzzlement at this, and ended up shrugging it off into her 
master's arms, for he had given her a squeeze once having decided he 
wouldn't get one from their hosts.  "Cake or presents first?"

"Wait a moment!" Primera again.  "It seems to me we're... missing 
someone? Either that or I set one to many chairs out! Oh dear oh dear!"

***  

"Claire," Ran offered. "She hasn't shown up yet; she's probably been 
delayed by a post-creation cleanup of her laboratory." He 
thoughtfully drummed his fingers over the package he held. "Of 
course, she might have forgotten all together." 

Once more he curiously eyed the glittering pile of boxes which awaited 
him on the nearby square of blue. "Surely, it wouldn't hurt if I opened 
just one before she got here?" 

***

"Course not," Ken replied as he rose to his tip-toes at his lover's 
side, seeming to jingle, though he hadn't a thing on that could have 
made such a sound.  He was, in fact, bouncing just a little with his 
own, somewhat justified excitement which seemed to flee him for a jiffy 
as he brushed his lips to Ran's ear, whispering, "Open one of mine 
first!"

"Hey! That's not fair!" Yuriko announced as she planted herself, arms 
akimbo beside the two of them.  "Mine's been wrapped as long as yours, 
and the ones that get wrapped first should get opened first.  You were 
still putting tape on yours when I came in to get the ribbon."

Ken stuck his tongue out at her, even though it was true.  Damn 
uncooperative tape.  He was then obliged to borrow Carly's present so 
he had something to ward off what had previously seemed to be an 
inevitable noogie.

Lord Vyx began somewhere in the middle of this, "Why don't you open one 
of ours first? We've brought two as well, and one of them surely 
wouldn't be as conspicuously missed as one of Ken's." Veronica nodded.  
"Besides, being neither here nor there, I believe Ken's health would be 
grateful to you and..."

"Open mine first!" Paul burst out, interrupting the old man's attempted 
truce.  "Mine's the coolest, neatest, uber-splendiferous-y present 
ever!"

(Carly's response to this was to hold up a sign of hand-pressed flower 
note paper she had taped to her fan.  It read simply, "Mine first! Mine 
first!"; she waved it about rather dangerously.)

"No, as wondrous and magical as my sister's present might be," Prim 
nodded, trying to cover the fact she was presently winking at two of 
her servants who were hiding outside behind the amaranth puddle of a 
demon's cloak.  "You should open mine first because... umm... well, you 
just really should!"

"You could always shock everyone and open MINE first," Fiona pointed 
out with a bit of a yawn.  

***

The room erupted in another spray of good-natured bickering (with 
Yuriko's and Ken's gleeful, parrying voices being the loudest), and 
Ran had to practically shout to be heard.  "It was just a 
question!  Wait!  Stop that," he muttered, scowling at the grinning 
Carly, who'd dared to tickle him under the chin with her flowered 
note.  Ran scrubbed at the tingling spot with the back of his hand, 
and turned back to the group just in time to see Yuriko attempt 
another noogie upon his ducking lover.  

"I'll open one of Vyx-sama's!" Ran shouted over the din.  But no one 
took any notice of him until he'd come to rest beside the shining 
pile of gifts.  Ran bent to check them for nametags, but found them 
all devoid of any such markings.  

"Quick, Vyx-sama.  Tell me which ones they are before Yuriko-san 
declares an all-out war on Ken."

***

Ken had just enough time to reach around and lift a handkerchief from 
his guest as he passed by, headed to the tower of presents.  The old 
man laughed, and Yuriko accepted her friend's surrender, though she 
began to rub her hands together once his back was turned, as if 
planning another coup under the guise of their armistice.  

Lord Vyx thought the whole thing was really quite amusing- so much so, 
he found himself obliged to once again lay claim to his own hankie and 
dab at his eyes before once more approaching Ran.

"The rather large one there is one of mine, and so is... umm... I 
believe this one." At which he stooped and lifted the box, giving it 
the smallest possible shake with his ear close to the paper.  "Oh yes! 
This one! It doesn't matter at all which one you open first, so 
whichever one intrigues you the most, or the least rather, if you 
prefer a climax to the affair of my triflings."

As Ran pondered his choice, the guests, all defeated, began to meander 
to their chairs.  The one deemed Ran's was on the tip of the right 
arc, that closest to the buffet table, not to mention easily spied from 
all the other seats.  Ken sat beside him, followed by Yuriko and Carly.  
Vyx had been given the seat across from Ran, and Veronica deigned once 
more to sit on the floor at his feet.  Prim between Lord Vyx and Paul 
sat casting sneaky looks at Yuriko, and a few less certain gazes to the 
window- she had volunteered to be stationed away from her girlfriend 
since the two of them had finally realized that Ran didn't much care to 
watch them flirt unless they had good reason to do so.  Besides their 
separation, the only downside to the arrangement they could find was 
that Claire- whose personality they all knew well -had ended up next to 
the perpetually feisty Paul. 

Paul, who had quieted down a good deal in the mean time, as Ran finally 
seemed to have chosen.

***

And, after a light tapping of the smaller box (which rattled 
alluringly), he gathered the larger of Lord Vyx's presents from the 
pile.  The wrapping soon fell to the mirrored floor in one, undamaged 
sheet, followed by the strip of packing tape that held the flaps of 
the plain cardboard box together. 

Inside, Ran found another box, one decidedly eyecatching:  gold and 
silver glitter stars, both large and small, scattered thickly across 
a field of lemon yellow.  Across its lid, in flowing, metallic purple 
script, were the words, 'The Starry-eyed Milliners:  Our Hats Will Make 
You Feel Like Divinity!' 

"A hat?  You got me a hat?"  

Vyx, all a twinkle, nodded happily.  

"But..."  Ran began, only to fall silent when Ken wriggled the hatbox 
out of its cardboard counterpart.  Ken kicked it neatly away, and 
plopped the hatbox onto Ran's lap.  And then, he grinned.  

"Oh, shut up," he mouthed, edging the snugly packed lid off the box
and drawing the hat out from the protective sheets of iridescent 
white tissue that enveloped it.  

***

The hat- which, much to Ran's dismay, was INDEED a hat: Lord Vyx had 
favored ingenuousness in his packaging rather than the sprightly 
misleading favored in Valdemar birthday parties -took for itself a sort 
of guise which only the those caps in dreams of curse-ed watermelons 
and bubble gum hippogriffs were usually permitted to assume.  

It was green.  Not emerald, nor forest hue, nor even mint: but a lush, 
alien green of neither flora nor fauna; bright, but not too bright; 
lively, but not disconcerting in and of itself; almost a child-like 
concept of green, too pure to be spoiled by words.  Green like the eyes 
of faerie priestesses.  Green like the fa‡ade of the wildest, 
crystalline raver club in Tokyo.  

A green which looked all the more shocking manifested on a crushed, 
velvet cavalier hat, one with a very stiff brim.  After all, it needed 
one. 

Three enormous ostrich feathers, dyed the color of a dubious key lime 
pie had been fastened to at a slight angle to the crown which made them 
bob all the more with even the slightest motion.  The crown itself wore 
a chain of hollow brass teardrops around its bottom; they rang at the 
oddest time like bells, though bells curiously enough seemed to be the 
only thing omitted from the design. 

Bouquets of faceted, clear Lucite grapes (verdant and amaranth), 
however, had not been overlooked in the least.  There were three of 
them in fact, resting at the feet of the feathers on a bed of pearly 
lace and aurora borealis beads shot with strands of flexible glitter-
filled polymer shaved to look like long, fine grass.  Cellophane pom-
poms, brass antique buttons, and inflections of sequins and seed beads 
filled in whatever slits their might have been.  

***

Murmurs of awe rose around the ring, making Ran's stunned silence seem 
that much more profound.  He had to hold it with both hands, it was so 
heavy--and he was expected to actually *wear* it?  

"Aren't you going to try it on?"  

Framed by two nodding feathers, Ran saw Primera's beaming face.  
Indeed, all the rest were smiling as well, including Vyx, who looked 
as if he were holding his breath in anticipation.  

"Well..."  

The smile Vyx wore slipped a bit due to Ran's hesitation, and 
inwardly, the boy sighed.  Undoubtedly, he'd spent a fortune on the 
elaborate chapeau, and it would be rude not to wear it at least once in 
his presence.  

So...with a chiming of brass chains, the melodic rattle of the grapes 
tapping together, Ran lifted it over his head, and settled it 
squarely upon his head. 

***

At which all breath died in the room, and a single, almost celestial 
"oooooooooooooh" flitted through the air instead, all of the guests 
uttering it in perfect tonal unity, sans Carly, who had whistled and 
waved her fan around instead, fluttering the tassels of it into 
Yuriko's hapless nose.

Lord Vyx, then finished with his happy gasp, cried out, and pressed his 
gloves to his cheeks.  "OH! I'm so CHUFFED that you like it!"

"Chuffed?" Paul wondered this aloud, for the expression wasn't the 
least bit common among the aristocracy of Valdemar, and before that 
night she had never heard ANYONE utter it, let alone a gentleman.

"Yes, CHUFFED! Endlessly, endlessly chuffed! I had such a time picking 
it out for you!" This he directed, his eyes strewn with imaginary 
hearts of delight, to Ran of course, who looked up from his reflection 
in the floor just long enough to try and glean how rapt the old man 
was. "They've SOOOO many designs down at the Starry-Eyed's these days. 
I haven't been so flustered- and I do mean that in a good way! -since 
the first time I went to Murano! I couldn't pick and I couldn't pick 
and then all of a sudden it dawned on me: grapes! Why, there's not a 
soul in this city has a hat with GRAPES on it I..." and his speech here 
fell to jolly squealing, which, despite his otherwise semblance of 
lordly dignity, he proved to be quite accomplished at.

"It's, now what's the word? fetching. Yeah, that's right!" Ken intoned 
then, and he looked to his lover then by way of the floor, chancing an 
almost wink for him. It really didn't look BAD on him per se, for the 
exotic hue of it managed to contrast the red of his hair, rather than 
clash with it as a darker shade might of done. And it showed off the 
deep violet of his eyes with its own brilliance.

It just didn't look like something Ran would wear of his own accord.

At all.

***

"Is that so?" asked Ran, shooting Ken a shaded, sidelong glance.  "I 
guess I'll have to get Vyx-sama to play personal shopper for me when 
your birthday comes around.  It wouldn't be right for the Dono of 
Valdemar to go unadorned when his partner is in possession of such an 
elaborate hat.  Maybe something in blue to match your eyes?  And 
festooned with *huge* gardenias of aqua silk and...lace.  Yes!  Wide, 
pearl-and-sequin encrusted swathes of it.  Just the thing for an 
ex-pro jock."  

Ken nudged him hard in the side, and the hat tipped precariously to the 
left.  Shooting Ken a faint scowl, Ran pinched it by its stiff brim and 
righted it on his head, and then he cautiously rose.  Ran felt like 
he was wearing a crown, the hat was so weighty.  

"Right.  I don't know where Claire-san is, but it's my birthday, and 
I say we begin the festivities."  

***

It was hard to say no to a boy in such a brilliantly garlanded hat 
offering revels of any kind, and so no one made any effort to do so.  
Naturally, just as the applause had died down, and Paul's hand stolen 
under the lid of one of the hidden platters when no one appeared to be 
looking, the front door of the villa came crashing open and a rather 
large mound of disgruntled peach chiffon tumbled head over boots into 
the middle of the floor, where it lay, cursing and blaspheming at the 
top of its lungs. 

"Je~~~~~esus HUBERT Christ! When I get my hands on the nitwit who had 
his head so far up his ass he mistook these for running boots, why 
I'll...!" 

"Good evening, Addiker-san," Ken sang, cutting off any other choice 
punishments she might have had for the shoe salesman.  His march across 
the mirror came to an end then, and he held his hand out to the fallen 
Claire, who rather than take it, rolled onto her back, sending her 
newly-pressed pewter curls astray as she stared up at him through the 
very edges of her pink lenses.

"Addiker-san? The hell're you? Nobody calls me Addiker-san! Most of my 
girls don't even know I HAVE a last name, boy."

"Uh, I'm Hidaka Ken," Ken said, having somehow managed to forget he 
should probably bow.

"A/K/A the Hidaka-dono," Yuriko chimed in just to make their rather 
late guest blush.  She was dully rewarded for her troubles with a swat 
to her bottom.  Her friend shortly found his arm nearly yanked from its 
socket as Claire got to her ill-shod feet and fluffed out the edges of 
her bow-littered party dress before she remembered she had indeed had a 
walking stick with her, and instead cast about searching for it until 
the girl at her side rather reluctantly returned it.

"Asou! So THIS is where you've been hiding out all this time? Hah! You 
want to be so picky about last names, well, they ya go! I filled out 
enough of your paychecks to never forget it."

Yuriko said nothing in her own defense.  Carly's eyes sparkled in 
amusement over the rim of her fan, and Prim simply adopted her best 
"*somebody* has some explaining to do!" look.

***

"Somehow, I never pegged an adventurous woman such as yourself for a 
ice cream scooper," Ran said, edging in between her and Ken.  
"Or I assume that's what she was.  Either way, it must be an 
interesting tale.  I should like to hear it...over cake," he said, 
sneaking a look at the table.  

"Perhaps, you should take your boots off first, though, Claire-san," 
he added, catching his employer by the elbow when she threatened to 
tipple over, "before you fall again and break a few bones."  

***

The boots not only came off, they sailed through the doors of the lobby 
and into the wisteria which had crept in from the hills to live along 
the edge of the villa's wall.  Claire, her arm still clasped in Ran's 
palms, turned toward the early evening sky where it shone upon the 
polished toes, and flipped off the tiny, leathery glow there.  "Most 
sensible idea you've ever had, boy! Most sensible of all."

As tactless as the remark might have been, Ran knew a compliment from 
his employer when he heard one, and so nodded.  

Claire whirled around on her stocking feet and pulled him back to the 
middle of the floor with her.  Everyone except Vyx had risen by then, 
and gathered around the table, where they stood, fluttering a little 
with the promise of cake.  When Claire had gotten a good look at the 
customer she was always so wont to banter with, and a second to confirm 
it was in fact him, she burst out laughing all over again, having 
evidentially forgotten he would be coming as well. 

"My goodness!" he responded to her latest outburst.  "You act as if 
you've never seen a man wearing a cloak indoors before!"

"It's not that, it's not that! But... The HAT! So that explains it!" 
One more look at poor Ran, and she nearly lost her footing, rid of 
the boots or not.  Ken stifled a sympathetic laugh and went about 
rooting for the cake slicer, which had gotten rather lost in the 
decorations between the platters.  

"What about the hat? I had the milliner check it three times to make 
sure EVERYTHING was in place."

At which her giggles finally abated, and she stood for some moments, 
blinking like a nightingale in sunlight at the old man.  Her lips 
pursed, and she would have whistled had it not gone so quiet everyone 
would have heard.  "Yes.  Perfectly good hat.  Starry-Eyed's right?" He 
nodded.  "Damn good hat shop.  Damn good."

"Yes, and if you want Ran to hear your damn good stories about me, 
you'd better come over to the damn table and grab a damn plate!" Yuriko 
informed the late-coming guest, who puffed up a moment as if to scold 
her, only to remember she was no longer her employee, and that she 
herself was really rather hungry.

Ken bestowed upon himself the honor of uncovering the trays.  One was 
filled with Yakitori skewers, one with crackers and the very daintiest 
of cookies, and the center with a pale, golden sponge cake topped with 
a fine layer of crŠme fraiche in which rested slices of melon on 
starburst of wild strawberries.

"Otanjoubi omedetto, Ran." 

*** 

The others echoed Ken, and Ran bowed slightly to the group.  
"Arigatou," he murmured, catching Ken's eye again, and giving him a 
faint smile. Ken picked up a knife and handed it to him, 
gesturing for him to take the first slice. He did so amidst their 
cheers, plopping the too-big slice (for he was hungry himself) onto the 
plate Yuriko hastily set on the table in front of 
him. 

The rest followed suit, gathering up plates and filing around the 
table for whatever treats had caught their fancy. Ran set a pair of 
yakitori skewers on his plate, along with a quickly pinched bundle of 
crackers before heading down to where Primera had just poured their 
drinks: pink champagne in faceted crystal flutes. She clinked her 
glass to his, then took up a plate, and went to forage for her 
dinner. 

And Ran went off to forage for a kiss, which, after taking a quick 
look at those milling about the table (and finding them preoccupied 
with food and conversing with each other), he stole from his 
unsuspecting boyfriend.

The hat turned out to be practical, after all.

***

Ken would have kissed him back, except that Lord Vyx had finished 
answering Veronica's wonderings as to what he should like on his plate, 
and so his attention had been freed to watch them if he liked- he 
pretended he didn't, but his impish little smile betrayed him utterly.

"Later, I'll pay you back for tha~at," Ran's lover told him, and then 
winked as he reached towards his champagne.  

Vyx presently had a very dainty sip of his own,  "It's really quite 
capital- light, fruity and not TOO airy.  Almost creamy.  My 
compliments to your sommelier.

"Yuriko! You've been thanked for your ability to raid the wine cellar!" 

The woman in question made a quick curtsey during which she nearly lost 
a skewer of onions and peppers, though she managed to bounce up and 
catch it at the last possible instant.

"Ah," Claire mused, inattentive as could be, while chuckles filled 
everyone's glasses rather than the foam of the singing wine.  "She 
always was good for the seek and return missions, wasn't she?"

Carly nodded, and kept nodding even as she made off with the puff of 
divinity the duchess of ice cream had been reaching for.  She also 
popped it in her mouth straight off, and crunched it up loudly as she 
could.

"Well, it WAS the only thing you asked me if she could do when you 
hired her off me.  I thought you might like to reminisce a little for 
old time's sake."

Carly pointed towards Ran, who had just listed rather conspicuously to 
his left, presumably in the interests of maintaining the altitude of 
his hat and explaining something at the same time.  

"Aa, he's a little surly, but I consider that a plus.  Most of the time 
anyway."

Carly licked the end of her Yakitori skewer, and wrote with crŠme 
fraiche on her plate, "That's not what I meant" before bustling back to 
the chairs, where she, with no preamble whatsoever, bent and did what 
Ken had just been dreaming of: she kissed the redheaded boy smack in 
the middle of his forehead before taking her seat.

***

Ran blinked after her, having been taken unawares much as he had done 
Ken; a kiss from Carly was the last thing he had expected to 
receive, especially after the way they had parted a week ago. Surely 
she remembered? Ah, it seemed she did not--or did not care--for she 
promptly saluted him with her filled glass. Hesitantly, he did the 
same, and then a peal of laughter from the opposite corner drew his 
attention; Yuriko and Prim had cozied up side by side after all, 
despite whatever conditions they'd placed on themselves earlier. He 
watched Prim lean in to whisper something in Yuriko's ear, neither 
caring a bit who might be observing them. 

He found he didn't really care who might be watching him and Ken 
now. Taking a bite of cake, he turned to him, leaned in and 
whispered, "So...just how were you planning on paying me back?"

***

"Wellllllll," Ken began, casting himself to the side of his chair so he 
could share still in the shade of his lover's chapeau,  "I did have 
this OTHER surprise ready this mornin', but after the whole thing in 
the living room with the strawberries I didn't EXACTLY get to it."

It took him a moment to realize that his lover's hand- the right which 
bore a cake-bedecked fork, had quite frozen in midair when he uttered 
those words.  Everyone else was still moving perfectly well, and 
chatting, and playing musical chairs now that Yuriko and Prim had 
usurped two side by side.  

Beside them and all at once, Paul finally managed to make up her mind 
which seat she liked, and it happened to be the one right next to Ken.  
Despite being born on Terra, she still hadn't learned the ethical 
implications of laughing at lovers, and so giggled with abandon despite 
Ken's growl.

It didn't help manners, but Carly was good enough to move to the end of 
their arc, and district the younger Blackworth daughter by swatting her 
on the ass with her fan and pretending it was an accident.  

Just then, Primera's glass rang, though not everyone heard it.  Before 
she had a chance to complain about this, Veronica, sensing the danger 
of the very rich and very miffed, whipped her violin out of its case 
and played a few loud but melodious notes.

"Okay everyone, we've made a mistake!" Prim announced, setting her 
useless and very much over-clanked flute aside.  "The birthday boy 
hasn't made a wish! And that's just not right!"

***

Yuriko scampered over then with a fresh, mint green taper, which, 
after urging Ran to take it, she lit. He stared at the hopeful, 
wavering flame without a trace of emotion, then sharply blew it out 
sans secret wish.  The candle went back to Yuriko.  

"Tell me," he began softly, once she was out of earshot, "about what 
you meant to give me earlier." 

***

Ken licked away the creme fraiche that had stickied his upper lip 
before making a brief and glancing inspection of the guests, most of 
whom were nibbling their cake or each other in the case of Yuriko and 
Prim.  Carly was presently having a bit of a battle with one of her 
yakitori skewers as she didn't know the polite way to nibble from them.  
And now and then Veronica's violin chimed as she tuned the strings and 
munched a lacey cheese cracker at the same time.

Convinced they were all paying attention to other things, he at last 
leaned up against Ran's shoulder, pretending to only snuggle at first.

"I gotta couplea cans of edible body paint upstairs an' a disposable 
camera."

***

Ran lowered the fork he held to the plate perched in his lap; better 
that than drop it altogether.  "Edible paint?"  

A saucy grin lit Ken's face, and he wriggled his shoulder against 
Ran's.  The other boy slowly looked him over, imagining him sans 
clothing and covered in chocolate paint.  

"Why didn't you tell me this earlier?  Why...we could have..."  He 
stopped, brows wrinkling.  "No, that is...No."  

Ken chuckled around the lip of his trumpet, drawing both Vyx's and 
Carly's smiling regard.  Ran tipped his hat down a bit further, and 
feigned interest in his cake, eyeing his lover under the low brim 
all the while.  

"If we snuck away after the presents were opened," he whispered, 
"do you think they'd really notice we were gone?"  

***

"If it wasn't for hat-chan, it wouldn't be a problem I'm suuuuuuuuure."

Ken simpered; he was telling the truth, nothing more, doubtless that it 
sucked despite his solicitude.  He rose from Ran's shoulder then, and 
balancing his glass on his plate, nibbled all the while at one of his 
own skewers of chicken and onion.  The cake itself might not have been 
too sweet, nor the cream atop it, but the melon! It was like candy.  He 
just needed something salty afterwards.  

Mwanwhile, Ran looked like he needed a flamethrower to chase away his 
guests.

"Maa, don't worry about it.  I told 'em nobody stays past eight."

Paul, hearing this for the first time, dashed back to the table and the 
tray of cookies.  If the party was so frightfully short, why, she would 
have to make off with her share of the divinity before anyone else did.  
Carly, sensing the child's intention, followed at a more refined, but 
urgent clip.  

"SOOOOOO it won't be that long.  B'sides, waitin's half the fun!"

Not that the boy at his side made any attempt to admit he agreed.

Just then, a puff of meringue laced with nougat and chocolate shavings 
sailed past their heads and ultimately encountered the floor, where it 
shattered into a million crumbs.  That cookie at least had been 
captured by no one.

***

"The guests fighting over meringues--is that another Valdemarian 
birthday custom?" Ran asked, as one such drizzled with raspberry 
sauce flew in a perfect arc through the air to smash into dust on the 
floor--just two inches farther away than its chocolate-y mate had. 

Ken merely shrugged, obviously enjoying the show Carly and Paul were 
providing at the buffet table. Ran, not really caring either way 
about the fate of the cookies, turned back to his dinner, devouring 
three tasty morsels of chicken and half his cake before he wandered 
away to fetch a fresh glass of champagne. When he returned to his 
seat, he came not only with a flute full of bubbling pink liquid, but 
another gift. 

"I may have to wait to unwrap you, but I don't have to wait to unwrap 
my presents," he said, popping another sliver of chicken in his mouth 
before he began working the paper loose from the box. 

*** 

At the sound of paper tearing, each and every one of the guests froze 
where they stood.  Divinity suspended itself in the air on the very 
tips of fingers.  Words broke off in their centers as if there was no 
more too them.  Even Paul's ostentatious feather made no further 
attempt to bob menacingly at Carly.  

Just as quickly, all the little feuds died, and everything unrelated to 
the merriment followed suit. 
 
Yuriko groused though in the middle of all this. "Hey! You're supposed 
to announce these things!" Ran only had to give her a look, a tap his 
hat and shrug.

Everyone obediently returned to their chairs and there sat with wide, 
expectant eyes, after all, no one could quite seem to make out just 
WHOSE present it was there upon his lap.

Until Ken announced: "It's one of mine!" The "neener neener neener" 
being implied.  

His lover gave him a soft sort of look, and then resumed his meticulous 
splitting of the tape from the moire.

***

And when the last strip had been peeled away, and left to tumble to the 
floor, Ran found himself holding a thick, hardcover book with brightly 
gilt pages.  Its cover was dressed in rich mahogany leather, stamped 
with a swirling gold border; at the corners the foil had been fanned 
out into stylized stars; the bottom center of the border was relieved 
by a cameo of a rearing horse.  It bore no title, neither on the front 
or spine.  Ran shot Ken an amused look as he fumbled for the bronze 
catch at the edge of the front cover (which was engraved with an oak 
leaf and acorn).  

The lock came free without complaint, and, after thumbing past pages 
of cracking vellum, he came to the title page at last.  In bold, red, 
antique script were the words "The Last Herald Mage" and beneath it, 
the author's name in smaller, blue lettering.  

"I've never read this one," Ran murmured, stroking the page with 
obvious delight.  "Thank you," he added, glancing over at his lover.  
Ken smiled at him, and chanced a quick, affectionate squeeze of his 
elbow.  He then leaned in a little, flipped forward a few pages until 
the very start of the story came into view.  Ran, in reading, came 
across a name that nagged him like a half-remembered melody.   

"Vanyel Ashkevron."  

***

"Of course, Vanyel-ashke," his lover chuckled.  "I said I'd get you 
that book, didn't I?" It wasn't quite a whisper though, so there might 
have been other thoughts well enamored of their own sounds, though none 
of the guests behaved as if they had overheard a thing, or wished to- 
they all knew the book, and that they'd been quite warned not to 
breathe a word about what might be written there.  

Ken's doing, of course, and then in earnest almost secrecy he uttered 
against Ran's ear and hesitant memories: "Look up."

He did.  On the far wall the reflection of the sun, its last few 
perfectly plucked rays from her garden of light lay spilled on the 
painting just beyond the crest of the stairs, and there the three boys 
still danced, still hung still as could be in an almost arabesque of 
trying to wander away with one another.  

"You said I'd haveta wait for you to read the book before I was allowed 
to call you that or not so... there's the book!" But he left him, 
returned to the confines of his own chair.

"You mean Ran's never read about Vanyel and Ty-..." One of Carly's 
hands shot out and popped one of her meringues into the younger 
Blackworth sister's mouth: the lady had plenty to spare after all, 
having apparently won the rights to the larger share.  Paul chewed 
noisily with many a flying crumb, finally swallowed, and added in a 
somewhat more sedate voice.  "That's only the most famousest book in 
all of Valdemar.  WOW! I hope you like it!"

Lord Vyx raised his glass to that before he polished off the little 
pool of pink still nestled there.  "He should.  As long as he doesn't 
ask me to play any of the songs from it.  Ugh."

"I'll drink to that M'self," agreed Claire rather surreptitiously 
before bursting out,  "Just don't read it now! You're not only halfway 
through your presents!"

***

"Yes," murmured Ran, and with an air of mild regret, he set the book 
to the side. He would read it that night, perhaps aloud to Ken if 
the other wished. But first...

Oh, which one, which one to choose? They all looked so appealing, 
glistening in the waning sunlight. Ran rose from his seat, and 
walked this way, then that, contemplating the pile. And then, 
without much warning, he lunged forward and picked up one which 
rested at the very outside edge of the stack. It wasn't terribly 
small, nor was it large; it didn't make a sound when he gave it a 
tentative shake. Odd. Clothes, maybe? But no, they would rustle 
against the sides of the box. 

A muffled little giggle rose from his left, and Ran immediately 
glanced over to find Paul hunched over her plate of meringues, both 
hands clapped over her grinning mouth. Ran arched a brow in 
amusement at her, and promptly returned to his chair, present in 
hand. 

As the paper fell away, Ken leaned over a bit, wanting the first 
glimpse, as Ran shimmied the lid free of the box, and folded the 
concealing tissue paper over the sides. 

***

And there was a LOT of tissue paper underneath.  No more could have 
possibly been crammed into the box, and when Ran drew away the top few 
layers which had been folded neatly for show, the chrysanthemum forest 
of little wads underneath quite exploded in a firework of flying paper.  
One ball of it landed in Ken's goblet, but, fortunately, was caught by 
the rim before it encountered any liquid.  

"Paul," Prim grumbled, hands settling down on her hips once more.  
"What did I tell you about over-packaging people's presents?"

"You told me it was only OK if what was inside could get busticated 
pretty easy."

And what lay beneath the bushels of almost flowers was certainly quite 
breakable- both of them, though in Lucite capsules they might have been 
resting at the time.  

They being a pair of dainty porcelain dolls- both with hands and faces 
white as snow, eyes as black as onyx slivers and, as the case happened 
to be, pale blue and green hair.  Their clothing, rather than being of 
cloth which would have bunched about their tiny frames, was of richly 
patterned washi paper, bound here and there with bits of thin ribbon 
and golden chains that blended with the fine metallic lines drifting 
their garb.  The blue-haired boy had been got up as a nobleman might 
have been just before the Meiji era, his clothing wrapped in cranes and 
clouds; one of his palms rested on his breast, and the other held a 
tiny, glass wind chime which would not actually sing it seemed.  Paul 
apparently hadn't noticed his warrior friend was really in more of an 
Edo costume, and either way had an almost anime-ish cut to his verdant 
locks.  Flowers and footbridges criss-crossed his uniform, and a few 
fluttering ginko leaves which had been pressed into the paper rather 
than merely painted.

He, unlike the lord at his side, looked out at Ran from the confines of 
his little case not once, but twice.

With his own eyes, and their reflection on his drawn blade.

***

"Thank you, Paul-chan," said Ran as he rose from his chair to deposit 
her fragile gift upon the buffet table, well out of harm's way.  On his 
return to his seat, he picked up another package--a heavy one that 
swished as he walked.  

And as he drew the item inside out to be admired, Carly opened her fan, 
and held it coyly just under her eyes.

***

Underneath all of the purple holographic paper lay a simple, white gift 
box- albeit a rather large one bound with a loop of silver ribbon that 
in the end proved to be only show: it was but fragments of garland 
glued to the top of the box. 

All of the guests marveled, and nothing close to quietly.  Paul out and 
out gasped, only to clap her hand over her mouth and resort to kicking 
her chair instead.  Vyx and Veronica clapped as Prim whistled to 
herself.  Only Claire and Ken failed to seem impressed or surprised in 
any way.  In fact, Ken went so far as to lounge back in his chair and 
merely looked on quite sedately given his earlier clamours.  

A rosewood case lay now in his lover's lap.  One which was not, despite 
its relative silence, empty.

The faint swishing it made was the sound of the center adornment of its 
triptych: on a chain of golden links hung a Renaissance cross of flared 
satin finish gold, its center set with a smooth-polished carnelian orb.  
Of the  velvet-lined chambers to the edges of this curious adornment 
lay an ornate decanter full of some thick, sweet cordial of bronze 
tint, and a bit of twined silver metal and glass which Ran quickly 
recognized as a hummingbird cage, despite that Carly's own had been 
black iron and of much sturdier build than that which had been 
presented to him.

***

Exquisite though it was, Ran didn't see why the others (save for 
Claire and Ken) had reacted so strongly.  Surely, it all had some 
sort of meaning; he'd known Carly for such a short time, really, but 
she wasn't the sort not to give a gift lightly.  The hummingbird and 
the cage taught him that.  She would not let him forget about that 
either, he realized, as he stared down at its fragile counterpart.  

"Thank you," he said, politely inclining his head to the lady in 
question.  Carly lowered her fan, and bestowed upon him an enigmatic 
smile in reply.  Ran shook off the impulse he had to inquire after 
it.  That could wait.  His guests obviously could not.  

The next package he recognized as being that of Lord Vyx, the second 
of which he'd brought, much smaller than the first, but longer.  He 
beamed as Ran shed its wrapping, practically bounced in his seat as 
he dropped the lid to the floor.  Ran very nearly started to mimic 
him, for inside lay countless white cubes and rectangles, all which 
chimed gently as he shifted their weight; he'd wrapped his gifts 
separately, each one nestled behind pristine lids.  Ran gathered the 
first, a narrow rectangle of a box, and opened it, and his face lit 
up.  Inside lay a pair of brushes, one thick bristled, the other 
slender.  The boy offered the older man a genuine smile of delight.  

He made short work after that first in revealing the rest, 
accompanied by the oohs and aahs of the gathering:  A brush rest of 
rosewood, carved to resemble a swan; a black ink stone; a dainty 
water dish shaped like a seashell, one tinted a pearly, misty lilac; 
a black ink stick; bottles of ink: two in black, one iridescent 
green, one in a darker shade of the same; a pair of clear glass pens; 
a steel seal which bore the fine imprint of an orchid, and plenty of 
bright green wax to accompany it.  

And in the very last box lay another pen, one of a peacock feather, 
long and full.  The last of the sun's rays caught it as Ran held it 
up, making it shimmer.  He'd never had a pen such as that one ever in 
his life.  Ran couldn't wait to try them all out.  

"Vyx-sama," he said softly, regarding the man with something like 
gratitude.  "Thank you."   

***
Vyx squealed with bliss at those words, and the rings on his hands 
chimed together as he clapped.  "Oh, you're welcome, you're welcome, 
you're ever so welcome!  It's not too much, is it? All those?"

Ran shook his head, only to notice that that as he did so, Ken joined 
in.  The two lovers exchanged a few moments of nonchalant shrugs before 
the younger turned away and pretended to be lost in the swirls of the 
window.  There might not have been any birds presently serenading the 
party, but the one who once whispered in Lord Vyx's ear had come down 
to sit among them as a boy- that much was clear.  

Their guest made somewhat as if he hadn't any idea at all about such 
curious creatures.  "Well, I ~gathered~ that you like to write, and 
being that this once was the Hyacinth Villa..."

Carly, lost in her drink for the moment though she was, apparently took 
his past tense to be somewhat of an interest, and, having finished her 
sips, leaned forward in her chair so she might prop her chin in her 
hands- all the better the watch the old man.  

"...I deduced there mustn't be any 'good' places to write in it." Some 
nods here, from almost all the guests.  "Since writers have 'good' 
places, don't they? And rather than buy you a DESK- which would have 
been ridiculous even for me..."

Primera's cheeks promptly caught alight and her lips wound into a 
distinctly nervous pout.  She looked almost as if one of the guests had 
turned up one of her thongs in a place where thongs ought not usually 
go.  "Ridiculous, eh?" She chuckled through the silence her grimace 
shortly culled.  "Umm... like... haha-ridiculous or
my-GAWD-you-nincompoop-ridiculous?"

"There's a difference?" Ken inquired.  Apparently this was all news to 
him.  

Veronica piped up in the end, "Too much ridiculous."

"In that case," the elder Blackworth sister, who was redder than the 
strawberries on the cake by now and smirking uncontrollably, "I guess...
umm... I... I screwed up!"

"You didn't..." Several voices there just slightly out of sync.

But she had, and with a wave of a little, red hankie produced from her 
bodice two servants in Blackworth Manor livery made their way in 
through the side door, bearing between them a desk.

In truth, it wasn't an especially large escritoire, but a neat, compact 
model with spindly, hand-turned legs.  Floating in the dark finish were 
falling leaves blotted into being with lighter stain and the occasional 
flicker of gilt- just a few, nothing ostentatious.  The feet were shod 
in caramel velvet, and so were a few of the inside compartments which 
peeked out once Primera had rolled the top back inside for a 
demonstration of her nervous energy.  And there were a lot of little 
compartments, all with glass windows in their doors so what they held 
could be no mystery.  

***

To the woman who'd presented it to him, who still stood nervously by 
awaiting his reply, he did not smile, though joy shone quietly from 
his eyes.  "It's beautiful, Primera-san.  Thank you," Ran said, bowing.  

At that first sign of acceptance, Primera visibly relaxed, sighing 
happily.  She returned his bow, and hurried off to her seat, where 
she gently nudged her giggling lover for finding her discomfiture so 
amusing.  Her attendants, however, remained standing ready, desk 
hovering off the mirrored floor between them.  It took a moment for 
Ran to realize they were awaiting instructions.  

"Oh, um...You could just leave it--"  

Primera leapt to life at that, wriggling out of Yuriko's snuggling 
embrace before the sultry blonde could kiss her.  "No, Ran.  They 
will take it up for you, and place it wherever you like."  

"Oh.  Ah..."  Ran looked to Fiona, and waved her over.  "Then, Fiona, 
if you would direct them to my room?  I want it by the window." 

Somberly, she curtseyed (an act he found puzzling), and beckoned to 
the footmen to follow her up the sweeping stairs.  Ran watched the 
two men wind its way to the second floor with their precious burden, 
and then he headed back to his seat, another present in tow.  As he 
walked, he heard a clinking and chiming as if the box contained 
broken glass.  Had it suffered damage en route?  A look towards Yuriko, 
who had yelped with glee when he picked it up, proved that, no, it was 
supposed to make that sort of dismaying noise.  

With the barest of shrugs, Ran proceeded to unwrap it.  Ken leaned in 
close for a good look, his curiosity having gotten the better of him 
again.

***

Underneath the moire paper and the tape it had been so generously laved 
with, lay a box printed all over with tiny blue and yellow flowers- it 
had no name, no number, not a word upon it or any hint of what it might 
have contained, for in its life it had plainly been destined to serve 
as a neutral department store gift box and little else.  The only thing 
about it which might have set it apart from any other of its brethren 
was that it had a window in the front.

Underneath, the source of the disconcerting clanks was instantly 
revealed.  The teapot, it seemed, had been laid in the same compartment 
as its tiny, teardrop lid, and the two were wont to ring against one 
another at the slightest movement.  The teapot of course, wasn't the 
only breakable thing in the box, for a teapot, Yuriko's gift decided, 
was nothing without all the cups and dishes and whisks a proper tea 
ceremony could ever desire.

The only thing missing was the tea.

And a packet of that, labeled "ocha" in some chunky, scribbled hand 
flew into his lap just then.

***

"Good aim," he said dryly, amidst another flurry of giggles.  Yuriko 
tipped him a winking salute, and Ran lifted the packet up from where 
it had fallen, and dropped it into the box.  And then he admired the 
softly gleaming swirled indigo porcelain before him.  It was lovely, 
brought back memories of his old life--the one Takatori's cruelty had 
destroyed.  He would definitely have to try that out too, and soon.  
The first sunny day, out in the gazebo, maybe.  

"I'll put this to good use," he said.  "Along with all the rest."  
Ran politely inclined his head towards Yuriko, and carefully placed 
the set out of harm's reach.  

And then, wanting to save Ken's second gift for last, Ran went to 
take Fiona's off the dwindling pile.      

***

The tiny, oval box though, seemed to have a mind all its own and so 
proved just a finicky as the girl who had paid to have it bound in aqua 
paper.  It took the moment Ran reached for it to tumble end over end 
from where it had been perched on the edge of Ken's, streaking across 
the hapless picnic basket away from him. 

As Ran slipped from his chair after the difficult package, Claire 
bounded from her seat and quite brazenly pranced over to the tea set to 
get herself a better look.  "Hmm... so I see you didn't follow 
tradition, girl." She meant Yuriko, but for some reason. Paul looked 
over too.  

"'Course I didn't!" Yuriko giggled back, for she was too busy reveling 
in the joy of having chosen a gift that suited her friend's lover to be 
anything but gleeful.  "I don't work for you anymore." 

"Hmm! If I didn't know better, I'd say you sounded glad."

"Apples and Azuzalirs." When she shrugged though, her voice fell so she 
might have some semblance of privacy addressing Claire, who, florid 
with wine though she was, was still managing to stand next to her chair 
without tipping the slightest bit.  "B'sides, can you imagine the look 
on his face if I gave him the usual?"

"Usual inter-employee gift, you mean?"

Yuriko nodded.

"We could always find out..."

"You didn't..."

"Didn't what?" Ken demanded.

"Nothing much," And such innocence assumed her then, Claire could have 
been mistaken for angelic had she not been so frightfully squiffy as to 
hiccup.  To Ran she said, "Take that box back to your chair, boy.  And 
then I've got something for you m'self."

Yuriko bit her lip.

"Now, I didn't get to the part where I 'splain this to you- what we do 
about birthdays and All Saints' Day and stuff like that.  Tradition is, 
at the shop we swap fancy brassiers."

Ran managed, to his credit, to give no sign of his trepidation save 
that he turned very, very pale.

"But I didn't figure you'd go for that, so I boughtcha somthin' else.  
's pretty close."

"God, she still can't hold her liquor," sighed Lord Vyx, and saying so 
politely averted his eyes.

A little package of gold tissue paper appeared from the mussed folds of 
Claire's gown and came to rest in Ran's lap.  It proved to contain a 
pair of very new, very shiny, aurora borealis vinyl boxers whose hem 
was liberally dusted with flashing LEDs that lit up blue if anything 
happened to be resting in the left pocket.  

***

"I can NOT believe you gave me underwear." 

The room erupted in yet more champagne-heightened giggling. Claire 
pirouetted as neatly as a dancer, trailing a stream of green ribbon 
through the air; she spilled not a drop of her champagne from her glass. 
Not even when she came to a halt on her unsteady feet, and offered Ran 
a most formal Japanese bow--too formal, in fact, given her age and 
station. 

Ran, tucking the shorts into his shirt for concealment's sake--never 
mind that it was pointless, as the damage had been done--hurriedly 
rose to his feet, and caught Claire by the arm. In the process of 
draining her glass, she came close to falling backwards. Ran was 
rewarded by a loud, smacking kiss to his deeply pinking cheek. 

"No more drink for you," he stated firmly, plucking the flute from 
her fingers. It took her two seconds longer to realize what he'd 
done, and by that time, Yuriko had risen from her chair to lead her 
former employer back to her seat, both laughing out loud. 

"Shut up," he muttered, his voice lost in the gleeful chatter (and 
protests over lack of wine from Claire) from his guests. Ran whirled 
about and dropped to his knees before Ken's present, and picked up 
Fiona's. As he peeled the aqua paper away, he caught sight of Fiona 
moving towards him out of the corner of his eye.

***

Fiona who was just thinking at that moment that she could not 
possibly have chosen a worse time to come marching back into the 
lobby of the villa, for the air sill tingled with the residual 
merriment from a joke she knew nothing of, and she could not reach 
her seat without walking into the center of it all.  That, and Ran was 
going for her present. Some feet from him and the heart of all their 
gazes, she froze; simply stood, watched.

The lid parted, and for once that evening, no tissue peered out or 
attacked the boy's fingers: there was only a card with the name of 
someone's antique shop written on the front in a mostly illegible 
font. This followed the lid to the floor.

The thing beneath did not. 

It had probably been meant to serve as a paperweight, for though it 
was no larger than a kestrel's egg, it bore the weight of something 
much more substantial. What crystal it had been fashioned of was 
clearer than any earth made stone. The oval of it was perfect, but for 
one narrow slope which had been worn down for a base that would let it 
stand on end. Inside of all these arcs a fish had been cut- a rampant 
koi, a cloud of frost that shone through the untouched side, and 
lingered there, the only part of the glass not refracting the thin 
layer of transparent azure paint along the bottom like the rest did.

***

Ran settled the box on the floor before him and scooped the heavy egg 
off the square of cotton that had cushioned it. It felt cool in his 
palm, achingly smooth where his skin was not.

"The funny thing is, I always tend to write in front of windows, even 
at the flower shop--we lived above the one where we worked, Ken and 
I," he said, offering Fiona the gentlest of looks. "I had always 
meant to buy a paperweight of some kind, but I never really got 
around to doing it. I suppose it was easier to just let the sheets 
fly about on the breeze." He shrugged. "Or maybe I was just used to 
losing them that way." 

"Anyway, I'll just have to get used to not having to chase them down, 
now that I have such a beautiful paperweight to hold them still."

***

Fiona looked for all the world as if she would lapse into one 
embarrassed silence or another- that she might bite her lip too, and 
possibly flush about the edges of her cheek bones; perhaps even slink 
back to her chair with barely a nod.

She didn't.

"Now, if I woulda known that..." she ended up cutting herself off with 
a charmingly world-weary shrug, "Ah well! You decide you'd rather lose 
'em sometime, I'll make sure I'm be careless when I dust.  Li'l 
excitement never hurt anyone.  Glad you like it!"

And with that, she flounced back to the empty chair that WASN'T beside 
Ken, and managed to sit down without crossing her legs.  Not that it 
continued to matter where exactly Ken was sitting, for he rolled out of 
his chair then and down to the floor beside his lover to get a better 
look at just what everyone was leaning in so far to try and glimpse.  
Claire hiccuped, and so did Lord Vyx, whereupon they both paused to 
glare at one another's impropriety.  Ken just whistled as he admired 
the glass egg, eyes gently touched with wonder.

After all, Fiona certainly didn't know the story of Ran and the Kami, 
it was funny how such things managed to work themselves out.

But in the mean time...

"Just one more," he mouthed with a saucy grin, and decided just then he 
would much rather stay on the picnic blanket with Ran.  All the better 
to explain just what lay in the last of the boxes he had wrapped that 
morning.

***

Once the crystal egg had been safely returned to its box, that last 
gift of Ken's was revealed to be a common department store jewelry 
box, albeit one covered in a shiny gold foil.  One of the size that 
would hold a large pin or a dangly pair of earrings--and neither one 
was what Ran had expected to receive.  

"You didn't get me more jewelry?" he breathed, horrified at the idea 
of more money spent so casually.  But to his relief, Ken only shook 
his head, and dealt the box's lid an impatient drum of his 
fingers.  

"Okay, okay," Ran grumbled, batting his lover's hand away.  The lid 
fell to the side, and Ran took Ken's last present out and held it up.  

"You got me a photograph of a strange woman with a bewildered, furry 
kitten," he remarked wryly.  "Oh, Ken.  It's just what I wanted."  

***

"Oh!" Ken cried in mocking rapture.  "How could I EVER forget your love 
of pictures of people you don't know holding unhappy animals? 
Especially animals that aren't yours." He gave his lover a double 
thumbs up then, and smiled quite stupidly at all the guests, nodding 
and nodding as if such fancies existed to prosaic overabundance, and 
Ran was perfectly prone to them.  Some moments of this later, he 
finally laid one finger to his cheek, and he hummed in the middle of 
one worry or another.

"Now... wait a minute.  That's NOT what you wanted!  I forgot- that's 
your cat!"

Rather than act- or try to -any longer, Ken took his lover by the 
shoulder and grinned in his ear.  

"I sent a courier to Antiterra to find you one, but this's all she 
could send back in time for the party.  The *real* kitten should get 
here sometime tomorrow.  It's a girl!"

Yuriko squealed at this, and pinched at the periwinkle of her dress.  
"Wha! I shoulda worn pink! I knew it!"

***

And she was a beauty: a sweet-faced, green-eyed kitten with a white 
breast, her back splotched with red and smoky grey. 

Ah, if only tomorrow was just an hour away. 

"This is the last thing I had expected," he said, gazing in delight 
at the photograph. "I...Thank you, Ken." 

And he drew him close in an one-armed hug.  

***     

"Awwwwwwww!" went all of the guests, but not Ken of course.  He really 
made more of an "Ow," sound as the other boy's hat came sliding down on 
his ear, clear plastic grapes and all. No sooner had he spoken, than 
the whole room began to clap, the ringing applause bouncing from window 
to window, from the upside-down lake of the floor to the highest 
curlicue of ribbon.  Outside the sky pinked, though sunset still was 
still some time away.

Once the cheering had died down, Yuriko took it upon herself to finish 
her cat-shower related musings.  "We should think of a name for it~!"  
And Prim was not the only one who agreed, though Claire at least might 
only have been bobbing with the rhythm of her cups.  "How about 
'Kohana'?"

Her lover didn't agree with this at all, "It doesn't look like I 
Kohana, it looks like a Millicent."

"Millicent the cat?"

"Irulan! Irulan the cat!" contended Paul.  

"Yuck!" said everyone else, even Carly, who stuck out her tongue, and 
then went back to scribbling down what she thought the poor kitten 
ought to be called.  She came up with, 'Kaede', but not one noticed 
especially much.  There were too many other words soaring around her.

"Kambiri!"

"Espe!"

"Betje!"

"Pooky!"

"Miriam!"

"Latisha!"

"Dog!"

"You always suggest that!"

"Luna!"

"Wanyiki!"

"Musetta!"

"That's my foot, thank you!"

"Luminita!"

"Mindel!"

"Penarddun!"

"**XUAN-TRIHN**"

"QUIET!"

Once quiet had reclaimed the squabbling crowd, and Ken dared once more 
peer out form behind his lover's shoulder, Veronica went on to say.  
"How about a little music instead?" But without leave or answer, she 
set her violin to her shoulder, and began to play the most wistful, 
soothing piece from Swan Lake that which did well solo.  It quelled the 
guests considerably: shoes went back onto feet where they belonged, 
hands were shaken, and divinity theft quiet forgiven with a may-I-have-
this dance between Carly and the younger Blackworth sister.

***

Ran chose that opportunity to retrieve the boldly colored hat box 
from the jumble of cardboard and paper which now littered the floor 
around his chair, and set it upon his seat.  The elaborate hat soon 
found itself settled within those four protective walls, partially 
concealed by an askew lid.  If it was going to scrape the 
ears of anyone he bothered to get very close to, it was no longer 
practical.  The shorts he fished from his shirt never would be such.  
A glance over his shoulder revealed a seated Claire swaying back and 
forth in time with the violin's singing, a fresh glass of champagne 
in her hand; Ran's eyes narrowed at the sight of it, but he refrained 
from making any protest.  Instead, he dropped her gift onto the tea 
set, and covered up with a lid as well.    

"They've got a nerve trying to name MY cat," he groused to Ken
once he'd seated himself on the floor again.  "As if I couldn't do 
that myself.  It just so happens that I have the perfect name: 
Pavlova."

***

Ken's brows quirked a little, neither quite in amusement nor completely 
in surprise.  A quick flick of his hand, and he had the picture of 
his lover's soon-to-be cat.  A moment's pondering later, and with 
bright eyes now he told Ran, "Kore namae kawaii da na..."

Since no one save a Claire so drunk she doubtless would not well 
remember the scene chose to watch them then, he sank against the other 
boy's shoulder for just a moment, and purred, and rubbed him. 

"Just getting' some quality time in before she decides she likes your 
shoulder more than anywhere else in the world."

In Carly's arms, Paul rolled her eyes, having almost overheard, and 
much to her surprise, Carly did too, though the lady of the villa had 
the discretion to wait until she was facing the illustrated pane so no 
one but the angels saw her.  

Primera and Yuriko began to laugh at something that wasn't actually 
funny, and so Vyx decided neither to bother his host just yet, or ask 
either of them to dance.  Claire winked at him and would have sloshed 
champagne on him had there been any on her glass.  Force of habit had 
him dabbing where the impact should have taken place, but she took it 
as a sign of something else entirely.  

"Neeeeeeeee, so you still tango? I'd ne'era though you would, what with 
all those airs yer always  puttin' on about bein' so Fraggly-like."

"Well..." They were mostly to keep the woman herself from doing too 
much harm to his favorite hats, but she didn't need to know that, and a 
wink for Veronica told him it was quite alright if he wanted to.  "Yes.  
Yes, Madame Addiker.  I would like to share this dance with thee."

"Sweeeeeeeeeet."

So, all of the appropriate bows exchanged, they danced, and they nearly 
walked all over Ken and Ran amid the floor.  Both boys got to their 
feet then, quickly as they could though their arms still clung to one 
another.  The violin soared straight into another song without a 
moment's pause.

"Well," Ken began, and he nodded to Prim and Carly as they went 
spinning by.  "I can... a little.  You wanna try?"

***
 
When the next bar of music leapt onto the air, Ran dropped his arm 
from Ken's shoulders and caught him by the hand instead. Away from 
the foyer he led him, narrowly avoiding a bruising collision with the 
overenthusiastic Claire only because of his quick reflexes. 

Down the hall of stained-glass moonlight and glittering trees they 
went. Ran came to an abrupt halt in the middle of it, and spun his 
startled lover into his arms. He glanced down the hall towards the 
foyer, found no one was staring at them, and then curved a hand along 
Ken's jaw to cup the base of his skull. Longingly, he gazed into his 
eyes, seconds seeming to lengthen, and then those bright violet orbs 
disappeared behind shadowed, pale lids, and he brushed his lips 
against Ken's. Again and again, until he surrendered to his kisses. 

When he finally released Ken, Ran was pleasantly breathless and 
dizzy. He tipped away from his flushed lover with a hint of a 
smile. "We're acting like newlyweds, and I don't intend to behave. 
I thought I'd spare us both from any more knowing chuckles, 
and 'awwww's, and leers, and...so on. Plus, I don't want anyone to 
see me dance, because I probably can't. Never have. Still feel bold?" 
he asked, holding a hand out for Ken to take if he wished.

***

The pleasure in Ken's eyes had all melted away by the time his lover 
offered him his hand, and he turned his face from him so that the pale 
almost shadows hid the last of his joy. For he was smiling- it was only 
that the blue of his irises no longer held the same thoughts in them 
that his lips had.

But he did take Ran's hand in his own, and held it tight as he made his 
bow, moved as if in someone else's dream as he knelt upon the mirror at 
their feet, rose, and held out his arms at last. Soon, they were full.

"I've never felt bolder," the words wore a brutal, naked honesty that 
made them very faint. "Just don't think about it."

He didn't have to say "follow me."  Ran did, and one embrace tangled in 
another, they danced. The music did not follow their movements exactly, 
nor their movements the music, but they did not fall either into one 
another or the floor.  Their reflections chased them over the blue and 
amaranth shades the window.  And outside the sun began to wink away.

And Ken held Ran like the thought he would shatter if their bodies 
parted.

"Ran-ashke?" He asked. "Well, if we're gonna ACT like newlyweds... how 
'bout it? Let's get married. Right now."

***

Their dance came to a stop, though the violin still trilled from the 
foyer beyond.  They stayed locked in each other's embrace, swaying 
lightly and out of sync with the music, Ran's eyes misted with thought.  

But then, his fingers found the nape of Ken's neck, and buried 
themselves the hair which fell there. "Yes," Ran whispered.  "I want 
to marry you, Ken."  

***

The sadness tinted in his eyes burst into a kind of fragile wonder 
when his lover spoke, though that took flight from his spirit soon 
enough. Only the felicity of remained.  He felt nothing more, not even 
his own heartbeat, his breath, that he was even still truly alive.

And so, he kissed Ran- kissed him like he never meant to see him ever 
again, though when their lips had parted, he kept him so close their 
breath danced over one another's cheeks.

"You don't mind? Having a fete a leiche et seraphittes? Err, a Terran 
wedding I mean."

He didn't, his curious little tickles along Ken's ribs told that much. 
Ran said nothing more though- just waited for him to lead whatever ways 
there were.

/With a boy I seriously wanted to kill one a long time ago./

"Yosh! Well, the first thing we gotta do is wait. Not like with the 
hummingbird thing: you can't offend no one and you don't haffta 
remember a damn thing." The thought seemed to reassure them both.  
"Though you do haffta go find somebody right now- take 'em aside, and 
tell them we wanna do this.  They'll come up with some really good 
reason you shouldn't marry me, and you have to tell them a better 
reason not to care? Okay? That's it!"

Saying so, he pressed one last kiss to his lover's throat, tasting his 
pulse in the instances they were so lost in one another's warmth.  And 
then, he fled back to the party.  Ran's hand followed his own all the 
way to the tips of his fingers as he dashed after Yuriko's powder blue 
shadow.

(OOC: You read that right, a Terran wedding is called a party of death 
and little seraphs ^_^;.)

***

For Ran, the choice was not so easy:  pick someone who was something 
of a friend?  Or someone who...wasn't quite that?  The romantic, 
giddy Vyx would surely gush and try to hug him in celebration; Claire 
was his boss, and therefore inappropriate in his mind to share a 
confidence so secret and sudden.  Primera was Yuriko's, and Carly was 
more Ken's than his.  

Which left the acidic, no-nonsense Fiona.  He found her sitting all by 
herself on the second stair with a plate of half-eaten cake, solemnly 
watching Carly sweep the momentarily abandoned Primera into her arms 
for another spin around the foyer.  She looked up at him as if he had 
always been nothing more than a wisp of a dream to her, wondering why 
he was now flesh and blood.  

Ran knelt on the floor at her feet.  

"Fiona," he said, "I want to marry Ken."  

***

Fiona nearly expended her angel food cake through her nose.  

It had been displeasing enough to her good servant sense when she found 
herself having reveries about just WHERE grumpy bear had gotten himself 
off to; suddenly insidious with worry when she realized she cared what 
or who he was up to, but for him to ACTUALLY APPEAR as if summoned by 
those cuddly bunny worries she was trying to convince herself she could 
not have... Then ask her the last question anyone halfway sane would 
ever pose to anyone in his service... 

/Oh... wait... the last time Grumpy Bear did anything that made sense 
was... last week? Yeah, I think it was last week./

So she set what was left of her cake aside, and planted her hands on 
her hips.

"And I'm supposed to talk you out of it, eh? You know I only get *one* 
reason you shouldn't? How'dya expect me to pick *one*? This is probably 
the only time in my life I'm ever gonna get to scold YOU! Wait, don't 
start.  You picked me because you must want a show and a damn GOOD 
*one* reason so far be it from me to disappoint you!" At which she 
tossed her head and laughed.  "On your birthday no less!"

Then she realized, ninth wonder of the universe! He still had a smile 
for someone else smeared across his mouth.  Shrugging for Ken- for who 
else could it be? -she reached down, and took his chin in her hands 
with something close to gentleness playing on her skin against his own.

"Now, since there's ABSOLUTELY not point in reminding you that the both 
of ya are FU-... effing nuts, and I bet you won't sit through my 
explaining that none of this will ever really matter since Terran 
marriages are SECRET..."

That seemed to pique his interest.  Nonetheless, she went on.

"How about this?  Y'know, I thought you were a pretty cute couple at 
first, and I still do.  Thing is, you're a cute couple because one of 
you just walks east, and the other just walks west.  Someday, you're 
gonna slam into each other, or get so far apart you can't hear each 
other anymore.  And hey, even *I* see you two fight more than you'll 
ever make up."  

In the far corner of the lobby, Ken suddenly shrieked, "YURIKO! 
EROIIIIII!"

"Woul it's TRUE!" Yuriko replied, nonchalant among her giggles.

***

Both Ran and Fiona spared the two a glance before turning their 
attention back to each other.  

"We always have fought," he said.  "We're both stubborn, both have 
tempers.  Neither of us want to be told what to do.  And yes, in the 
two years I've known him, we've parted ways once or twice.  I left him, 
left them all once, and I never wanted to see them again.  At first.  
But then, someone--someone I truly hated, deep down--made me realize..."  

"Maybe we'll always part, and reunite. Maybe one day we'll part, and 
never reunite.  Who knows?  All I know is...I can't see myself ever 
hating him.  Sometimes, I think I'll love him until I die." 

"See?  I've got it bad, Fiona.  You have to give me your blessing."  

***

"Kinda hit the cake boy on the ass there, dontcha think?" Fiona sighed, 
and looked for some moments as if she was about to emulate one of her 
more irascible states, all customs and sane counterarguments be damned!

But she didn't.  Didn't even shrug, or grumble or try to brush his 
foolish aura from the air.  She didn't even turn away.  "Either way, 
it's yours.  Go get married.  Can't say I expected any less from you 
and him."

With one last nibble of her cake, she rose, plate in hand and pranced 
down the stairs back to the reflection of the table where the 
silverware and dishes had begun to gather.

Primera in the mean time spun from Carly's arms and trotted over to a 
neglected champagne flute, reclaiming the stem before Yuriko had a 
chance to whisk it back to her possession.  The play of skittering 
glass brought them nearly nose to nose, and they both grinned- one 
wicked as could be, once soft and sweet.  "Now, what were you and Ken-
san yelling about?" the elder Blackworth sister intoned.

"Nothin'."

"You always say that!"

Claire burped, excused herself at least five times, and finally 
affirmed, "'S truth."

"Woul, I mean it this time!"

"No she doesn't!" said Ken as he padded back to the midst of the 
guests.  His eyes were painfully bright, and his cheeks the lush rose 
of having been pinched and claimed by abashment.  "In fact, it was 
somethin' I MIGHT just be inclined to yell at the rest of you.  'Less 
of course you want to, Ran?"

***

With a mental shake to rid himself of his wonderings over Fiona's 
curious remarks, Ran sidled past Vyx and Veronica, and stepped into 
the circle.  "I want to make the announcement, though I promise not 
to yell it."  

A few titters rose from the crowd; Ken took Ran's hand when the 
redhead came to rest beside him, and Ran reluctantly tore his eyes 
from his lover to gaze upon the ring of expectant guests which 
surrounded them.  

"Ken and I are getting married.  Tonight."  

***  

No one said anything. No lips even breathed, and no throats stirred. It 
was as if time had been torn away from them with the plunging of the 
sun to the surface of the hills beyond.  The air seemed heavy as the 
water of the bottom of a golden ocean, and the only thing to cut 
through it was that last cataract of citrine that spilled across the 
floor.  In that though the demons towards the bottoms of the window 
claimed the tenuous brilliance.  Lord Vyx, his eyes glassy with some 
uncertain distance, turned away from everyone else, and looked upon 
them, the shadow of his braid hiding his face from Ran.  

Other than that, the guests might have all been statues whose marble 
eyes wept in spirit alone for the owners who had left them so many 
years ago.  

"Umm..." Ken's voice swept through the room like a petaled breeze; not 
merely a sound but a touch, too.  "Guys...?"

Then a tap-tap in the corner of the half-circle.  Someone's fan had 
fallen. Carly began to applaud now that her hands had been emptied, and 
she smiled.  Not some enigmatic twisting of her expression, but a real, 
tea-warm gaze of happiness.  It made her look her age though, for the 
creature of silence that ruled her body could not stay long under such 
duress that joy brought it.    

And then everyone clapped.  Even Fiona.  Even Veronica, once she had 
chanced her master's shoulder, and he had touched her fingers as he 
turned around, despite that his thoughts still clung to the window- 
that was plain.  Yuriko fled from her lover, and even though she had 
known before, again embraced Ken, who stumbled backwards under her 
weight, only to at last! Sweep her up in his arms.

She kept talking to him, but her voice, this once, was faint, and 
drowned out by Claire's intermittent "I'll be damned"s.

"So who's going to perform the ceremony?" Primera suddenly piped up, 
glancing about rather frantically.  

Her sister shrugged at her, and finally, after a good march across the 
middle of the circle, knocked her on the head.  "PRIMMY! You're the 
only daemon here who's OLD enough.  You have to do it.  Less you wanna 
send for somebody else..." This asked of Ken and Ran who both shook 
their heads.

"B-b-b-b-but I've never lead a fete a leiche et seraphittes!"

"Think of all the times mom's made us practice! We didn't spend all 
that time in the basement marrying the cats to each other for NOTHIN', 
did we?"

"I... guess not!" Here though, she sighed, and marched over to Paul, 
whose hair and single feather she ruffled much more than would have 
been gentle.  "You have to be my assistant though."

"COOL! So can I do that part where...?"

"Sure," soft, but fast enough to catch her before anything too much was 
said Primera shoved her sister into the middle of their little group, 
shattering the rays of sunlight gathered at the feet of the two lovers.

And Paul said without so much as clearing her throat while she searched 
her memories, "Minna-sama! You are all hereby sworn to secrecy! There 
is no one in this world or the next fit to know that Fuijimiya Ran has 
come to cherish the Hidaka-dono more than his own flesh; no children of 
Terra, and none of Antiterra.  No demon and no angel who has not been 
kissed by god.  Only death and seraphs shall bear witness besides this 
host, and should any word be breathed of this, then only death will 
know thee."

"They always say that," mumbled Claire.  "But they don't mean it as far 
as I can throw them."

***

"Then why force a vow when it doesn't matter if it's broken?" Ran 
asked, having heard Claire's reply. "Why bother when no punishments 
will be given under any circumstances? And why does it have to be so 
secret anyway, that I am marrying Ken?" 

Ran looked from one to the other in the group, and found that all met 
his eyes save for one: Vyx. The old man was gazing down at the 
floor, his face obscured by the heavy brim of his hat. Only 
Veronica, standing by him, offered him a smile. Ran didn't return 
it. 

"Vyx-sama. What's wrong?"

***

"Me?" Lord Vyx seemed almost as startled as if he had been caught 
ogling one of the boys about to be wedded, as impossible as that might 
have been from where his eyes had been. He pointed to himself like a 
little boy, glancing about as if expecting someone to remind him he had 
most certainly heard his own name.

Before he or Ran got another word in- either of them, Primera stole the 
silence for her own and ruined it.

"It's got nothing to do with who is getting married! What gave you such 
a silly idea? Why would you want to tell someone you didn't even know 
that you were married? It's absolutely none of their business and if 
you've got such exhibitionist ten-..."

Ken came to his lover's rescue, and caught the finger she was presently 
waving at him in his palm. "Prim... don't talk to him like that! Y'know, 
I kinda think it's screwed up too, 'cause well..." He shrugged.  "Just 
the way I am.  Who knows, maybe we WILL tell everybody someday."

As pink as Prim might have gone just then, she held her tongue, and 
mulled silently over the utter outlandishness of the situation without 
a hint of regret for her obvious tumble into thoughts far from 
nuptials.

"And annnnnyway," speaking now to his intended was Ken, "Terran 
weddings are usually private. And people keep 'em that way on an honors 
system, that's what all that crap's for."

"Yeah," Yuriko giggled, having snuck up behind Ran in the meantime. 
"They're like those naughty little secret things about you only your 
lover knows."

Paul stamped her foot so loudly then, and the floor clanged. She had 
the look about her as if she hadn't been finished, despite her trailing 
off earlier. "Like I was saying... sheesh! Can I please send the 
servants out. Please! This is what I've been waiting for!"  

Her sister gave her a slow, uncertain nod. Paul's arms swept up into 
the air, and the shadows they threw flickered over the ground like 
dancers.

"The servants shall leave and clear the angels' view."

"Hai!" caroled one crystal clear voice among the tiny throng: Veronica 
kissed Lord Vyx on his forehead, and a few caresses later, he told her 
she could have his chair, which she took with many thanks in as she 
trailed to the lavender haze still peering in from the windows in the 
front door.  She also helped herself to a not-exactly-empty champagne 
bottle on the way, her lord laughing with a mellow emptiness when he 
realized it was gone.

Fiona however grumbled and struck herself on the forehead at the 
declaration, but once she realized there was no getting out of it, and 
that Veronica had her by the arm, she had just enough time to snag her 
chair by the armrest and haul it after her, its velvet covered feet 
making a "Scree! Scree! Screeeee!" like a disgruntled dove all the way.   

When Yuriko tried to leave though, Carly swatted her on the shoulder 
and shook her head. It was she who swept towards the vacant purple 
evening then, leaving her footwoman behind once she had entwined her 
hands with Ken, and Ken had waved her away.

***

Yuriko scampered away with a quick kiss on the cheek for Ken, and 
settled herself in one of the chairs with her unfinished glass of 
champagne.  Just a few feet away from her, Primera and Paul were 
embroiled in an animated, quiet discussion.  From the smile on her 
face, Yuriko was clearly enjoying herself.  As was Claire, who sat by 
giggling merrily at seemingly nothing.  

Ran spotted Vyx wandering slowly down towards the window where the 
airborne angels stretched their snowy wings towards paradise.  What was 
the significance of that glass to Vyx's sudden dolor?  

Primera came up behind him and tapped him on the 
shoulder, momentarily disrupting his musings.  "Pardon me, Ran," she 
said, in far friendlier tones than she'd used before with him, "but 
we need the Hidaka-dono's opinion on...something."  

Ran watched Primera lead Ken away, and then he wandered away himself 
down the path his curiosity had paved for him: To Vyx.  The old man 
was now standing just within the moon-shadowed reflection of the 
Angel window; he didn't seem to realize that Ran was there until he 
spoke.  

"It's plain to see that you don't approve of this wedding," Ran said 
quietly.  

***

"Scuze me!" Paul shouted as she tore past them just then.  A little 
scrap of linen paper smeared with her sister's handwriting flickered in 
her wake, the song it played in tune with her movements lasting long 
after the softer floor at the end of the hall she had banked down 
muffled her steps.

Lord Vyx watched her until nothing but the silver flicker of her hair 
was left to them.  He seemed to be making sure she was gone, and once 
all doubt had left him, he gazed one more moment on the window, his 
eyes trailing down into the lacey knots the demons left.  

"Don't approve?" He sounded very slight indeed just, more puzzled than 
anything.  And he was smiling like an Regency portrait.  "I ah... oh... 
damn it all.  I didn't mean for it to seem that way.  It hasn't 
anything to do with you its... me."

***

Sensing that a lengthy story was in the offing, Ran folded his arms 
across his chest and settled himself against the wall, head bowed a 
bit in the manner of one sunk deep in thought. 

"Unless you want me to start thinking you're in love with either Ken 
or myself, you need to tell me exactly what's bothering you," Ran 
said, gazing at the old man's reflection in the glass. "What's so 
troubling about me marrying Ken?"

***

"Nothing!"  Vyx burst out, trying to make himself laugh through the 
sound of the word.  As he said it, he whirled away from the leaded 
glass that had so enraptured him before, and his hand strayed against 
his braid, palming his temple a little as if he feared he might look 
back, and half-hiding his peripheral vision might keep him from it. 
"Nothing at all.  Honestly.  I'm glad, so very glad..."

No sooner had he said so, or rather, almost through his wan grin, two 
enormous, sloppy tears crept down his cheeks.  "I just thought I could 
have one wedding where I didn't cry."

***

"Ah," Ran murmured, nodding.  "I guess that's why you're staring so 
horror-stricken at that window, and not at Ken and me.  Just THERE."  

Vyx said nothing, but ducked his head a bit, his braid now hiding his 
face.  Ran studied him for a moment, then shoved away from the wall, 
and took a few hesitant steps towards the window.  He stopped when Vyx 
had disappeared from his peripheral vision entirely.

"He didn't realize until today that he was the angel in the corner.  
He didn't know you were the one who had created it, either.  He was 
amazed by it, that you could catch his likeness so perfectly with 
pieces of glass.  He never said a word about the demon holding him, but 
I think he knows who that is, deep down.  I know who it is, and I 
loathe him, always have."  

Turning, Ran found Vyx's watering eyes 
fixed upon him.  "As you obviously do.  For you to stare at it so--that 
window is tied to the memory of a wedding, isn't it?  Did Ken marry 
him?"  

***

"I don't know..." Lord Vyx whispered.  "I never even saw Ken in person 
until this afternoon.  I did the sketch from one of Mlle. Carly's 
portraits with the Koichirou-dono leaning over my shoulder.  No one's 
more surprised it looks like him than I am."

He sighed then just the way that someone trying desperately not to sob 
out loud might- deeply and with a little stutter in his breath.  His 
eyes stole over the golden branches that hovered in a lacey web before 
what shadows had settled in the ceiling.  "Not that it matters much at 
all, of course.  I..." As if the indigo between the sunset and the 
night bothered him, he blinked once, and chased away a few more traces 
of saline.

"Ran... it's not you.  It's not Ken, it's not even *him* and it never, 
ever was.  Oh please don't let me make you think of him to-night.  You 
should be so happy- it's your birthday and your wedding.  I'm not worth 
spoiling it for.  I'm always like this, it's nothing.  Really, it's 
nothing."

***

"No, it isn't. It can't be nothing if you're going to cry and...and I 
can't get as close to him as I'd like because of..." Ran drew a deep 
breath, and finished in a hiss, "because of that bastard. I can forget 
about it, but it doesn't go away. Nothing ever goes away. Nothing 
changes." 

Some shadow of motion met the corner of his eye, and Ran winced away 
from Vyx, as if he feared the expected touch of the old man's hand. 

"I'm going to the garden," he said flatly, and he shuffled off down 
the mirrored corridor, all his colors now dull and sickly in the 
gradient moonlight.

***

"No! Don't go. Don't be mad at Ken! It's not his fault."

Ran stopped dead between one pale streak of light and another let in by 
a pair of seraphs reaching for each other. The iron set between them 
though was dark yet, and so was the boy as he knocked his fist against 
it waiting for his answer.

Even in the milky dimness, it was obvious Lord Vyx had begun to blush, 
tears and all, and he scrubbed at the warmth of his cheeks with his 
hankie.

"You're, right.  Nothing ever does change.  It's been four years and 
I'm still selfish enough to burst into tears at the wedding of my 
dearest friend just because my... m-my... because..." He swallowed 
hard, stealing himself though all his courage left him in the end and 
he could not speak without burying his face in his hands. "Because I 
miss Louis." 

***

"Louis?" Ran asked, a note of confusion in his voice. "What 
happened to Louis? He..." 

The words died away on his tongue, and his face slowly melted into 
its usual stoic mask. "He's dead?"

***

"I'll thank you not to rub it in no matter how absurd I'm acting,"  
Lord Vyx replied acridly, having blown his nose just faintly before he 
did so.  

/God, everyone above and below already knew... except for... you and I 
didn't want to... I didn't want to say it but you can't get married 
thinking something like that about the Hidaka-dono! The lesser pain 
is.../

When he shook his head to try and chase the shrouds of memory away, his 
unfamiliar braid startled him as it brushed against his cheek.  He 
caught it in his fingers, and looked it over as best he could without a 
mirror.

"I-..."

/It's as good an excuse as you're going to get./

"I'm a mess.  I should go fix myself up before I embarrass everyone 
else too." 

And with that he turned to leave the hallway.

***

Ran had been prepared to let him go, but what there was of his 
conscience needled him into action. He quickly crossed the narrow 
space that laid between them and caught him by the shoulder. 

"I didn't know he was dead. I wouldn't have said a word about him if 
I had." 


***

"Don't... don't worry about silly little me," the old man gently said.  
Another dab at his eyes and he stuffed the hankie back into his pocket.  
Ran guessed he had finished his tears, but his gaze was more fraught 
with them than before.

"So now you know.  It's really NOT Ken.  He's a good boy.  You'll be 
happier with him than you ever were before so..."

The cool tingle of his rings brushed up against his companion's face 
then as he laid his palms to his cheeks, and ever so daintily coaxed 
his lips into a smile.  

"...you cheer up this instant.  It's your wedding, and you only get one.  
I'll be just as angelic as I can be.  I won't cry anymore."

With that, Vyx swept away into the deepest shade, and having found the 
door to one of the downstairs powder rooms, he vanished within, leaving 
no sign he had chanced the arcade where the windows stood except for a 
few droplets of water between the marble and the last of the mirror.  

***

In his wake, Ran remained in the hallway, staring at the window, for 
he didn't want to go back to the foyer, and he feared going to the 
garden because of what he might do once he'd gotten a taste of clean 
air and freedom.  Whether Vyx cried or not, in Ran's mind, the 
wedding was already tainted.  The excitement he'd felt before had 
dimmed somewhat, all because of the old man's conjuring of Kaze's 
ghost.  Ran wasn't quite so sure that he should go through with it 
anymore.  In fact, he was feeling trapped, and his instincts for self-
preservation were urging him to run away, and leave Ken to his 
wraiths.  

But he knew if he did, he would always wonder what might have been.  

So he stayed.  And after a time he re-entered the foyer to find it 
still empty, the air devoid of voices.  The table still bore the 
remnants of his birthday feast, and his few unbreakable gifts still 
awaited him on the floor by his chair.  Ran crossed over to his seat, 
and picked up the book that was lying there.  He released the lock, 
and the cover creaked open under his hand; the sharp smell of leather 
greeted him.  

"I'm apparently supposed to be like you," he said, gazing at the 
painting, into the dark-haired figure's startling silver eyes.  "I 
guess now I'll find out if that's true."  

That said, he settled himself crosslegged on the blue picnic blanket, 
and began to read.

***

While his hands brushed over and over the pages, the sun left the sky 
in earnest, leaving only a mellow thread of pink behind, this far 
outmatched at last by the sudden, rising aqua which darted over the 
vault of the heavens.  The aurora nocturnalis startled Ran and not 
simply because it began so suddenly, rather than winking in, bit by 
with as the sky grew dim.  It had been nondescript the past few nights 
but... 

Now, all the firmament of Terra looking down on him blazed with bright, 
vibrant blue as if bits of the Riviera by morning light were bursting 
through the skies.  The windows between him and the clouds of light 
made as if it were mid-day, the silhouettes of angels now and then 
appearing upon the floor while the disturbance outside shifted and 
pulsed.  It was almost the same colors as they were really.

And it seemed to have a voice.  No words, nothing human, but a dull wet 
chime which would not fade tickled in between it now and then.  At 
first, he let it be but between the dance of the moon and the fragile 
moans, so clear that moment and so real, he stole away and watched.

"I don't know what that is..."

Both plainly startled by the other, Ran and Ken shook at one another's 
presence, the latter nearly falling backwards onto the floor.  His arms 
were crossed tightly over his chest, and even after he had caught his 
balance, he could not hold still.

"It almost sounds like a dragon, y'know.  But I've never heard one make 
a sound just like THAT."

Just then- a slick, metallic trill. The younger boy stumbled over to 
his lover, and kneeling at his side let his head come down against his 
shoulder.  Whatever he had meant to say at first evaporated, and the 
kiss his had almost laid to Ran's neck did too.

"It... it is!"

The aurora was not alone at all, for in its realm thrived a host of 
shooting stars breathing off the brilliance as if the dawn or dusk had 
lasted long past their moments.

***

No such exclamations of wonder fell from Ran's lips; he merely sat 
and gazed raptly at the windows, at the thick trails of glimmering 
lights that set the sky afire.  Another bright trill sounded directly 
overhead, very sharp and clear, and Ran, marking the book and setting 
it aside, slipped an arm around Ken's shoulders.  

"I can't believe it," he breathed at last, once the dragon's cry had 
faded into silence.  "A dragon, here.  On my birthday."  

Another jet of stars streaked across the wavering aurora, and winked 
at them like snow crystals in the sun.  

"I hope Yuriko's watching this," he added.  

***

"She is," Ken answered, a slight sigh playing through his voice then.  
"I left her upstairs on the front balcony.  That's how come I got to 
sneak down here with you."

His chuckle faded underneath the billows of another call- this one 
higher, fainter, more crystalline and dainty than the others, almost as 
if someone overhead had willed a wineglass to sing.  The thought, silly 
as it was, had him turning over his lover's arm a moment, and spying by 
moonlight one long-drained champagne flute.  He took it, and having 
kissed his finger, made the lips of it purr like an ice violin.  

The dragon didn't answer him.  Just the same, he snuggled his cheek up 
against the other boy's throat, admitting at last, "I don't know what 
to say to you, so I'm just gonna play for awhile before everybody comes 
lookin' for us."

***

Resting his chin atop his lover's head, Ran gathered Ken in his 
arms.  "You go ahead and play.  You don't have to say anything.  
Maybe words aren't necessary at all..."  He rubbed his chin over 
Ken's dark hair.  "Except..."

"Whatever happens in the future, I don't regret doing this.  Because 
I love you.  I hope you never forget that, Ken."  

***

Ken kept his word, or rather, his lack of them.  Once his lover had 
said all he was destined too, he gave him little answer, but returned 
the edge of his embrace, and kissed him once on the neck, leaving a 
hole in the flow of his notes.

He played though; played until he had five pitches his fingers had only 
just then learned.  Played until a hundred stars had silently died, and 
the voices of the dragons wept away to nothing.  Played until Paul came 
trotting into the lobby, her hands behind her back.

"Ken?"

"Yes?"

"I ah..." even in the blue cast draped throughout the room, her 
embarrassment shone on her cheeks.  "I looked, I really did! But it's 
dark out, y'know and even if the sun was up and everything, I don't 
think I'da had much luck."

"What's the matter?"

"I could only find one feather. I searched all the grounds I thought I 
could find my way back from, and I thought about givin' you the one in 
my hair but it turns out the damn thing's not real!"

"It's not?" Ken seriously hadn't been aware there were such things as 
synthetic peacock feathers. "We'll be fine.  Don't sweat it."

She most certainly was in no semblance of mood to take his advice.  
"Wait, I did find one and... err... one other thing!"

Rather than call her over directly, he patted his knees, and summoned 
by the sound alone.  Paul came and knelt right next to them, all but 
sitting in Ken's lap.  She laid upon his knees a raven's pinfeather, or 
what looked at least, from an Antiterran point of view, to be plumage 
of such a bird.  It enchanted him either way, and he reached for it 
with a most indelicate eagerness.  

"This is perfect! And hey, one good one's better than none at all."

"But I've got this too!"

What else the little girl had in her possession was no feather, but 
rather a shaft of thin, light bone which had once been strung with the 
membrane of a giant fin.  Silky shreds still clung to its edges, and as 
luck had thrown it off, they ran from tip to tip in near perfect, 
likeness of a feather.  By moonlight, it glistened, irridescing with 
touches of one light and the next as if swathed in bright liquid of a 
thousand, pastel colors.  

It took the two boys a moment to realize the hues were not rippling in 
time with the light strewn through the heavens. 

"Paul..."

"It's a dragon pinion, I know."

"Where did you get it?"

"It was hanging from the roof of the gazebo."

***

"That was lucky," said Ran evenly, and Paul stared at him as if she 
were disappointed in his lack of enthusiasm.  

If anyone had doubted there were such things as dragons in Terra, the 
occupants of the Hyacinth Villa now possessed irrefutable proof of 
their existence, for the plume could belong to no other creature than 
a dragon. Ran half expected to see water drip from the edges of the 
shining tatters, and summarily chided himself for giving in to his 
fancies. 

Still...

"There it is, a name for the flower shop: Karasu to Ryuu." 

He paused, looking from Ken to Paul. "I'm kidding, of course," he 
added then. "Although, I'm sure finding such a feather has some 
significance, given the way you both are marveling over it." 

(ooc: According to my dictionary, "Karasu" is interchangeable for 
both 'Raven' and 'Crow'.)

***

Paul leapt back into the conversation at that, hell bent on being the 
first to laud their little prize.  "Well, a couplea years ago, the Duke 
of Memoria paid a hundred thou for one! In CASH.  Of course, I think 
that's just b'cause he wasn't around back when that one crashed in the 
woods.  Mosta the people who were there had dragon pinions at one time 
or another.  I *~KNOW~* Claire's still got hers."  

The inquisitive look she canted Ken with those words was met with a 
shrug, and Ran, never having seen his employer's house, wasn't 
especially moved to say anything.

"But I think," the younger of the two boys added then, "We shouldn't 
worry it.  Not t'night! Nope, t'night, Ran's gonna be the first person 
ever who gets married with a dragon pinion."  

As his possessive little squeeze melted around his lover, Ken added, 
"At least, all they'll get to see.  Happy birthday..."

"My Sweet Lord, what's all the shouting in here for?"

"...Ran-ashke, my Vanyel."

All three looked to the glimmering swoop of the window then, for cast 
in misty profile against it stood Lord Vyx.  His hair had been braided 
again, so it hung over his back now, rather than trickling down one 
shoulder, and a fresh cloud of rosewater chased his steps.  The perfume 
in and of itself seemed to explain the water caught in his lashes away, 
for Ken and Paul both beamed up at him, and laughed with him, for he 
did laugh.  He laughed like he had no world at all, rather than a 
stitch in space where no worries drifted after him.

"It's enough to make an old fop think you've been up to no good 
already, in which case, shame on you both! Not to... oh! Have you got 
there what I think you do, Ran?"

***

"If you're thinking it's a dragon pinion, then yes, you're right."  Ran 
lifted it up for Vyx to take.  "The Villa was visited just moments 
ago."  He bit off remarking upon how Vyx had missed it all, and 
merely settled in to Ken's embrace.  "I suppose this means that the 
fey things of Terra approve of our wedding."  

Whistling in newfound delight, Vyx twirled the plume gently in one 
hand, and Paul snorted in disapproval of Ran's lack of seriousness, 
bringing a whisper of a smile to the redhead's face.    

"Sorry, Paul-chan.  But I've seen too many strange things in my life 
to be utterly bowled over by the appearance of a dragon."  

***

"Even if that dragon appears to be shedding?" Vyx inquired, letting the 
plume flip over and over in his hands for a moment before brushing it 
over one cheek just to see what Paul would do.  

She didn't even see him as things turned out, but rather, leaned close 
as she could to Ran and asked,  "Is it true you don't have dragons on 
Antiterra?" The notion seemed to be fraught with disbelief.

"Why, yes it is!" Vyx replied.  "In fact, there is nothing even 
remotely dragon-like on Antiterra.  And if that alone wasn't reason 
enough to forgo telling Ran all about them- and no doubt mangling just 
what they look like..."

"Primmy already told me not to." 

"Ah, good girl.  I'd pat you on the head if I bent that way anymore.  
In the mean time, best to steal a chair now while there are still 
chairs to steal!" He managed to find his own by the twinkle of his 
goblet's charm, and between him and the younger Blackworth, pulled it 
over to where the two boys had once more entwined themselves.

***

The bony quills scraped his scalp just over his ear when Vyx slid the 
twin slivers through his dark red hair. The pearly blue-green of the 
fin quivered and winked just in his line of vision, as he turned his 
face to the elder man who sat at his side. Vyx was gazing down at 
him in an odd sort of way--kind of sad, yet smiling. The sort of 
look that would have made Ran grow reflective; if he had been alone 
in the cool purple, wisteria-scented shadows of his room, he might 
have surrendered to the waking dreams that often plagued him. 

But he was not. Ken rubbed his nose against the curve of his throat, 
tickling the fog from his vision, and he bent just in time to catch 
another kiss. 

"How do you know there aren't any dragon-like creatures on 
Antiterra?" he parried, snared in another of Ken's bear hugs.

***

"'cause," replied Paul, and she might have left it at that, were it not 
for a little nudge from Vyx's foot.  "Well... OK, Prim told me not to 
tell anybody this, but that's where I got my coat!"  Saying so, she 
pulled this way and that on the knit of it until the threads creaked, 
and still not pleased with their suffering, rose to her tiptoes, 
spinning through the shadows now until her tails swept out around her 
in dainty black twirls.

"Y'see, I met this Antiterran guy once... err... not really met, but 
he was drunk at my mom's place anyway.  And he bet me that there were 
no such things as dragons, 'cause they didn't exist on Antiterra.  
Well, we took him to the seashore with us that summer and did he ever 
eat his hat.  Not the best choice of words there I'm sure but you get 
the idea.  Anyway, I made him give me all his clothes.  Fin!"

"Oh! Don't say that!" The old man complained with a laugh.  "You'll 
give our soon-to-be newlyweds ideas here!"

Ken just shrugged.  

"Are we too late then?" Primera inquired, having appeared from the 
midnight blue arches of the hallway where Ken's angel lived. 

"No, just in the nick of time, rather."

"Good."

"Oh, very much so!" Yuriko echoed, or at least her voice, for the rest 
of her in shadows still hid.  

"Sorry it took so long to find all this." 

All three of the women who had otherwise vanished in the moments since 
the dragons came filed one by one into the room, their small burdens in 
hand.  The elder Blackworth sister carried a small picnic basket while 
her lover pulled along two pillar candelabras whose unlit candles were 
encircled with glass lilies.  Claire, still swaying now and then with 
her champagne, walked behind them with a little crystal vase where 
rattled some fireplace matches. In the hazy light of the Terran sky, 
they almost wore guises each more sibylline and strange- the three 
fates, or the three norns by the eyes of those who could of watched but 
didn't; three goddesses unnamed.  Three shards of the Celts' 
protectress.  

It was Claire who spoke first, "I've been to enough weddings to know 
what I'm doing.  Go one, boys.  Pick somewhere nice and sit facing each 
other while we get these damn things lit."

"Hey, that's my line, or some dumbed-down form thereof!" Prim fussed.

With one last kiss to his lover's cheek, Ken rose to his feet.  Still 
in the center of the picnic blanket, he stretched quite unabashedly, 
shook out his hair, and redid one of his buttons that had come 
unfastened.  Then he took Ran's hand in his own, and together they 
strode to the edge of the two panes of glass until they were trapped 
neither by the mirror, nor the window.   

***

There, in a tongue of blue shadow, Ran turned to gaze upon Ken.  

Ran still bore the marks of Ken's embraces: his hair was wildly 
rumpled from the wanderings of his lover's fingers, and his shirt was 
held closed by three buttons only, straight down the middle.  The 
slightest movement, and the fabric would part, and reveal the smooth, 
lightly defined planes of his chest.  It was there where Ran placed 
that hand of Ken's which he held, covering it with his own.  

He said not a word, but let the beating of his heart speak for him.  

One by one the candles winked into life, lightening the deep blue 
shadows that swirled around them, and warming them both with their 
soft, white glow.  It was then that Ran knelt on the floor, tugging 
at his lover to follow.  

***

Ken sat lightly on his heels, his hands folded on his lap now that they 
had strayed from Ran's.  A faint smile clung like dew to his lips.  
Whether it was the dancing of the candles and those of the sky that 
made him seem to be fidgeting, or if he had found no other way to still 
his delight, in the tangle of shadow and light, Ken seemed not but a 
laughing little flame himself.

Not that this had any effect on Primera.  She let her sister escort 
their remaining guests to the lacey rim of the candlelight.  Paul 
brought Lord Vyx's chair for him, and Yuriko, once she had brought 
Claire's seat, perched on its arm the way a bluebird might, her toes 
dangling into a lake of cerulean flickers.  

Vyx just smiled, and surrendered the two feathers to Paul, who withdrew 
to the shadows with them.  The elder Blackworth, satisfied at last all 
her flames were burning, knelt with her basket and began to work.  
Inside lay a tiny pedestal of pewter ribbons crowned with a glass bowl 
such as one might float flower petals in, though she filled it from a 
bottle of honey and crowned the golden mound of it with black pepper 
first, some pale and faintly acid tincture second.  For some moments, 
her potion did nothing but murmur faintly, and she had to blow on it 
before it obliged her and burst into a gentle, amber flame whose wisps 
of smoke smelled sweet and vinegary. 

"And now, we wait."

But waiting, Ran found, was only to watch, for now besides the specters 
of the aurora and one another's misty forms, the thin cascade of smoke 
opened like a flower just above their heads, and whatever substance 
lived there fell down to earth once more in a dome of pale wisps that 
vanished just before they touched the floor.

***
 
To Ran, it was like watching fluffy clouds sail across a searing blue 
summer sky, all he needed was a grassy bank to lie upon.  The 
drifting, twirling plumes of smoke melted in shapes before they 
shattered on the glassy floor:  Birds of paradise; tea cups shaped 
like orchid blossoms; clipper ships with their sails full of air; 
butterflies at rest; and, for one blinking moment, Aya's smiling face 
framed by her flowing braids.  That he had seen her in the billows 
didn't surprise him at all, though he felt a pang of sadness--which 
he forced back just as her ghostly visage crumbed into thin air.  

That was unlucky, he thought, and automatically, he made a slight 
warding gesture.  Beyond the scattered pools of candlelight, Paul 
coughed delicately, and Primera leveled a mildly exasperated look in 
her direction.  Which she then turned on Ran when he broke the spell 
of quiet by speaking.  

"What are we waiting for, Primera-san?" he murmured.  

***

"Oh, nothing," she said.  Her hand fluttered in a dismissive wave that 
made the vapors all around her coast through the wobbling circlets of 
each other's substance. "Back before that huge war on Antiterra, we 
would have all stayed here until both of you saw something that you'd 
regret leaving behind now that you're going to be married.  If one of 
you couldn't leave that thing, then there wouldn't be any wedding.  But 
it's just for show now.  No one ever sees anything in the smoke."

***

Just a glimmer of dismay lit in Ran's eyes before he dropped them 
from Primera's searching gaze. He didn't look at anyone, not even at 
his dim image in the looking glass they rested upon, though he knew 
all eyes were now turned on him; his skin was prickling too 
ferociously. 

Ken's hand crossed the void between them and covered one of his own, 
spurring Ran into speaking. 

"I saw something in the smoke," he rasped. "I saw my sister's 
face." 

***

Primera didn't say anything.  It sounded faintly as if Paul was asking 
about Aya-chan in the background and trying not to show it, but no one 
answered her.  Not even Vyx, though he did say something to himself 
before he rose and  through the criss-cross of blue between the light 
of the two candelabras, crossed over to where the two lovers sat, and 
laid his hand on Ran's brow.  

His palm was warm yet, despite how fine and filmy his skin had become, 
and rough from the crossing of so many thousand bits of glass.  The 
boy's hair he ruffled fondly for a moment before tipping his head back 
so his eyes had no choice but to meet the not-so-distant figure of his 
lover.  

Ken still smiled, though his irises had begun to shimmer.  It didn't 
look like he would weep in truth at all, or that he meant to- only that 
he had nothing else to sooth with than his own heart.

As he held out his arms to his lover he said, "Ran... I'd never make 
you leave Aya. You don't have to choose between her an' me.  No matter 
what! I love her just as much as I love you.  She'll be dearer to me 
than anything I own, and since I'd never... do that to you.  You don't 
have to worry, y'know?  I promise."

***

Vyx, seemingly satisfied that Ran would not deny Ken his full 
attention, set the boy free. Ran, after a brief pause, inched 
forward to both accept Ken's embrace and enfold him in his own. 

"I never thought you meant to make me leave Aya," 
he said, rifling Ken's hair. "I just...I want this. I want her and 
I want you, too. I want...to have a family again. I've missed 
that." He squeezed his tear-stung eyes shut, and pressed his 
forehead to Ken's. He couldn't bring himself to say anymore about it 
then and there. 

"She'll be surprised when she awakens and finds she has not one but 
two brothers."

***

Primera, more or less resigned that custom had been cast to the four 
winds by then, made no move to part the two lovers before her.  She 
simply rose and slipped past the curtains of smoke and light, letting 
her feet draw her all the way to the last rivulet of space between the 
window and two boys so recently betrothed.

The vapors chased each other down her back, through the pink of her 
dress until it had changed to pale rose-gray, and she in effigy, was 
theirs and theirs alone.  Their voice.  

Meanwhile Lord Vyx would not to leave his friend's side, and was far 
from silent himself.  The edges of his cloak and the hundred layers 
there swooped over one another.  Close enough to Ran's ears, it sounded 
almost like leaves kissing in the air outside.  

The smoke said then: "And now the angels' eyes laid naked between here 
and the closest stars, time runs backward and away from space.  
Everything is as it was before God drew breath; this existence, this 
moment, by mortal hands shall be made time immemorial- the instance all 
leads to, and away from."

Her cue given, Paul blew her nose in one of the tails of her coat, and 
brought the two feathers into the candlelight.  Ken took that of the 
crow, and the dragon pinion fluttered gently back and forth, waiting 
for Ran.

***

Ran, seeing his cue, turned and plucked the waiting plume from Paul's 
hand.  The feather caught the candlelight and threw it back in 
blue-violet shimmers, and Ran slowly twirled it in his fingers as he 
waited for Primera to continue the ceremony. 

***

Which she did only when quite certain each of the boys at her feet had 
their feathers.  Ken fumbled with his for an instant, finally turning 
it upside down to see what had bitten him so.  He found of course, that 
since he had last laid eyes upon the shaft, the end had been sharpened 
with a pen knife to a tapered, glinting point.

But through this, Primera went on. "Beyond this moment, death only 
reigns.  Beyond here, there is nothing for any of the lovers so 
enamored of one another's presence.  Without presence, we would not be 
gathered here, but in time, time or not, draws us away.  If time the 
angels have torn for us, than space we shall mend ourselves so that 
moments, here or elsewhere, fleeing this or not, shall not be able to 
break it.  Hidaka-dono?"

As if her voice had wakened him from a dream, he turned to her.

"Apres je repetez.  Chair ne que chair desu."

"Chair ne que chair desu." His tongue tripped a little on the words, 
for they seemed familiar to him.  It only seemed a shard of nervousness 
to the guests.  
 
"Je enfant a sepulcre desunai..."

"Je enfant a sepulcre desunai."

"...de brisa a matin desunai, haeine nai, corps a Dieu nai."

"De brisa a matin desunai, haeine nai, corps a Dieu nai."

"Sauf temps..."

"Sauf temps."

"...abadonnie desuai."

"Abadonnie desuai."

"Dans seraphittes no espirettes cette durlerai..."

"Dans seraphittes no espirettes cette durlerai."

"...si dans vous no chair je no chair entombaie desuso."

"Si dans vous no chair je no chair entombaie desuso."

The words had chased their way from his lips as easily as the haiku 
earlier in the day, even while to Primera they were cold as glass 
beneath snow.  One celebration and one elegy, in tune they followed 
each another.

"Onegai ae nous peau fendde."

Still smiling, gently as he could, Ken set the feather's point to the 
underside of his forearm.  For an instant, the cut, fine as it was, 
would not even bleed, though even when it did, he offered no sound of 
pain, no worry for the blood which fell upon the mirror.  

***

Ran looked over at Primera, who merely offered him a solemn nod by 
way of bidding. Ran unhesitatingly took the dragon pinion in hand, and 
aimed the sharpened point over his forearm. Without any further 
prompt, he began to speak, and clearly, gazing upon Ken all the 
while. 

"Chair ne que chair da.  Je enfant a sepulcre danai; de brisa a matin 
danai, haeine nai, corps a Dieu nai. Sauf temps abadonnie daai. Dans 
seraphittes no espirettes cet durlerai. Si dans tu no chair je no chair 
entombaie daso."

He pricked the whittled point into his skin, and cleanly cut 
a line into it. Blood welled in dainty bubbles, and then dripped 
freely onto the mirror, mixing with Ken's on the glass.  

***

Ken lowered his eyes at last, and let his fingers creep in tiny 
circlets through the blood so fallen from his lover's arm.  Above them, 
Primera watched, neither attentive nor lost in the sweet fumes still 
dancing through her hair- just admiring the way the younger boy played 
below her, caressing Ran's blood as if his beloved could feel it.

No waiting had been proscribed her before the last of her lines, but 
she let them have their moment until they both dared look to her, still 
wounded, but took light with joy to care it seemed.

"Nous deboia pouvoie," she said, "Un to alors autre.  Alors tous deux 
ensemble."

His fingers already slick and ruby dark, Ken lifted them to his mouth, 
and in one moment's hesitation, watched them tremble with his own 
heartbeat before he washed them clean with his tongue.  There was no 
trepidation though, between the kiss that lit upon his lover's palm, 
and those that met his wound.

***

A tiny thrill rippled through Ran when Ken's lips met his weeping 
cut, but he waited until his lover had settled himself on his knees 
again, before he conducted his part of the ritual. He swirled his 
four fingers through the tincture of their mingled blood until they 
were all heavily coated, and then he too, lifted his reddened digits 
to his mouth and methodically licked them clean. 

He kissed Ken's wound then, gingerly lapping at the blood that flowed 
from the rent, then rose and kissed him full on the lips. 

***

Ken said nothing, did not wish he could but smiled rather under his 
lover's gentle onslaught until his tongue peeked out from between his 
teeth for Ran to caress with his own. Prim's breath was the only 
sound but for a few happy sighs, for it took her two to blow out the 
little honey pyre which spawned the smoke. It gave out with one last 
puffball of white vapor; slept then, smoldering al little in it's 
leftover warmth. 

All the candles stayed lit, even though Lord Vyx's passing nearly put 
one out as he returned in time with bandages. The two boys had scarcely 
moved, save for when Ken reached up with his uninjured arm and took his 
Ran's cheek in his hand. Their guest merely patted their shoulders and 
withdrawing to his chair.

The younger of the two glanced a moment at the bobbins of white 
cloth, and for the only moment of the whole wedding, knew a little 
twinge of sadness, for all ritual aside, he wished dearly Omi would 
walk through the door and bandage Ran for him- he'd never been good 
at such things himself. That Youji would think they needed some beer 
to round things out and deem himself the only one fit to fetch some.

But without them, without the insinuations of their forms upon the 
darkness, he was free, light, his own and alive enough for Ran. 

Still bleeding himself, he began to work at binding the other boy's 
wound. 

Only then did anyone dare applaud.

***

Ran ignored them, their applause and chuckles and fond pats. He only 
watched Ken inexpertly wind the snow white strips around his wounded 
forearm in solemn silence; he didn't so much as tug at the thrice-
tied knot he'd laced, either, just picked up another roll of cloth 
and began to bind his lover's wound, and tried not to dwell upon the 
fact that Ken did not say he loved him back, though his omission 
stung him somewhat. 

Once he'd tied the strip tight over Ken's cut, he caught his hand and 
held it as he rose to his feet. Ken followed him, and they two made 
their way from that consecrated spot to the center of the room, by 
the blanket. Hands brushed their shoulders, and arms embraced them; 
lips kissed flesh--Ken's more so than Ran's. Primera wandered over 
to summon the servants from the porch, and Ran bent to whisper in 
Ken's ear. 

"When do I get to take you upstairs?"

***

"Soon," Ken purred his answer, batting at his lover's eartails as he 
did so.  The red threads intrepidly washed back against his cheeks, and 
he laughed.  Just laughed, and tried to lay a kiss to Ran's throat.

"Not soon enough," Fiona took that moment to chime in, and she got up 
on her tip-toes not two feet before them, smirking sarcastically to 
first one's eyes and then the other's.

"What? What! It's an innocent question.  We like to go to bed early.  
It's umm... a Japanese thing," sputtered Ken.

"You're making things worse for yourse~elf," Yuriko was good enough to 
point out, not to mention punctuate with a swat to Ken's head.

Their servant found herself inclined to agree: "Yeah, he's good at 
that."

And both girls laughed as the subsequent ritual poking began, this much 
to the ire of Primera who found herself alone between the candles, only 
this time, with a mop and a bottle of window cleaner, the residue of 
which Paul blotted up with a pair of dishtowels she had taped to her 
feet.  Veronica, having without the slightest grumble hauled her own 
chair and Fiona's back inside, saw to her master a moment, gave his 
hair a little yank and once more began to play while Carly trotted once 
more about the table after any champagne that had been missed.  

She found some, and in the middle of Ken's latest noogie, presented him 
and his beloved with two very full glasses and a great, big, saucy 
grin.

Not to mention, a hiccup.

***

"It seems the party started on the porch," said Ran, as he took the 
glass from Carly's hand.  

Carly flicked her fan open, and fluttered it coyly over the lower 
half of her face before snapping it shut with a hard click, and 
dealing a light swat to the top of Ran's head.  She grinned impishly 
at the glare he gave her, and spun on her dainty heels; the treat-
scattered table held more delights than did he, and Ran couldn't say 
he wasn't relieved.  

"Okay, so we celebrate some more.  More champagne and bits of cake."  
Ran caught Fiona by the hand, startling her grin away, and making 
Ken's grow.  "Come on.  You should have a little something to sip on, 
too."

***

To the girl's rather befuddled expression, Ken shook his head, and with 
his empty palm stroked her hair almost fondly until his wrappings 
snagged in her bangs, and his attempts to fix them only made things 
markedly worse.  "A little bubbly won't hurtcha.  Go on, get your glass 
and tell Carly to fill it up.  But don't have any more than that."

Not one to disagree with a little alcohol, Fiona nodded, taking off to 
the table and the remnants of the cookies there. Once she's gotten her 
glass or someone's class, she found the Mademoiselle was more than 
forthcoming with the champagne.  Drink in hand, she returned to her 
master and said, "Well, congratulations you two.  Or omedettou.  Or 
whatever you want.  Anyway, here's not lotsa years of not killing each 
other."

Figuring it was the best they were going to get, they drank.  Or most 
of them did.  Fiona had only let her lips skim the edge of her flute 
when her eyes grew wide, and the liquid under her nose stirred with a 
backwards gasp.

"You OK?" Ken asked with a thump to her back.

Before she could answer or dry the splashes on her cheeks, the door 
came flying open and someone else's voice drowned out her own.

"I didn't miss the party! Isn't this nice?"

The lights with that swayed on and all the guests found themselves 
hiding their eyes in their hands.  The aurora outside dimmed to cheap 
mood-lighting hardly apropos to the setting otherwise and the candles 
might as well have been stilled.  Once they could see again, they all 
spun towards the entryway, drawn some by the familiarity of the voice, 
and some by its sound alone.  Those who thought they knew it though 
found something of it seemed just a little off.

Really off when it came to the sight logically awaiting them.  Logic 
had died a horrible, gory death.  

It looked like Schuldich, and it didn't; like a memory him snatched out 
of a nightmare and carelessly pasted into the present, all of the neo-
freudian tell-tales of his unconscious incarnation still clinging to 
him.  

He had on a dress.  And not just any dress, but one of faded raspberry 
gauze that nearly hid the toes of his silver imitation snake skin 
boots.  Despite the disturbing fluffiness of the skirt and gathered 
sleeves, the bodice rather had been fashioned of stiff black lace and 
little nets of black seed beads strung over starched satin- it had been 
expertly stuffed and held against his skin so that the illusion of his 
tender breasts melted perfectly in with the rest of him.  A collar of 
quartz and silver beads dripped down his neck, and his ears were 
covered with starbursts of iris black that simply didn't match at all.  
Over all of this, and drifting in the modest breeze at his side, 
sprawled a cloak of electric blue crushed velvet.  

His nails had been painted a blinding rose, his lips red as pomegranate 
juice.  Kohl and malachite circled his eyes.  Someone had styled his 
hair in little goldie-locks sausage curls.

Just so, he dangled in the doorway a moment, plied pretend desperate as 
a Calvin Klein model against the frame.

Ken dropped his drink.  Fiona was quick enough to catch the goblet, but 
its contents washed over floor in a lake of peach-colored bubbles.  
Paul laughed outright and Yuriko too.  Claire started a conversation 
with Prim's mop.  Lord Vyx had to be fanned by his servant though into 
each other's arms they fell at last, trying to stifle their glee.

As if drawn by their fleeing giggles, Schuldich swept away from his 
pose and crossed the glistening floor between himself and Ran.  A swift 
kick to Ken's already wobbly shins, and he had taken his place at the 
elder boy's side, hanging on him like some rather tasteless drapery.  
He looked up at him with soft, dilated eyes.  

"Hi there, handsome. Did you seriously think I'd miss this for the 
world? As if I'd ever let one of my biggest fans alone on their 
birthday."

"Biggest fan? What the hell!" Ken spluttered.  

The telepath giggled in response. "Oh, honey.  You really need to share 
your taste in music with your pretty boyfriend.  Who am I? Silly.  I'm 
Stevie Nicks!"

***

With a growl of disgust, Ran pulled free of Schuldich's arms.  "You 
aren't welcome here.  Get. OUT!" 

***

"Ohhhhhhhh, how come?" Schuldich asked dreamily once he had brushed 
away all of the imaginary dust Ran's fingertips had left upon his 
clothes.  "Did I do something WRONG?"

"Ah... no you didn't, Ms. Nicks!" Ken replied, trying not to laugh 
throughout his rather terrible singing seriousness.  A quick wink to 
Fiona and he sauntered out into the middle of the floor where their 
uninvited guest stood, glancing carelessly about with his hands clasped 
to his cheeks.  

A moment's wiggling hesitation and he had taken him by the shoulders in 
the manner he'd so often seen Youji half-embrace his lady friends, 
wheeled him around and started to the door, saying after his girlish 
gasp, "Not at all.  The only thing is, you see, we wanted you to come 
to-MORROW, not to-day.  You just need to tell that appointment guy of 
yours to mind he writes everything down in the right little box.  You 
can do that as soon as you come down from whatever it is you're high 
on."

"I just had a couple joints.  I'm okaaaaaaaay.  I can sing."

"That's great! But it's still not the right day."

"Oh dear, silly me~e."

"I'll just walk you to your carriage now and..."

"Wait!" 

Though the telepath hadn't actually pulled on Ken's arm or trodden on 
his toes to make him stop, but so sudden and plaintive was the 
exclamation, he did, and proceeded to sweat even more once it finally 
occurred to him he had actually listened to an enemy of theirs, let 
alone a very, very intoxicated one.  "Umm... yeah?"

"Can I still give Ran his birthday presents?"

"No."

Unfortunately, Schuldich had heard "yes" and as such began to cheer 
like a sugar-saturated schoolgirl.  "YAY! YAY! YAY! I get to give Ran 
his prezzis! I get to give Ran his prezzis! Come my little managers! 
Bring the gooooooodies!"

Once again, the entrance to the villa parted, and in swept not a 
manager, not two managers, but rather Saffie and Nagi cleverly 
disguised as managers: they both had on very old suits of Brad's, which 
it turned out did more or less justice to the boy, but, sadly, hung 
like rags upon the little herald.  She had a portmanteau on wheels 
dragging behind her like a pulltoy, and he an armoire moving box 
slathered liberally in lacey pink paper followed the boy.    

"Happy birthday!" sang Savil once she had bounded up to Ran and, 
following a quick wink from her brother, unpended the contents of her 
box upon the hapless floor.  

There were sex toys.  Dozens of them.  Brand new and still in their 
blister packs, shining sordidly beneath them.

There were dildos.  Lots and lots of dildos in lots and lots of shades 
of clear plastic.  Some of them had glitter or little lights inside.  
Some were filled with water.  Some had little smiley faces on them.  
One was leopard print.  And then there were vibrators; some small as 
lipstick cases, some enormous, sci-fi contraptions that probably 
wouldn't fit especially well wherever they were supposed to go and a 
few little mushroom crowns meant to sit and wiggle upon the tips of 
their owner's erections.  There were masturbators: not just the sort 
which masquerade as cans with pretty girls upon them, but wobbling 
effigies of inviting asses- some in blue, and some in flesh color.  
There were beads and balls and bullets- cockrings and vibrating 
cockrings! Nipple clamps galore and little wiggling finger guards.  
Probes! Ticklers! Feathers! Chains of neon pink and a brand new sling, 
besides gallons upon gallons of condoms.   

***

Save for Claire's sudden drunken giggle, the room was quiet.  Ran 
didn't look up to see if everyone shared her amusement, if they wore 
looks of horror, anxiety, or if they were blushing as furiously as he 
felt he now was.  All he could see was the pile of toys that lay 
scattered on the floor between him and Schuldich.  

Slowly, he lifted his eyes to meet those of the elder telepath's, who 
giggled and waggled his fingers at him in an effeminate manner.  

"Be glad I'm not armed."  

Schuldich only waved him off as if he'd just paid him an elaborate 
compliment, not even backing away when the redhead stormed towards 
him, kicking toys this way and that.  Ran came to an abrupt halt just 
a foot from him.  

"Pick them up and get them out of here," he snarled.    

***

"Oh, I love you toooooooo! I really do! So how about thi~is?" Schuldich 
inquired, innocently as could be, and saying so, he lifted one of the 
fallen vibrators- a particularly vicious one no less -having apparently 
been under the impression Ran had been referring specifically to the 
one on which his foot had landed.

Ran was not amused.

"Oh, still not ha~appy.  WELL! What a demanding little fanboy you are! 
I guess I'll just have to hold off on what else I bought you."

"THERE'S MORE!?" Ken's cheeks, having turned a brilliant crimson just 
moments before, went absolutely white.  "But you've... already... every 
sex toy ever made! Never fit in one room! Disturbing!" Vyx found 
himself here obliged to thwap the poor boy on the back before he 
stammered himself any stupider.

"'course there's more.  I always get people I love lots and lots of 
presents.  I am rich after all.  So rich!"

Being lightly beaten over the back by his beloved's friend or not, the 
younger of the newlyweds still had the sense about him to shoo 
Schuldich off with the very vibrator he had been brandishing before the 
embrace he had been about to smother Ran in could be consummated. 

Bubbling with gaiety still, he swept away and up to the edge of the 
crate which Nagi bore.  "Ah, I give up.  I couldn't keep like that from 
you." 

The wrapping gave way in torrents of shredded strawberry pink before 
anyone even had a chance to touch it.  It almost looked like icing as 
it fell amid the tumbling of the cardboard underneath.

"See! Isn't he cute? Just the thing for when Ken's not in the mood, 
right? I guess you two are going to get to be great friends! He's made 
of cyberskin over a layer of chemical gel guaranteed to be warm and 
squishy for forty years or your money back! He not only LOOKS real, he 
FEELS real too. He has 100% real human hair, body heat and heartbeat 
functions with speed control so he gets all trembly and excited when 
you do, changeable anal inserts for five levels of intense stimulation, 
a real quivering cock- sorry, it's not the removable version, that just 
looked too weird, -and he's fully poseable!"

Sitting on a little velvet ottoman before Ran was a doll.  A life-
sized, very naked mannequin of a young boy; sixteen perhaps and dusted 
with a light, golden tan.  His hair was of silky brown, and his eyes 
cornflower blue; downcast, just the slightest bit as if he saw 
everywhere and nowhere all at once.  Flight of sexual whimsy or not, 
unlike most such divertissements, his lips were parted only the 
slightest bit, as if he had been captured thus so in the middle of some 
sweet endearment.

***

"I don't need to resort to such repulsive toys," said Ran.  "You, on 
the other hand, have been with that ass you live with for...what?  Six 
years?  A decade?  I believe you need it more than I do."  

***

Ken, who had meanwhile found himself possessed to creep closer and 
closer to the peculiar little doll, had finally managed to bump into 
it, and so nearly sent the not-quite boy toppling from his perch.  He 
caught him by the hair just before he fell in earnest.  And since he 
was already there...

With a whistle of the utmost nonchalance, he crouched, and so stared 
into the empty, blue glass eyes of his effigy.  The little him did 
nothing- breathed not, asked not, wanted not.  He simply stared out of 
his seamless form, as much as he LOOKED like he could breath, speak and 
desire.  If only he would blink.

Ken laid his hand to his cheek, and shivered with disgust.  "Eww! 
That's just wrooooooooong."

"I should say!" Vyx rejoined, and saying so, swept off his cloak which 
he cast over the doll's head, turning it into a relatively harmless 
spook.

***

Fortunately, Schuldich perceived none of this.  He was too busy fuming 
wordlessly at Ran.  It almost seemed as if some fragment of himself- 
the real Schuldich not convinced he was fated to, in some nights hence, 
go forward and sing "Edge of Seventeen" to a hoard of screaming fans -
and the wicked mischief there had once more smitten his soul.  

It didn't happen though, not really.  Rather, his eyes grew glassy and 
his hands began to shake.  "That's not true!" he cried.  "It's not! 
It's not! It's NOT! Lindsey loves me and he SAYS so! Unlike SOME 
people.  Here!"

His hand flew into his bodice then.  He rooted and sloshed around 
therein until he managed to come up with one of his falsies which 
landed with a wet thump on the floor.  Following it though came a scrap 
of pale blue paper someone had clumsily folded and singed with a 
cigarette.  Having opened it up, he thrust Brad's letter into the boy's 
face.

***

Instinctively, Ran snatched the letter out of Schuldich's wobbling 
grip with the intention of throwing it aside, but "Lindsey's" precise 
script caught his attention. And Ken's as well, for the younger boy 
came up beside him to read the crumpled note. And then read that one 
tell-tale part again before turning their quizzical glances to each 
other. 

"Oh, how sweet," said Ran.  "And here I was, thinking that neither of 
you had hearts.  I bet you feel all superior now, having gotten the 
better of me yet again."

He wadded the note into a compact ball, and dropped it to the floor. 

***

Schuldich's gaze went absolutely vacant.  Ken, for some moments, was 
sure he was about to be obliged to drag his unconscious body to the 
door, but in the end, whenever the end came, what Schuldich had just 
seen finally seemed to flutter over his senses, and he screamed:  "HEY! 
That's mine, you little shit! It's mine! It's mine! It's mine!"

And he backhanded Ran as hard as he could before Ken had a chance 
to push him out of the way.  The little orb of paper he caught on the 
toe of his boot, and tossed it into the air, snatching it back to his 
half-sagging chest with one palm, and catching Ran's fist with the 
other.

Laughing with the strange music of his anger, he purred, "You know, I 
almost left just like you wanted me too, but now, I think I'll stay. 
I'll give you your last present.  It's not just for you, after all."

But that last gift, when it appeared from the folds of his skirt, was 
nothing but a white card of paper emblazoned with a golden apple.  
Smirking, he explained.  "Oh that? It's a lifetime membership to 
Applethrope's fencing school.  Onea the only places outside of the 
government they let keep weapons on the premises, even they are blunted 
pretty bad.  Still, I've got one too, so if you wanna try and put my 
eyes out sometime, just gimme a ring and I'll see what I can do."

***

"You'll hear from me soon," Ran hissed softly, "and I assure you, 
'Stevie', I'll take your eyes and I'll send them to your Lindsey, 
all wrapped and beribboned."

***

"Gross," said Ken.

But Schuldich was far from so taken aback by the idea.  Stevie at last 
evaporated from him, as high and dainty as his voice still rang.  Once 
more he swept in close to Ran- he could have kissed him on the neck, 
but he didn't, just whispered to him, "Sure you will, I'll be waiting."

And as he drifted away, he made sure to let the very center of his 
lithe form sweep over the boy.  All the lace and clouds of silky 
substances aside it was obvious nonetheless that the threat had done 
more than arouse his curiosity alone.  

All finished with his show, he danced away to the middle of the floor, 
and laughing once again, bowed to all the guests.  "Always lovely to 
meet with the fans.  Come, my little managers!  Away we go."

Nagi and Saffie, though they left quite hurriedly treading on his 
reflection, gave each other the most world-weary looks they could.

"And don't come back, ya lousy little brats!" Ken called after them 
and the fleeing lights of their carriage.

He certainly didn't expect they ever would. Ran was just showing off. 
Ran was just being his lover Ran was just... one boy with a ruined 
birthday.  "God damn them..."

***

"Forget them.  They're gone." 

But not quite forgotten, it seemed.  Fumbling the card, Ran slipped it 
in his shirt pocket as he turned to face his lover. "We have some 
celebrating yet to do."  A glance around the room, and Ran leaned in 
to whisper in Ken's ear with a smile, "As well as a marriage to 
consummate."

***

Ken chuckled.  At least until he and his lover had turned around and 
found themselves confronted with the veritable ocean of sex toys.  The 
younger of was therein too embarrassed to do more than tug at the 
collar of his vest.  

Fiona though short appeared in the hallway bearing their salvation! 
From the same closet from which Primera's mop had come, their servant 
had miraculously turned up... a pushbroom! Which she waved at the mess 
as she sprinted across the floor, lunged through it sending playthings 
this way and that, but for the most part, out of the way.  

There wasn't a soul in the room who didn't applaud her.

"Three cheers for Fiona-chan!" Ken declared.

"Hip hip!"

"Hooray!"

"Hip hip!"

"Hooray!"

"Hip hip!"

"Hoo-... I say, is that another bottle of champagne you've got there?"

"Three more cheers for Fiona-chan!"

This time, she bowed and she filled every glass herself without a 
single drop spilled before taking the time to remove the doll of Ken 
from the room.  Veronica, no longer too stunned to play, took up her 
violin once more.  For once, Schuldich or no Schuldich, it all looked 
very much as if nothing had happened.

Except of course, for the wayward nipple clamp Yuriko nearly fell on.

***

Ken brought Ran a glass of champagne when he went to fetch one for 
himself, and they two settled themselves on the steps, with Ken 
hooking an arm around Ran's neck.

Ran touched his glass to his lover's, and offered him a bemused 
little smile. "Thanks for everything."

***

"Nonono!" Ken protested.  "Thank YOU!" Though before he had given his 
lover a chance to ask just what his gratitude was for, he lost his lips 
in his champagne rather, leaving them both to make do with suspicious 
glances.

"Aha! So that's where you two got off too! Lovely hiding place if I do 
say so myself!"

"Vyx!"

"Boo, my boys.  Boo-ith!" Beside the old man- who was perched tip-toe 
on the lower edge of the railing despite the occasional protest from 
Veronica -Carly crossed her eyes in some lady-like attempt to look 
scary.  "Ah, don't mind me.  I simply meant to compliment you the 
smashing party!"

"No, no! Glad t'have you!"

"Not to mention the fine job you did frightening off Mr. Saggy Pants! 
That was him, wasn't it? Ah well, it's hard to tell without his ass 
being visible."

Either way, the mademoiselle conjured another fan from the folds of her 
dress, and thusly waved two around like a Japanese cheerleader while 
Ken took a moment to wonder just why Schuldich had been dubbed "Mr. 
Saggy Pants."  In the end, he decided he didn't want to know, and 
simply announced what they doubtless all knew.  "Yeah, that's my 
Vanyel, always the hero! But... mn? What's that?" His lover's chin he 
gathered in his hand, turning his face back and forth a moment before 
biting his own lip in frustration.  "Y'know, I think you got a bruise 
where he whacked you one."

Lord Vyx reached down, poked the suspect cheek himself, and burst out 
laughing.  "Oh, don't be silly! We're all grown up enough to be told to 
get ourselves out of your house.  No need for excuses."

Another sip of champagne later though, Ken, trying not to meet anyone's 
gaze less he turn any redder, announced, "Well, to tell the truth, if 
you guys don't mind hangin' out in JUST the lobby, you can stay.  I 
don't mind, d'you?"

Ran shook his head, and the gesture met with gleeful shouts from more 
than the two guests gathered at their side.  

"Then I guess that settles..."

Whatever else he said, not even Ken could hear.  His thoughts, each one 
of them, died in a swell of singing glass and whistling cries of "To 
bed! To bed!"

***

Smiling, they rose and made their way up the stairs.  By the time they 
reached the hall, it looked as if Ken was the one who was lagging, as 
Ran had surpassed him in their flight to the tower. Ken, grumbling in 
protest, suddenly broke free of his hand once they were out of sight 
of their guests, and sprinted away from him, turning to beckon him 
into following his lead. 

It was a merry chase all the way to the tower, punctuated by Ken's 
taunts and the sound of their feet thumping softly on the carpet. 
Ran slammed the door behind him once they reached the tower's foyer, 
and only just stopped himself from bolting the locks behind him.

"Forgot about Fiona," he whispered, as he turned around. "I guess 
that's to be expected." 

Ken only nodded, holding absolutely still even when Ran lunged 
for him again, and forced him against the cool, curving wall that led 
to the hall entrance where Fiona's room lay. He didn't fight the 
workings of his fingers on the buttons of his vest, nor the 
wanderings of his lips over his own. For a long while they stood, 
lost in each other's arms. 

And then, at last, Ran broke from him, his own shirt now unbuttoned 
as Ken's vest was. He licked his lips gingerly, and caught Ken's 
hand in his own once more. 

"Come on," he whispered, backing off towards the stairs. "Let's 
go play upstairs, where no one can bother us."

***

"And where the chocolate body paint is!" He didn't mind shouting it, 
lull resting in their empty quarters or not.  They were alone, alone as 
they might be for that night - he deserved a few wanton screams, 
laughs, steps flying up the stairs in falling stars of aquamarine 
clothing.  By the time Ran caught him outside of their bedroom, he was 
naked and had a lily from the hall table smashed between his fingers.

"I snuck a couplea extra things into the room while I said I was 
gettin' my cloths."

Ken spun into the bedroom, the door wide open and gushing moonlight 
behind him.  Beyond, the windows stood open- not just bare, but 
breathing into the lips of the curtains and the veils about their bed.  
It wore no more sheets, the mattress, but billows upon billows of 
towels.  In its center lay a heart made of paint brushes, and two glass 
jelly jars, one was pink, the other blue.

As if he hadn't seen them, Ken danced until his back rested in the line 
of one window's reach.  The faint wind stirred his hair and he closed 
his eyes as if he meant to wish himself into flight by its hands.  

"Well, I'm all yours.  Now what?"

***

Lurching away from the door where he'd rested whilst admiring his 
lover, Ran drew his shirt off and let it fall to the floor.  "Now we 
move on to doing the sorts of things we've been imagining all evening."  

He closed the gap between them, and eased the lily from his fingers 
as their lips brushed together.  Ran followed by outlining his mouth 
with the tips of the lily's creamy petals, before drawing it down his 
throat to let it rest upon the center of his chest. There, he slowly 
spun the stem between his fingers, so the velvety, perfumed tongues 
would tickle him.  

"Not that our guests aren't imagining what we're doing about now.  I 
would be, if I were standing among them instead of here, with you."  

Ran walked around Ken, drawing the flower down his body as he went, 
and parting with one last flowery caress of Ken's flaccid cock.  The 
lily fell to the floor at the younger man's feet; a rustle later, and 
Ran's jeans followed.  Head slightly bowed, he paused in Ken's line 
of vision to allow him the sort of view he had earlier offered, and 
then he reached across the towel-spread mattress to break the heart 
pattern his beloved had so carefully arranged.  

And then, with the tiniest smile, he took the jar of pink delight in 
hand and beckoned his lover to the bed.  

***

With a flying leap through the slit which graced the gauze, Ken joined 
him on the bed.  A valley of white fluff still lay between then, small 
enough to be crossed of by curious hands, though they took many moments 
instead to simply smile back at one another through their already 
tousled hair.  Lips on lips then, all of them that touched at first 
until whispers filled the night air rather than crickets alone.    

"Aa, I think most of 'em are too drunk to come up with anything 
'specially interestin'.  Let 'em wonder."

He had claimed the blue paint for his own; laid it on its pillow and 
peered out over the little gold lid for awhile, daring the other boy to 
go first.

Naturally, the moment Ran's attention had left him for his own jar, Ken 
had opened his up and managed to get a rather artless, cerulean blob of 
it on one unguarded nipple.

"I guess they're imaginin' I can paint!"

***

"I believe that's what's called 'modern art'," teased Ran.  "Although, 
I believe you could use some practice, and luckily for you, I have the 
whole evening free in which to...teach you."  

Ken raised a brow at that, and Ran, with a smirk, dipped his brush in 
the azure liquid that covered his nipple, and mixed the dab of blue 
with a bit of pink on the inside of one lid.  "First lesson."  

Ran touched the brush to one pectoral, and on either side of Ken's 
exposed nipple, he painted a pair of petals, one slightly larger than 
the other.  

"There," he said, lowering his brush to better view his 
handiwork.  "I have achieved the effect of perspective, in making one 
petal larger than the other.  See how easy it is?"  

Ran dipped his brush back in the pink and drawing a broad gently 
curving line from the base of the flower to his navel; he worked the 
line into a spiral, then dabbed the remainder onto his lover's nipple.      

"All finished.  Now it's your turn."  And, brush still in hand, he 
stretched out on his back so Ken could have free reign.  

***

"Hai, sensei!" Brush between his lips, Ken saluted his lover with the 
wrong hand while his head rested in his palm.  Lazily he whipped the 
blue chocolate until the glassy gleam the film of oil left about its 
surface had completely vanished into a pale puff.  Thumb to his lips 
now, he began to work.

"Aa, but there's a lotta modern art schools, right? So, even if I get 
the perspective thing down, maybe I'm still a cubist?"

Ran shortly found himself with a chain of tiny, blue marks running from 
his brown to his cheek, the links growing turning from ovals to 
triangles to lop-sided diamonds on the way down.

"'cause y'see, sensei, I'm still a little rough around the edges."

The nipple he had before he swept now into the center of a jagged, 
skewed rectangle which grew a tail down over his lover's stomach.

"And I like things like that, 'specially my Ashke."

A patchwork of azure square began to form over the other boy's belly 
then, a few shot with pink, a few purple, and a few dipping dangerously 
low on his thighs.

"In fact, didja know I just got married?  Yeah! Even me!"

***

The jar of pink sat in easy reach of Ran, and he dipped his brush 
into the creamy goo, and began to paint a sun with wavy rays on Ken's 
closest shoulder. "And why do you think that's so shocking? A 
handsome young man like you?" 

Ran re-wet the brush's silky hairs, and added a pair of fluffy clouds 
along Ken's collarbones. "I have to wonder about this husband of 
yours, letting you spend your evenings with another man. It's 
disgraceful. If you were mine..." He paused, and stroked a line 
down Ken's breastbone. 

"Ah, but one can only dream."

***

It was but softly he smiled now.  Ken had shuddered under his lover's 
touch, but neither with chill nor fear.  He took his fingers back in 
his own, and ran them over the lines of his chest just outside the 
trickles of paint.  

"Your hands are so warm."

The student's voice came back to him, and with a little whine, a little 
dab of rose chocolate for the pink already slicking his lover's cock, 
he said, "Ne, sensei! Paint some snowflakes on me and I'm all yours! 
Nobody else's!"

***

All atingle from Ken's caresses with the paintbrush, Ran sat up a 
little, and took the blue paint as his own. "I should scold you for 
being so eager to give yourself up to someone else, when you're 
spoken for, but..." Laying his brush aside, Ran dipped his fingers 
in the jar. "I can't. May the gods forgive me..." 

He quickly stroked the lacy shape of the first snowflake around Ken's 
bare nipple. 

"But I can't help myself." 

Another followed on his hip, just at the dip of the bone, one 
different in shape than the first, in accordance with Nature's 
design. 

"I'm in love with you." 

And Ran, feeling bold, began to sketch a third, much larger flake, 
with the centermost circle ringing Ken's sex. 

***

"I forgive you," Ken answered, and his words were light as spun sugar, 
though spoken in sighs from under his fingers.  The hand half-clasped 
about him froze, leaving five bursts of frost upon him, rather than the 
six real ice crystals knew.  A wiggle of his belly was all it took to 
have Ran moving over him again, though not with his eyes to follow.

"And I'm in love with you.  Not that they have anything to do with each 
other! I... umm... well, crap! That didn't come out right."  Even if it 
was in the best of his true voice.

"I just..."

With the last of the corners for the snowflake wrought upon his sunny 
day, he sat up and kissed his beloved on the painted chain still 
clinging to his face.

"...am."

But this confessed, he began to once more trace the contours of the 
other boy's cock, his hands naked though this time.

***

At his touch, Ran's breath caught just slightly in his chest, and he 
let his eyes drift shut for a moment, tilting his face towards Ken's 
for another kiss. 

"You don't know how long I've dreamed of hearing you say those words to 
me," Ran whispered, opening his eyes to look upon him again. "Ken..." 

They hung there as if frozen, and then Ran moved in to kiss him again, 
his arms around Ken's waist. And little by little, he persuaded him to 
lie back on the towel covered bed, pausing only to secure the jars of 
chocolate treat before lying down along side him. The only thing of 
Ran's that touched Ken were his fingers, which skated along lightly 
over his unpainted flesh, everywhere he could reach. 

"I think I need to teach you another lesson," he said. "We have a lot 
of territory to cover before dawn comes and your husband begins to 
miss you." 

Ran dipped a finger into the dab of paint that covered his flower 
cradled nipple, and licked it off, and then he kissed Ken again. 

"But," he added, as he scooted lower on the bed, "I won't do anything 
you don't want me to do." 

Ken, after a moment, gave him a brief nod, and Ran curled close to him, 
drawing his thighs into his embrace. He rubbed his cheek along his hip, 
smearing the radiating blue lines that adorned his flesh there, then 
rose to lick another lines at his groin away with the tip of his 
tongue.

***

Ken's breath caught in the sliding shimmer of his gasp as his lover's 
mouth brushed over him. It had grown quiet; the lights, their 
breathing.  He sighed at last, for his heart reminded him the air was 
his to taste; wrapped both of his legs around the other boy, quite 
wholly oblivious to any prints they might leave on one another's skin.

"Don't... umm... don't stop.  Please."

He let the covers have him, though the soft pinpricks there left his 
senses all at once when Ran had once more kissed him, slightly now, on 
the inside curve of his thigh.  His lips were so wet, so careful not to 
get too close... like milky soft bubbles tracing out his skin where 
they couldn't quite meet him all together... Ken felt them open the 
tiniest bit once the tickling breath had reached between his legs.

The other boy's bangs brushed him, and all of his mouth, leaving only a 
cool sheen where the chocolate had been, where they nuzzled him at 
last.

It was not the sense of ecstatic sadness that had snatched at his 
heart, nor the simple pain that Ran's exquisite lips still hadn't 
aroused in him, but a joy as soft as summer in the end.  

Ken began to whimper, just a little.  "Ran... ah... attatamete."

(OOC- attatamete = make me warm.) 

***

Ran sighed against Ken's limp cock, and, undaunted, pressed a kiss to 
its soft tip before rising in the circle of his legs, and sliding up 
over him. Their lips found one another, and Ran held Ken to him, 
rubbing his hips in little circles against his lover's own; their 
designs were lost in the rocking of their bodies' back and forth. 

They kissed, and kissed, as if they might devour each other, and 
stroked each other's flesh with abandon, until Ran dropped his head to 
one side of Ken's, and panted softly in his ear. 

"You're beautiful, so beautiful, Ken."

***

Ken stroked the purple smudges on his lover's cheek until they melted 
onto his fingers.  He shook his head, but offered their quiet no words; 
just slipped his hand into his lover's hair, and pressed his head down 
until they were resting with their foreheads close as could be to one 
another.

And then he sighed, brilliant and sprightly in the sweet wine darkness 
between them.  "Hey, don't be sad now.  Please? For me? C'mon.  I..."

He refused to speak another word until certain Ran had smiled against 
his skin, and both their hearts quieted.  When he did though, it was 
with one if his sticky palms pressed to Ran's penis.

"I know, okay... so... ah... if what you were doin' to me's what you 
want I... I wouldn't mind.  I'm no good at it though, just so you don't 
say I didn't warn you..."

***

Ran pulled back enough for Ken to see that his hesitant smile had faded 
from his expression.  

"I don't want you to do anything you'd rather not do."  

***

"Aa, alright," Ken's arms left his lover.  With one of his wet thumbs 
he niggled the edge of the other boy's lips into a lopsided little 
grin.

The mark he left he kissed away after a moment they spent simply 
reveling in one another's breath.

And then he flung Ran down onto the bed he lay supine on the as yet 
virgin half of the matters.  The curtains fluttered madly with the 
sudden movement, and the springs beneath them squeaked.  A shrug, and 
he pounced in slow motion, rubbing and licking Ran's trembling belly as 
he sank lower and lower against it.

***

Ran lay there staring at the bellying gauze that formed the canopy of 
their bed, listening to the liquid meanderings of Ken's mouth over 
his skin.  He could feel his heart start to race faster and faster 
the further down his lover roamed, could feel his hands and the tips 
of his mussed locks brush against him as his head swayed over his 
groin.  No one had held him so in years, and even then...it had never 
felt like this.  

It was all so perfect, and he didn't even cry out when Ken took him 
fully into his mouth, though he closed his eyes, and clutched the 
cushioning towels he laid upon so tight...  

His lover's name fell from his lips in the faintest of moans, and Ran 
sank bonelessly against his mouth, rolling just the tiniest bit to 
meet his lips as Ken led him into bliss.

***

He didn't taste like he ever remembered anyone tasting.  The flavor on 
his lover's skin reminded him of chrysanthemum leaves.  He just hadn't 
had any in so long...  and Ran was so warm.  When he felt the other boy 
rise a little in his lips, he stooped to meet him.  Gladly.

The little slip of flesh which crowned him nearly bumped the back of 
his throat and Ken felt himself start to close around him, just a... 
just... too much.  He'd almost had him, almost clasped him in his throa.  

He raised his lips to apologize.

And found his beloved in no state to hear him.

/Well... I guess.../ he thought, drawing back a little until he had only 
his tip embraced inside him. /I guess you really don't mind./

With that so written in his senses, he drew the velvet of his tongue 
across the edge of his lover's cock, and whispered soft against the 
wetness left behind, "I'm sorry I didn't think I could before."

Underneath his shaft he kissed him, and began to nibble and lick his 
way up.   

***

This time, Ran lay absolutely still, and let Ken toy with him as he 
wished, for he'd felt the little hesitation when he tried to take him 
fully in his mouth. Almost as soon as Ran petted his hair in apology, 
Ken rose to nibble at the tip of his sex, and an erotic thrill shivered 
through him, and he groaned. 

"I am too," he whispered. "I'm sorry..."

***

"S'ok... no, really- it is. Don't worry about it," Ken assured him 
and from there spread his fingers over his lover's thighs so he could 
rub him there as he kissed him. And he did kiss him then, not in 
little pecks but as open and as gently sexy as he might have tasted 
of his mouth. His lips he twined around him, and his tongue caressed 
him with to the very edge of his root. All this while still petting 
him, still stroking his legs.

And Ran still playing in his hair when he could reach him.

"Don't worry about anything. I mean... if you can."

A few nibbles yet, and he once more rose to clasp the head of his 
cock in his mouth.

***

"I...won't. I..." 

Ran's loins shuddered then, and he felt the tiniest bit of liquid 
dribble from the tip of his penis. Ken didn't hesitate to lap it 
away, nor the next, or the next. He dropped his hand from Ken's 
head, and curled it and its mate into the towels they lay upon. It 
was a slow build, but steady, all the warmth he had pooling between 
his legs for Ken to savor, and the dark-haired boy showed no 
reluctance. 

Ran turned his head to the side, and saw their muted teal shadows on 
the wall playing peek-a-boo with them through the billowing gauze of 
the bedcurtains. Ken's head was bobbing over what he knew to be his 
legs, and he watched, transfixed, until his muscles pulled tight, 
and, crying out, he shut his eyes. 

He was shaking all over when at last he came back to himself, and the 
wet heat of Ken's mouth had left him. Languidly, Ran shifted on the 
bed, to find his lover kneeling where he'd crouched alongside him, 
just gazing upon him, and he sat up fully. Almost simultaneously, 
their hands found each other's arms, and they drew themselves 
together until their foreheads rested upon each others' shoulders. In 
silence. 

For Ran couldn't find words suitable enough to express how he felt.

***

Nor could Ken, but he had begun the night with some sense he would 
leave the realm of words in time, and so the truth of it could not 
trouble him.  Not much at least.  He could hear himself speaking, but 
nothing came of such fantasies.  

His tongue darted out then, and rubbed the stain of salt from him lips 
and met with slight wonder from him.

But it anything save sweet.  The wine had gotten into Ran's blood and 
dripped from him when he came.
 
Many slow moments later, Ken raised his head, and pointing to his 
still-slick lips, asked for the one thing in the world he still wanted.  

***

Ran gladly gave it, and took away the salt-sweet traces he'd left 
from Ken's mouth, until there was nothing left.  Even then, still he 
did not abandon him, but lowered him gently upon the bed, and covered 
with his own slim body.  

A voluminous cloud passed over the moons, and the room was bathed in 
shadow, and the lovers gave themselves over to the obscuring 
darkness.  

*****