Part 7- Devious
[Version 1.0]

Ken watched the members of Schwartz depart, kept his eyes fixed upon 
them until they had shrunk to mere splashes of color across the distant 
panes of glass that marked the edge of their wing of the terminal, the 
sinking escalators.  The first hints of the drifting crowd.  He would 
not follow them at first, or join the people here, for whom he had to 
wonder... did anyone remember? Was he still real to them?

Was Ran still real? He rubbed his hands against his stiff bones, almost 
expecting he skin would no longer accept his touch, but remain as 
unforgiving as stone.  

He just felt awfully cold, but that could have been the effect of his 
own burning blush.

/C'mon, Ran.  Please don't, Ran.  Please don't do this.  I know I'm 
awful but Ran... Tell me I'm awful.  Tell me anything and I.../

A swift glance confirmed his hands had indeed begun to shake again.

/Oh yeah, like this is just what I need yet.../

/No wonder he's gotten all... Aya on me./

/You cried in my arms last night, boy.  You know you did./

The flesh beneath his hands refused to acknowledge him, even when he 
traced one finger down his temple, against his eartail, finally pulling 
away.

"You done yet!" Fiona demanded, squeaking up behind them, Ken's trunk 
in tow with the shopping bags resting atop it.  

Crossing his arms, the Hidaka-dono replied with a nod, and finally 
resigned himself to vanishing into the crowds, sparing the occasional 
glance for Ran, trying to see what he made of the fleeting throng.  
Valdemar's name invited a bit of medieval theme to the usual garb of 
the residents, or some peculiar mix thereof.  They passed a fellow 
wearing jeans with his troubadour's shirt and his prop lyre, one lead 
by two heralds, their hair hidden under veils of sky and cream 
gossamer.  The elder seemed to throw him a wink.  He couldn't be sure.  

It looked like a costume ball gone somewhat wary in the lobby of the 
airport, whose baseboards smoked with dust and whose windows bore 
remains of bottle green inclusions, as if they were much older than 
they should have been.  

And the place echoed so...

Seemed dim, except for one splash of scarlet off to the side and...

Ken, had he been carrying his own bags, would have dropped them for 
certain.

The one still point in the crowd she was, dressed all in the deepest 
red satin, a full gown with sleeves that opened over her hands like 
cala lilies.   She was rather tall, and rather plump, but did well 
nonetheless with half of her bosoms bared by the low swirling neck of 
her dress, and undaunted by the fact no one here cared for it.  Her 
skin had no luster, but bore little marks of age.  Indeed, all save the 
creases around her mulberry eyes seemed to place her at thirty.  One 
ringlet of her dull, dark hair fell against each of her cheeks, and she 
curled them around her fingers now and again.  The rest remained wound 
up with ruby pins, the only adornment she wore besides a small, brass 
key on a red ribbon around her neck.  

Not exactly thinking at the time, he called to her, ran to her, pushing 
past a few fellows and leaving his companions rather behind.  "Carly!"

She clasped her hands before her as she regarded him, then held them 
out before her as if she meant to gather up some child and sweep him 
away to the land of crimson dreams from whence she had come.  No sound 
did she make, and he clasped her only by her arms, though she pulled 
away, and bowed to him.

Nervously he laughed.  She took out a fan and ducked behind it for a 
moment, as if she laughed too.  

He told the truth to her, "Oh god, we had a nasty flight, Carly.  But 
it was worth it.  I'm so good to see you here.  I've missed you, missed 
you, missed you!"

To which she reached up and pinched his nose.  

"Hey, cut that out!"

A long batting of her lashes and she flicked her fan away, gathering 
herself up on her tiptoes and looking past him, scowling at him as if 
he had carelessly spilt something.

Ken, seeming now nothing but a gleeful naiad jogged over behind Ran, 
taking his shoulders again, now lost of any apprehension.  "Carly, this 
is Ran.  Ran, my friend Carly.  Fiona... well, she's still Carly."

"We've met," Fiona sighed.

The woman nodded, but skated over before Ran, who whom she bowed as 
humbly as any Japanese housewife.  

***

To which Ran bowed as well, politely, feeling Ken's hands slide down 
his back and up to his shoulders again as he drew himself upright. 
And as he had straightened up, so had Carly, as if they were 
marionettes being guided by one skilled master. 

But this wasn't a cleverly drawn puppet standing before him--it was a 
woman with the most compelling eyes he'd ever seen on anyone. Deep 
and full of secrets, of wisdom, pure and searching--the look of a 
sorceress. If she was one for real, Ran couldn't say; however, he 
wouldn't have been at all surprised to learn that she was. Not in 
Terra. And certainly not in Valdemar; truly, it was the oddest place 
he'd ever seen in his life. The oddest sort of place he could have 
ever imagined existing--if he had ever imagined anything at all. 

Ran couldn't remember if he ever had... 

"I can understand now why he wanted to see you again." 

She only raised her fan to cover the lower half of her face, and 
gazed at him over the silken folds like a geisha. Then she lowered 
it with a snap, and gestured to some point past the tall, arched 
doorways at the entrance of the building. Miraculously, the crowd 
parted long enough for them to catch a glimpse of a huge, gleaming 
black coach, drawn by four horses in golden tack, and driven by what 
looked to be a woman in burgundy livery. Ran quirked a brow at this, 
to which she only beckoned for them to follow. 

At Ken's gentle push on his shoulders, Ran did. 

***

They swept out onto the circlet of sidewalk that ran round the lobby of 
the terminal, only to find beyond it stood only the road.  No more, not 
even the hum of an incoming plane.  Just the singing of the wind over 
interminable lengths of speckled mineral green, some of which had crept 
in among the concrete, and it seemed was not all green.  No, the grass, 
rather than being peculiarly pale, was heavily shot with pale, small 
flowers of several sorts, but so many, the over all impression of it 
was brightened, and gift of a luminous light perfume.

One traced with violets.

But not all violets.

The only clear violet anywhere stood on the rims of the clouds which 
circled the sun like flocks of translucent butterflies.  

Oh Ken and Carly, they both let their eyes roll to the horizon of the 
late afternoon, though Fiona broke the impression of this being 
somewhat usual among the citizenry, for she looked to the ground 
instead.  

The coach woman tipped her hat to them.  "It's good to see you, Ken." 
She had a voice as airy and floral as the atmosphere.  

Ken, shaking his head in disbelief, shaded his eyes and pulled Ran up 
beside her and her restless charges.  She seemed dark against the sky, 
but only the ducked down, brought her auburn locks into focus.

"YURIKO!?"

Before he could reach out and touch her, she did so herself, and 
thumped him over the head.  "You bet! I'm Carly's servant girl." A wink 
here toward Fiona.  "She sent me allllll the way to Japan after you.  I 
found you too!"

"You mean you..." he seemed at this point unable to decide between giving 
his attention to his newer friend or his older, though finally he said 
to Carly, while she stood smirking as if someone had after many years 
caught sight of something saucy in a painting she adored.  "You sent 
someone... too look for me? Oh Carly I..."

Her head shook.  Yuriko's as well, as she said, "I'm sorry I lied."

"Don't apologize!" Ken insisted.  "I mean... I should! I would have... 
well, been less of an idiot about that hotel room then."

"Since I would have known? You know, didn't want to..."

"Yeah that..."

And uncomfortable silence, broken not by laughs, but smiled as Carly 
jumped up into the coach and swung her hand out after Ran, who caught a 
whisper in his ear, courtesy of the driver as he joined her inside.  

"Don't worry," She told him, "We were just friends then and we'll be 
just friends now.  My girlfriend would kill me anyway..."

Two more hands up and Ken appeared on the seat beside Ran, along with a 
rather uncomfortable Fiona on the one beside Carly.  The porters 
finished loading their bags, and Yuriko with great flourish, called 
upon her horses, who set off slowly at first, as if she had embarrassed 
them.   That honor though probably better fit the lady who resided 
within the carriage as she quite espied Crawford on the other side of 
the loop where the carriages stood, and there performed akanbe in his 
general direction.  He flipped her off and she feigned infinite disgust 
before turning back to her guests, settling on softly scanning Ran from 
where her face sat cupped in her fingers, seeming to be kicking herself 
for some of the lines in the picture she had sent.  Judging it, rather 
than him.

(OOC: Akanbe = Pulling down one eyelid and sticking out one's tongue.  
Yes, there is a word for that.)

***

Schuldich, who had just returned after seeing his sister out to a cab, 
despite that he followed her at more than an appropriate distance and 
was shooed off mentally on several occasions, doubled over laughing 
upon seeing his lover had once again resumed his war of rude gestures 
with Mlle. Carly.  The precognitive stood with his middle finger raised 
for many moments after the woman had been lost behind the slope of a 
road, probably because he refused to turn around and be faced with his 
hysterical boyfriend.  

Nagi didn't seem interesting in facing either of them... but that was, as 
always, quite usual.   

::It was all worth it! It was allllll worth it!:: he cried in his 
thoughts.  ::Even the bit with the golf club! Even at the plaza in New 
York! Everything! Every bit! GOD It was worth it...::

"Just to see the look on your face."

He shortly found himself telekinetically dragged into a carriage and 
seated across from one Brad and one Nagi, neither of whom showed 
anything close to a smile, unless the cute little curve of the boy's 
chest counted.  Silence descended.  At last, he took it upon himself to 
address the driver.  "Fine, fine.  Ashkevron Plaza Hotel."

::I've rented us a suite with three rooms.::

::The question I suppose, will be who ends up in what room.::

::And with who else.::
  
***

Ran had caught the exchange of insults between Carly and Crawford, 
and smiled a little despite his foul mood.  But the trickle of 
amusement faded from his features when he noticed her studying him so 
intently.  He wondered just what it was that she found so 
fascinating.  Was she sizing him up, trying to determine if he was 
the right boy for her Ken?  Did she simply think he looked odd, what 
with his red hair and eartails and black clothes?

Given the way everyone else dressed, Ran supposed he did look strange 
to her.

Either way, he wanted to know what she was thinking right then, but 
he didn't have the nerve to ask her.  It would have been rude in any 
circumstance, he felt, but especially now since they had only just 
met.  

And Fiona, whom he had been pointedly ignoring, was staring at him 
too--although she jerked her head away to the window when their eyes 
met.  There was such scorn in that fleeting look, but it didn't faze 
him in the least.  Such contempt he was used to, yes--but...It didn't 
stop him from pondering over how he could get rid of her.  Maybe give 
her to Schwartz?  Seemed a fitting fate for such a vile tempered 
little brat as herself.  

And then...Ken, whom he barely glanced at lest he slip and reveal too 
much of his tangled emotions.  He had entwined his fingers with 
Ran's, sitting so close without quite touching him.  

/Don't you think I want you?  That I want to kiss you like Crawford 
did.../  

Suddenly, Ran felt weary all over again.    

"Where are we going?"  

***

"Damned if I know!" Fiona announced as if she, like her little friend, 
had been able to read some inkling of the fate he was contemplating for 
her.

Carly at this looked to the ceiling a moment, and Ran could not help 
but notice she seemed to be seeking words, or some motion that would 
stand for words, at least until her eyes fell to him again, smiling 
though her lips remained still.

"We're going to the villa, right?" Ken then stated with a bare 
question, one answered with a nod, so very soft and tentative.  His old 
friend came to face him then, blinking very slowly and taking her curls 
up again.  "No," He sighed, "That's fine.  But you got any hard hats? 
I'm not sure I wanna go in that place just like this.  You never know 
about the rafters."

One rivulet of her hair came and glanced against her lips, her calm 
betraying something he did not know, better than a shake of her head 
could have.  

Their servant snorted loudly.  "The villa's been fixed up."

This took him aback.  "But I thought..."

"Yeah, I mean, that's how Kaze got it.  He found some way to get half 
that damn construction company his boss ran here to do the work.  In 
exchange, he got to be Koichirou-dono.  But then he bit it and the 
mages took it over temporarily, which you can imagine what happened 
THEN!"

If he did, he did not say so at once, but rather folded his fingers 
closer against his lover's.  His eyes met Carly's as they fell to the 
floor, and of her own thoughts of the situation, none could be said, 
for her face became that of a madonna painted by an anonymous 
renaissance artist- empty but for some faint rapture.

"They're broke," Ken stated, rubbing at one of his temples.  "I can fix 
that.  Really I can."

Both women applauded a moment and he pulled his hand away, stretching 
it out across his stomach instead.  Tried to look indolent as he slid 
his fingers beneath his shirt and fumbled one of his scars.  Fiona, 
lost in the lost hills did not notice.  Carly did.  And then she turned 
to Ran for only a moment, before tapping at the glass as it rippled 
into shade as they slipped into the brilliant catacombs of the woods. 

***

/Why, Aubrey!  Are you trying to tell me that you're bored with me?/ 
This thought with strong undercurrents of amusement and 
teasing.  /I'm...I'm heartbroken.../

Crawford smirked at Schuldich, and stole a glance at the window.  
Boredly admired the view for about two seconds before deciding to 
admire the half-naked Nagi instead.  

"You know, you look rather cute dressed like that, Nagi-kun," he 
murmured at last, and got only a sulky grumble and a roll of blue-green 
eyes for his trouble.  Crawford chuckled slyly, and leveled his gaze 
at his lover again, settling back in his seat.   

/Only three rooms?  Seems you had something in mind all along, 
liebe./   

/Oh, I see...Yes.../  

/All right then, if you want to play musical beds, I'm game./

/I will share a bed with Nagi, if you don't want him.  And if you do 
want him, and not me.../

/...Then I'm buying a whore./  

/Because I will NOT sleep with Jei./  

***

"Farfie-chan is going to stay Farfie-chan and sleep where he usually 
does." Schuldich asserted with a nod.  "On the floor by Saffie's door.  
Except for once, he gets to be on carpet.  I'm SURE he'll be thrilled 
to tears if he doesn't decide to mark his territory first..."

A few brief images exchanged here, and some sick secret laughs better 
fitting of a covert salon meeting in the age of Oscar Wilde.  The 
merriment concluded only with visions of the substantial bill replacing 
the ruined wallpaper would invariably cost.  

::But a whore now...? Suddenly I'M the one who feels hurt.  Wretched 
pseudo-romance-era things- whores.  Hookers with hearts of gold, 
careless slut, the other woman or man in this case I am sure...::

A long, sensuous look during which he slipped his finger between his 
lips for a split second.  

::Don't even offer me a place in your bed though.  So I mustn't be 
that.  I know what you want.  You want all that stuff- the ignominy and 
the glory.  Whether from our boy or otherwise.::

::As for me, I haven't made up my mind.::

"Mnn, Nagi-chan? You've never been to the Ashkevron Plaza, right?  Well 
it's kinda like..."

He took a moment to lean over and kiss him, but the moment quickly 
became many moments of soft slurps and mental pokes in Crawford's 
direction, until they reached the gates of the most utterly 
grandiloquent hotel in Valdemar, itself quite glorious and ignominious.

::What? I haven't done this to him in a good six hours!::

***

And ahead of them, at the end of a circular gravel drive, stood a 
chateaux, made of pale cream brick and roofed in black.  The grounds 
were speckled with elms and oaks and yew.  In the distance, Crawford 
spotted a small herd of deer lounging in the shade of a particularly 
thick cluster of trees.  Nagi saw nothing but the inside of his 
eyelids, as he had lost himself most unwillingly in Schuldich's 
kiss.  Hands tangled in that wild fiery mane, arching against him in 
silent pleading to be touched.  

And being most audible in expressing his frustration when Schuldich 
ignored him.  

Crawford only laughed.  

/I believe you've just been accepted, Aubrey./

The carriage slowed to a stop, and Crawford sidestepped the entwined 
bodies of his lover and his ward, groping Schuldich's rear most 
eagerly before climbing down.

/And as for me not inviting you into my bed, I didn't think I had to./

/I thought you'd realize that you are always welcome./  

/Maybe...I'll need to remind you of that fact more often?/

He brushed the lint from his cape, and pushed the glasses up his 
nose, and set off for the white marble front steps, and the massive 
oaken doors beyond them.  The twin portals swung open before he could 
even touch them, pulled as such by twin, Chinese boys dressed all in 
white silk, like two pages in the employ of a princess.  They bowed 
to them as they passed, then plunged them into darkness as they 
closed the doors behind them with a whisper of air.     

Only candles lit the entryway, casting a flickering orange glow over 
the tapestry-lined walls and the herb-strewn stone floor; a fresh 
rush of thyme and peppermint perfumed the air with every step.  
Closer and closer towards the warm, rosy glow ahead of them, until 
they were in it.  A vast room invitingly littered with chaises and 
sofas and low tables; one lit by candle-glowing chandeliers, and 
warmed by a fireplace so tall that Nagi could have stood upright in 
it.  One so long that he himself could have laid down it in, and 
there would still be extra room.  

The porters strolled away with their various bags, seeking one of the 
few modern devices used in the hotel--a luggage cart--and the trio 
were approached by an attractive young man dressed all in white, his 
long, red hair gathered neatly in a tail at his neck; in the crook of 
one arm, he held a black leather-bound record book.  He looked more 
like a wandering minstrel than a check-in clerk.

"Ah!  You gentlemen must be with the Marlow party?  Very good, very 
good! I saved the room over looking the gardens for the young lady, 
just as you requested, sir."  At this, he beamed at Schuldich, and shut 
the book with a snap, gesturing at the waiting luggage handlers.  
"Pierre and Nicholas will see you to your rooms.  I am Kira.  If I may 
be of assistance, don't hesitate to call."

He bowed politely, and retreated into the firelit shadows.  

Crawford turned to Schuldich with a look of amazement.  "You 
certainly know how to pick a hotel.  I rather believe I'm going to 
enjoy this..."

A grin, and he strode off in the direction of their waiting 
attendants.

***

"Me too, mon petit lapin.  Me too."  With a false sigh of even more 
false whistfulness, he lead his two companions down the corridor with 
it's standards of gold and roses, one hand in each other their pockets.  

::So which do you think is cuter, hmm? Kira, Pierre or Nicholas? I vote 
for Kira myself, but if we want to borrow him, I suspect it will be a 
bit of a challenge, what with his minding the door and all.::

As for the two porters, they seemed to be rather rushing across the 
flagstones of the hall, something any porter bearing a luggage cart 
should never, ever do.  Their hands now and again fluttered over their 
own bottoms in mock straightening of their trousers, and their eyes 
chanced behind them, as if they were followed on some dark, forsaken 
alley.    

::I believe our reputation has preceded us.::

::It's really too bad the same didn't happen for Takatori.  Then maybe 
he wouldn't be dead right now.::

And then he reproached himself in psychic silence, finding some true 
melancholy of the past indeed.  Not for the dear, departed Ivan the 
Good enough, but rather...

/You took me to Lady Jessica's Boarding House the first time we came to 
Valdemar.  The Victorian joint on the other side of the villa.  I hear 
they're closed now, and besides.../

Their skittish porters had taken them all the way to the end of the 
hall, where rested a metal-braced door which the two rather thin boys 
fought to open.  The thing hardly needed a key.  Beyond it stood what 
could only be named as a miniature version of a vestibule from one of 
the castles so plucked up in the dark clouds of evening and the minds 
of maidens who could not come to Terra.  It opened onto a chamber with 
ceilings braced with mermaids and with gargoyles who full obscured the 
gothic arches.  There stood five windows of ruby glass hidden behind 
velvet and five doors, not quite so imposing as the front one.  A 
spiral staircase flooded with the only clear light in the room ran up 
beside the fireplace, and on the far wall hung the familiar image of a 
chained unicorn wearing traces of pomegranate juice.    

/...how could this be anything but an improvement?/

Schuldich thanked the porters each with quick kisses that still bore 
the flavor of Nagi, and sent them on their way after having pinched 
everything that did not constitute their bottoms.  Then with a sigh he 
flopped down sideways across one of the oak and leather chairs, taking 
a moment to leaf through the papers left for them on the table.

"Buffet dinner starts at eight sharp, please use condoms if you want to 
molest the staff, use the rope on the left to get one of the hotel 
escorts, right for food, there's a box of Cheez-its waiting for you in 
that... DAMN CAIT! Anyway, Chlorine free pool..." 


This he took some notice of, and promptly ducked out the door after the 
fleeing porters.  "HEY! Is the pool just a lake or do they have one of 
those electron filter things?"

Not that he hung around long enough for a verbal answer.

Smirking from ear to ear, he marched to the center of the room and 
promptly announced.  "I'm going swimming.  Nagi-chan? Care to join me?"

::Looks like I made up my mind in a heartbeat anyway.::

***

/Yes, it does.  Not that I'm surprised.../

Crawford busied himself with the unpacking of his bags, and 
Nagi...Well, he was more concerned with Schuldich's unexpected and 
most titillating offer.  One which he wasn't about to decline.  

"Yes, Schuldich, I think I would like to join you," Nagi said, 
slipping off his bunny ears at last and tossing them over his 
shoulder.  "There's nothing like a swim after a long, tedious 
flight."  

Vest, trousers and shoes followed, all left on the floor where he'd 
dropped them.  Nagi left his black boxers on just to tease 
Schuldich.  Stroked himself none-too-discreetly through the thin 
fabric.  

Then he went to the door, snatching up a map of the grounds from off 
the table liquor cabinet in passing.  

"Come on, Schuldich," he called out from somewhere in the hallway.  

Crawford gave his lover a look over his shoulder, nodding at the open 
doorway.  "I do love it when he's eager."

/Have fun, Aubrey,/ he thought at his companion as the other hustled 
away.  He then resumed his unpacking, in truth not caring about how 
neatly he was hanging up his clothing, or where to put his socks, but 
more looking for a little used, but always present item.  

And, as usual, the most wanted thing was found in the very last bag 
he looked in.  His hand closed around the box, and he drew it out, 
turning it towards the window to check the expiry date.  

/I'm planning on it./

/Oh, and in answer to a few of your questions.../

Crawford padded across the room, where he found the phone resting a 
top a tiny, claw-footed table.  

/Yes, Schuldich.  Takatori would most certainly be dead./  

Picked up the receiver and dialed "1" for the front desk.  

/And...Kira.  Definitely, Kira./

***

Ran noticed too, only after catching the meaningful look on Carly's 
face.  It wasn't that he was quite as self-absorbed as he liked to 
let on to others--on the contrary, he hadn't noticed what Ken was 
doing right off because he was too busy wondering over what Ken had 
meant by "I can fix that."  

He hadn't planned on asking him until later, when they were alone.  
But then...Ran suddenly had a flash of insight, which warned him that 
he probably wouldn't have such a chance until much later.  

And what did he have to hide, anyway?  

So he broke off his forced examination of Valdemar from the window 
and turned to Ken.  Released his hand, and slid it instead around his 
waist, pulling him close.  Plucked his wandering hand away from his 
scarred side and lifted it to his lips for a kiss, shooting him a 
look that said, "Don't."  

/I'm a poor excuse for a lover, I know, Ken.../

/And I'm so sorry.../

/I wish...I could be different.../  

"How are you going to fix the mages' financial situation?"  

***

Ken smiled had a few silent moments of having his fingers so tended, 
would have enjoyed touching Ran's gaze with his own but was not 
allowed, for his lover's eyes hung closed.

As for Carly, she sagged back in her seat, as if she had just been 
treated to her favorite dessert and wanted to spend a few moments 
remembering it.  He knew that look.  But not what had called it forth.  
She was no woman to protest much of anything.  Obviously.  She merely 
sated herself with the sight of the trees and whatever creatures played 
among them.  Oh, but she listened as he spoke.  How could she not when 
she had everything to hear?

"Well, by doing what we decided we would.  We would have had to 
renovate the place if it hadn't already been fixed up for us.  Now 
that's all done, and we can start from there.  With our little 
surprise."

"I don't like the sound of this," said Fiona, kicking the footboard as 
loudly as she could.  Carly knocked her lightly with her fan, but then 
turned back to the two lovers, her attention serving as her question.

"You'll see," Ken told her with a laugh.  

Contented by his words, she watched with all of them as the woods gave 
way and broke, not into the deeper bows of the heart which could not be 
made out from the main road- no, the paths to that place stood clearly 
enough and they took no such, but the deeper sunshine of the fields 
which ran circles around it... or was it the other way around? Vastness 
would not divulge this so easily, not even to spirits and who else 
would have the time to wander such untold reaches of peridot? 

A silence of suppositions hung sparkling in the air for the last half 
of their journey, which took the forest from the windows and replaced 
it with the sights one more of the rolling hills above the valley of 
trees, and the wheeling lights only now kindled to early in the lights 
of the town.  The sun rode high, but excess was no stranger to the 
people of Valdemar.

The villa itself stood like a white mausoleum of kings, there, in the 
bay of grass and flowers, the curtains of sunshine, the dots of shade 
brought down by it's satellites, silver and grey were they, save one, 
with a deep cherry roof, that cried to be Carly's once again.  Not a 
tree took the grounds though, and no gate secluded it.  No roads lead 
to any place in it's realm.  One would have, from town, been made to 
walk across quite a stretch of tickle grass and honeysuckled stone.  

They did now, the five of them, in silence as if staggering through a 
dream rather than a meadow.  Yuriko pulled the bags along, Fiona, 
dabbing at her forehead now and again in the drowsy summer heat kept in 
step with her.  Before them the lady, her skirts swept up in her hands 
so the flowers brushed her ankles as the wind did her face.  Ken lead 
them, lead Ran along, their hands entwined.

As if by chance a path did eventually appear, but no such ordinary 
road.  No, rather a procession of heavy glass spikes driven together 
into the ground, so only their surfaces broke.  They were blue as 
midnight by full moon and seemed to be looking into something other 
than the earth.  The door was of the same stuff, and only it's 
inclusions broke the visions of the interior, for they caught the drops 
of sunshine.

The entryway rather spoke something akin to the language of the brothel 
in the Planet, save that it had been granted windows- the entire back 
wall was of them, braced with pastel and iridescent baroque angels and 
demons, framing images of nothing, for they were ever bound indoors, 
the world beyond a place of fever dreams for them.  The two staircases 
out to the east and west wings of it remained, and in silhouette 
resembled to clasping hands wound to impossible art deco proportion.  
They rose though from a lake of reflection.  The floor was nothing but 
a faded looking glass, and in it at once appeared two visions of every 
person who passed there.  The staircases.  Two buildings, deserted 
each, save for whispers of  winds unknown, the suspicious of whispers.  
Unless the doors spoke... or the painting that hung on the east wall.  
The west stood blank...

Ken supposed it was the first time Ran had seen them, those three boys.  
One golden and fair as the day cast back to them in the floor, one the 
fragile redhead bearing a lute, both translucent, twining their arms 
around a central figure.  A child.  Pale, with eyes of silver and thin 
dark hair his lover chanced.  The redhead and the blond, no one would 
mistake them for the same soul at first, no one took the painting as 
anything but sibylline.  Three boys embracing- not the usual subject 
for a somber intaglio of classical style and comet dust.  But they 
three, Tylendyl kissing Vanyel's fingers, Stephen trying to pull him 
closer and away... they held sway over that room- the space that brought 
meaning to wainscoting, begged for secret passages beneath the swangs 
of aqua orbs which clung like bubbles to the corners.  The lights, the 
clouds of heaven where they stood under the diverted lonely gaze of the 
martyrs of Terra.

All five of them watched in reverence the motionless children, 
listening to the hidden breaths of whoever waited for them...   

***

To say the Villa was stunning was an understatement. Ran was in awe 
of the place, of the grounds beyond its doors, of how majestic it all 
looked. It wasn't at all how he expected Ken's new home to look, and 
it certainly wasn't how he had pictured a brothel to look. In fact, 
he had been wondering where the whores were lurking when they entered 
and found it empty save for multicolored pools of light on the 
mirrored floor. Of mystical beings engaged in the old, eternal 
struggle. 

And then he saw the painting. Found it odd and out of place given 
the stained glass scenes, but yet thought it appropriate somehow. 
Just right and strangely beautiful, and he hadn't a clue as to who 
they were. 

Ran moved closer to it, in order to get a better look. 

"Who were they?" 

***

The other four travelers all turned to Ran, as if he had spoke  some 
profundity which intrigued them all.  Only Fiona showed any hint of 
disbelief, and with Yuriko's hand resting on her shoulder, she dared 
not voice it.  Carly never used hers.  Ken felt embarrassed to speak 
within such reaches of fair space and afternoon sunshine running into 
blue with the clock of the world.

So they all watched the figures in their frozen motion, until he found 
his words.

/Funny, Hidaka Ken stopping to think about what he says... I tell ya.../

"They're all characters from a book.  The one in the middle is Vanyel... 
well, Vanyel when he was young.  Then on his right, that's Tylendyl.  
They were lovers, when they were boys."

"And they lived in a place called Valdemar where there were Heralds and 
Mages," Yuriko took it upon herself to point out.

"But not like Heralds and Mages here.  And not this Valdemar." Fiona 
sighed, tugged at her collar and looked at herself, for glancing 
downward provided no other sight.  

"Tylendyl was a..." Ken had started to continue.  "Was he a Herald or a 
Herald-Mage? I don't remember.  It's been too long for me."

His laugh split the seashore peace of the room.

"Herald mage, that's why he trained under Savil."  The footwoman again.  
"You know, I heard there's a Herald running around with that as her 
stage name now.  Kinda arrogant if you ask me."

"We've met." This with a solemn sigh.

"It's Saf," his servant mumbled, though the words seemed to spring up 
from like flowers from the barren floor.

"Well I'll be."

Another long stretch of nothing but the white noise of their breathing, 
if such sounds as came indeed were their own.  

"Anyway," he went on, "He was a sorcerer of sorts, Tylendyl.  And 
Vanyel the son of a lord.  They met going to school at the capital of 
Valdemar and..."

Everyone turned to face Carly then, who had slipped her fingers across 
her lips and thrown away the key- the imaginary one at least.  No 
ringing had come to indicate the one from about her neck had parted 
ways with her.  Indeed, it remain, glinting warmly. 

"OK, OK, I won't spoil it for Ran." As if to make up for the loss, he 
embraced him loosely with one arm.  Just tugged him close enough to 
whisper in his ear, "I think I just though of another book for your 
library, Vanyel-ashke."

Somehow he tucked his sentiments away in sounds so soft they fell only 
as feathers about the room, vague and sweet- dissolving into nothing, 
the gentle clicking of the kiss that followed them. 
 
***

/Characters from a book?  In a brothel?/

/How odd.../

/But...It must be some book for someone to want to honor the main 
character and his lover./

He glanced over at the redhead who clung to Vanyel, trying to spirit 
him away.  /Or is that...Lovers?/

Ran shot a look over his shoulder at their three companions, all of 
whom had suddenly turned their faces away from them, feigning 
interest in the stained glass, in a classical bust of what looked to 
be Aphrodite but probably wasn't.  Then, satisfied that they'd had 
some modicum of privacy, snaked his arms around Ken's waist.  "Vanyel-
ashke?" he whispered softly.  "You'll understand if I wait until 
after I've read the book before I answer to that."

He smiled a little, to show that he was only teasing him a bit.  "And 
you'll understand if I wait until then before I pin a nickname of my 
own onto you."  

Ran moved back a little and tightened his hold on Ken, pulling his 
lover more closely against him, and whispered against his 
lips, "Aishite'ru."  

He brought one hand up to Ken's face, cupping his cheek, then he 
kissed him, a gentle inquiry of admittance, followed by a most 
passionate assault.  Another kiss of the sort into which he poured 
the whole of his heart.  Again, he felt so free--felt all his 
inhibitions melting away little by little.  But then, he reckoned, 
Terra must have that effect on people.  He couldn't quite bring 
himself to complain.   

Ran released him at last, only to snag his hand firmly within his 
own.  "Now...Shall we continue with the tour?"  

***

/Oh Ran.../ If any of his inner voices had been given form, this one 
would have been shaking his head before he even coalesced.  Not 
unkindly though... not anything.  The real Ken sipped at the traces of 
his lover, held them in his mouth and blushed over their particular 
flavor, the needy little kitten milk of Ran.  Calm crept through him, 
water through his trembling bones that washed away the worry.

/It's not like I thought you hated me but still after all that... ah, 
see.  Time's not bad.  I told you it would be alright... well... at least, 
more alright than before./

Unfortunately, it didn't stop his knees from buckling beneath his 
shivers.

He rather collapsed at that point, shoes squeaking unhappily against 
the mirror he was sure to become quite friendly with in a moment.  

Ran caught him though.  Held him rather stiffly about the waist with 
his cheek now pillowed against his shoulder.  Abashed, he rubbed his 
eyes into the softness of the other boy's pullover and made no attempt 
to regain his footing.

Carly of his companions seemed the only one who gave into her 
temptation to glance back at the two of them.  Which she did, only to 
promptly pop the handle of her fan into her mouth and look to the 
highest image of a seraph she could fine, let her eyes wander down into 
the phosphorescent cyan of the hosts of beings just so arresting in the 
beauty their earthly torments had offered.   

The mewing of the gallery floor as someone crossed it- doubtless found 
themselves rather lost, and certainly not heeded by any of the party.
"Hidaka-dono?"

Ken looked up from his invalid's embrace, with smiling, regretful eyes, 
half closed and gazing smushed from a faint haze of red.  To be 
presented like this to anyone, oh what images of princes young and ill 
he must have brought to them.  If only he dared slide his hands around 
Ran rather than simply revel in his heartbeat weaving in between his 
own pulse.

A naked boy, fair to the point of being whiter than the silken plaster 
he stood before, had sublimated in the world beneath their feet, but 
owing to the slant of the light and the stairs, could not be made out 
otherwise.

No one answered him at first.

"Would you care to have inspection now?"

"Inspection... ah... alright."  The boy began to disappear but he called 
him back, seeming to remember something of this going on from before.  
"But if they're all dressed like you are..." Fiona stifled a chuckle. 
"Would you mind telling them to put some pants on?"

"Umm... yes... sir." This time he fled unto the patches of shadow that 
could not be guessed from the threshold of the painting.  

From behind the doors rose a sudden gust of agitated whispering.  One 
perhaps could have been hidden but this host had voices enough to be 
noticeable...

"KINKY!"

"Pants... pants... you're joking, right?"

"We're WHORES for Ada's sake! We don't wear pants."

"Do you think these count as pants?"

"Ewe! Ewe! Ewe! I haven't felt so dressed in weeks."

Ken gave little thought too it.  Simply breathed, trembles or no 
trembles, and righted himself at last on very shaking feet still wound 
with Ran's, just like the rest of his form more or less.

/So this is what it takes? You know what, I don't care.  Let them see 
you holding me up./

***

Schuldich found himself following Nagi on their way to the swimming 
pool, something, which, in most circumstance, he would had been 
slightly put off by.  Presently, with the boy clad in nothing but his 
black boxers it proved to be quite a delightful little show before the 
matinee.

He pouted though upon coming at last to the hall leading to their 
destination, for it quite abruptly snapped into a more modern sort of 
design- tile and glass leading through part of the orchard, the ceiling 
clear, here and there spattered with dead blossoms.  That made him 
smile, just a bit.

The sign which confronted him at the door did not.

[Swimwear required of all patrons.]

He had never once in his life owned such a dastardly thing!  And 
perhaps, if not already seeking some small rejuvenation for his past 
travel time, which had been strenuous indeed, he put up no fight for a 
scene where the staff had evidentially put up no qualms with finding a 
clever way to finance their little addition.   On one side of the 
entrance stood a bar, on the other a small shop selling appropriate 
garments.

::Don't fuss now Nagi-chan.:: he instructed his playmate as he scooted 
him through the door without the aid of his hands.  ::They'll just make 
it more challenging.  Get something blue, why don't you?::

He himself took all of five seconds to gravitate towards a pair of 
black trunks, which he pulled on in the store, the clerk of which 
excused himself for a nice jerk off once he had finished.  His clothes- 
garters, cat ears and all- ended up on one of the white lounge chairs 
that stood in a ring around the indoor portion of the pool- a rather 
irregular shaped body of water which inside had not a tint of sky to it 
but still offered a lacework of lost light to the heights of the 
ceiling.  The curves of it still suited him just fine, had lots of 
little nooks to hide in, strings of shade the sun sent inside through 
the plate glass that separated the two halves.   Said glass, he found, 
ran only to the surface of the water, leaving the possibility of 
swimming back and fourth between the azure and the colorless liquid 
quite open.     

He walked once around the gold flecked stone that served as the setting 
for his latest little seduction- rough cut stuff, probably meant to 
rather resemble a grotto -waiting for Nagi at first, though the diving 
board  refused to be neglected.  He scaled her metal rungs, both sets 
and walked out to the very edge of her lips.  Stood, and watched his 
reflection popping in and out of proportion.  

It was very quiet there inside.  Everyone had gone to fondle each other 
and breath into each other's mouths out of doors.  He wondered if he 
would be able to hear their thoughts if he floated in the water that 
made contact with them.  Sometimes it worked.  Sometimes... 

Eh, he felt the boy walk into the room and with barely a breath, took 
three jumps for leverage and left the board for the graces of 
unsupported air.  Whoosh! Smack! Fizzing like a million bottles of that 
cheap champagne, with the bubbles rubbing up against him even as he 
sank and met the very floor, which he skimmed along into the center of 
the empty pool.

No, he couldn't hear anyone down here, except himself.  There wasn't 
much metal in Terran water after all...

/Why the fuck does Brad keep calling me Aubrey lately? You'd think he 
was trying to piss me off or something.../

/Probably is./

/Stupid shields./

/He'll get over it, he always does./

/He's worse than Aya mostly and he knows it./

/What could Aya be but a cinch then?/

He laughed and lost what little remained of his air, coming up with a 
toss of his now soaked henna hair and a rather indelicate gasp.

/In the mean time... what a sweet little ass I've got to amuse me in the 
mean time./

/Time is utterly irrelevant./

/And you know why, don't you, Aubrey?/

***

Nagi had stopped on the pool side to watch Schuldich dive.  Watched 
that sinously lean body flip and cut through the glassy surface, not 
bothering to duck the resulting little splash.  In a rare flash of 
self-consciousness, he folded his arms across his chest when the 
redhead breached the surface again, half wondering if he should just 
go back into the hotel, to one of the rooms, and lock himself 
inside.  

Then he realized just how childish that would be.  How they both 
would laugh at him.  

Because he hadn't been a child for a long, long time.  

And...standing there, he realized that it was more nerves than 
anything else.  Never had he been with either of them, Crawford or 
Schuldich, all alone and wanting him.  Never thought he'd have the 
chance...And now that it had come...

Stiffly, he unfolded his arms, and pattered over to the pool's edge.  
Dipped one foot into the water, and found it warm, much to his 
delight.  Then he too, dived in, breaking through with barely a 
splash.  Swam like an otter under the water to the other side of the 
pool, as far from Schuldich as he could get.  Broke through, and 
clung to the wall, smoothing his drenched hair back from his 
forehead, ready to spring away from him in an instant.    

But then, that was the fun of it--the chase.  

***

Schuldich didn't float.  He charmed himself to no end with the little 
niceties he found himself incapable off, whether tuning out the 
flavored channels that rippled though his conscious or his unconscious 
if he liked, but stood always omnipresent, or taking to the surface of 
an innocent pool.  Fall under the rivulets of water... no, he couldn't 
say it was like going blind or deaf, because he could still see and 
still hear.  How does one describe loosing a sense that language 
defies? 

/It's almost as good as having my shields back when the chemical 
balance is just right.../

He stretched against the bottom, folded his hands behind his head and  
let out a few bubbles that represented a sigh.  No, only the faintest 
aftertaste of thoughts here, the bodies of swirling Freudian beauty and 
pain that made up every person who breathed, some who didn't.  Like 
him.

He got static from himself when he was under, from his filled ears and 
his empty mind.  His mostly bare skin the clear pressure always shifted 
against, over and over, batting at him like a cat toy.  Undercuts and 
undercurrents that fanned his hair out around him, and blew bubbles 
with the light.  

It made his stomach hurt, being under too long.  His lips burn for more 
then air, his mouth more than water.

Made him hungry and peaceful like the dead.  He reached up towards the 
popping halo one of the lighting fixtures refracted above him, marveled 
at the shadows of his own hands.

/OK, that's it.  Time to come up for air./

Which he did, and hung bobbing just above the water, tickling it with 
his bare feet to keep afloat and so seeming to waver between sinking 
back in and leaving the arms of the cursed water spirits.

Nagi he offered a glance as he took a draught of his sick, sweet lemon 
fizz.  The blooming acrid nectar of anticipation.  His own mouth ceased 
to water but it begged for the cool feel of those young lips, burned to 
tear open that chrysalis and find what sort of undiluted flavor would 
take then both when he took that child.

Who was playing hard to get it seemed.

/I was doing THAT before you ever even knew what sex was./

/Long before we met.../

::C'mon, Nagi-chan.  You knew this day would come as well as I did.  
That we'd be here.  Together.  You always could have, by the way...::

::Asked.::

/Because that's my fun, that's my chase, knowing what you want before 
you do and how to give it to you.  Waiting for you./

With that, he lazily clambered out of the pool and ordered himself an 
ice water with a straw, which he sat on the opposite edge of the pool, 
slurping away at.

/So come get it./

***

Nagi had indeed caught that carefully aimed remark, but wondered why 
Schuldich had even made it.  Especially when he already knew the 
answer why, as many times as he had forayed into his mind those rare 
times his shields were down.  Tasted of him and let him have a taste 
of himself.  Just enough to tease.  Just enough to make him want 
him.  And then he would retreat.  

He drifted by the wall in the soothingly warm water, and watched 
Schuldich watch him.  

/I know what you're doing, you know./

/I know all the tricks./

A deep breath and Nagi submerged himself.  Swam smoothly under the 
water straight for the metal ladder that hung dead center on the pool 
wall.  It was slippery and surprisingly cold despite the sunshine it 
was bathed in, and he barely suppressed a shiver as he climbed out.  

/I could have asked you?  Why would I have done that?/

/No one cared before about what I wanted.  Or what I didn't want.  
Just that they could use me./

/I was just a toy then.  I figured you'd treat me the same way.  That 
you'd take what you wanted, when you wanted it./

/I don't understand why you didn't./  

/I don't understand you./

He had made the circle around the pool by this time, and was now 
standing next to Schuldich, staring down at the sunsparkled German.  

/I don't think I ever will./

He sank to his knees on the scratchy cement.  

"But it doesn't really matter what I think, does it?"

A look, and the straw wriggled free from Schuldich's mouth with a 
babyish pop!  Nagi replaced it with his tongue.  

***

Schuldich leaned into the boys kiss, smeared the water on his lips 
between them though otherwise remaining rather still, let the child 
have what he liked of his mouth, responded only meekly and drank in the 
surprise at this with sweet temptation all around. 

But then his hands came up and he pushed him away to feast instead upon 
the sight of those ever swollen little lips, parted sweet and dripping 
beneath such disinterested pools of blue-shot beryl.  

"No, no, Nagi-chan. You want to know why? Your thoughts are the why for 
everything." This time he forced himself on his willing mouth to attain 
his silence for another austere moment.  Their breath fell rapid upon 
one another as he finished his lines.

"Don't you know you taste better like this? Inside and out."

Still no time for even the most inexperienced of fledgling answers.  
With a grave, deliberate slowness, he gathered his lover's ward into 
his arms, held him close to his chest with one hand scrunched in his 
hair and the other dancing over the blades of his shoulders.  

::I do know where you sleep and I think I will always know, whether you 
want me to or not.  But I also know where you keep the pains mortals 
dare not speak of even to themselves, and the sadistic little stabs you 
want to feel through your consciousness.  I know what you are Nagi, 
better than you know yourself.::

A very light kiss to his cheek.

"But you're right.  I do like dolls.  They make lovely pool toys."

With that, he pushed the child and himself into the water and before 
the swirling foam of their descent had even cleared, had him pinned to 
the bottom of the pool and thoroughly frenched.  

***

The watery shadow of the sunlight flickered faintly across his 
tightly closed eyelids; the roar of his heart in his ears.  He felt 
Schuldich's slick tongue in his mouth, dueling with his own.  His 
hands roamed over his body, sending ghostly aftershocks over his bare 
skin; making him rub against him.  His lungs were aching, his head 
was spinning, but he didn't want to be freed.  He wanted more--more 
of Schuldich's kisses, more of his caresses.  

More pain.  

He thought as much at his much lusted after captor, his fingers 
clawing ineffectually at his shoulders.  

And then, his hands slid away from Schuldich's body to drift like 
dozing jellyfish through the water.      

Unconsciousness fell over him like a blanket, soft and soothing, 
slowly blotting out all light, all sensation.  Even the feel of 
Schuldich's kiss, his arms wrapping around him and hoisting him up 
came to him from faraway.  

***

Ran had turned to face the intruder when he'd spoken, but quickly 
looked away as soon as he'd notice just how naked the boy was. So 
instead, Ran had kept his eyes firmly glued to Ken's face the whole 
time the interrupting catamite had been in the room with them. Felt 
grateful when he asked them to put on trousers. 

And was quite dismayed when he realized that Ken was about to go 
review the troops, so to speak. 

/He has to review whores? Oh, god./ 

/That's not what he needs now. Not what I need./

/But there's no damn way I'm going to send him off on his own, 
trembling or no./ 

Ignoring the curious, contemplative looks they were garnering from 
the trio across the room, Ran lightly stroked Ken's back, 
murmuring, "Are you up to this?" 

Ran got a nod for an answer, a tremulous smile. Ken pushed away from 
him just a bit, and struggled to take one step without faltering. 
But his limbs were beset by another bout of fierce trembling, and he 
wound up clinging to him as before. Not that Ran minded having him 
so close. In fact, he was quite tempted again--and just might have 
done that if their female companions weren't now watching them right 
then. Plus...He wasn't sure if Ken could handle anymore displays of 
affection. He regretted his rash action--for about two seconds. The 
taste of him was just too sweet for any sense of sorrow to 
linger. 

He bent his head close to boyfriend's as they made their painful way 
down the hall, whispering in his ear, "Gomen, Ken. I know it affects 
you badly when I kiss you...But I can't stop doing it."

"And I won't...Because I don't want to stop. I don't want to leave 
you alone."

"And unless you physically push me away, or tell me 'No', I am going 
to kiss you like that every morning, and every night, and any other 
damn time I wish."

/Kaze's ghost be damned!/ 

***

Ken gazed at the figure beside him, one which seemed to be whirling in 
slow motion static.  The heels of his hands he rubbed against his eyes 
then as if this would somehow take the dizziness that had come over him 
back to the misty reaches of nowhere whence it had come.  

He had some luck with this.  To much really.  The fit passed and dove 
like a specter back through the ice he knew so well, the heart of the 
world he had left.

Smirking now, he pulled away from his lover and strode before him, arms 
clasped behind his head, looking every bit the hot, impudent Ken he 
liked to present himself off as.  His stomach seemed warm and cuddly 
all of a sudden, like if he could have, he would have liked to have 
embraced himself just to get his hands on it.

"Oh, I think I can live with that.  Seems like a much nicer way to wake 
up than Youji pouring beer on my head... oh, right, you weren't there 
that morning." He bit his lip.  "Umm... it was a long time ago... ah... 
anyway, finding your tongue in my mouth every..."

A ghosting suggestion of that act passed his lips and he found, with 
great dismay, that his knees locked just on cue and he promptly jerked 
like a wind up toy whose springs have come undone.  

Pitching back against a wall, he leaned down and knocked them with his 
unsteady fist.

"OH C'MON NOW! This is pathetic! I'm a soccer player for crying out 
loud.  I can sure as hell walk down a hall and..."

Speaking of which, he glanced back the aisle of silver and gold wire 
trees, saw through the crystals of their fruits the three women, 
looking at them through the bows and the open doors.

He shook his head and beckoned.  "You don't expect just Ran and I to go 
up against a whole army of villa workers, do you? The more the 
merrier!"

Fiona dropped the handle to the cart the trunk was on, and the 
resulting crash rang loud and long.  "Frankly, I think that's an even 
match but just in case..." She lead the other two to the place where 
their boys waited, and together, they proceeded among the sounds of 
footfalls above, to the room where the brothel's populous had gathered.

One formed of the same spindly trees that ran the walls of the aisle 
they had left, only here, they were of pearly white alone, and still 
without leaves, now even without the crystals that had served as 
apples.  The shell behind them was of alabaster, so it glowed still in 
the late afternoon review of light.  As if this did not provide enough 
of a peculiar atmosphere however, the floor happened to be uneven, and 
covered with a very, very thick plush carpet with tufts so long they 
dipped now and again into his sneakers.

Arrayed before them stood some two-hundred lovely boys, of every modern 
tint and creed, some invented it seemed, with tattoos and gold dust.  
Not a one wore more than bangles and cut-offs, not a one failed to fall 
into the realm of impossibly lean.  Most seemed inclined to break if 
breathed upon, or capable of breaking an ordinary man.  They had been 
lounging for the most part, as was common for off-duty persons of their 
profession, but now, they slowly rose like cloaks of steam of faerie 
children, and stood somewhat at attention, save for their eyes, which 
restlessly darted over one another's bottoms, or left each other's 
shoulders for the sight of Ken and his envoy.   Though rich in form 
their garb told other stories and was, for the most part, quite poorly 
fitted, as if they had grabbed one another's in the hopes of finding 
something at all.

Guarded were they by a dozen or so women in pallas of the herald 
colors, and a dozen or so more in dove grey servant's gear, who had 
arrayed themselves about the edges of the congregation as if to serve 
as pillars for the luminescent room.

Ken laid his hands to his hips and regarded them with scrutiny, an act 
which he managed to keep up for about five seconds before falling into 
waving at last.

With not a word, the whores all waved back.  Some quite suggestively.

"Nice to umm... meet you.  I've... well, let's keep this short.  You're all 
fired." 

Shame of all shames, it felt like a birthday party, being able to say 
that to all those strumpets with a straight face.

***

"AH SHIT!" Schuldich groaned as he hung Nagi's limp form up between the 
rails of the stairs out of the pool.  The boy's head lolled sideways, 
nearly dipping back into the water from which it had been fished.  It 
would not have taken the telepath as something actually eerie, save 
that it bared his throat.

Which was still; unsullied by the ticks of breathing.  Absorbed in it's 
pale lack of motion, he brushed his lips to it a moment, finding still 
the barest flutter of a heart.  But no breath.  No breath at all.  How 
macabre! How gorgeous! How... he would get the balling out of his life if 
it turned out he'd drowned his lover's darling, surly telekinetic.

/Hehe... oops./

/You could have thrown me off, you could have asked, you could have.../

/Rather kiss me than breathe, hmm?/

He took his chin in his fingers and backhanded him a few times, finding 
himself smiling softly all the while.  Satisfaction was grim, the sound 
of their skin cracking together most refreshing.  The little trickle of 
waking he picked up an admitted relief. 


::See, this is why we learn to ask nicely.::

He punched him in the gut then.

::God, you're cute when you're half dead.::

He left Nagi spit the water from his lungs into his own mouth.

***

The comforting blanket was gone, cruelly snatched away to be replaced 
by intense pain, by Schuldich's near-suffocating weight, and it was 
glorious. Nagi told him so through the fog that veiled his brain. 
Then he jerked away, turning his head to the side to gather in a few 
necessary breaths before he hungrily claimed Schuldich's mouth with 
his own. 

/By why should I ask nicely, when you'll treat me so brutally if I 
don't?/ 

/Why did you stop? Because of Crawford? You aren't afraid of him, 
not really./

/I know you aren't, and I don't have to read minds. I can see it./ 

***

Schuldich, true to form, laughed as he hovered over his boy, watched 
the water from the loose tendrils of his hair splattering over his 
pallid face and running back into the pool like so many romance novel 
tears.  After all, this was anything but.  He dragged his head up by 
his hair and kissed him back, bit at his lips, nibbled his lashes and 
his ears.

"No, I'm not afraid of Brad.  Why do you think I call him my bunny? 
Because that what he is.  He's my horny little Braddie bunny!  Then 
again..." This he sighed almost sadly against his somewhat bleeding 
tongue which had left his lips in a quiet inquiry.  "I'm not afraid of 
you either, am I?"

::So why'd I stop?::

With that, he disentangled the fair limbs from their metal braces and 
swept the two of them back into water.

::Because I already got what I wanted.  You're awake now.  See? I'm 
easy to please.::

::I mean really! Why beat you up when I can fuck you?::

"And besides, didn't someone ask me to be nice to them last night? 
Mmm?"

Their bodies drifted apart then, fell this way and that as they kicked 
away from the bottom.  Schuldich though, still smiling all this time, 
scooped up a handful of water and poured it over Nagi's head before 
reaching over and rubbing him through the front of his trunks with his 
toes.

***

"I...didn't think...you'd take me seriously..."

Nagi let his eyes drift shut, savoring all the tiny pleasure shocks 
radiating through his body from Schuldich's impromptu massage. The 
pallor resulting from his near brush with death slowly began to 
fade. 

Then Nagi swam backwards away from Schuldich, and took a deep breath, 
and dove under. Swam a circle around the German's legs, 
then leapt up in front of him...

And sent a tiny wave of water slushing across the surface to splatter 
over his back, but didn't smile when it hit. Instead he wound his 
arms around the German's neck, and pressed kisses to his throat, 
cheek, lips. 

"Touch me for real, Schuldich..." 

***

"Now we're getting the hang of this asking business.  C'mere, you."

Saying so, the telepath hitched Nagi's tender little legs around his 
waist and spirited both of them over to the glass which marked the 
boundary of the inside and outside worlds.  His fingers barred their 
lips for only a moment as he swing himself over the edge of the pool, 
right beside the distorted little smudge of his ice water, which he 
tasted again, looking somewhat like a mermaid placed just so in an old 
french soap add.    

But enough of that.  The golden light had had Nagi to himself long 
enough, but he was dying and deserved a moment with him.

Schuldich held out his hands to the boy, but made him fight his own way 
from the arms of the water to the arms of his guardian's lover.  He 
rubbed his back then, listening to him fuss inside about this misplaced 
saccharine motion they had taken together.

In the midst of one more kiss, he grazed his bottom, slid his fingers 
down Nagi's trunks and wriggled up inside him with little apology.

*** 

Nagi's eyes flew open, his head arched back, mouth forming a 
surprised little 'o'. It didn't hurt very much, just felt odd. His 
lovers usually didn't bother to prepare the way. Usually didn't try 
to work him up as Schuldich was. He clung tighter to the redhead's 
shoulders, slightly desperate, as if he feared Schuldich would beat a 
hasty retreat. 

But he didn't, just rotated that invading digit deeper inside of him, 
making him gasp again, making him thrust back against his hand. Nagi 
surged forward and kissed Schuldich, sweeping his tongue inside his 
mouth, tangling his fingers through his wringing wet locks. Felt the 
goosebumps rise on his flesh. 

"I want more." Another fervent kiss. "Please, Schuldich..." 

***

"Mmm, good, very good, Nagi-chan."  Jade eyes half lidded, Schuldich 
skated his gaze over the child, watching him gasp and trickle with 
motion as he rubbed him inside, tested the most delectable damp silk 
patches within him.

::Work you up? Heh, can you feel what you're doing to me? You think I'm 
not enjoying this as much as you are?::

He shifted the angles of their laps and bumped his sex to the 
telekinetic's.  Just a touch, a graze.  A wordless little promise.

::I'm not going ANYWHERE with that.::

"But more... hmm... more? What can I do that would be more for you? So many 
wonderful things."

In an instant, he had the ice cubes shaken from his glass and had 
popped them one by one into a very surprised Nagi-chan until he was 
filled with melting crystals and a pair of restraining digits.

"Brad doesn't like to play the hush game, do you?"

(OOC: Yes, that's the technical term for stuffing ice cubes in someone 
and seeing how long they can keep from screaming.)

***

Nagi shivered, gasped, wriggled on Schuldich's lap.  It hurt, it 
froze him, made him want to moan.  He'd never played such a game as 
the one the redhead had proposed; he decided he wanted to go along.  

But not without first laying down a condition.  

He lay his hand on Schuldich's chest, trailing it suggestively down 
his stomach to the waistband of his trunks.  Snapped it once against 
the taut flesh there, then slid his hand inside to toy with his sex.  

"If I play with you, will you give me this whether I win or lose?"  

***

Schuldich winced with pleasure and confirmed this wish with a kiss.  No 
more.  Not a word, not a thought.  He simply pulled his fingers away 
and let Nagi hold the ice on his own, shiver through his hips on his 
own.  He even shook divinely.  The melt water leaving his body ran 
across his own thighs, but from this he found no need to imagine what 
it must have been like with the unadulterated stuff dripping chilly 
over that body and where it was so accustomed to the warmth of hands 
alone.  

For the first most tentative of times, he chanced caressing Nagi's mind 
with his own lust.

Got a shiver in reply, still asking softly, "Can you feel *that*, hmm?"

*** 

That caress had shone in his mind like a bruise-colored ripple of 
light, blinding him briefly, and when it passed, left him feeling 
aching and strangely energized and wanting. Nagi dug his fingers 
into Schuldich's shoulders, and regarded him through wavering, half-
lidded eyes. 

His occasional shivering had now reached his lips, making them 
tremble violently when a frozen spasm shook him. 

"I...I can..."

"What d-did you just do?" 

***

"You of course," Schuldich murmured, running his lips along the child's 
face and savoring there the faint taste of salt beneath the clean feel 
of fresh water.  "But just a little."

::I've been waiting, Nagi-chan.::

::Now seems like as good a time as any.::

"It's what Brad and I like to do.  It's worse than drowning, or ice, 
for the other person."      

::You want it?::

Then he sighed into his ear, pulling him closer and closer until the 
traces of where their bodies met was white as snow, lost to pressure 
and all sense beyond the other's skin- his bruised here and there with 
old love bites, Nagi's streaked with scratches from their orgy  "Which 
is more of a turn on? That I'm about to take you or that you can tell 
me no and I really will stop? If you let me in, you won't even have to 
answer."

In the mean time awaiting his reply, he arched his hips into Nagi's, 
pressing their mutual stiffness together, changing the pitch of their 
blood with only the slightest shift of muscles.

***

Nagi traced the lines of Schuldich's back.  Brushed his fingers 
casually over the hard bony ridges of his shoulder blades.  He could 
feel him and he couldn't, but Schuldich was always there 
nonetheless.  It was like someone else's soul had invaded his body, 
and was making one half of his body mirror every move of the other.  

Schuldich's presence burned like an aurora in his brain.  It was like 
viewing heaven and hell at the same time, painful and awful and 
sweet.  

All his shields came crashing down.  

/Do it.  Infiltrate my mind and ravage it.  Strip me naked and screw 
me.  Whatever you want to do, Schuldich.../

/Just, please, please, do it now, and don't be quick to finish.../  

***

Schuldich proceeded to fuck speaking.  It wouldn't be doing him any 
good at the moment, performing grave utterances while plunged so far 
into the infinite pearly levels of the boy.  What would come of him 
saying he felt nothing like Crawford there? That insinuating himself 
between his lucidity and his madness was like having his bones scrubbed 
with fiberglass that made the marrow burst into sick little blooms that 
were born and died in stellar seconds.

Made him restless beyond all grasp of language.  He could not hold 
himself now, he could not go without now.  He had to leave this earthy 
malaise for whatever full penetration would earn him.  

Nagi he spun lightly on his lap, pulling down his trunks, finding his 
bottom snow white and shivering.  Clenching and unclenching

Schuldich took the boy around the ribs and slipped into him, finding 
the flesh wide open for him.  Somehow tranquil and relaxed, cool and 
easy that he... 

Found only a little water within that ran down onto his crotch and made 
him shake as he rolled around inside the boy, nudging his sweet spot as 
he crept deeper and deeper.

***

He couldn't feel him anymore; the yellow, blue-green aura had 
retreated, no longer blinding him to the dull pathos of the world, 
and he wanted to cry.  Wanted to scream.  

Schuldich gave him another reason to do both.  

Nagi arched like a stretching cat, opening up and impaling himself 
that much more.  His arms he lifted over his head, to wrap around 
Schuldich's neck.  His head lolled on the redhead's shoulder, face 
turned away from his now-lover's.  He didn't want kisses; such things 
during the actual act were for the "I love you" sort of sweethearts.  
He wasn't that to Schuldich, and he didn't care.  

So long as he...

Nagi emitted a sudden, soft mewl, panting now; Schuldich had buried 
himself to the hilt in his ice-chilled ass.  All that heat after all 
that cold...It was maddening, delicious agony.  Nagi wriggled around 
a tiny bit, as if trying to somehow get him further inside of 
himself.    

***

Nagi no longer felt wet when he squeezed him.  Not wet from the pool at 
least.  The light icing of sweat was visible on him now.  Such a young 
child, fighting and hot so...

Schuldich curled his legs around him and cocked his hips to one side, 
which put him at a most unusual angle, as if he had been stilled in the 
process of falling.  The arms around his neck tightened as if he feared 
just that.  He supported him though, with one hand knotted in his hair, 
drawing his head to one side so he could slide his tongue along his 
shoulder.

The other hand he slid between his legs, rubbing his stiffness and 
giving it a squeeze out of sync with his first real thrust.  Such 
things were hard to manage in a bed from this position, let along the 
edge of a pool.  "Kucha kucha," Said to his ear before he bit it.

And then he swung the boy's body back and forth between his arms, for 
he was quite light after all.  With his thighs he enfolded his bruised 
hips, nuzzling them, and which his mind he crept back in, settling back 
into long ripples of their tryst, lapping like the ripples in the empty 
pool, in and out of memory and dream.  

But suddenly he leaned back against the cold stone floor, into the 
imprint of his own wetness, pulling Nagi along with his crossed legs so 
he was splayed out atop him.  His eyes closed, his mental hands closed 
around the pinpricks of grenadine in his present partner, he giggled to 
him.  "Go on, whatever you want.  Leave me in you or take me.  Whatever 
you want."

::I'm staying in your head either way.::

::You said I should take my time.  Well, you take some too.::

But then he jerked upwards and got himself a little wail and a shudder 
through the smooth muscle which embraced him.
 
(OOC: Kucha kucha would be the sound effect for petting someone's 
naughty bit... I'm serious.)

***

His hold on Schuldich relaxed a bit, arms slackening as if he had 
fainted, but he hadn't.  Nagi left his hands where they were, grazing 
the cold, rough stone, flexing in the silken tangles of his hair.  He 
tightened his inner muscles, hugging the stiffness he was impaled 
upon and getting a gasp for his trouble.  Gasped himself when 
Schuldich paid him back with another sexy little squeeze of his own 
erection.    

/I want you in me, to lie here just like this for as long as you can 
bear my weight.  The sun piercing through my eyelids.../

/You flooding my mind.../

Nagi thrust back against him, bringing a moan to his own lips.  
Brought one hand down to toy with a nipple.  

/You feel good inside me.../  

***

/How about outside too?/ A faint flicker of that ever-present mental 
chuckle and Schuldich tapped the child's fingers away, took Nagi's 
little nubs with his own hands and pinched them as hard as he could.  
Enjoyed the arching shriek this earned him and then fell back to 
petting the skin he had injured.  

One of his hands eventually scooted back down and took up stroking his 
penis again.  And squeezing it.  

/Or hear where I know no one has ever touched you before?/

A soft swallow of Nagi's awareness, which he rolled about on his 
immaterial tongues, nibbled and clasped close and warm to himself or 
close to itself, breaking it to little pieces and stuffing them back 
together in his fist, drawing at blood red strands of himself like 
traces of someone there before and he was trying to find his own mind 
then, crawl back to himself but he couldn't and he shivered and it felt 
to good to leave and his stomach ached for a second and he screamed and 
he shuddered.

And finally the threw the boy down in his side, joined him there 
against his soft back and mindlessly took him as hard as he could by 
touch alone for he was blind then and seething and wanting and petting.

He felt spent then, but he wasn't sure if only one of them had reached 
orgasm or both.  Either way, his mind swimming, he cradled the boy 
close in the shade of the sun, breathing in time with him.

***

Nagi limply hung in Schuldich's arms, straddling the line between 
unconsciousness and awareness.  The intense ache between his legs was 
gone, having had dispelled itself in the starburst of his orgasm.  
He'd stained his skin, Schuldich's hands, the ground with his 
leavings, but he didn't remember doing it.  

Only remembered that for one incredible, raging moment, he and 
Schuldich had become one in the literal sense of the word.  

A forced deep breath and he became aware of his surroundings, of the 
feel of Schuldich's arms around his sweaty body, of the press of his 
chest against his back as he breathed.  He tentatively reached up 
with quivering fingers to touch the redhead's hand where it rested on 
his upper arm, and as he covered it with his own, he couldn't help 
but think how hot and smooth and alien it felt to the touch.  

He didn't want to move just yet.  

"...Schuldich?"

"I...know that you might have been...intending this to be a one time 
thing, but..."

"Sometime..."

"...Will you do this to me again?"  

***

A bitter murmur rose up from the throng of living, breathing sex toys 
like a achingly cold winter wind, and Ran nearly burst out 
laughing...Nearly.  He bit his lip until the threatening twinge of 
amusement fluttered away.  Not that he cared what anyone in the room 
thought, not that he cared if he hurt anyone's feelings--but it was 
his habit to quiet the rare impulses he'd had to laugh.  

Because Aya never laughed.  Ran wasn't sure that he felt altogether 
comfortable doing it.  Didn't know if he ever would.  

/And that's just how you're going to have to take me, Ken.../  

He closed the distance between them, warding away with an Abyssinian-
like look those intrepid few who had dared to break free of the crowd 
to plead or demand or question, and he bent his head close to 
Ken's.  "Nice one, anata.  That's the Ken I know...and love."

He stepped back then, just to his left, and coolly shot a look at 
Fiona.  Mentally repeated her remark about the two of them being a 
match for a room full of villa workers.  

/Watch out, Fiona-chan.  I believe you just paid us both a 
compliment./  

***

Fiona, now a good little servant girl and all, was obliged not to 
respond.  

/But with every fucking angel known to man as my witness I'd *love* to 
give you the birdie right about now!/

***

As for the questions, there were quite a few, mostly shouted 
anonymously from within the ranks.

"Fired!? You're kidding right?"

"Who's the guy with you?"

"Yeah, he's kinda skinny." Someone got pushed out of the clump here and 
for a moment seemed to be exhibiting the audacity required to poke Ran 
and the ribs. For a moment.

"What happened to Kaze? When's he coming back?" A very, very small 
child asked this- about twelve with agate eyes and white hair.  One of 
the burlier chaps promptly tossed him onto his shoulders, where he 
looked more like a testy feather boa than anything else.

"Where are we supposed to go?" 

"Good question!" Seconded a herald.  

Ken swallowed his sadean bliss and knotted his hands behind his back 
like a smart-alecky kid who knows his number is up.  And then he faced 
them, grinning, stretching backward with his shoulders, as if they 
bored him, as if he was right back on the soccer field where he 
belonged.

"One at a time please, and there's no need to shout, or push!"

"We're not kids!" the boa insisted.

"I beg to differ," Yuriko yawned, calling up a few snickers.

"Now," Ken continued, "If you have a question, raise your hand and I 
will call on you.  To start with, this is Ran, he's my boyfriend..."

"Oooooooooooooh!" Said the crowd, swelling with off-color whispers and 
giggles such as- "Oh, a brothel owner with a boyfriend.  That's rich.", 
"I'M sure cuter than that mannequin.", "Give me five minutes alone with 
the Hidaka-dono and I'll bet you anything he'll change his tone.", 
"What tone? That guy he's got is TASTE-LESS.", "I dunno, I'd do 'im.". 

"Urusai ze!" (Carly took a step forward as a human exclamation mark, 
and Ran noted a good half of the assemblage backed off, or coughed 
loudly.) "As for Kaze, he ah... he kinda... he's dead.  Get over it."

This earned him a dismayed moan, and a few more unsolicited comments.  
"Oh! So that's Ken then!", "How come nobody tells US about these 
things?  I thought the guy was missing or some shit.", "C'mon, he's 
been gone for months, what did you THINK happened to him?"

"DAMERU!" Ken stamped his foot and swept his bangs from his face, not 
for the distinctive lack of quiet he was currently tolerating, but for 
the fact his own blunt words were startling him.

"And as for you people, you're fired, you can do what you want."

"Hey buster!" The boa once again.  "This is a state-sanctioned Hyacinth 
Villa here! You can ditch us if you want but what about...?"

"It's going to be a flower shop.  The very best flower shop on Terra."

This flew into the room bearing the previously so elusive lack of 
speech which lasted for some time, before his given agitator shot it 
dead with,  "You mean to tell me you're going to turn a perfectly 
respectable brothel into a FLOWER SHOP! That's just indecent!"

(OOC: Urusai ze and dameru both mean "shuttup".)

***

"Indecent?!  A flower shop is indecent?!" 

Ran, who had gone from a bemused spectator to a man who'd sell his 
soul in a second for a katana, stepped forward then and snapped, "I 
don't care WHAT you pack of scarecrows think!  Hidaka-dono is the new 
owner, and he will do as he pleases.  Not as you wish."

/Not as I wish...Or Kaze would have wished either, for that matter./  

/This forcefulness is what I'm used to seeing in you...How I remember 
you acting towards me when you thought I was being an ass./

/Which, as I recall, was often.../

/And then...You lost it...Almost overnight.../

"Who are you to be talking?" came another cry from the 
crowd.  "You're just the person who's warming his bed this week...And 
probably not doing very well from the looks of you."  The person's 
voice dropped to a stage whisper, "He's bound to be FRIGID."  

Ran stepped forward then; would have gone into the crowd after his 
heckler if it weren't for Ken's restraining arm.  He settled for 
hurling remarks instead of dealing punches.    

"Who am I?  I'm the man who's going to personally drag your underfed 
carcass from this Villa."

The shouting rose to World Cup level then, silenced only when Carly 
extended her arm as if to slap someone, only to snap her fan open 
instead.  Everyone in the room went still as her imperious gaze swept 
across them--including Ran.  To his credit though, he didn't flinch 
or look away, and finally, after what seemed to be an eternity, he 
gave her a slight, stiff nod in acquiescence--done more for Ken's 
sake than out of any real need to impress the true power of the 
Hyacinth Villa. But he didn't step back from Ken's side--merely 
watched him out of the corner of his eye, waiting to see what he'd do 
or say next.  

***

"OK!" Ken began again, clapping his hands.  "Now, before we were so... 
umm... well, before we were interrup-..."

"So we're just supposed to go out and work street corners like the 
dirty girl-skanks on Antiterra!" Fumed the boa, smacking the shoulders 
of his mount and nodding viciously.

His eyes rolled almost comically at this and he would not even grant 
the child the grace of his glance, something he certainly hoped would 
come off as condescending.  Being mean to kids wasn't his forte, nor 
was hassling prostitutes. In fact, the idea that he had, in one day, 
managed to combine the two rather took him by surprise. "If you want 
to, I won't stop you.  In fact, you see this?" His thumb flicked across 
his chest.  "This is me giving you people permission to set up camp 
elsewhere... if ya want.  Again, it's up to you."

"That will," one of the heralds started, slipping forth from her 
station as a column, pulling a few boys with her as if this particular 
bunch served more as her property than of any patron, "Effectively 
subject us to the laws of economics.  You cheapen our profession, 
Hidaka-dono." With that, she and her charges aligned themselves before 
the resistance.  

"Frankly, I think the townspeople will be delighted.  How much DO you 
people charge a pop now?"

A ripple of verbal shrugs came and went, leaving nothing in its wake 
save the general impression of "It depends..."

/There once was a hooker named Annie
Whose prices were something something dandy
A buck for a fuck
Fifty cents for a suck
And a dime for a feel of her fanny/

"Good to know you're so sure of yourselves.  Anyway, I will be offering 
an optional severance package for those who wish to... retire."

/And eat./

"I'm afraid to ask."  

Ken wanted to pop the boa at that point.  And not in a sexual way... 
"You'll all be given preferential treatment when we hire for the flower 
shop."

Noise, once more.  

"Oh yeah, how generous! Pfft!"

"Are you sure you can do this anyway?"

"Hey, doesn't sound so bad.  We're already used to weird ass goin's 
on."

"You're nuts, you know that."

"But we don't know how to arrange flowers!"

"FINE THEN!" And following that, much more calmly.  "We'll train you."

"Will we be paid for training time?" One financially minded individual 
piped up.

"HUSH!" demanded The Boa.

"OUT!" demanded Ken.

Yuriko was nice enough to show the two of them the door, not to mention 
the herald and her puppies.  She left a trail of keys through the 
hallway and the entryway.  Carly nudged Fiona out the door to go gather 
them like backwards breadcrumb leaving in a faerie tale.

"I actually don't know about the training time.  I hear you people are 
broke.  There will be a small opportunity for hundred dollar IOU's this 
evening however.  Either way, then or now, there is one condition."

And even if they already knew it.  Even if he would have been fated to 
die for uttering the words.  He had one thing to show off, one 
glistening fiber of impetuousness.  An affirmation of sorts...

"ANYONE WHO INSULTS MY RAN WALKS!"

***

Ran regarded his lover with mild surprise, not having had expected 
him to leap to his defense. He smirked a little at the group before 
them, some of whom were shuffling their bare feet nervously on the 
gleaming floor, some of whom were glowering at him, or at Ken. He 
leaned over to murmur, "Does that also apply to Fiona?" 

Twitched his brows a bit in a joking gesture, and rocked back into 
his place, idly glancing down the hall. Apparently, Fiona had gotten 
into some sort of skirmish with someone, or she was just out of sorts 
as usual, because she was grumbling none-too-softly, the keys 
rattling together in a tiny silver basket that dangled from her bent 
arm like an ornament. She caught him watching her, and offered him a 
nasty scowl. A look, to which, he only smiled. 

/Go ahead, Fiona-chan: Make faces, be rude, hate my guts. I don't 
care./

/You're stuck with me./ 

The look on her face then was worth any insult she could have thrown 
at him.

***

/You like this, sweetheart? Well... let's see if I can even top that.../

Ken winked a little challenge to his lover, and a second to their 
servant, who promptly ditched her basket on the same pedestal as the 
bust of Aphrodite, who was someone else, not that it mattered since the 
plaque had been lost during the recent construction, and marched up one 
of the stair cases.

"As for what you'll need to do IF you want one of the IOUs..." A yawn.  
Carly tapped her foot impatiently, as if the proposition excited her as 
well.  Probably for amusement purposes only...

"We're burning the mattresses.  Anyone who wants a note can run 
upstairs, grab a few and start carting 'em down."

No one moved at first.  Shaking their heads, the first few sidled off, 
headed for the entryway- a procession of half-clad convicts released 
with nowhere to go save the reaches of the meadows and the evening... 
then behind them, a few uncertain clatters of applause among the ranks.  
Mostly older, this crowd.  Almost all older then their Hidaka-dono.  
Bitter, probably.  Bitter as anyone of their lot could be, and so, 
charmed by the heroism such a conflagration would imply.  They were 
dragged out of the crowd by a few small apprentices, but did not leave 
the room just yet, restrained their revealers with fleeting kisses and 
pinches.  They waited until the those so far left behind had made up 
their minds.  The maids did nothing, the heralds all stormed away.  The 
hall blossomed with lost souls who would probably have to be shooed 
away with brooms or sappy words.  

"So, where will we be setting up this bonfire?" A fellow in his early 
thirties who happened to be wearing a skirt inquired with a sigh 
halfway between truly interested and utterly bored.  

"Back of the place I guess.  It's drier up on the hillocks." And then 
Ken laughed, tickled by his own rashness.  Burning a bunch of beds from 
the inside of a bordello! What a ring to it! "I guess someone will have 
to go get some kerosene too, something to light it... umm... YOU!" for no 
reason, he picked the youngest of the bunch.  "Here's some money," 
fished out of his own wallet, "Go into town and buy me a box of 
fireplace matches."

The boy took off without another word.

"Umm... you, you and that one there, empty all the lights and the burners 
in the full quarters in the west wing.  Take a few friends with you.  
There should be some buckets in the supply room, make sure they're dry 
before you fill them.  The rest of you, get to it.  We set the fire at 
sundown!"

"How romantic!" One fellow tittered, only to salute, an action the 
remnants of the prostitutes of Koichirou-dono's Hyacinth Villa copied 
as they sped off and went flying up the stairs like a flock of doves.  

***

Savil, with a very grand sigh indeed, flopped down in one of the 
benches that lined the walls of the notary office and there waited for 
her paper work to be confirmed.  Which might take anywhere from six 
minutes to six hours, if she knew the habits of clerks, here there, on 
Terra and on Antiterra.  With a wicked little grin she surveyed the que 
she had only moments before been a faceless victim of! The veritable 
miles of heralds dancing with anticipation, the hosts of men so bored 
they took to leaning from window line to window line randomly kissing 
one another.  The tears of frustration! The angst of waiting! The 
tearing hair the...

Such things held little interest for her so she tossed up her shields.  
The chain in her hand rattled and Farfie with a little whimper flopped 
down with his head in her lap.

"Yes, I know it's no fun, me petit chen.  I know it's no fun.  But we 
get to go back to the hotel room soon! And then we can have some 
dinner! Mmm! And go run around in the garden."

The mere suggestion of a frolic perked him up considerably and he 
crouched, staring up at her with his one doggy-empty eye, panting 
excitedly.  

"And chew on Bradley's good shoes!"

"Bark! Bark! Bark!"

"Then he'll beat you with a newspaper!"

"Bark! Bark! WOOOOOOOOOOF!"

A pat to his head, while she held her finger to her lips.  "Shhhhh!"

Farfie complied and scratched himself behind the ear with his left 
foot.

"Good doggie! Very good!"

A few passing groans here among the seas of lost paper and shortly a 
shadow passed beside her only to take up residence on the opposite side 
of her bench.  She tossed the fellow a little smile but otherwise went 
back to skating her feet around in no particular order.

"Excuse me," He began in the midst of her silence.  "But that's a very 
cute boy you have there."

Saffie giggled behind her dainty fingers and out of politeness now, 
faced him in earnest.  "Oh, this isn't a boy.  This is my puppy 
Farfarello! I call him Farfie-chan for short."

A hearty laugh from her visitor as well and he looked as if he wanted 
very much to ruffle her hair, though as she wasn't his to ruffle, he 
did not.  "That's very funny! That he lets you call him that.  What a 
good sport you are, Farfarello."

He rolled over onto his back and started chewing one of his forearms as 
if he had an itch.

"Oh no!" His mistress asserted with a certainty of innocence about her 
words.  "He's a dog.  Dogs are always good sports."

To the ginger cookie sweet blinks of her blue eyes, the man lost his 
mirth and more slowly stated his position on the matter.  "No, sweetie, 
that is a boy."

She shook her head.  "He's a dog, I'm very sure of it.  He does all the 
things that dogs do! He chases cats, and plays dead- actually, he plays 
dead very well, don't you Farfie-chan?"

Farfie-chan clutched at his chest and most somberly sighed, "Good-bye, 
cru-el world!" before slipping backwards onto the tile.

"And he barks and he greets me at the door when I come home and brings 
my slippers!"

"That still doesn't explain the fact he is a boy.  And I am, not to 
contradict you or anything regarding what he does or does not do, VERY 
sure I see a boy."

To which Savil glanced back and forth between her pet and her bench 
mate, a frown stealing over her face.  "You do? How very odd! I'm sure 
I see a dog."

"But he has a face, the legs of a biped! And if I'm not mistaken, his 
ears are glued on."

"Dogs have faces and they can walk on two legs if they like.  What's 
more, I'm she his ears aren't glued on at all!"

"It's all in the proportionment of the body."

"Dogs come in many different forms!" To illustrate her point, she 
directed his gaze to a pair of fellows who were being quite licked all 
over by a pair of disagreeable terriers, or possibly animated mops.  It 
was hard to tell.  "I seem to think we're having a dispute based solely 
on perception."

"How's that?"   

"Well, given the same set of signifiers, we have each reached a 
different signified.  Where I see the manners of a dog, I perceive a 
dog.  Where to you, seeing not the signs of the body, but the body 
itself, has insisted to your own mind that you see a boy.  But if you 
watched the boy for closely enough, as I have, for I know that it is 
not a boy but a dog, you may, in time, learn to see as I do; that it is 
in fact, a dog."

With a touch of indigence, he turned form her and crossed his arms, 
plainly disbelieving he had heard such a speech from an eleven year 
old.  "Just because he acts like a dog for you does not make a man a 
dog."

"I could have sworn you just told me he was a boy.  Moreover, I beg to 
differ.  Man is not a form! A simple vessel.  Man is a mind! And 
another debate entirely."

"Bah, he's a boy and nothing you can do will convince me otherwise."

Just then, two men in clown costumes approached the counter, one 
carrying a pie, the other a leash with a wire in it to hold it straight 
as he walked- the quintessential invisible dog, which Farfie growled at 
before curling up for a nap.

"I hate to think what you're going to tell me THAT is," Saffie said.   

***

The hammering of their footsteps faded to a dull echo, their voices 
merely spectral murmurings on the air. Carly pivoted, fan spread and 
hovering before her throat, and set off on a stroll down the crystal 
orchard that passed for their hallway. A grande dame surveying her 
territory. Ran at once felt both faint dislike and a grudging 
respect--the same sort of emotional mix that he had held for his 
father. 

But Fujimiya Sr. no longer mattered. He was dead, and Ran was alive, 
and Ken looked like he'd just scored the tiebreaking goal during the 
last five seconds of a neck-and-neck soccer match. All smiling and 
amazed and aglow with a tinge of a pleased blush as he took a few 
steps into the room which previously held the Hyacinth Villa's 
finest. Ran couldn't help but wonder what he was thinking. Couldn't 
help but wonder what he would do if he walked up behind him, pulled 
his collar down and kissed him on the back of the neck. 

Of course, he didn't intend to find out...At least, not right then, 
and not there. 

"A bonfire does sound romantic." He gave him a ghost of an adoring 
smile. "And I can't think of a better way to start off our first 
night in our new home than by burning mattresses." 

There was a slight pause, during which Ran urged himself forward into 
the room, casually sidling up to his lover. 

"I know it sounds sappy, and ridiculous, and not at all like me to 
make confessions...But...I'm proud of you, Hidaka-dono." 

***

"Oh don't you start with that too!" Ken teased, spinning on his toes 
just to prove to himself his legs were working.  The carpet whirled 
around him like dry ice it was so high and thin.  He wondered how they 
managed to keep it standing.  "The Hidaka-dono business I mean."

/'cause that's the last thing I want from you, sweetheart.  That name./

/Even if I like it... well, who wouldn't./

He couldn't at all insist fame had no allure for him.

/I'm still just Ken.  That's what I want to be for you./

It still stung a little, a remembered nibble against his skin, that his 
lover had felt the need to address him so formally.

And then he laughed out loud since he knew why.

"You're too Japanese, even for me." He perched then atop a little rise 
in the hill, and was searched by the violet eyes he cherished, before 
reaching out a hand and pulling Ran up beside him, and they stood for 
awhile, as if meeting somewhere in a real forest wrought of water and 
leaves.

"And I'm proud of you.  For coming all this way, just for this.  
Especially considering... well, especially considering everything!"

/As if the lives of two former Weiss boys would ever be anything but 
one disaster after another./

/All of these remnants of joy and disaster.  But mostly disaster.../

"In fact, I'm so proud of you, I've thought of a job for you! I doubt 
the two of us could take up the whole Villa if we wanted to, so, I 
think you should go pick a room.  Any room you like, but don't take the 
furniture into account, that's all going out the windows too.  Just the 
room.  Now, the west wing is mostly large open kinds of places- the 
pool, the dining hall, the mirror room... and there are some full 
apartments, but they're... ah, they're theme rooms.  Kinda creepy some of 
'em.  The east is all single bedrooms for the most part, so you can 
pick a few if you want, since we will need more than a bedroom... and 
there's actually a south wing, but you have to go through the east to 
get to it... umm... I've actually never been there but I know that's what 
the Victorian towers are.  But any rooms you want, OK?"

Ran opened his mouth to protest, and rather than shoo him away with a 
small gesture, Ken whispered something into his ear he figured would 
send the boy off in a jiffy.  "And as soon as you get back I'll let you 
give me a BIIIIIIIG hicky if you want."

Then he nearly fell flat on his face through the space his beloved had 
thusly vacated.

***     

Carly floated against her own feet in the glinting glass below her 
slippers, one red swan among a host of bare beige creatures who could 
not bring themselves to leave just yet.  The angles hung around her 
like a halo and the whores around the angels like an aura of dark 
light.  Quick footsteps passed her.  Ran passed her, and she caught his 
arm.  Eastern customs be absolutely screwed! 

She held one of his hands between her own and leaning up on her 
tiptoes, kissed his forehead.

/You're my Ran too.  Remember that.  Sweetly. / She thought.

***

Ran, whose mind was swimming with thoughts of finding suitable rooms 
for his lover and himself, so that he could then escort said boy to 
one of those rooms and nibble uninterrupted at the back of his neck, 
was quite put out when Carly snagged him.  Was even more disconcerted 
when by her gesture, her kiss.  Such a strong-willed woman, one who 
could command silence with just a look was humbling herself to him?  
But why?  Was she mocking him?  

She gave him a sweet smile that dispelled such a notion, and left him 
even more puzzled over her motives.  

He took a startled step back from her, then slid his hand away from 
hers.  Made her an awkward bow (for he didn't really know how else to 
respond to her) and resumed his journey.  

Ran had decided to go first to the West Wing, merely to see those 
theme rooms that Ken had labeled as odd, and as he soon learned, his 
lover hadn't been exaggerating.  One apartment he'd stumbled across 
had been done up in stomach-turning pinks and roses, the bed covered 
with pillows and cheap velveteen spreads, satin sheets.  Another 
looked just like a normal bedroom--until he noticed the chained cuffs 
dangling from the bed's massive oaken headboard.  Inside the rather 
unthreatening looking wardrobe lay an assortment of S&M toys, all 
metal and leather and all unnerving.  Ran had beat a hasty retreat 
after finding that hidden cache, breaking out into a thin, cold 
sweat.   

Talk about the past coming back to haunt one...

Ran had broken off his exploration of the West wing after that, 
choosing instead to head for the South wing, and the Victorian 
towers.  He'd come to that decision immediately after taking leave of 
his lover, in fact, solely because Ken had mentioned that the South 
wing was the one place where he had never been.  

And to Ran that meant no bad memories for Ken.  A place where he 
could start afresh.  And it was important that Ken be allowed that 
chance; the last thing Ran wanted was for his boyfriend to be 
reminded of his former status.  

Plus...being so separated from the rest of the villa, they would have 
more privacy.  

The further he went down the upper corridors of the East wing, the 
quieter it became until all he could hear was the even whisper of his 
breathing, the pat of his feet on the rug-covered, wooden floors.  At 
last he came to a fork of sorts--two heavy doors on the right and the 
left of him, each leading to a tower (according to the hand-painted 
signs above both of them).  

He reached into his pocket and dug out the only bit of currency he 
currently carried on his person:  a yen coin.  He flipped in the air, 
calling it before it spun downwards to bounce on the floor.  It had 
come up heads, which meant the left tower. 

Behind that door lay a grey, forbidding looking little foyer, made 
all of washed out brick and decorated solely with electric wall 
sconces.  Ran paused there, thinking to retreat and go to the other 
one instead, but then...something told him to continue, to not take 
things at face value.  

So he did, and he didn't.  And what he found was the answer to his 
dilemma.  

It was large and circular in shape, that tower.  Before him, beyond 
the tiny space that served as an entryway lay an open, curtain-framed 
doorway, and beyond that lay a long unused room, its few furnishings 
covered with sheets.  Ran pulled one of them off to reveal a long, 
low, wide sofa, piled with pillows and done in pale cloudy grey silk 
and dark wood and skirted legs.  A fireplace stood in the space's 
sole shady niche.  Its wall bore one painting as decoration, and it 
boasted a closet and a small private bath and an elevator--one which 
resembled an enormous, wrought iron birdcage.  Three, grey velvet-
curtained picture windows opened out onto a view of a garden, and the 
woods beyond.  Behind him, and to the left stood a fully equipped, 
modern kitchen complete with china cabinet, and beyond that, in an 
alcove, the laundry area.    

He realized then that he was standing in a herald's/servant's room.  
The one which would be Fiona's room.    

Eschewing the elevator (as he wasn't sure about its functionality) he 
took the narrow, curving stairs to the second level.  There he found 
only a tight hallway, lined by two rooms--one a bathroom with a 
sunken bath and separate shower and frosted glass windows, the other 
one utterly bare.  No carpeting, no decoration.  

The next level stood a dining area and a living room combined, within 
which the elevator opened up directly.  A chandelier hung over the 
middle of the space.  There was a fireplace situated in the living 
space in exactly the same spot as it was in the herald's rooms, and 
before it, a sofa, a table and two chairs.  The colors there were 
burgundy and gold and navy blue, and again, the wood was dark.  There 
were two paintings only, one of a deer hunt over the fireplace, and 
the other--a landscape--hung alongside the dining table.  A black 
marble statue of a sword-wielding, modestly clad woman stood in one 
corner.  Empty bookcases stood on either side of the fireplace.

The topmost level, of course, held the bedroom.  It was sparsely 
furnished in comparison to the other rooms.  Two huge wardrobes stood 
on either side, and in the center of the room stood the tarp-draped 
bed: A queen-sized four poster hung with heavy, fringed blue 
curtains.  The headboard bore carvings of garland-toting cherubim, 
and the posts, miniature angels, their wings fanned out fully behind 
them.  It, too, was scattered with pillows of all shapes and sizes.  
A place meant for sleeping and other, more physical pursuits--but 
neither activity, it seemed, had been carried out there for an age.  
The mattress was as smooth, the pillows as plump as if they'd never 
been used.  Four windows, not three, provided light, and before them 
stood a big-enough-for-two, round breakfast table and chairs.  A 
chest stood at the end of the bed.  

It wasn't perfect, but it was indeed suitable; would make a cozy 
home, he thought.  

He only hoped that Ken would agree.    

***
 
Just then, the elevator complained loudly after being coerced to move 
after what had probably been a very, very long time.  But after a few 
dark groans of protest, it began to run somewhat smoothly and sunk down 
to the bottom floor, before rising amidst a second flurry of mouse 
symphonies, this time bearing one Fiona with her hands clapped over her 
ears.  She hadn't even bothered to close the safety grate and so 
climbed out before the cage had settled, nearly catching one tail of 
her cape on a momentarily bared gear.  

"HAH! Found you!" She declared, tapping across the floor with her still 
bare feet as if she were a dancer rather than a footsoar handmaid, one 
who took to admiring the room.

"Coooooooool, I didn't even know they kept these furnished! The 
servant's quarter's ain't bad either! Though, yeah, I know you didn't 
pick this place for me." She anticipated he should refuse comment and 
so went on.  "Anyway, Hidaka-dono wanted me to tell you to meet him out 
back when you'd picked a place and then there were some questions that 
came up after that.  I already ASKED him of course, but he said this is 
more the sort of thing you deal with.  Can I take off my coat? I'm 
REALLY hot.  And I've got something under it! The very least sexy thing 
I own."

With that, she swept the hem up over her face revealing... well, a very, 
very revealing old fashioned vinyl nurses' get up so short there was no 
way she could have sat down in it without displaying her panties and a 
medical bag strapped to her hip which was half open and flashing a very 
suspicious looking syringe.   

***

Ran's eyes nearly popped out of his head at the sight of her; his 
face started turning an interesting shade of purple; his breath 
started coming in short gasps.  He was reacting so curiously not 
because he was turned on, but because he was horrified by the 
indecency of her appearance.    

"What...What..."

"Why are you dressed like that?!  You're fifteen years old, not 
eighteen!"  He scowled at her most ominously.  "You're a herald, kind 
of, not a stripper in some seedy Tokyo club!"  

He lunged forward to grab her arm, missing when she jerked out of his 
path at the last minute.  He made another attempt, and succeeded 
then, snagging her around one slim wrist.  Ran pulled her up short, 
tearing his eyes away from her furious own, to examine the contents 
of her bag--the syringe in particular.  

And then, he caught her other hand just after she had dealt him a 
rather nasty slap to the cheek.  One which he wasn't prepared for.  
His tongue dabbing experimentally at the hard-bitten, bleeding corner 
of his cheek, Ran pressed the offending paw to the other trapped one 
in his encompassing hand, and cautiously (as cautiously as one could 
while holding a complaining, struggling girl) reached into the bag to 
draw the hypo out.  He held it up in the air to get a better look at 
it.  The needle was capped but the cylinder was full of some clear, 
viscous liquid which seemed to glow in the afternoon glare from the 
windows.  

The needle went back into the bag, and the bag was closed up and 
removed from her hip.  Ran didn't release her though, just her 
hands.  Gripped her instead by the scruff of the neck and half-
marched, half-dragged her to the stairs.  

"So Hidaka-dono wants to see me, does he?  Good.  It seems I have 
something more important to discuss with him now than just where we 
were going to live."  

***

"HEY!" Fiona finally managed to utter something coherent among a string 
of very colorful curses from several languages, few of which she spoke 
any more of besides the distinctly foul words.  "This is a COSTUME! 
Those are PROPS! OK? GOD, you people are sooooooooooo paranoid.  I mean 
fucking really! Get over it already!"

/Now why the hell did Ken send me up here to ask you? If you two are 
supposed to be doin' it on a regular basis, me musta known you'd be 
pissed./

Her foot, bare and sweaty, skidded on the first step and it was only by 
the graces of her captivity she did not fall.  How sloppy she looked 
now, all flying red wool and squeaking vinyl caught in all the wrong 
places.

/I knew this would suck./

"This is all I have to wear, OK!? I'm FIRED! I'm not a even a PROXY 
herald anymore! I can't wear my uniform and the bitch never bothered to 
buy me anything that wasn't bedroom only crap!"

He stopped and she hissed and spat at her own show of sudden slip in 
whining.  

***

Ran forced himself to breathe.  Forced himself to will away his 
anger.  It wasn't the time now, he knew--not after what Fiona had 
revealed to him.  Why didn't he realize that earlier, that she had 
been kept from having suitable clothes?  

Had Ken been treated as badly as she obviously had?  From what he'd 
already seen, that was a certainty.  Probably even worse than the 
girl had been.  

And damned if all that wasn't going to change now.       

He didn't take his hand from her neck, thinking she would probably 
try to run for it if he did.  But he did slow his pace when he 
resumed his journey, more gently steering her forward than pushing 
her along.  

"If you didn't have anything else to wear, then you should have told 
me earlier.  I would have seen to your needs before we even came 
here.  Now, it seems I'm going to have to put off the work that needs 
doing into the hands of others while I take you shopping."

He guided her to the front door, and through it to the open hallway 
beyond their new home.  "And I don't ever want to hear you use that 
sort of language again."

/Oh, yes, Fiona-chan, I'm familiar with a few foreign phrases myself./

***

Fiona growled and gurgled like a VERY unhappy cat, but marched on none 
the less, wrinkling her nose up now and again as if in distaste.  In 
reality, it was all she knew how to do to keep herself from blushing.

/OK... so... the Portuguese curses didn't work.../

/Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit./

/Where does a boy in Japan learn to swear in Portuguese!?/

/Probably part of his job./

/A job he doesn't know I know he had.../

/Oh yeah, like what did you EVER expect them to tell you? You're lucky 
you got what you did./

/Stop kicking yourself in the pants... err... panties already!/

"OF COURSE I didn't tell you!" She blustered at last.  "I tell you 
anything, and what do you do? You get pissed! I tell you I'm your 
servant, you throw a fit, I tell you Saffie's family is coming along, 
well... kinda... anyway, bottom line, you threw another fit. Hidaka-dono 
tells you it upsets him that you call yourself a bastard, and lo and 
behold! FIT FIT FIIIIIIIT! Oh, and lets not forget the deal with my 
shoes the other night!"

*** 

"Excuse me, Fiona-chan, but I'm not the only one here who has a 
hellish temper." Here he gave the back of her neck a none-too-gentle 
squeeze. 

"And let's not forget the shoes incident! In fact, I want a recap of 
it! You, stubborn little brat that you are, started griping when I, 
in the interest of being NICE to you, carried you upstairs and sat 
you down in a chair. Didn't protest when Ken offered you the 
herald's room."

"As for when I found out you were going to be my...servant," he said, 
frowning deeply as if he'd just been forced to eat the food he hated 
most, "you didn't seem very pleased about it either as I recall. You 
wouldn't look at me, wouldn't speak to me. You'd think I was your 
worst enemy. Maybe you see me that way." 

"If you do, that's just too bad."

They were approaching the sweeping staircase that led to the main 
foyer. The whores were still carrying mattresses down for the 
conflagration that evening. Ran drew Fiona to a stop to allow a 
group of them to pass. 

"And of course I became angry when I learned that HER sick little 
family was coming along. What did you expect me to do, Fiona-chan?"

Ran stared down at her, mentally throwing image after image of his 
mother, his father, both dead. Of Aya being hurt and Schuldich 
laughing over it and taunting him. Of her being lying unconscious in 
his arms, and him smirking as he sprinted away with her.

Of her lying so still and small in her hospital bed, and of how she 
looked before her accident.

When he was finished, there were tears glimmering in his reddened 
eyes. He blinked them away as best he could. 

"He did that at the request of my father's worst enemy. Destroyed my 
family, took my sister, and he's not sorry for any of it. He doesn't 
care. None of them do." 

Ran looked away then, removing his hand from her neck at last. Wrung 
the last of his show of sorrow out of his voice with a few hard 
swallows. "Go find Yuriko-san, and ask her if she would let you 
borrow something to wear, that you're going out with me and you don't 
have anything more appropriate. I don't care how many times you have 
to roll up the pants legs or the sleeves. After that, go find Carly-
sama and wait with her until I come back. I'm going to go see what 
Ken wants."

Without waiting for a reply, Ran walked away. 

***

Unfortunately for Ran, Fiona was not in the least psychic.  Not all 
heralds were, and she was not a herald to begin with.  She was merely 
what she had always been.  A little girl.  A somewhat pretty little 
girl who had one day caught the eye of a notoriously randy mage who 
moved like a doll, sang like a nightingale and threw wine bottles with 
impeccable aim.

She took a moment to trip up the nearest passing prostitute, who 
tumbled down the stairs in a flurry of feathers, not having even 
noticed she was there.

"Actually," She called after him, taking a moment to storm the other 
way.  "He didn't want anything.  Unless making sure you didn't get lost 
counted."  

Being able to read people's minds and the pasts of hour glasses didn't 
matter either.  Two and two made four and four was the number of death 
in Japan.  And the odd occupations of Saffie's family hadn't been much 
of a secret for some time.  

Having no idea where Yuriko might be, she started off into the entrance 
hall, remembering with a slight tang of afterthought.

***

::Fifi! Fifi! What are you doing here?::

It was not the burst of voice in her mind that made her cry out, but 
the two spindly arms that made themselves known by way of her waist. 
"Eeek! Saf! How many times have I told you not to..."

"Sneak up on you?" The tiny little first grader completed with her 
incorrigible smile eating up her lips.  Her lips eating up one of the 
metallic blue ribbons in her hair.  

Fiona reached down and plucked it away, wondering somewhere deep within 
who had tied it there... just what were they like? No, little Saffie had 
hands far too tiny to manage such an dainty arrangement of laces, 
especially not on top of her head.  But little Saffie, also had the 
most fantastic eyes, bluer by far than that chintzy silver stuff 
against her ears, and still hanging on her.  She offered a look that 
could only mean she knew full well of what Fiona thought.  Fiona, who 
sighed, and sat down in the edge of the courtyard fountain, not 
bothering to mind the garland of silk strawberry vines.

"Nah, never mind.  I meant about the your being in my head.  But hey, 
no biggie.  Whatcha doin' here? I thought you people were leaving to-
night."

"We were, but then Bradley changed his mind about performing."

This left her trying to remember who Bradley was.  Ah, Ada bless All 
Saint's Day, which to Terrans was more holy and drunken than Christmas 
and New years arm in arm.  Not to mention begetting of just as much 
forgetfulness.

"Bradley! My Schu-baby's boyfriend!"

"Oh... pianist right?"

"UmHM!" 

"Wow! He must be pretty good to get an invitation to go on stage 
TONIGHT." /And pretty arrogant to have turned it down the first time./

"Oh but he is! He is!" ::That too, :P.  But it's endearing after awhile 
I promise.::

To which they both giggled behind their mittens.  "You promise? What 
goodzit do to promise me?"

"Wellllllll... he's on soon! Come with us! Come see! Oh won't you, won't 
you? Won't you join the dance?"

"Dance? What?" But that was all see managed to get out before Saffie 
started hauling her off down the frosty street.  Too early in the year 
it was for outright ice, and beside, the warmth from the homes that 
night would have scared any true water glass away, even from the 
glazier's place.  Her reluctance left her then, Fiona.  And she quite 
willingly went skidding along the road of open doors with candles on 
their thresholds, such another custom of the celebration.  No closed 
entrances! Let the spirits of the holy people come through your 
dwelling with out question, even if you are the dono, or the shopkeeper 
or the man who owns the concert hall.  Even if you are Fiona who has no 
door to open.  

It seemed she would be finding out after all, about that ribbon tier.  

They reached the theatre quite out of breath, and were both rather 
disappointed that they could not see their breathing by the light of 
the beeswax tapers that surrounded the gate of the building they had 
come too.  Within, the house lights ran at half power to keep eyes upon 
the patrons who all day and all night would be wandering in and out as 
they liked to find some part they liked of this years music, a single 
page torn out of a large book.  As it was evening and the people of 
Valdemar had finally gone awake, a good and silent crowd showed at that 
moment in the red leather seats, not a one of them asleep, Fiona 
noticed, which was to be expected.  She'd never known anyone to sleep 
through a soaring soprano solo.  Certainly not herself.  Instead, she 
scoured the crowd for someone who looked like her friend.  Found none, 
none at all.  Was she too picky? Did it matter?

No, Saffie had already found whoever she sought. A lone and very still 
figure in the center row.  One with long, henna hair and two empty 
chairs on either side.  The soprano finished and amid the applause, 
Fiona and her friend slid past a few gentlemen and up to the ever so 
elusive brother.   

She caught his profile as he smiled, as his little sister smiled.  No 
words though, which she considered somewhat of a letdown.  She had 
never liked boys, and didn't suppose she ever would, but she had to say 
he was handsome, had the same presence as the little girl she knew... 
opening and sharp and lingering.  
  
"I see you brought your friend." Remarked straight out of the blue.

"I did! This is Fiona.  Fiona, my brother Schuldich."

Fiona frankly hadn't until that point known Schuldich had a name 
besides Schu-baby and hoped desperately she would be able to remember 
this one.  "Nice ta meetcha."

"Mmm, likewise." 

As the applause died down, he reached over and scooped Saffie onto his 
lap, making her squeak a little as if he had squeezed her stomach too 
tight.  That she could understand.  That he had, in the presence of so 
many available chairs taken the child up to...

::Well you can see better from there, I'm sure.  Go on, all yours.::

She took a moment to dust off the bottom of her skirt before carefully 
climbing onto the seat and folding her hands in her lap.  /You don't 
sound like her.  Or taste.  Or whatever you people say./

::What fun would it be if I did?::

Saffie giggled.  She must have been able to sense what her brother and 
the other girl said,, or had some side conversation going with him that 
she Fiona was not allowed to hear.  What about certainly couldn't be 
guessed.

::We don't frighten you then.  How cute!  Especially in a little girl.  
They're supposed to be afraid of just about everything.::

/Mister, I don't know what you're using as an example but if it's Saf.../

::I'm horribly mistaken.  Of course.  She's my sister.  I'm scary 
enough for the both of us.:: At which she later realized he had slid 
one hand up her skirt and tickled the other little girl about her 
navel.

/Yeah right./

A sense like soda fizzing between her ears, something she had learned 
to take as laughter.  ::Maa maa, what a pity she didn't bring you home 
before.  I'm hardly there so I don't get to see a lot of her friends.::

Then the little girl in question took it upon herself to pout.  
::C'mon.  I wanna hear Bradley play.::

And all through the spicy words of the MC, Fiona wondered over this... 
well, herself rather.  No, she couldn't claim to be afraid of 
Schuldich, even though if she had been asked about it after her very 
first impression, she might have said so.  He was just funny like that.  
She had told at least one person she hated Saffie.  The little man left 
the mic alone and the curtains drew back revealing a shiny black piano, 
and the even more elusive boyfriend of the elusive brother.

Who she found to be dark and pretty and too old for Schuldich.  

Oh but he played as if the muses had him in their bedchambers every 
night, and he played like a man possessed and she heard weeping in the 
balconies and she wanted to weep herself as the candles burned low and 
she noticed that the expressions of her friend and her brother were 
changing out of sync with the notes.  What she would have given to hear 
them.

Or any other words between members of a normal Terran family.

Five years later she came to kick herself for using the "n" word.  But 
that was another story all together.

Somewhere in the middle of a symphony of rain.

::Say Liebechen?::

/Eh?/

::Not you, my sister.::

::Mnn?::

::Ask Fiona.::

::OK.::

/Ask me what./

::To write back if I send you a letter.::

/Sure./

Then that boy flavor in her mind and somehow she knew Saffie never 
heard.  ::You're cute together, you know that.::

***

Ran had gone to look for Ken, but never found him.  So, eager to get 
Fiona and get all the unpleasantness over with, he broke off his 
search of his lover, and returned to the crowded foyer.  Sidled and 
wove through the lines of milling, toiling whores until he reached 
Carly's side.  He told her where he was going and pressed a note in 
her hand to give to Ken.  He then asked her to send a number of the 
Villa's employees to the Left Tower with mops and buckets, soap and 
brooms, and fresh linens for the beds as soon as she possibly could.  

Added to the list as a final touch, new candles for the upper 
bedroom, and a vase of wildflowers for Fiona's.  She inclined her 
head one time in agreement, and set about selecting workers for the 
task.  Ran left her with a similar bow, and set forth on his search 
for his smart-mouthed servant.  Found her sitting on the lowest step 
on the stairs, ignoring the bustle going on around her.  Chin cupped 
in both hands and daydreaming.  She looked innocent and hopeful.  

Then she became aware of his close proximity, and all that sweetness 
of expression drained away.  Fiona became the insufferable brat once 
more.  

"Why didn't you change clothes?"  

No answer.  Just a roll of eyes and a sneer.  Ran grabbed her by the 
arm and pulled her onto her feet.  

"You want to prance about Valdemar like a slut, fine.  You can."  

With that, he spun about with Fiona in tow, and marched her to the 
front door.  A carriage, one of the Villa's own and driven by another 
comely young woman, came rolling up towards the end of the path just as 
the pair reached the drive.  Ran hooked Fiona around the waist and 
effortlessly swung her up into the cab.  He climbed in after her, 
grabbing at her arm to keep her from bolting.  

A little door in the roof opened up, and the driver called, "Where do 
you wish to go?"

Where did he want to go?  Good question.  

"Just...take us some place where I can buy some clothes for her...On 
credit." 

"Very good, sir!  I know just the place!" 

***

Given full leave to do so or not, Fiona threw off her cape, rather than 
make any effort to keep the damnable thing closed.  And then she 
sighed.  As, it was heaven to be rid of it! Heaven to feel the sunlight 
on her places where sunlight should be allowed to travel more often.  
Heaven to see Ran squirming as she crossed her legs.

At least until he reached over and uncrossed them for her.

She had to laugh.  There was no way around it.  

"Well, you just called me a slut so I figured I might as well be one.  
Just for you, and because daydreaming puts me in a good mood."

So she tied her arms up behind her head and leaned back beside his 
burning purple eyes.  "I don't see why you give a flying... umm..." his 
warning about the language had gone off for a snack but dutifully 
returned at that moment.  "Fruitloop! It's not like anyone MINDS if I 
go around in dress up clothes! They're too busy looking at each other.  
At least the guys.  And the girls don't care either! They're girls!"

***   

"I don't care if no one else minds. I don't like to see you dressed 
that way. It isn't appropriate. And you aren't that woman's 
plaything anymore. You are my concern now." 

/You're a teenage girl. You're going to look like one./ 

Ran gave her a hard sort of look before turning to gaze out the coach 
window. But it all those little scenes of everyday life spun past 
without him taking much notice. He was too busy pondering the girl 
sitting next to him. It still stung him that she held Schuldich in such 
high regard, that she had actually defended the bastard to him. And 
after the images he'd attempted to send her way. 

Surely she wasn't so hard-hearted that such despairing thoughts 
didn't affect her at all. 

/Or maybe you made a mistake, and she can't read minds.../ 

He mulled that notion over, testing it finally by thinking a rather 
vile insult at her. No reaction, no protest. Ran sank back in his 
seat, feeling a tickle of foolishness over his earlier, pointless 
attempt at making her see just why he abhorred Savil's little 
family. 

/Oh, well...It's probably for the best. I doubt she'd give a damn to 
hear it, anyway./

The carriage turned a corner and soon coasted to a halt. The little 
door fell open and the driver called out, "We're here, sir."

Before them stood a two-story building whose windows were covered 
with iridescent blue awnings, and in whose lower windows stood 
hermaphroditic statues--not mere plastic mannequins--all clad in 
various outfits. Fake snow littered the floor of the displays, and 
strings of tiny white lights flashed in the windows, even though it 
was quite warm outside. Over the door, a little wooden sign swung in 
the breeze, proclaiming the establishment's name for all of 
Valdemar: Le Pamplemousse Rouge. 

/How odd.../ 

Ran climbed down from the carriage, still ogling it, then almost 
reluctantly turned back to sweep Fiona down to the ground. He 
immediately clamped a hand on the back of her neck, and, after 
instructing the driver to wait, led the girl into the shop. They 
were hit with the scent of jasmine upon entering, provided as such by 
a porcelain, cat shaped cone incense burner that stood on a shelf 
just to the left of the door. Here and there stood more statues, all 
modeling outfits. Here and there stood bowls of water, deep and 
wide, within which floated live water lilies. Sitar music tinted the 
air. 

But no one came to greet them. 

Ran stood there for a moment, waiting, then with a shrug, released 
Fiona, gesturing at the assortment of clothes before them both. He 
rather hung back at the entrance. 

"Go on then, pick out a couple of outfits--in natural fibers. No 
rubber, no vinyl, no plastic. No skirts more than an inch above your 
knees. No plunging necklines. A week's worth will do for now." 

"And get yourself something formal to wear."

"And get yourself some shoes too. I don't want you wandering about 
barefoot past the Villa's gates." 

***

"Yes sir!" Fiona insisted, marching into the empty store.  "Right away 
sir! I shall dress myself like a nun at once, sir!"

She supposed he would have kicked her in the seat of her nurse's get up 
had she not scuttled away and hidden herself behind a rack of vermilion 
sweaters.  One which he parted momentarily simply for the pleasure of 
glaring down upon her as she simpered, simpered, simpered.

Then, he detached one of said sweaters and threw it her way.  It landed 
over her face and she found the weave to be too loose for her liking as 
she could still see through it, watch him walk off.

/Now, what would I like to wear... let's see... how about one of those 
lattice lace teddies with the matching robes that fit together and look 
like one of those creepy optical illusion posters! And a yukata! Not 
see-thru! Maybe some of those rainbow fishnets Savil used to mull over 
in her letters! And a leather shorts with the legs that zip apart! 
Well... I wonder, do they make those in silk? And pajamas! Pajamas with 
little bows that you can untie and play peekaboo with! Wheeee! Fiona's 
lucky day has come at last!/

She came to a screeching halt before the underwear display, almost 
falling into a lily pool.  

/Sense Fiona! You have some! I know you do! Those are all the things 
you wanted before! In the before time! When you were never dressed 
unless you were on duty!/

Now that she had no such nocturnal obligations, the former kept girl 
found she had no idea whatsoever what she would like to wear.  But she 
did want something! Something special, even if she'd be doing work 
clothes.  But what was special that was not classified as lingerie?  
What was more, did Ran already have anything in mind?

/Besides the nun deal./

/Now probably isn't the time to point out I actually HAVE a nun 
costume./

Because surely as her master, he would expect her to make some effort 
to please him, even if she had no vested interest in that.  Nor did she 
have a vested interest in hearing him bitch at her once again.  She was 
tired.  Jet lag was setting in.  All she could think of was the time 
Ysanne took her to the mage's ball in Watership Down in the brass 
underwear.  

As if in testament to that, she passed a golden ball gown with a bodice 
few humans could have filled.  Maybe in an anime... Seeing no guardian 
around, she took a moment to fumble the sleeves, casting them aside in 
vain at last, finding herself drawn to something else entirely.

Several minutes later she retreated downstairs.  Still shoeless, but 
clad in a low-waisted little satin dress that hung exactly between her 
ankles in her knees, wound the whole way up to her neck, though it left 
her back on view, as proof she had never been whipped, and fastened 
about her neck with a bit of kinky lace and a single silver button.

"Well...?"

It was yellow as a sunny-side up egg.

***   

And yellow was NOT his favorite color.  But...It suited her he 
thought, made her shine so, and he didn't have the heart to refuse 
her something she wanted to wear--even though he thought it could 
have been a more subdued shade of yellow.  More daisy than yolk.  

He gestured for her to spin around, and she complied with a (self-
conscious?) roll of her eyes.  The skirt flared out most prettily as 
she circled.  Even the sight of her bare back didn't bother him; at 
least it wasn't the other way around.  He had expected such from 
her.  

Ran was careful not to smile, kept his tone neutral.  "I approve, so 
if you do want it, it's yours."

He took a few steps towards her, away from the rack of clothes he had 
been thumbing through, and revealed that he had a number of garments 
slung over one arm.  Simple tunics and trousers, all flowing and 
brightly colored or patterned with an Indian feel.  Things he had 
considered pretty, that might look good on her.  Again, he schooled 
his expression into one of bland nonchalance, not wishing her to know 
what he was thinking.

"I was killing a bit of time.  I know you will need a few things to 
wear around the Villa, things that are more practical.  I thought 
these might do.  I didn't know your size, so I guessed.  More to just 
show you than anything else."

Ran draped them over the rim of the rack nearest Fiona for her to 
peruse if she wished.  "But if you don't like any of them, that's 
fine.  You don't have to buy anything I suggest."   

***

/You don't want me to take them, do you?/ Fiona thought, most gingerly 
thumbing through the garments as if their scales of batik were scales 
indeed and she was bound to come across the head of something that 
would snap her eventually.

Though not something she feared apparently. 

/That would be... so you can tell everyone what a contrary little hellion 
I am!/

/Hehe, not bad, really, go me! But.../

/Two can play this game./

Without a word, she gathered up everything he had laid out for her and 
hauled it into the nearest dressing room, which, judging from the speed 
of the snappings and the zippings and the rate at which those sheaves 
of fabric deemed unsuitable were expelled and ended up upon the floor 
in heaps of semi-artistic disarray, it seemed as if several little 
girls stood within, all rapidly sampling different sorts of garb.

There was only one brief pause during which Fiona fumed to her 
reflection, having realized a pattern to some of the mis-fittings.  Ran 
had rather underestimated her bosoms.

/Typical./

Although, all grudge intact, she had to admit she came across several 
tops that rather intrigued her.  Genuinely, and not merely for spite.  
Both were somewhat on the loud side.  At least she thought so.  Or they 
seemed loud for something Ran would chose.  

/I'm being mocked, I know it but.../

/...I actually look good in things that aren't yellow and blue sailor 
suits./

/DAMN THAT HIDDEN SENSE OF JAPANESE STYLE!/

She came out with a red and plum tunic swung over her current garb.  
The pants were a total loss.  Ran was nowhere to be seen. Hence he 
wouldn't mind if she snuck back upstairs and retrieved a black pullover 
sweater, a near perfect replica of his own.  Something that would 
surely get on his nerves.  If needed.

In the mean time, she went for the jeans.

/Ah, they remind me of that pair of denim underwear I used to have as a 
kid.  Mmm./

They also showed off her lovely ass quite well.

At least she thought so.  But then again, jeans were another one of 
those things she wasn't used to.  Nor sneakers, which upon finding her 
feet within a pair, she sat upon the leather bench for a very long 
time, marveling over how it could be that shoes existed which were not 
inclined to pinch.  

***  

Ran appeared as if out of thin air, having had been holed up in the 
nearby cubby hole that was the men's department, examining the 
merchandise.  Over one arm hung a complete formal kimono (in black, 
not grey), and from that hand dangled a pair of tabi and a pair of 
geta.  A sweater, marled in various shades of blue and green, was 
draped over his shoulder, a gift for Ken.  He took in her hippy-
looking (in his opinion) garb without so much as a flicker of 
disapproval.  

Because he didn't disapprove.  It suited her far better than that 
porn movie getup she'd had on before.  

/At least she didn't get high heels.  That would have been a 
disaster./  

/Especially the way she stumbles about.../

"If you've gotten everything you want, we can go now."  

She jerked her head up to stare at him, as if she hadn't been 
expecting him, but quickly regained her composure.  Scooped up her 
purchases and headed over to the register without so much as a word 
or another look.  Ran, sighing in exasperation, followed her.  

But there wasn't a register.  Wasn't a calculator or an adding 
machine, or even an abacus.  Just a sea of pink fake fur, in the 
middle of which stood a push bell, like the one occasionally found in 
hotels.  Except this one had apparently been sprayed with some sort 
of adhesive, and then rolled in silver, pink, and red glitter.  A 
wooden sign hung from the ceiling above it, advising customers 
to "Ring for Service".  

Ran glanced sidelong at Fiona, who only shrugged, and darted her hand 
out to do just that.  

Before the ringing had even faded, there was a flash of light behind 
the counter--one no brighter than a candle wick flaring to life, and 
a shower of silver sparks fell over them.  They melted on their skin 
and hair cool and tender like raindrops and not fire.  A veil of mist 
and not smoke billowed forth, and within it stood a figure clad in a 
dress of closely melded silver links that flowed and tinkled like 
rushing water when she moved.  Her waving hair hung down to her bare 
feet and was pale, pale yellow-green, and her eyes were as blue as 
cornflowers; lips as pink as sea coral.  

And then she spoke, in a voice low and melodious, and decidedly 
male.  "Greetings, sir...And young miss.  May I help you?"

Ran didn't even bat an eye--simply laid his selections on the counter 
next to Fiona's.  "I want to buy these."  

"Why certainly!  Allow me to wrap them first, hm?"  At once the 
garments were shuffled about and folded and slipped into three bags, 
all except the gown which was encased in a zippered plastic bag--all 
seemingly of their own accord, for the clerk never laid a finger on 
anything.  The boy gave them a sweet, guileless smile when all was 
packed up.   

"A telekinetic."  

"No, sir.  I'm the river's daughter," he answered, as if that was 
explanation enough. 

Ran cocked a brow at that, sweeping his and Fiona's bags off the 
counter, save for the gown.  Fiona already had her hands on it 
anyway.  He set the bags down on the floor, then fumbled for his 
wallet.  Opened it and fingered the once used card that lay hidden 
within its cracked leather folds.  

Then was struck by how ridiculous he was for even contemplating 
charging an Terran purchase on a Anti-Terran credit card.  He asked 
him anyway.  

"How much do I--"

"Oh, never mind that sir!  It's all been taken care of!"

"It...It has?!"  

"Why, yes.  You are from the Hyacinth Villa, aren't you?"

Ran gave him a reluctant nod.  /How did you know that?/

"Well then.  There you are!"

He nodded again, with the air of someone who was dealing with a 
lunatic.  "Right.  Well, thank you."

"Oh, anytime, most gracious sir."

Ran spun on his heels and, nodding at Fiona to proceed him to the 
door, made his exit.  The carriage was still there, the driver still 
just as alert.  She gave them a smile as he opened the door.  "Where 
to now, sir?"

"Er,  back to the Villa."  The bags went in, and then Fiona.  Ran 
climbed in and took his seat next to her.  

"It just gets weirder and weirder."

 (ooc:  Yes, the clerk was cosplaying Goldberry, from The Hobbit.  As 
to whether he really is a telekinetic, or a mage, or simply someone 
who's good with illusions, I'm not going to say.  The reader can just 
make that up for herself.)

***

"No kidding!" Fiona asserted promptly.  "You haven't complained about 
one thing I bought or called me a brat in over and hour now!"

At which point Ran shot her a look that suggested said over an hour was 
close to ending.  

She still smiled upon him with all the glory of her true calling in 
life, and he still turned away from her, and so did not notice that she 
hung the bag with her dress out across her legs like a blanket.  Not 
that it had grown chill, for it hadn't, but rather since this position 
permitted her the best view of its blinding sunny folds beneath that 
rippling distortion of the bag.  Rippled on purpose with the intent of 
attention to be sure.  Not that it worked.  

So she sank back into her seat and stared out window.  Ah yes, to her, 
the spires of shadows sneaking out across the pale and empty lawns were 
home, and the ringlets of wild brush along the road no portent of 
country mysteries and legends of faeries or even vanishing drag queens 
who ran boutiques with quaint names.  They were just another glorious 
tumble of evening back where she... no, she didn't belong anywhere.  This 
place only remained familiar because she had lived there for awhile, 
and it found itself too lazy to change.  

Her eyes, hidden behind her thick lashes, flickered to the sun who 
stood poised over the horizon, reaching down after his earrings that 
had fallen behind the horizon.  The moons had already peered out across 
from him, and perhaps were giggling at the seat of his pants as he bent 
over.  They looked like nothing but round clouds.  Below them, and 
behind the unkempt borders of the road, she espied a pair of young 
boys- eleven and eight perhaps, playing in a bank of swiftly melting 
and quite out of place snow whilst under the eyes of two softly 
whispering men.  The children had built themselves a perfectly lovely 
ice rabbit.

"Look," she pointed out to Ran, "people with kids.  Now that's weird!"

***

Ran tore his eyes away from the yawning landscapes that shimmered and 
bled before him, just in time to catch a glimpse of the two boys 
standing before their creation before that scene too was ripped away 
from his line of vision.  Still, he stared at the window, seeing but 
not really; thinking more about what he'd just witnessed.  

"But...I thought that their weren't any children..."

"That is, I didn't think anyone actually played parent to them."  

/But Ken did mention them when I gave him the soccer ball.../

/And then, we got here, and there weren't any children.../

/Were they adopted?  Or were they...?/

He squirmed a little in his seat.  /Oh, I don't want to think about 
that.../

His eyes fell onto the gown Fiona had stretched across her legs.  
Glanced at her, then away towards the window on his side of the 
carriage.  Permitted himself a twitch of a smile behind his hand 
before he banished it.  

"Is it really so against the norm for couples to have kids on 
Terra?"  

***

Fiona chuckled, not as readily as she would have liked too.  Of course 
Ran had no idea of how funny he sounded and that was just sad.  But 
true, and unavoidable.  Since he was new.  She flipped away from the 
sight of the summer snow patch and spoke to him at least offering eye 
contact if for some reason he wanted it.  Some people seemed to think 
it ensured truth.  Miffed, as she found he had already lost interest in 
her.

"Sure is.  Like I said, hardly anyone gets married, and you have to be 
married if you want kids, so no one has kids.  It's why they started 
the whole lovers as in inheritors policy.  Not that THAT is working 
out, obviously.  I mean, look where it got YOU."

He did not seem as not amused as he could have been made by this 
remark.  "But there are plenty of children running around without 
parents.  It's not like we have herald farms, but we still have scads 
of heralds.  Most of 'em get shipped in from Antiterra.  Off the 
streets, from loony bins, drafted out of REAL schools for the gifted.  
The rest are daughters of other heralds or demon's children, adopted or 
with heralds for surrogate mothers.  Takes an awful lot to run this 
place... and hey, it beats havin' nothing at all."

Then with a nod, still ignored.  "Just don't ask me where they got off 
calling the guys here demons!"

***  

"Because they're nothing but vicious monsters."

/And it's true.  Anti-Terrans are twisted and corrupted and cruel if 
one was to compare them to the way Terrans conduct themselves.  But 
whether it's in our natures to be as such, or it's because we live on 
Anti-Terra, which fosters such destruction of the soul by *its* very 
nature...I don't know./

/I am a monster.  Ken is a monster./

/How many times have I seen him kill a man?/

/How many times I have watched him drive blow after blow into 
someone, ignoring the blood spurting across him from some severed 
artery./

/That maniacal grin hovering at his lips as the man on the end of his 
bagh-nakh blades died.../

/How did I look to him?/

He caught some impatient murmur coming from Fiona's direction, and he 
peered over at her.  Found her swinging her feet one after the other 
under the bagged dress, making it ripple within its plastic 
confines.  Heels bumping the seat.  He reached out and laid a hand on 
top of the gown as a signal for her to stop.  Two more stubborn 
swings and she did, giving him a frown.  

Ran withdrew his hand, letting it fall back into his lap.  Wandered 
back into his mind to contemplatively nibble at all she had told 
him.  

Did Ken want kids?  If he did, what would he do?  Could he be a 
father?  Did he have it in himself to be a decent one?  Ran's head 
started to swim with all those worrying thoughts, so he forced them 
away.   

/I guess I'm getting way ahead of myself.../

"Just so you know now, Fiona-chan...I regret a lot of things, but...I 
don't regret where I am now."  

"I don't regret being with Ken."  

"And you can hate me and mouth off to me and about me as much as you 
like, but--while I don't expect you to suddenly start professing 
friendship for him--I don't ever want to hear you ridiculing Ken, 
either to his face or behind his back.  Understand me?"  

***

Fiona tossed a grating little smile to her master.  "Sure thing."  Such 
a casual little admittance in the wake of sincerity unbroken, almost to 
the point of crass, in her mind, but she was Fiona, and her life was a 
baroque farce, and it didn't matter.

/You are SUCH a pessimist./

/Makes me sick./

/Y'know there are other people who would tell you jokes right about 
now, and tease you and give you noogies./

/I think I'll pass./

/Some people are only happy when they're miserable./

/And I've never met a more miserable man than you./

/Get your mits off my legs./

She took his fingers in her own and plunked them onto the seat beside 
her.  Ran did not seem in the least perturbed by this.  A silence fell 
between them like a long, lazy hand shooing them away from one 
another's words.    

/My very own misery chick... wait... he's not a chick.  Well, he kind looks 
like one.  Whatever./

Almost in unison, they turned back to their respective windows and 
remained so all the way back to the place where the road ended and they 
were obliged to walk the rest of the way up to the Villa, through tall 
grass as always, save that it sang now as they passed.  Ran seemed to 
be glancing about it, expecting to find one of the voices or the 
violins there, the little black musicians with their long ears.  They 
must have been anxious to start their performance.

Inside, the crush of former whores remained, albeit only the still ones 
with no where to go and no interest in debating the matter.  The stairs 
had little rush to them, but were littered here and there with 
feathers, springs and torn threads from sheets that had departed across 
them.  

Fiona chuckled at this and snatched her bags from Ran's arms.  "Well, 
I'll go drop these off m'self then.  But don't worry, I won't insult 
Ken on the way."

And then she took off at a speed previously unattainable in her old 
shoes.  Blisters or not, she simply could not resist a little sprint, a 
moment of flying in something that did not ring like bells around he 
toes, falling into a passing bedspread like a rope at the end of a 
race.  

After the boys who had been toting it regained their footing, as she 
had drug them both over in the process of her fall, one of them padded 
up to Ran and made him a bow that betrayed he had never bowed before in 
his life.

"We're all done with your rooms, as Mlle. Carly requested."  And 
seemingly uncomfortable about Fujimiya-san at the moment, he bowed 
again and took off.  

His companion, left alone to cart the spread around, came up to the 
redhead shaking his own rather orangy locks.  "Ah, don't mind him."

And then they were both gone.

***
 
/I knew I was right about the sneakers.../

In the wake of the laboring boys' departure, Ran too left the foyer 
for greener pastures. This being literally, as he had chosen to wind 
his way down the sparkling, orchard path to the wide, heavy, carved 
crystal and wrought iron doors that marked the rear entrance. In the 
distance, he spotted the mattress covered hill; noticed the vast 
stands of trees here and there, cool and green and still. 

But directly before him, leading from the speckled pebble path where 
he now stood, was a gazebo, all draped with purple wisteria and 
yellow climbing roses. Inside the sun-dappled shade, on a swinging 
bench, sat Carly and Ken, deep in conversation and sipping at some 
drink or other. Ran hesitated, feeling a bit like an intruder then, 
and he very nearly slipped off down another path. But Ken saw him 
and waved him over. 

The drink turned out to be lemonade, provided by a still-frosty 
pitcher that stood on a low wicker table nearby. Carly gestured 
graciously to the spare glass next to it, but Ran declined with a 
shake of his head. He bowed most politely to her, in thanks for her 
assistance, then perched himself on the nearest ledge. 

***

"I'm glad someone here knew what to do about... err... whatever the hell 
you'd call what Fiona was wearing," Ken chuckled, having pushed off 
into another little arc of sighing waves beneath the swing.  His 
lemonade swished in his glass and nearly took leave of the rim in the 
direction of his shirt.  "Thank you... and I do mean that."

Carly nodded in assent while handling her own drink with a good deal 
more delicacy.  A single bead of sweat from it coursed over her fingers 
and would have rolled onto the fan which crossed her lap had she not 
caught it and rubbed it into the pad of her thumb.

Without any warning though, she scrunched herself into one corner of 
the bench, pulling Ken closer beside her with a puzzlingly forceful 
grip that once again nearly bared his ice cubes chest.  He laughed.

"Yeah, there's room enough for three! C'mon Ran! We got a couplea 
minutes yet.  Sit with us for awhile."

Then with only his lips, no words.  "Please?"

***

Ken didn't really have to ask twice.  Ran released the grape bunch-
shaped cluster of wisteria he'd been toying with and left his 
whitewashed perch for the swinging bench.  Ken stilled it with his 
feet, the seat tilted downwards for Ran to take, and when he did Ken 
let it swing free.  It wobbled a bit on its chains, and Ran was 
inadvertently threatened by the glass of lemonade in Ken's hand.  Was, 
in turn, saved by Ken's quick thinking.

"I didn't come away from the experience without suffering a few minor 
wounds.  After all, I was with Fiona-chan."  

He lifted the hand he'd rested on the bench's arm, and curled it 
around the chain closest; let it coast along its slick surface with 
every pass, not minding the occasional nip it made at his palm at 
intervals.  "Before I left, I did carry out the request you made of 
me.  I don't know if Carly mentioned it."  

The lady shook her head, and took another dainty sip of her drink.  
Ran shifted his gaze to his lover.  "I...chose one of the Victorian 
Towers.  With Carly's help, I had it cleaned and set to rights in my 
absence.  It doesn't look as if it will need much redecorating, at 
least to my eyes."

"Would you have a problem living there?"  

***

Ken's chuckles from the remark regarding their servant had wilted away 
for the time being behind another lazy sip of his lemonade.  He had a 
few moments with its edges rolling over his lips before answering even 
his own surprise.

/If we were alone, I guess now would be the time to take back all those 
times I called you an impulsive... umm... well, I didn't mean those last 
parts./

/And I didn't mean that either./

/But there's not really a word for someone who is spontaneous yet 
thinks things through!/

/Stupid language./

/Shit, I sound like a telepath./

/God, anyway.../

"Not at all! I mean... wow! They must be somethin' to fit your 
discriminating tastes! I was pretty surprised you settled on something 
right away.  But then again, I was kinda hoping you wouldn't be as 
messy as I woulda been about it.  Thanks, sweetheart."

He leaned over and pecked at his cheek then.

"You too, Carly-chan."

The twitter of her fan's motion seemed to waver between appreciating 
the nickname and finding it somewhat childish.  Either way, he pecked 
her too, against her neck where a spatter of perfume might have been 
worn.

And then he sat back, something which made all three of them rock with 
a bit of a jerk before falling back to their cradle rhythm.  Craning 
his head backwards to see over the far boundary of the gazebo, he  
shielded his eyes and glanced at the citrine droplet of the sun.  "Ah... 
getting there.  We got a bit yet."

Carly promptly upset his leg closet to her, sending his bumping against 
Ran, who in his turn bumped the chains they hung from, which shook the 
swing which made a single ice cube bounce from Ken's glass, bound for 
Carly's lap.

She handled it a moment like a melting diamond before sliding it down 
the back of his shirt. 

"THAT'S COLD YOU! OK! OK! I won't call you -chan, ever again! Muuuuu! 
Warm me up Ran! Protect me from the nasty lady!"

/I wonder if I should have told him it was Long Island Lemonade?/ Carly 
mused.

***

/You've certainly loosened up all of a sudden./  

/And I have to wonder why.../

This thought with a bemused perk, for his wriggling boyfriend had 
grabbed at his arm, laughing despite the chill; scramble to retrieve 
the tormenting cube from the depths of his shirt, but it was too far 
down, and too far up for him to get.  

But not for Ran.  He snaked an arm around Ken, and slipped his hand 
under his shirt, fumbling (somewhat intentionally) across his skin 
into he found it tucked in a crumple fold of his shirt, which had 
been rucked up that way from all his squirming.  

"It's simply a piece of ice."  Ran opened his hand to reveal a puddle-
swathed cube.  "See?"  

/I wonder if it tastes like you?/  

Ran didn't bother to find out.  Instead, he tossed it out the portal 
behind them.  "At least now you will remember that your benefactress 
isn't a -chan, but a...-sama."  

/And don't think I don't see it.../  

/That I don't see it all.../

Ran took the glass out of Ken's hands, fearing another upset of its 
contents, slyly wafting it past his nose before putting it back on 
the tray.  He didn't drink, no, but he knew alcohol when he smelled 
it, no matter how well masked it was by the bitterness of the lemon 
juice enfolding it.  Ran wondered why Ken hadn't notice it; wondered 
if Carly had been the one to request it.  The look he shot her said 
as much.  

She merely lifted her fan and let it hover over the Mona Lisa curve 
of her mouth.  

***

"That she is! That she is!" Ken consented, soberly (well...) nodding his 
head and clapping for no apparent reason.  Carly promptly regarded the 
pitcher of lemonade as if scrying the exact percents of its various 
contents.  As for her old friend, he fell to mumbling to himself.  "Eto 
ne~~~! My back's still cold but the rest of me is tooooo tooooo warm! 
Ne~~~! Ne~~~! Isn't it sweetheart? And I already took my jacket off.  I 
wonder where I put it.  Ah well..."

Whatever in him remained entirely coherent, it just then saw through 
his eyes once more only to behold the wrist he had laid ahold of and 
slid up the front of his shirt this time.  Ran's, and he was rocking 
against it.

/Eeep./

Before he could shudder even the tiniest bit, he had leap from the 
swing, landing rather unceremoniously all the way on the threshold to 
the gazebo, which he was obliged to skip from in order to keep from 
falling down.  One hand snagged the roses and call from them a host of 
pistachio ice cream colored moths, who departed in a small gale around 
him and sailed into the amaranth heavens like departing storm clouds.

He laughed as if this was the most hysterical thing he had ever seen.

***

"You know, I don't think I've ever seen him drunk."  Ran tore his 
watchful gaze away from his lover to his lover's companion.  "I have 
to wonder why you thought serve him alcohol."

Carly gave him the barest of shrugs as an answer, and another peek of 
her enigmatic smile.  The fan collapsed with a silken rustle in her 
hand, and she dropped it into her lap, giving him an expectant look, 
and a nod in Ken's direction.  

Ran looked from her to Ken and back again.  "You know, I think you 
are rather devious, Carly-sama."

She inclined her head to him like a queen would in acknowledgment of 
her most-favored lord, then waved him towards the garden.  Ran got to 
his feet, and made her a polite bow by way of taking leave.  

Ken had ventured off the main path, and was now meandering backwards 
down a path which led to points as yet unfamiliar to Ran.  When he 
saw Ran coming, he stopped in his tracks, beaming at him, and started 
rocking back and forth on his heels, humming some unidentifiable 
tune.

Ran extended his hand to Ken.  "Let's go back inside until it's time 
for the bonfire."  

***

"Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu," Ken replied with a pout.  "I do' wanna.  I 
watched the sun rise with you this morning and DAMNIT we're going to 
watch it set, too!"

He did, however, snatch up the proffered hand, and wring it rather 
tightly.

"Na, na, I'm drunk aren't I? I'm going to be an embarrassment! Well, 
more than usual, but what the hell.  C'mon~! Let this be a lesson to 
all of us! Always have someone else taste your lemonade if you're in a 
position where there might be people's putting things they shouldn't in 
it!"

This slurred, he stuffed Ran's fingers under his nose as they walked 
and marched him down the path- really more a line of grey ribbon it 
seemed, randomly strewn through the grass, seeming to go nowhere and 
everywhere.  Ken's strides remained quite steady, though not of any 
particular direction, not of any certain meaning.  At last it parted, 
faded away between the rising grass between two hillocks, one of which 
remained pristine, the other of which was tinged with white and 
sandalwoods, the shiny burial mound of the mattresses, shot with the 
colors of the lamp oil, the kindling of the sheets.  The sight stood as 
a hill in its own right, or a smashed pear dotted with animated dust.  
A few of the former workers had gathered about it now, and seemed to be 
chasing uncooperative pillows into place along it's banks.

The sun was already lost to its crest.  Ken sighed deeply of the 
mingled scent of eastern flora and remains of springs so hastily 
witness to the acts upon them.  

The sun seemed to pause at the horizon.

He laughed then, and couldn't stop.

His breath fell over his lover's hand.

***   

A shiver coursed through Ran at the touch of his breath, and then he 
no longer saw the sun or the hills, the flowers or the piles of 
bedding or the clusters of whores. He only saw Ken. 

Ken who had his back to him and his head tilted back in pure, raucous 
laughter. As if he'd just realized the secrets of the universe, and 
had found them as profound and beautiful as he had hoped. To one who 
had forgotten the sound of his own laughter, the sound of Ken's was 
as compelling as Lorelei's song, and just as Ulysseus had been 
tempted, so was he. 

But there wasn't any rope to hold him back. 

A gentle tug and Ran's hand fell away from Ken's. As carefully as if 
he were trying to quiet a spooked child, Ran touched him, laying his 
hands on his shoulders. Smoothing the fabric over the hard muscled 
flesh that lay beneath it. Just as feather-light, he slid his hands 
down Ken's arms, noting the curve of his biceps, the dip of his 
elbows, the slight tapering and bony ridges of his wrists. 

And then, his hands met Ken's own. He skimmed the backs of them with 
his fingers, then flipped them over, nestling his digits in the 
hollows of his palms. 

Two quick steps and Ran was behind him, just barely touching him, his 
lips brushing his ear. 

But he didn't utter a word aloud.

***

When Crawford awoke, Night was so winding her way upwards from the 
horizon, chasing Day away with her trio of luminescent hounds. The 
smell of sex hung in the air like an elusive vapor, and his skin, and 
the sheets which now clothed him smelled of Kira. 

Ah, Kira. A sated smile crept across his lips at the memory of him; 
how good his hands felt slithering across his body, how he felt 
beneath his hands, how he tasted, how he looked and sounded when he 
came. 

/Ah, DAMN! But there's nothing like having a redhead in one's bed.../

Crawford rolled onto his back, scratching sleepy fingers through his 
hair, and idly glanced at the clock. Just to do it; there was no 
where that he had to be right then...Or at anytime. 

/Never thought I would ever be able to say that.../

He fumbled for his cigarettes, knocking both it and his lighter off 
the table. Hauled himself up with an irritated grunt to fish them 
off the carpet and lit one, settling back against the headboard to 
puff away. Picked up the room key Kira had left on the nightstand 
and began to toy with it, turning it over and over in his hands.

And had a vision of Kira's death...

***

It was doubtful perhaps that Ran noted or cared for the tiny host which 
had come then to the shadows which sprung up along side then, the tide 
pools of Night's handmaids, sampling the earth before their mistress.  
The few remaining workers had gathered there, seeming to wish to be 
seen among the unseen.  They smelled only faintly of sweat, most of the 
spilled lamp oil, of which they all wore samples of.  Two dozen of them 
had remained, all told, besides the maids who had gone home or gone to 
clearing out the main hall while no one was about to tell them to forgo 
their brooms.  The last whores though stood together and they watched 
the two lovers with far off or perplexed gazes.  A few took after one 
another's fingers, only to find such touches so frightfully unknown 
they pulled away into their own graces.

One young boy, perhaps thirteen got to his toes and whispered to the 
ear of an elder friend.  "I like watching them.  I think I would always 
like to watch them."

"Oh Mori!" Another boy, nearly his twin began, having overheard and not 
been pushed away by their mutual mentor.  "They aren't fish."

"Might as well be," Saully, said mentor sighed.  "And I think I know 
that too."

"You know an awful lot."

"Exactly, I'm thirty, I'm too old."

"Like that movie."

"Logan's Run," All three chorused.  And then they fell silent trying to 
remember where they had seen it.

"I don't think it shall be too bad, working here, Mari.  Except for 
being confused with you." Mori insisted with a kiss.

"I think I haven't anywhere else to go.  But I'm tired.  Oh well then."  
Saully sighed and pulled his companions beside him.  "Let's just sit 
down and watch."

***

Audience or not, Ken consented to being nibbled at, to being held, to 
holding Ran back in his own little ways, swinging their locked hands.  

/I don't mind... not this, not right now.  You're allowed./

/But thanks, just the same.../

One very faint chuckle and he leaned back, bumping his lover's face 
away from his for just a moment, finding himself space to lean back and 
brush his nose up against his cheek.

/For not taking advantage of me when I'm all giggly!/

But they turned then, together, and with eyes half lidded and serene 
did watch the sun at last go tearing off away to the lower reaches of 
Terra as they stood atop her ground.  Carly came to them and stood 
among the whores, who tried to shoo her to Ken's side.  She would not 
go, neither would Yuriko or Fiona when she crossed the last sliver of 
them evening crown.  No, rather the servant girl found herself a mossy 
stone with a rim of heather and she sat there all evening, swinging her 
sneakers as far as they could be persuaded to go.  

Ken called for the fireplace matched then, taking his leave from ran 
only as the most reluctant fragment of water leaves an icicle.  Even 
though it was summer, and humid, where ice, save the phantoms of such 
wrought by children earlier had no chance.  He chose one whose sulfur 
had been tinted pale green and struck it on the bottom of his shoe.  
The tiny yellow flame he twirled for just one moment, like a wand.  But 
he cast her away in the end where she fell to a puddle of aqua oil 
which burst into gold and ruby then; sputtered and singed her banks, 
creeping outward along her shores, her lands, which sang as the grass 
did as they died, sounding not unlike the crickets.

Ken drew Ran up beside him on a nearby slope of grass where they might 
sit without facing too much of the heat, or two little of the light 
which somersaulted from her birthplace and went tearing out all over 
the mattresses, testing their depths with her hot fingers, the heavens 
with the rippling hear of her toes as she spun and fell and took 
herself to the heart of her dying home.

"Enjoy," Ken whispered.

Carly applauded and the whores followed suit.  Fiona laughed and jumped 
when she mistook a star in the corner of her eye for a visitor unasked 
for.

The two moons paused, one caught in the umbra of the other, just barely 
peering out to see, to send their eyes down to the silver peaks of the 
villa where they sat and glinted and still watched the flames.

Which took to scent of fire, rather of sweet things in tea, and limbs 
tangled in sheets.  There could have been no questions... renown for it's 
immaculate accommodations or not, the fibers of it's bed remembered 
what the villa was for, and they told everyone as they burned away to 
nothing save perhaps fireflies of glowing ash which fluttered away in 
the breeze now and again, only to scare out real fireflies, which rose 
now, little signals in the air, lazing about the bonfire and being 
snatched to the palms of the watchers.

Ken caught one and tried to convince it to curl up in Ran's hair like a 
barrette.   

***

But the moment Ken pulled his hand back, the twinkling little 
ephemera only darted off after its playmates to waltz with them on 
sparkling currents of smoke. Ran twitched a hand through his hair, 
rubbing away the annoying tickling the insect had caused. He then 
settled back on the grassy knoll, and watched the hypnotically 
wavering pillars of fire rise and fall from the heap. 

There was nothing like fire for cleansing, he thought: Out with the 
old. Fresh starts. New lives. From the expressions on the whores 
faces', it was clear that they were viewing the bonfire much in the 
same way. Hope for the future and a bit of Fear over what it would 
hold. 

But instead of how he would now live, all Ran could think about was 
how he used to exist. It struck him as odd that he would never have 
to worry about when and if Manx would come and how much he would 
earn; how he would never have to spend another dawn cleaning all 
evidence of his kill from his person, his weapon; how much he missed 
that weapon--how his hand itched for the feel of it. 

How much he longed to see Aya again, even though she wouldn't be 
aware of him; probably never had been. 

He was smitten with a pang of remorse at the thought of her, feeling 
very much as if he'd let her down. Again. He had been selfish, had 
dared to think of his own happiness when his own flesh and blood 
could not have any for herself.

Like an oyster in its shell, Ran closed himself off, wrapping his 
arms around his bent knees and bowing his head before the seething, 
amber-tinted flames. 

***

"Ran?" Ken found his voice felt as if someone else spoke with it, 
someone he could hear, and know and touch.  Someone he lied well enough 
but still... the little boy in him wondered and watched of it.  No 
matter.  "I'm right here.  I'm not going anywhere."

/Why'd I say that?/

/Because it's true.  Reason enough to say anything that./

His shoes came flying off and tumbled into a tiny dip in the cover.  
With a satisfied sort of groan, he fell back on the grass and let the 
heat of the flames tend to his toes.  Their images still blew bubbles 
before his eyes, leaving traces of themselves upon the sky as he 
focused upon it and the wavering specter of his boyfriend beside him, 
kept save in his peripheral vision.  The view of the star-slick heavens 
consumed him then.

No the aurora nocturnalis was fainter in Valdemar, bits of fluttering 
gauze and nothing more, here countered with the occasional curl of 
white smoke chasing after the fireflies.  Above him stood the long, 
dark, threshold of the woods and the teatimes of the beasts who would 
rather watch man sleeping than awake.

They had little luck on Terra, particularly bad showings that night.

If the road had not ended before the villa, they would have come sooner 
he supposed- the foxfire of the noble people with their servants and 
their lamps.  The townspeople bearing candles to cross the glass and 
tickle grass border between their world and the make believe of the 
Villa.  Those who went without lights.  But they came, and their 
whispers did too, where they stood outside the glow of the flames as if 
no knowing what to make of them.  Heralds and whores come back to see 
the end of their palace in the clouds; workers and children; kings and 
kept boys.  

Easy to see for their chains, visible or no.

He waved them all over closer when he got to his feet.  To their eyes 
he seemed dark against the burning mattresses.

But they came close then- coats departing, candles dying, words taking 
flight and going nowhere.

For no one seemed to know what to make of Hidaka Ken.

He just sat right back down beside Ran and acted as if they weren't 
there at all.

***  

That Ken hadn't given the newcomers more of a greeting didn't 
surprise Ran in the slightest.  It was, after all, his way to be so 
informal.  There was no need for him to change his ways just to 
please those who had chosen to forsake him merely because he had 
decided to do what he considered to be right.  

There was no need, in Ran's mind, for Ken to change at all.  

And as for Ran, the rustle of their murmuring voices had alerted him 
to their presence, and he only gave them the sparest of glances 
before returning to his sullen scrutiny of the billowing fire.  They 
did not matter to him, nor did he care that their way of life had 
been stripped from them.  If they still hated Ken for the decision 
he'd made, it was just too damn bad.

He relaxed finally and straightened up a little, freeing his knees 
from the tight band he'd held them in for so long.  Ran rubbed them a 
bit, then dropped back onto the grass just as Ken had done earlier.  
The night sky beckoned like a veiled dancer, but its charms were lost 
on Ran.  His thoughts were on Aya; his admiration, only for Ken.  

Ken who looked as if he'd been splashed with molten gold.  Skin and 
hair turned tawny; eyes glowing like amber.  At rest, but Ran could 
see the tautness in his athlete's frame, the wariness in his 
expression.  He looked as if he was ready to pounce on the first 
person who dared approach him.      

Just like a...

...Tiger.  

Ran shivered a little then, but not from the cold, and not from fear.

"Ken?"

"Can anyone come here?  That is, if I were to go back to Japan after 
the month was up, could I bring someone back, even though I've only 
lived here for such a short while?"  

***

Ken glanced up from the flames and the vermouth ice of the townspeople 
gathered about them as if waiting for the heat tot leave them and 
everything to slide backwards into the way it used to be, the way it 
ought to be, perhaps.  Such were townspeople, even on Terra.  He 
wiggled his toes at them, pretending this would bother them and send 
them scurrying away.  His country mice neighbors and would-be lovers.  

He decided then and there not to hate them, even if they did, each and 
every one, turn out to be pains in his ass.

In the mean time, he stretched a little and rolled onto his side facing 
the earth-forsaken eyes of his beloved.

"You're talking about Aya-chan, ne?"

A small nod, one which ruffled the feathers of his bangs, sending a few 
of them tilting in just the wrong way.  

/As if I could resist that invitation.../

As he spoke then, he tangled his fingers in his lover's hair, which 
shone pink gold and peridot, between the fire and the insects who fled 
it. 

"Well, I'm sure if you..." He had to catch his tongue then.

/You're supposed to work these things out with your herald./

/Which would be fine except.../

/You wouldn't trust ours near your sister with a teddy bear as her only 
weapon!/

"...I'm sure you can bring her! She's family, it's an extenuating 
circumstance.  If she was a lover, it would be different, but she's 
not."

Then a little sigh.

"They're not like the people at Kritiker either.  They won't use her 
against you or try to keep you apart.  I'll get her the coziest room in 
the hospital."

But then something besides the fact they were using the same loophole 
Schuldich had struck him and his eyes grew wide, his throat quite 
tight.

"Umm... if you don't mind introducing me to her that is... Y'know, I 
understand if it's awkward what with me being... a guy and all."

***

In one starsailing instant, Ran tripped off on a wave of relieved joy.  
It was all coming together, now.   He no longer felt quite so guilty 
for leaving her behind.  Not quite.

/I can bring her here, where I can keep her safe.  Where I can see her
everyday./

/Where I can go to her when she finally wakes up./

/And she will!  She's...she's got to wake up.../

/I've waited for so long.../

But then, Ken spoke, and Ran came crashing back down.  He remained on 
his back for a few moments more, processing what he'd said, and 
collecting his own thoughts for the best sort of answer he could give.  
Then he rolled over onto his side, facing him, his weight resting on 
his elbow.

"I am going to introduce you to her the moment I bring her back to 
Terra.  Or before that, if you want to come with me.  I wouldn't mind 
if you did."

"And as for what Aya will think, don't worry.  She was after me all the 
time to find a girlfriend and be happy before the accident, because I 
never dated anyone.  I don't think she'd mind finding out that instead 
of a girlfriend, I had a boyfriend.  I only think she wants me to be 
happy."

"And what do you know, Ken, but I am.  I am and I thought I'd never 
be..."

***

Ken clapped then, pulling his hand out from under his head without 
thinking after it first.  He fell against the grass chuckling.  And 
blushing.  And hoping said blush would be taken for warmth and nothing 
more.  "I'm not laughing at you Ran.  I'm just happy too!"

/And this would all go to pieces if I tried to tell you, how honored I 
am./

/Me! Hidaka Ken, everyone's favorite disgrace gets to meet Fujimiya 
Ran's sister! And with no pretense, and no lies.  As me.  Even though.../

/You know, I don't care if she's a girl, or if she thinks I should like 
girls.  I wanna hold her on my lap and talk to her.  I wanna tell her 
she looks like you only cuter and see you get all pouty./

/Nah, scratch that.  I wanna sit with you both.  Damn IV, we'll just 
take it with us and go sit under a tree./

"I knew we could do something with this old bordello!"

/Aww... now I have to wait a whole month!/

"Nice and fucked up how these things work out."

He would have minded his mouth but with a bevy of well to do persons 
clasping their cheeks and shaking the plumes of their hats so very 
close by, the chance was too much to pass up.  Smirking, he leaned back 
down beside his lover and listened to them a moment, imagining the 
wreath of stars behind Ran's head was what spoke.

"THAT'S the dono?"

"No, the other one, the one who just said... that word."

"What do you suppose he meant for 'do something with this old 
bordello'?"

"It simply can't be, what that disgruntled little strumpet said.  They 
wouldn't close down a Villa, would they? Must have just been upset 
about being let go."

"Actually," Ken said in a downright inscrutable voice, "It is so."  
Then he shrugged and slumped back down on the grass.

The fire found herself to be the only one with anything to say 
presently.  

And then...

"Well, we haven't got a descent florist's in town."

"We haven't got a descent caf� even! But really..."

"It can't be all bad."

"It most certainly can! We shan't get any at all."

"OH SHUT UP and watch the fire.  It's nice," Ken told them.

Either the tittering groups were too dumstruck to do much else or their 
next act was born of their desire for unerring politeness, but they 
settled themselves about the blaze, to be followed by what other 
bouquets of people had gathered.  They seemed to be expecting a speech 
after awhile, but got nothing save the hot summer night, with it's 
ordinary glories of galaxies distant and not near those of earth, it's 
creatures daring to shine on their own, and a bonfire with peculiar 
fuel which sparkled here and there, before the springs tarnished or 
fell to the ash.  

Of the remaining whores, they kept to themselves.  A moth alighted on 
Saully's head before taking off before Mari's hands and flitting to 
close to the flames, which snatched it up.  It was ash before it hit 
the ground.  Ken laughed again.  

"All this in one night!" Someone sighed.  "The Villa goes to pieces, 
the Cream Lassies burn themselves before the Window Panes come and they 
say there was a murder down at the hotel just before sunset."

"And you were expecting what from a former kept boy?" Ken yawned in 
reply.

"Mnn, nothing at all."

"But the fire is rather nice."

"I can't believe you."

"Shhhh!"

But sitting up now to look over his onlookers, as wrong as it all felt 
in a pretty kindergarten way, Ken found that his blaze was already 
fading, it's edges fallen into hot ash laced with feather finals and 
wire.  He hadn't expected it would last too long.  'twas only sex and 
sheets and nothing more.  Fiona had nodded off near it.  Yuriko was 
wondering over carrying her inside.  Carly had caught a firefly and was 
watching it blink between her fingers.  He called for a tablet and 
wrote out his twenty-some IOUs, several of which flew into the pyre 
their owners had helped to build.  The grass now was starting to show 
dew here and there, and with nothing but the slender damp stalks nearby 
to catch, no promise of wind any time soon, he felt no shame in 
admitting something to Ran.

"I think it's time for bed, whaddya say?  Meet me back inside in ten 
minutes?"

A wink and he took off then, waving to everyone.

"I guess we're allowed to stay."

"So he's not closing it for the hours of a regular business at least."

"Not much left to see."

"Won't ever be again."

"Thanks for stopping by!" Ken insisted, before disappearing into the 
unscortched night, where he slid inside, came to his tower which seemed 
to have been someone's for many years now.  Upstairs he found the bed 
draped in white cotton and the ether of a halo of mosquito netting, 
even though it hadn't been too damp a year.  It all seemed periwinkle 
rain with nothing but the moons to light it on this side of the 
building.  A bank of clouds to sleep in.

He fished Ran's white rose from his trunk and laid it on his pillow 
before climbing under the veil and drawing his shirt away from his neck 
while he waited.   

***

The gathering broke up after Ken's hasty departure. The uninvited 
guests all left too, after a while, muttering darkly and casting 
woeful looks at the moonlight tinted villa as they made their stately 
descent. There were a stubborn handful of which who lingered still, 
as if in shock; as if it were all a drunken dream, and untrue. They 
were helped along their way by few well-chosen, deeply cutting 
remarks by Ran, which he had delivered to them in his inimitable Aya-
like way. 

Maybe it hadn't been the wisest thing to do, but he couldn't be 
bothered with them anymore, nor could he bear to hold his tongue any 
longer. It had taxed his thin patience greatly to keep still as long 
as he had, while they had snapped and snipped at Ken, and it was a 
tremendous relief when at last they fled as well. 

It was just the whores, and Yuriko and Carly and his sleeping girl 
now. Of the former, they were the next to leave, only a few staying 
behind to snuff out and cover over the remaining embers of the fire. 
To Carly and Yuriko he bowed, bidding them good night, and then 
gathered Fiona up from her perch beside the fire--an act done so 
smoothly that she barely roused from her slumber; just woke enough to 
nestle her head against his shoulder. 

He couldn't help but wonder what she'd do if she did wake, and saw it 
was him and not Yuriko who held her, but he never got a chance to 
find out. The girl stayed asleep all the way to the tower, and even 
after Ran entered and carried her to hers. He lay her on top of the 
covers, not bothering to even remove her shoes lest she awaken, and 
there he left her, drawing the heavy, dark curtains by the entryway 
tightly closed in his wake. 

Then Ran climbed the stairs to his own vast cell, to find a much 
fresher room awaiting him. A much lighter, comfortable looking bed, 
with a terribly gorgeous man kneeling in the middle of it, his back 
to him. His neck exposed. 

He padded sock footed across the room, and parted the cloud-sheer 
gauze that now served as curtains for their bed. His blood was 
roaring in his ears, blotting out nearly all other sound save for 
that of his own heart, of the ripple of his throat when he 
swallowed. Ran climbed upon the bed, and took his place behind Ken, 
the curtain swishing closed behind him.

He leaned forward slowly, and kissed him lingeringly at the base of 
his neck. Kissed him again where his collar met his skin. Oh, it 
was an erotic sight, the way the garment hung on him, the way his 
neck arched up from within its mundane folds. Ran yearned to peel 
the rest away, if only to feast his eyes on more, if not to touch 
him. 

But that wasn't why Ken had agreed to submit to him like that. 

Which then led him to his brand new problem: How to proceed next? A 
bite--one hard enough to bruise? No, that was too savage, and not at 
all what he figured a kiss-mark to be. 

And that was all he could do in this instance, figure. Guess. He 
had never dealt one to a lover, much less received one of his own. 
Ran lowered his hands from his boyfriend's back, and rested them in 
his lap. 

"I...I don't know how to..." 

"I never have before..." 

"I'm sorry..." 

He spied the rose lying on his pillow, its petals as pristine as a 
dollop of new-fallen snow, and he took it in hand, twirling it 
around. Lifted it to his nose to sample its fragrance. 

Then, in a spark of inspiration, he kissed it and gently brushed it 
down the center of Ken's neck, and back up, tracing a path along to 
his right ear, then along his jaw to his chin. He let it hover 
there, the creamy petals just edging his skin. 

"It won't leave a mark for everyone to see, but..."

***

Ken dropped his gaze a bit.  Now away from Ran, who had had not looked 
upon since he had joined him on their bed.  He felt no need to.  It was 
sweeter than being willingly blind, to see the moons and know Ran 
otherwise, even if he was pretty to the eyes- he felt lovely, sounded 
lovely and so impossibly bashful.  Ran and not Aya.

The rose had taken him by surprise, but a creamy little guise of 
surprise, nothing too intense, nothing easily forgettable.  He bent and 
brushed his own lips to those of the flower.  

/The shower and the hairbrush and the rose... we just keep finding ways 
around each other, don't we?/

/I wonder if it would have been like this if we were back at the 
Koneko... no, I couldn't have stayed.  I guess you knew that./

/We're just like two children looking for loopholes in each other's 
rules.  Hey, maybe it's strange, that we have to go through other 
things to hold each other but... you know, Ran I.../

/Don't worry about it now./

The petals came up and twirled around his eyelids.

"I'll know it's there.  I'll feel it all day tomorrow and I'll let 
everyone wonder why I keep smirking."

The aurora blinked, so did Ken, turning and finally glancing at his 
beloved.

Smirking.  

***  

The rose trailed over Ken's smartly curved lips. 

"Giving everyone another reason to talk?" 

Ran brushed the furled blossom over his own softly smiling mouth. 

"I didn't think you had it in you to be devious. I find I rather 
like it that you are."

The rose he cradled to his chest as he moved a bit to the side. 
Leaned in close to Ken as if for a kiss, which he didn't bestow; he 
had only wanted to tease. Instead he stretched out on his back 
beside his lover. The teal-nacred light had grown brighter in the 
room, making the shadows look all the more velvety through the 
gauze. 

He held the flower up, admiring it in the fairy light, its petals now 
pale like mist and not snow. He imagined a room full of them, 
touched just so by that mysterious, shifting glow, and how she would 
look if she could see them. 

"Aya likes all manner of white flowers, but she likes these the 
best. That other rose was for her, for the arrangement I had planned 
to make for her that week." 

The rose was drawn back down to his chest again, and held there as if 
he considered it precious; he did. "You gave me this rose to replace 
the one you stole, didn't you? To remind me of the one that led to 
all this."

Ran skimmed the back of Ken's hand with tentative fingers.

"Because you were the one who took it, and set the wheels in motion, 
I want you to tell her the story when we meet her." 

He reached up to stroke Ken's cheek with the back of his hand. "I 
think she'd like to hear it."

***

(OOC: This evenfall, my lady, dost find me nicely drunk once more.  
Please let me know if I offend you in my cups, though all I wish to do 
is wish the best for you! Like a black eyed pea... a black eyed pea I be... 
lalalalalala!

Rabbits: Umm... high time someone carted you off, oh yes.)

Ken laughed outright but flopped down on the pillows which occupied his 
half of the bed just the same.  Splayed out on his stomach now, he 
peered out at his lover from under the shadow of his bangs, and pressed 
his inquisitive hand back against his face.  Held it there.

"So the first thing I get to tell your litter sister is alllllll about 
me being a thief! What a lovely first impression that will make."

His tongue flickered out then, wiggled back and forth before vanishing 
once more.

"I'm kidding, sweetheart, I'd love to tell her.  That's it I'm the one 
who did IT! I admit it! I took your rose, and I was being selfish when 
I did! I'm a bad, bad boy! Who snatched her big brother away to the 
land of Window Panes and snow amber with two moons who probably wish we 
had curtains right now."

Turning over his shoulder, he shook his fist at the two wide-eyed 
voyeurs in the sky, who scurried behind a curtain of magnetic light.  

But he gave not another thought to them.  Rather, leaned over and 
whispered.  "I'm real tired, Ran.  Let's be bad and sleep in our 
clothes.  No one's here to get Ma~~~ad."

Ran raised an eyebrow to this.

Ken kissed it.  And his nose.  And his cheek.  And his lips.  And his 
whole wet and trembling mouth.  And the long, fine ivory of his neck 
with the echoes of his pulse, the ether of his body the ever present 
sense of milk and rain cuddling his senses as he drew the flavor and 
the tiny trembles from it, trembling himself, just a bit and...

He pulled back a bit, licking his own lips, chewing them thoughtfully.

"Actually... umm... THAT'S how you give someone a hickey."

***

Ran's eyes widened just a fraction, his fingers flying down from 
their perch on Ken's arm to touch the damp spot where he had marred 
his skin. "Ken! I..."

/I can't believe you did that.../ 

Surprise gave way to mild consternation; but inside his heart was 
racing just a tiny bit faster. He was extremely grateful for the 
darkness since it hid the flush he felt creeping across his cheeks. 

"I suppose that anyone who thought me a frigid prude will have a 
change of mind come morning."

Ken only flashed him an impish grin an a teasing quirk of his brows, 
making Ran melt a bit. He casually draped an arm around him. 

"I'll have to remember how to do it...So I can give you one on the 
back of your neck as you had wanted me to do. And...maybe elsewhere 
too...If you'll ever let me."

With that he raised his head and captured Ken's mouth in a kiss. 

"I love you."

/And...I want you.../

He gave him another, just as hungry as the first, then dropped back 
down to the pillows. 

"And no, I don't mind sleeping in my clothes tonight."

/It's not like I haven't done it before.../

(ooc: I said it before, and I'll say it again--You are so cute when 
you are drunk! :mad hugs:)

***

"Yay!" Ken took a moment to clap before pulling the covers out from 
under himself and his lover, who shifted the pressure points of his 
body against the mattress most deftly without actually getting up.  The 
sheets furled down around them then, crawling into the little nests 
their forms made.  He could not help but notice they fell as if used at 
least once before and carried no sense of having been locked up for 
awhile.  Any while.  Ran's arm remained tucked to him all the while- a 
rolling, gentle weight.

One that made him wonder drowsy over maidens and time.  Maidens who 
learn to love the lords they were forced to join, time with his scythe 
and his promise to heal with it.  Ken was neither, wanted neither, but 
still took the visiting hand away, clasping it with his own and 
pressing it into the body of the air between them.

They each had their own pillows here as well.  

And he saw before his eyes fell shut that Ran was not quite white, for 
he did not dissolve into the sheets entirely, but he was achingly 
close.  It comforted him to know if he woke up in the middle of the 
morning darkness he would be able to make him out at once.

He smiled, closed his eyes and dreamed of hiding in a closet with Omi.

***

"Say that again,"  The doorman hissed between spells of disbelieving 
laughter, and he snatched the book out from under his latest guest, 
only to find she rocked forward with its retraction, not even smearing 
the unicorn's footprints of her signature.  

Savil laid the pen aside and blinked up at Kira with her eyes slow from 
too many minutes abandoned in the notary office.  "How was Bradley?" 
she repeated, even mimicking her original cadence.  

/It's always the redheads./

He refused to answer at first, but finally tossed his hair aside and 
told her, "You should already know if you can read minds."

"I thought it might be interesting to hear what you'd say."

"I which case I'm saying that I up until this moment wished you people 
would visit more often.  Now run along, little girl.  Up to your pretty 
room over the garden."

She left, her footsteps fading with the impression of her body in the 
firelight, only to find herself singing once she had passed out of its 
reach.    

The summer fields grow high. 
We made garland crowns in hiding, 
Pulled stems of flowers from my hair. 
Blue in the stream 
Like none I have seen 
Apart from dreams 
That escape me. 
There was no girl as bold as you. 

They always seemed to end up at well, the end of the hall.  Farfie 
wined as she fumbled with her key in the lock, hesitating between turns 
and clicks, for the same door which kept her for the moment from their 
rented chambers was doing no such good for a flavor that she knew.  It 
was, in even its existence, like a puff of smoke.  The taste like a 
remnant of a fire on the air, and like a stray tendril of the stuff it 
always managed to breach Bradley's shields.

She and her brother, even if they never said so.  They knew.  Every 
time.  When Bradley had succumbed to his visions.  The door failed to 
creak for her, her dog's bones failed to pop for her as he hoisted her 
up on his shoulders so she could mind lighting the torches along the 
walls.  The ghostly rather indigo and brass light did not startle 
Crawford as it silently came into being without leave of a voice or 
footsteps heard.  She wondered what the pinions of tinder were made of 
to make them burn such an odd color, throw the ruby windows almost 
opaque, for their light nearly matched that of the encroaching evening.   

Finished, she sent Farfie up to her room to wait for her, and cocked 
the bedroom door open.  "Adso sent this for you," she remarked with a 
giggle, and though standing aside with her gaze seemingly hidden, she 
managed to take aim in the half-reflection from one of the gules panes.  
With a tiny flick of her wrist, her dart sailed from her fingers and 
into the precognitive's chest.

Which was all well and good except that it was made of a single 
gentian, although a very peculiar one.  Somewhat old and faintly 
ragged.  Strange in it's particular pale hue, almost aqua, touched with 
green.  Not to mention that gentians are not in the habit of naturally 
displaying the kanji for "Hidaka Ken" on their leaves in gold ink.

Schu-baby's chappy cherry red rose she left on the coffee table among 
the transfer papers for her charges.  Even through her laughter, she 
had to admit the two lovers looked almost as cute together as Crawford 
and her brother.

Shame took to them, but honesty did not.  Warnings would have been in 
vain.  Why worry? At least for now.  

(OOC: Adso is the narrator of "The Name of the Rose"; I guess she's 
inferring either Ken would be a suitable subject for "The Name of the 
Gentian" or as an Adso substitute narrating about Aya.  The tossing the 
flower dart at Crawford's chest is loosely based on a scene from Key 
the Metal Idol, in which Key, an android, throws a rose to Miho the 
singer and it pierces her chest.   Roses have all the fun!)

***

The grim vision receded into a mere memory.  The key slipped from 
his hand, and Crawford slumped back against the pillows, eyes closed 
and a bit breathless and rather disoriented--but only briefly.  Such 
wavering feelings he could control, could overcome in a blink, thanks 
to the training he had received at the hands of Estet.  

He opened his eyes, and sat up, and found Savil's curious gift lying 
nestled in the folds of sheet across his lap.  He picked it up and 
twirled it thoughtfully between finger and thumb, feeling the residue 
of her silver-grey aura.  He called forth on his lesser power again to 
see her future, half-dreading and half-hopeful over what he might 
see.  

And then he smiled.  No such dire things as death or dismemberment 
for his lover's little sister.  No dire things at all, in fact.  Just 
her trailing along through the gardens on some unnamed day, chasing 
butterflies with the dog at her heels.  He found himself to be 
relieved, which struck him as odd.  Children had never been among his 
favorite things.  

But then, he had never thought he would have met such a one as 
Sapphire.  

That vision went away, filed amongst all the others he'd had in the 
past, and the gentian went into the empty little water glass that 
stood on his nightstand for safekeeping.  Crawford climbed out of bed 
and went for the thick white robe he had hung on the back of the 
bedroom door.  Slipped it on and belted it as he went out to the 
living room.  

He found the little girl kneeling at the coffee table, shuffling 
through the papers scattered across it.  He walked over, and dropped 
down on the sofa behind her, sparing her an awkward little pat on the 
head.  

"Did you and Farfarello have fun on your outing?"  

***

"We had a lovely time," Saffie replied, glancing back and forth between 
a pair of seemingly identical forms, both of which she promptly wadded 
up and tossed to the end of the table where they bumped one another and 
the rose lying there.  "At least after we almost started a riot in the 
notary office.  It isn't any better there, from what it used to be."

A few memories passed her minds eye, of many an hour hanging on her 
brother's shoulder as they stood, waiting for their turn to be 
confirmed, as they had gone in person with no herald, of watching the 
ocean of pretty boys, none so pretty as her two even if she did have to 
avert her eyes from their incessant smooching.  

"It was over Farfie of course," the explanation finally came.  "Then we 
went for a walk out along the edge of town, and he chased one of the 
rabbits from the old warren by the theatre.  We didn't run into anyone 
we knew though, and it doesn't look much different there.  I'm sure I'm 
boring you."

He thought her a little no, and something in the lightness of it caught 
her.  Bradley was always so steady when he thought... Or at least, 
capable of steadying himself in thoughts of something grim, invited or 
not, by his blue eyes or his talents.  Speaking of which, she heard the 
familiar tingle of his cigarette case opening. 

Warrens and notary officers might have been well and good, but that, 
oh, that little ring! That was the sound of home.

Smiling serenely, she tapped her papers into a pile and swung herself 
up in the couch beside her brother's lover.  No glance for her, as he 
caught a parachute down to earth and present with his little smoke 
rings... what else good is a loop of such tempting, sour vapor?

"May I have a cigarette?" She asked him once he had finished his first 
of many indulgent puffs.        

***

Crawford eyed her most sharply, having had been caught off guard. 
But he opened the case again anyway, and slipped one out of it. 
Tapped it on the back and slipped it between his lips. 

/I feel the need to tell you that I shouldn't be doing this./

He lit it, and passed it to her. 

/Once upon a time, it was considered romantic for a man to light a 
cigarette for a woman...And all because of a movie./

/Even though you aren't one yet, and I am not much of a romantic./ 

The case he started to slip into his pocket, then thought better of 
it, and laid it and the lighter on the table instead. Reached out 
and gave one of her springy curls a gentle, playful tug--just because 
he felt like doing it.

"You seem to have picked up your brother's sense of curiosity."

***

::Your concern for my health is noted but disregarded, as is 
tradition.::

Her gratitude otherwise hovered over and alighted on his nose and his 
mind.  In his mind as a splash of fruit candy clear colors, on his nose 
as a butterfly which had torn its wings from her smoke and breezed over 
before fading away.  She smiled.  She knew it was bad and fuzzy, her 
illusion.  But Brad with his shields more or less down and no one 
around to mock her besides him.  The temptation to ensconce the 
bagatelle in his mind had been, well as irresistible as the cigarette.  

What served as real presently was that she sipped at her stalk of clove 
with a certain vaguely familiar cool joie-de-vivre, balanced it between 
her fingers as if it was a pencil of tourmaline.   

"You seem to have given me lots to be curious about! I have never 
watched a movie in my life, met a romantic, or been bored around you 
with your memories of old movies and romantics."

Her clove shifted to her far hand and the fingers which has once 
embraced it returned that little tug of his, catching in his raven 
locks, winding them into a tight curl before letting them slip satin 
back to bed-mussed and thin.  ::You asked for it ^.^:: 


She took another drag then and he did too.

A drag laced with offered recollections which she designed to lap at.

"Anything you want for dinner besides Ken?"

::Well, my Ni-chan's not about, so someone has to come up with naughty 
innuendo.::

Even if she failed here at her mirroring of him and resorted to audible 
giggles.

***

Crawford slumped down in his seat, tilting his head back on the sofa 
edge, and blew a smoke ring. Smirked at her through a film of blue-
silver smoke. It was like being in the presence of a miniature, 
decidedly more feminine version of Schuldich; being around Savil, 
considering the deft way she handled both the cigarette and him. Of 
course, the giggling fit which overtook her ripped her impersonation 
of her brother to shreds; nevertheless, Crawford found the sound of 
her little girl titters delightful. 

/As no one around here truly engages in laughing./

"Actually, I'm in the mood for lasagna with extra cheese, and a plate 
of bittersweet chocolate profiteroles, and a pot of coffee."

/Yes, I know none of that is good for me./ 

/Being born turned out to be bad for me, considering the two people 
whom I had for parents--but I survived them.../ 

/It's such a pity they didn't survive me.../

"But if we decide to order in as opposed to going out, we'll need to 
do so before 6:47 pm, as early as that is to be having dinner. But 
if we wait until after that, I don't think we'd be able to get so 
much as a bowl of cashews."

/Because that's when Kira is going to die, of course./

Crawford reached over to tickle her side again, as he'd seen 
Schuldich do on occasion, just to hear another airy round of giggles 
tumble from her lips. 

/Silly Savil.../

"Well? Which do you want to do?" 

***

Saffie was hardly taken to surprise by the remark regarding the man who 
had only minutes before shooed her out of the lobby and his life.  For 
good it seemed.  Such things had never been uncommon in her existence, 
nor Bradley's, and what vicarious living she had done through all of 
her "sick little family".  

It was much more fun to lean back and enjoy being tickled than to dwell 
on such things.  Crawford moved his digits much more slowly than her 
brother, but they lingered longer as if her white skin bore the marks 
of scales fit for piano keys.  

She laid half sprawled for him and he never proved to be one to miss an 
invitation.

::I liked Kira too, you know!::

::Ah well...::

But then her real troubles resurfaced.  ::But how late have you slept? 
What time is it?::

They ended up both jumping to their feet and searching the pocket watch 
from Nagi's discarded vest.  With a long, curling serpent of smoke at 
her lips she regarded the dial.

8:30.  

"Well then, let's bribe them to get it up here tout de suite! Should I 
send someone out after Schu-baby and Nagi-chan?"

He shook his head, loosing a few gusts of nicotine haze in a banished 
sigh.  As for his lover's sister, she somersaulted over the chair, and 
had the phone off the hook in the same fluid motion.

::And here I thought you'd sworn off room service :P.::

"'ello? Room service? Yes, this is grand suite by the garden... umhm... 
well, yes.  Lasagna with extra cheese..." here a wink to her elder 
guardian, "Lots of extra cheese! Chocolate profiteroles- dark, not 
milk... as dark as they come! A pot of coffee... French please... yes... oh, 
and we need it all up here before six-forty-five.  Money or... gotcha.  
See you then!"

The handset clanked daintily back into its holder.  "They'll have it up 
here just in time for the show, but you have to kiss whoever delivers 
it.  I'm not in the mood."

One more drag.

***

"A kiss? Is THAT all? My, these people are easy to bribe." 

Crawford lurched forward to stub out the remains of his cigarette, 
taking up another one from the silver case in the next breath. He 
maneuvered himself lengthwise across the sofa, nudging the twin 
pillows behind his head into a fluffy ball with one hand. 

"There has to be a catch. There's always a catch," he proclaimed, 
with the air of someone who had learned the truth of catches the hard 
way. "Alas, I'm not getting any visions to tip me off." 

/At least, not about that.../

/And who KNOWS when those two will return./ 

Visions didn't leave a taste in his mouth like thoughts did for his 
lover and Savil; only colors on occasion, and sometimes hints of 
subtle fragrances which he couldn't really smell, just knew. The sort 
he'd had earlier about his lover and his ward was followed by an 
afterglow of red-violet, and made him think of the scent of lilacs; 
it had made him feel somewhat sad afterward, though he really didn't 
know why.

He was feeling strangely melancholy now in fact, and again, he 
didn't know why. 

A stream of smoke danced from his lips. Crawford studied the half of 
the room that was visible to him from his position; noticed with a 
glimmer of interest the old-fashioned radio that stood on a table in 
the corner. 

"How about a bit of music, Savil?" 

***

Saffie did not reply at once.  Rather, she skated over bits of silky 
fragrances caught on the web of her mind.  Chanced them with the 
swirling blue straw from her collection of senses unknown to most 
children of Terra and Antiterra, before finally, neath the sunlight of 
realization, finding no taste, only the inconspicuous tint of flowers, 
something so fleeting and so delicate, he attempt to try it more deeply 
obliterated the sensation, speckling her face with only pinpricks of 
satin soap.  

Beyond it lay blue crystal moon fragments of...

Oh the radio, yes.  The end of her cigarette was laid to rest among 
flowers of likewise ash before she approached the box, bending down to 
observe it like a pixie to an unfamiliar bloom.  The box crackled to 
life and the Chicago evening news report offered itself to the room.  
Neither she now Crawford cared how many people had oft been shot that 
day, they had their own human expiration to await that evening, and so 
she turned and turned and turned the dial.

Before finally managing to ejected a distinctly modern CD bed, cleverly 
hidden beneath an innocent panel of varnish.  

A quick foray up the spiral stairs and she returned with a single disc, 
one that fell into place with a squeaking of the gears, hummed unplayed 
for a moment before...

The air swelled with a substantial and distinctly urban beat, one her 
slight form at once began to tilt in time with, her long wavering locks 
skate in time with.

::Now, now, you know as well as I do that Opera's no good for cheering 
people up.::

::I KNOW that's what you need.  Give it a chance.::

::If you turn out to like it, you can at least revel in the 
satisfaction of fancying something that drives my Ni-chan up the wall.  
Hehe, he HATES Groove Armada.::

"Seven minutes to go."

***

"Blink and you'll miss it." 

Crawford shifted onto his side, wriggling around until his back met 
that of the sofa. His cigarette spilled ash onto the rug from its 
precarious position between two fingers; he saw the fine powder 
crumbling, yes, but he didn't care. 

It wasn't his rug. 

/Well, for ONCE, I'll admit that Schuldich's right. This Groove 
Armada's downright annoying./

/Give me Verdi any day./

/Yes, I know operas are all mostly about sex and betrayal and death. 
So is my life, Savil-darling./ 

/And I don't regret a bit of it./

He wanted another precious, white-wrapped cylinder from his precious, 
sterling silver case, but he didn't want to move. He didn't want to 
spoil the lull he'd fallen under just for the nearly sexual pleasure 
of slipping a cigarette between his lips and drawing its essence so 
deftly into his lungs. Merely laying it between his lips, touching 
his tongue to it, struck him as being a highly sensual act. 

And occasionally it got him hard--but only when he imagined that it 
wasn't a cigarette but Schuldich's...

Someone knocked on the door. Their eyes locked for an instant, and 
then Savil went back to skipping and twirling along with the beat. 
With a groan, Crawford dragged himself upright and headed for the 
door. 

/I couldn't bribe you to.../

/Of course not. I didn't really think I could./

He whipped the door open, ducking behind it as he did, and waited for 
the server to go about his duties. Rubbed his aching eyes; it felt 
like someone had poured sand in them. A shadow wavered before his 
face and hung there, demanding attention. Without a word, Crawford 
dropped his hand from his eyes, and opened them, ready to deal out 
the bribe promised. 

Ready, that is, until he found not a man but a woman standing before 
him. Crawford grew distinctly chill. Without a word, he stalked 
back into the bedroom, and then came back just as quickly, walked up 
to the woman and pressed $100 bill into her hand. 

"I don't do women."

With that, he roughly shoved her out into the hallway, quickly wiping 
the hand that had touched her off on the skirt of his robe. But 
before he could close the door on her scowling, elfin face, a most 
disturbing sound came from downstairs: A bloodcurdling scream, 
followed by the sickening slap of a body falling. The server, wide-
eyed with horror and with one hand pressed against her open mouth, 
turned to go, her footsteps quickening as she approached the stairs. 
Crawford calmly shut the door and walked over to the cart to gather 
his share of the dishes. 

"Steak knives and rejected, would-be lovers just don't mix."

***

"Although neither do assassins and little girls, but here I am," Savil 
shrugged.  She and Bradley regarded each other for a moment, as if each 
looking for something rather lost in the rooms of one another's 
persons.

"No, why would I laugh at you," she replied.  And if the matter was 
settled without even being broached, she pranced over to the cart, 
swept off a pair of platters and escorted them past the far right door, 
which was found to contain a round table of weighty carven oak set with 
bits of faceted pewter.  The thing had such a massive  presence on the 
tactile plane, suspicion seemed to have condemned it ever to the blue 
reaches of the little dining room- the air still bore the barest hints 
of its birth in wood shavings.  Around it hovered six chairs with satin 
cushions and backs which would have reached higher than the shoulders 
of even the most elongated foppish gentleman.  The ceiling glittered 
with moonstone stars and the windows rolled in shades of uneven cobalt.  

Saffie swung her trays into the center of the table and rapt upon one 
of the sheets of glass.  "No one's called an ambulance yet.  You can 
see the hospital in the distance and there's no carriage flying from 
it.  Not that it matters by now."

::Too bad they couldn't get all the rooms to face the garden.  Stupid 
laws of the physical universe.::

Their supper still covered, they stood together and watched the white 
lights on the hill which short sent forth a single spark of blue which 
reached down from the horizon drawn by two ghosts it seemed, so blurred 
and so white were its horses, so translucent did they waver through the 
window.

Their room door slammed just then and two whispers crossed the outside 
chamber.

The sink in the master bedroom began to run.

Schuldich, stark naked, strode through the dining room doors.

"You missed a good one, Bradley.  He fell on the knife when the door 
boys tackled him.  So they're both dead, Kira and the head porter."

::You missed a good one, Saffie.  They didn't wink out for ages and 
ages... it was like ginger tea and honey in the middle of the desert.::

***

"Both of them are dead? My, my, this day is turning out to be a fine 
one."

/I'm sure you agree, my dear exhibitionist./ 

"I didn't see that happening at all, actually. Just Kira's demise, 
the why and the how of it," he added, offering his young companion a 
wicked little smile. "What a pleasant surprise, hm?"

Crawford went to the table and poured a cup of coffee for himself, 
and then for Savil, setting the creamer and sugar bowl down beside 
her mint-green, forget-me-not covered cup. "If you're going to 
sample my cigarettes, you might as well go all out."

Nagi padded in then, fresh from the quick wash he'd had and clad in 
one of Crawford's black silk shirts and nothing else. He dutifully 
took the chair next to Savil, but spared not a glance at anyone in 
the room. Missed, in the ignoring of, the bemused look his guardian 
offered his lover. 

"If you'll take a peek at the trolley out there," he continued, 
waving a hand towards the living room, "you'll notice that we took 
the liberty of ordering something for you both as well."

"It's so important for one to keep up one's strength, don't you 
agree?"

Crawford followed Nagi's lead and took his own seat as well, but 
instead of uncovering his main course first, he uncovered the platter 
which held their dessert. He regarded them somewhat fondly before 
presenting them to Savil. 

"Care for a profiterole, Saffie?"

***

Savil's fingers took flight from the silver ring of her dinner platter 
and hovered there beside the fondant shiny orbs of their dessert.  They 
seemed to be contemplating dashing onto Brad, who had taken the other 
seat which stood beside hers, a place typically occupied by the elder 
telepath.  Schuldich was looking at her like a dumbly smitten lover 
unto and ex and knew it too.

"Yes I should.  Thank you, Bradley."  To which she helped herself to 
one as dark and decadent in appearance as a true, black truffle.  

The little army of sweets departed then without its companion, who met 
a savoring and agonizingly long demise beyond her lips.  Their second 
battle was fought before her brother, who took down two of the host, 
weighting them each before deciding upon which one he ought to eat 
first.  Only then did their army advance unto the land of Nagi-chan, 
and then in cloying silence to most hearing.

Then suddenly before the little Japanese boy had even had a chance to 
accept or decline the cocoa invasion of his district.

"Wait a second, you gave MY little sister a cigarette?"

::You just realized this NOW, Schu-baby?::

Silence fell, as did a few crumbs of fondant.  

"Wicked cooooooooool!"

***

Dinner had gone much as usual, with Savil and Schuldich shooting 
remarks mind-to-mind, with Nagi nibbling most gracefully at his 
dinner and scarcely lifting his eyes from the table.  Crawford 
supposed that it was a signal, Nagi's choosing to wear one of his own 
shirts as evening attire.  The boy was subtly telling him that he 
would agree to be his bedmate that night.  

But sex and bedmates and the attractiveness of the two males at his 
dinner table were the last things on his mind just then.  He couldn't 
bear the thought of sleeping in that bed now, much less having yet 
more sex upon it--not when it bore the traces of a dead man upon its 
cushioned surface.  It just seemed so distasteful now.

Not to mention, disturbing.  All the death he'd witnessed, had 
caused, and yet...On occasion, when he'd have a vision of someone's 
demise, it affected him negatively.  He had grown restless, and was 
still being stung by the same pointless sadness that had attacked him 
earlier.  

So, upon finishing off his lasagna, Crawford retired to his room 
without giving comment to his lover, or a smirk to Nagi, or a fond 
pat on the head for Savil.  If they even noticed, Crawford didn't 
know, nor did he care.  There he changed into the first sweater and 
pair of trousers he found in his closet, and made a phone call to 
housekeeping, requesting not only fresh linens but a fresh spread as 
well.  Then, to the low murmur of laughter from the dining room, 
Crawford left, raising his shields as he went.  

He found the hallways rather dark, for the maids had neglected to 
light the sconces.  The sound of weeping came to him from seemingly 
everywhere, echoing as it did from wall to stone wall.  Crawford 
leaned over the rail in an effort to locate the source of the 
heartbroken sobbing, but he saw nothing but more gloom, both above 
and below.

The atmosphere of the hotel had become that of a giant tomb.  

Crawford paused there, to listen a bit longer.  He himself then 
continued his journey, eschewing the elevators for the narrow, worn 
stairs.  It was a treacherous trip even with the candles to 
illuminate the way, but Crawford wasn't concerned.  He didn't have to 
worry, for when he did die he knew it would be glorious and 
meaningful; meeting one's end on a darkened staircase was neither.  

The lobby was practically devoid of light, of warmth.  The cheerily 
blazing fire of earlier was just a pile of sparkling, crackling 
embers now, and the only light was provided by the two beeswax 
candles now held in the hands of two angels who stood in the farthest 
corner, their faces half-hidden by cleverly carved wings.  He crossed 
over to the huddling statues and ran his fingertips over the detail 
of one wing, noting the care with which the artist had shaped its 
feathers.  Then he walked back to the entrance.  

The lovely twins who'd ushered them in that afternoon were gone, the 
double doors standing wide open.  The floor was damp, and clear of 
herbs, and the smell of lye and lemon hung in the air despite the 
freshening breezes that swept in from outside, bearing with it the 
scent of wood and rain and herbs.  Crawford came to a halt just 5 
feet from the threshold.    

It struck him as funny how he'd come to associate death with the 
smell of strong soap.  

/Poor Kira.  You ran, but he caught you anyway./

His face lit up in the gloom for a brief instant, caught in the tiny 
glow of the flame from his lighter as he touched it to the end of a 
cigarette.

/I had hoped to see you again.  You reminded me of...someone.  Just a 
little./  

/Ah, well./   

The metal cap fell shut with a click, loud in the oppressive 
silence.  A shiver rippled through him, and he shrugged it off.  

Then, hands in pockets, he slipped off to take a brooding stroll of 
the night-cloaked grounds.  

***

Classes at McInerny High had been out for over an hour now; even all 
the kids in after school clubs had gone on their way. Still, there was 
one more student on the premises, one who had been lingering behind in 
the library, so granted permission to stay by the librarian herself--a 
woman, who, believing she'd found a boy who shared her love for books, 
sought to stoke that passion as often as she possibly could.

And not once did she realize that he was simply there because he had 
nowhere else he needed to be. 

But, unfortunately, even librarians have lives, and so the boy was 
apologetically sent away that evening a full hour earlier than usual. 
Now, he found himself wandering down the empty hallways, listening for 
the hushed swish of the janitor's broom. He'd bothered to check out a 
book that afternoon, something he rarely did--one about a girl who, at 
the urging of her glory-seeking father, dared to cash in on the 
nobility of her heritage, and of all the misfortunes that befell her 
because of her folly.

A smile sprang to his lips at the mere thought of it. 

He wound towards the doors, and pushed past them to the outer stairs 
and the street beyond, so lost in his thoughts that he barely 
registered the racing patter of footsteps coming up behind him until 
he'd reached the sidewalk. 

And by then, it was too late to flee, but Crawford wasn't really sure 
that he wanted to run away. 

"Crawford! Wait up!" 

Of course, he knew who was hailing him before he'd even turned around, 
but turn around he did. He couldn't help himself, and his heart 
promptly leapt to his throat when he did, for another boy was advancing 
towards him, smiling brightly. A willowy boy who had auburn hair and 
hazel eyes, and who had a violin case tucked under one arm. 

THE boy. 

Not that he knew it, of course, for he didn't. And it was going to stay 
that way. 

"Richard," he replied, giving him the barest of nods. "What are you 
doing here? I thought you would have gone home by now." 

"And I thought I would see you at lunch." The disappointment in his 
eyes was unmistakable, and Crawford lowered his own to the pavement, 
cast them to the street beyond--anywhere but at Richard. 

"Oh, yeah. Uh...Something came up. Sorry." That the something was a 
fight between him and a boy named Collins he wasn't going to say; not 
ever. And since he hadn't suffered any telltale blows from the 
skirmish...

"Well, it's no loss, I guess. But you owe me, Crawf." 

"Uh, sure," he muttered, puzzling over why such an insignificant thing 
would matter to him. 

An uncomfortable, nervous pause ensued, one during which Crawford once 
more contemplated suddenly sprinting away from his earnest companion. 
But alas, as if he had read his mind, Richard hastily set his prized 
violin down on the pavement and seized his arm. 

"Hey! Uh...My Mom packed me a big lunch again, and I've got an extra 
sandwich. Want it?"

He glanced at the object in Richard's outstretched hand, and shook his 
head. "No, thanks." 

"Come on, Crawford, take it. It's roast chicken on a baguette--all 
white meat."

"No."

Richard snatched at Crawford's hand, intending to press his gift into 
it, but the taller boy jerked it away, much to the redhead's 
consternation. Instead, undaunted, he lifted the unbuckled flap of his 
shoulder slung book bag and plopped it in there; buckled the flap shut. 
"TAKE it. It'll only go to waste if you don't." 

"I'm not hungry," he muttered, but he didn't make a move to hand the 
sandwich back to him. He didn't look at him either, merely picked at 
the unraveled edge of his shoulder bag's strap. 

"Okay, fine. Give it to some stray dog, then. Just don't waste it. 
Okay?" 

He did look up at him then, only to find his friend staring at him 
imploringly. Reluctantly, he nodded, which only made his companion grin 
again. Which only made the butterflies take flight again in the pit of 
his stomach. He gently extricated himself from the other boy's grip. 

Stray dog indeed. 

"I've got to go." 

"Oh, right. Of course. I didn't mean to keep you...Um." He bent and 
scooped up his violin. "I'll see you on Monday." 

"Right. Monday." 

With a faint, sad smile, Richard turned and set off down the sidewalk. 
Crawford watched him until he was nothing more than a speck in the 
distant crowd. Then he too walked away. 

***

Mills park, now devoid for the most part of strollers and joggers and 
trysting lovers, was the place Crawford had decided to call home that 
night; his bed, a park bench under the screening branches of two, huge 
red oaks. 

It had been a good fifteen minutes since he'd been given the sandwich--
long enough to be safe from any unwarranted visions. Nevertheless, 
Crawford touched the outer wrapping with great care, but nothing 
happened save that the bread puddled beneath his probing fingers. 

That brought a smile to his lips, one born out of gratitude and 
affection. He snatched it up and tore the wrapper away, tossing it to 
the ground without a care for the 'No Littering' sign that stood across 
the path opposite him. It was cold of course, but he didn't care. It 
was good, delicious, better than ambrosia to him, but he was 
desperately hungry. Even so, he forced himself to take slow bites after 
the first three, lest he get sick, measuring them out between sips of 
one of the sodas he'd nicked from a convenience store along the way. 

Soon the can was empty and on the ground beside the wadded up scrap of 
plastic. Crawford took out the blanket he always carried with him in 
his book bag and wrapped up with it. Took the book from its resting 
place on bench and took a seat on the gently bowed back of his bed. 

He would be spending one more night spent on a full stomach. If Richard 
had appeared then, he would have kissed him--not that he didn't want to 
do that anyway. 

Crawford settled for losing himself in his book instead.

Or he would have done if he had not been so rudely interrupted. 

::Hello, Bradley...Or should I say, Crawford.::

"What do you want?" he snarled, tearing his eyes away from his book to 
find...No one. No one in front of him, or behind him, and certainly not 
beside him. The paperback tome fell to the park bench, forgotten. 
Crawford edged off the back of it and took a few cautious steps around 
it, peering up into the arms of the trees around him, around their 
thick, gnarled trunks, into the scraggy depths of the foliage beyond 
them. He was quite, quite alone. 

He realized then that the voice he'd heard had been in his head. 

"Is this a joke?" Crawford was whispering now, half-afraid. It wasn't 
every day that he could hear a distinctly foreign voice in his head. 
For a moment, he thought he was going mad. 

::But you aren't going mad, nor is this a joke.::

"Who are you?"

::Just someone who wants to talk to you.::

"Talk..."

::Reply to me mentally. You may think you're alone, but you might not 
be. Need I remind you how unwise it is to attract attention to one's 
self?::

/...How the hell.../

::Simple. I'm a telepath. Do you know what a telepath is?::

/You can read minds./

He heard something like a laugh in his head. ::Simply put, yes. Dozens 
upon thousands of minds all at once, if I wished. I usually don't.::

"Do I..." he began, catching himself with a self-conscious cough. /Know 
you?/

::No, but I know you. I know what you can do.::

/Huh. I can't do anything. I'm only a kid no one wants./

::And yet you tell me that without a trace of self-pity, but quite 
defiantly.::

/So?/

::So...It's gibberish. Lies. And such attempts to ward me off are a 
waste of my time and yours.::

/It's not gibberish or lies, it's the truth./

::You are quite wrong there, my boy, on both counts. I happen to know 
just what you are capable of doing, of how powerful you are--and I know 
you do too. And I know the beautiful boy who gave you your evening meal 
wants you very badly.::

/...You lie./

::Hardly. I can divine the deepest secrets of every man and woman and 
child in this city; in this world. I've seen the inside of that boy's 
mind. He loves you.::

Crawford spun about, this way and that. /...Shut up.../

::He suspects that your parents are mistreating you and he worries 
about you.::

He screwed his eyes shut, as if that would drive him away. He didn't 
want such a hope thrown to him, for fear it would damage to precious, 
total self-reliance. /...Stop it!/

::And...You feel the same way about him. That's why you try to hold him 
off. You are afraid of what you might see.::

::You are afraid of what your parents might do to him if they find 
out.::

/No, no, no.../

::They don't know what you are, do they?::

"I SAID STOP IT!" 

Silence descended upon him in a bittersweet rush. One utter and 
profound, as if he'd fallen into a vacuum. The link had not been 
severed, not completely; it had just...gone quiet. It remained that way 
for what felt to be a long time, and when the telepath did speak again, 
it was in a tone most confidential and solemn. 

::You're a fool, Crawford. You might be able to hide your true feelings 
from others, but you can't hide them from someone like me.::

/And who the hell are you? God?/

::You don't believe in God, Crawford.::

/...No, I don't./ 

A reassurance, as if he were a child afraid of the approaching storm. 
::You will come to believe in me.::

To that, he neither spoke nor thought a reply. The vague image of a 
shadow-bathed man settling back in his favorite chair, hands forming a 
contemplative triangle in front of his face popped into his head, but 
he wasn't sure if he was having a vision, or if the stranger was 
sending him a picture of himself down the link. ::So God doesn't exist, 
and love is an unattainable dream. What do you believe in then, 
Crawford? Money? Power?::

/...Myself./ 

There was a pause, and then he felt him nod. ::Then I think you are 
wiser than most men.:: 

/You approve of me. How wonderful./ 

A tongue of reproof licked at him because of his sarcastic retort, then 
retreated. ::I can grant wishes, Crawford. I will grant you yours, 
beginning with your greatest one.:: 

/And what do you think that is?/

The mental equivalent of a tap on the shoulder shivered through the 
channel the stranger had opened between them, but when Crawford spun 
about, no one was there. But someone whispered to him anyway. 

::Your freedom, of course.:: 

Of course, he knew exactly what he meant by that. Borne on a wave of 
excitement, the boy took a few more uncertain steps away from the 
bench, looking frantically this way and that. /Where are you?/

::Never too close and never very far.: Again, he heard a laugh. :Don't 
worry, Crawford. You will meet me face to face, and soon.::

/How soon?/

::That you already know, my boy.::

The boy came to a sudden stop in the middle of the path. The channel 
had been severed; he knew it was useless to try to summon the stranger 
back. He was irrevocably alone again, but he didn't care. 

The telepath was right--he did already know it all. 

***