Legacy

[BardGallant]

December 4, 2009

Late night shenanigans! Might as well be Dris's middle name. If ... he had one. Which he didn't. But with Rhydin being such a great town, almost as great as Vegas, that never sleeps.... There he was wandering through the Marketplace half drunk. Not fully drunk. Probably because at some point previously in the evening he had stopped off somewhere to puke, and started all over. He had a bottle of scotch in his hand. Lord only knew which of the many bars he visited that night it had come from.

In truth, Sinjin worried about Dris, perhaps more so than Dris's currently absent lover: his drinking was getting bad again, and while it was no concern of Sinjin, he knew what alcoholism looked like and how ugly it could be. Leaning in the mouth of a gloomy alleyway, the Spaniard sucked on the last of his cigarette as he watched the bard move down the street. No Icarus. This was his best opportunity. From the dark came Sin's voice: "Evening, Dris."

Dris was singing, of course. Swaying to the tune of something vaguely Sinatra-ish. He forgot half the words and hummed them in part. Gods only knew what that last word was that got cut off when, passing by the mouth of an alley, he discovered it had greeted him. He turned, staggered back a step, and blinked owlishly at the dark. "'Elloooo... alley?"

The sinner stepped out of the dark and gave the bard a disarming smile, pleasant as always. "What? Don't recognize your own almost-son-in-law?"

"Arienh's en-- oh." When Dris thought of children, his daughter was the first to come to mind. Not Salvador. That O shape stuck on his lips and he swayed in place, squinting up one eye to peer at Sin skeptically. "Psssssssh. Y'ain't gettin' married... Are you? Em. Right. 'Lo, Sin."

"I might as well be." Sin slung an arm around Dris's shoulders lazily. "We've been together for-- what? Four? Five years now?"

"Ye're gon' gimme 'n 'eart attack sayin' shite li'e tha'." Dris made a face and pitched right on in against the sinner's side. Hello sturdy body! That was nice. He took a swig from his bottle of scotch, then remembered to politely, if not also sloppily, offer it up to Sin in case he wanted a drink.

Sin plucked up the bottle, taking a swig as he guided Dris along, the bard tucked against him like that. "Hey, there are worse ways to die." He grinned.

He was easily led along; it was just the way Dris was. Malleable. Pliant. Totally oblivious. Sin was way too good at blocking himself off, which was nice for a change to the bard's uncontrolled and wide open senses. His arm slid around the sinner's waist all of its own accord as they meandered along. All buddy-buddy! "S'pose there might be... 'Eeeey. I know this bar uppa road 'ere? S'ladies what work there're reeeeal frien'ly. Wanna come?"

When situations like this occurred, Sin was always calm, calculated; he might be the jester some nights, the bastard or the lover another, but in the end, Sinjin Fai turned the screws. "Dris," he drawled, smiling, "I know a fantastic bar down the way a piece that I've wanted to show you for ages. This way--" He pointed down one of the road and began to drag the bard in that direction as he spoke.

"Oooh?" The bard's interest was of course immediately piqued. Not the least bit suspicious, because Dris is a big, big dummy. He wavered when steered off course, but fortunately had the sinner's support guiding him along.

There are worse ways to die, Sin thought again, feeling the weight of something against his side, the one away from Dris. "So how are things, anyway? I don't see you very often, what with Icarus being -- well, you know."

"Icarus's..." Dris made a face again, reaching for the bottle of scotch. "'e's a might bit pr'tective, eh? But things're good. S'true..." He pouted. "I don' see much o' ye. Or Sal. 'ow's 'e doin' anyhow? Y'know... Y'know 'e promised t'be 'round more af'er...? When 'is da was gone. 'e promised."

The bottle was in the sinner's other hand, far away from the bard. "I told him not to go see you, Dris." The statement came out as warmly and casually as the rest of his previous conversation; he was watching the road ahead of them with half-lidded eyes.

So he was trying to walk and reach around the sinner at the same time, which made for an awkward attempt at walking. This was more stumbling, and then somewhat falling when he tripped over his own two feet. Caught short by Sin's testimony. "Why'd y'go an' do a bloody thin' like that?"

"Because I don't want him to see you. I want you to realize the gravity of what you've really done, Sheridan." Sin's walk slowed. The street he lead Dris down was still: all the windows were dark and empty, the sky above overcast with impending rain. Sin glanced at the bottle again, just as casual as before, and took another drink. "That boy," Sinjin murmured as he lowered the bottle, "is the last thing Carmine gave you. And I don't think you deserve it." As calm as he was, his honesty was harsh.

Well, hell. The use of that name had him pulling away from the sinner. Pushing a hand against his chest and ducking out from under his arm. Forget the bottle! Regardless of how sobering a statement that was, his name tacked on like that stabbed harder home. His brows knit fiercely together and his mouth hung open in stunned disbelief. Dris staggered up against a wall and shook his head to make sure he was hearing Sin right. "Whut...? Whut'n the name o' all the gods on 'igh're y'talkin' 'bout, Sin?"

"Two weeks ago, Jaycy walked into a ring with Salvador holding a sword of cold-forged iron. She tossed it aside and fought him with honor. However, she failed to realize that by doing so.. she gave every person watching that duel the ammunition to bring Salvador's permanent death."

Sin paused, turning his eyes toward Dris again. "Salvador, who is regarded with fear. Salvador, who they believe will murder them. Salvador, the enemy." He paused again, taking a step toward the bard without aggression. "But she didn't really give that ammunition to them, Sheridan. You did. To a community of warriors, of men and women with ill intent. Because.. you thought he would kill her?" Sinjin raised his eyebrows with a frown, sincerely curious. "Do you think Carmine's son really lacks that much honor, Sheridan? Is he really the monster?"

All this with calm -- so much calm. He only watched the bard, waited for his answer.

Oh. Well, hell. Dris quickly looked aside guiltily, as soon as the verbal barrage started with its opening lines. You could see it, though, in those blue eyes. Even in the dark. A couple dozen memories being sifted through. That morning on the couch with Jaycy. Yeah, somewhere in his befuddled half-drunken mind, he remembered that. The emphasis on the 'you' had him backing up flush against the wall as if Sin had physically struck him. "I... She..."

Shutting his eyes, the bard lifted a hand up to his own throat, remembering. "'E tried killin' me, Sin." Finding a backbone. Finding his nerve, he dropped his hand away and looked at the sinner with a frown that just never, ever belonged on his face. "I didn' know what 'e'd do, but 'e ain't 'uman! I was jus' givin' 'er the know 'ow t'defend 'erself fairly in a fight 'gainst 'im."

"Why did he attack you, Sheridan?" Sin asked simply, taking another step forward. "Because you slapped him -- because you provoked him at a time where he has to use every atom in his body restraining the urge to kill and feast? Did you even talk to him first? Your own son?"

Dris stuttered a lot of syllables here and there. It wasn't easy to be angry when he couldn't get a word in edgewise. The sinner paused again and the frown remained. "No. You didn't. You rebuked him, like you always do. You turn him away, your little monster child, and send him to the dirt. Because they're right, you think. All those people who watch him out of the corner of their eyes. They're justified -- and why not? He isn't yours. He never was."

Sin beat him to his own outburst before it could blossom fully. No, Salvador wasn't his son. In fact, it made Dris all kinds of uncomfortable whenever anyone suggested it. Like that previous tidbit about Sin being his near son-in-law. That whole marriage thing made him uncomfortable too, but that wasn't nearly as important. His mouth moved, and he tried to speak.

Sinjin stalled again, his head tipped to one side. "Did you wonder, Sheridan? Did you even consider what drove him to that point? Did you know about how the Nightmare Keeper has found him again, and how he's been torturing his waking dreams? Did you comfort him when he cried, when madness drove him to hurt the very people he cared about? Did you try to help him?" The serenity of his voice was unnerving; the honesty was unwavering. "No," he murmured quietly. "No. You slapped him. And it isn't the physical hurt that really matters; it's the message that went behind it. Your apathy."

Oooh, gods be damned he tried to say something throughout it all, but the sinner kept on going, and the more he kept saying the more steadily the bard's temper dwindled away and away until it just went poof. "My ... apathy?" What!? He was floored by that accusation!

"You don't care. You'll remember later, someday, when he dies, and you lose every connection you have left to Carmine, and you wonder what Carmine saw in him, why he cared about him. But I don't intend to wait for that. And that's why, Sheridan -- that's why I'm done with you." From his trench coat, Sinjin withdrew something familiar: a plain black cane with a silver cap at the top, worn by time.

Wow. That hurt. Underneath that was a whole assload of confusion. Some of the things Sin had said didn't make sense. He might have had a thought to ask questions, but... But that was such a final statement. He didn't even have the strength to tell him to stop freaking calling him that name!

Dris sank back against the wall again, thoroughly defeated. Who needed a sword or a gun? Who needed a gang to beat up on him? Sin knew just how to cut, and deeply, without ever lifting a finger. His mind was in turmoil over it all. It didn't seem right to think that Sal could cry; he'd never seen the boy cry. It didn't seem right to think that he had feelings; he never felt them. "I... I didn't know." He hung his head, really quite ashamed. What he felt now was almost as bad as that night... The last time Sin had paid him a visit. He felt that low, again. Nodding weakly, he turned against the wall. All right then. Time to start walking. Or scraping along the wall as the case may be. "Bye, Sin."

"Jaycy had honor," Sin murmured, the cane catching the light. "And so I'll have the same. But this is the last time -- unless you earn it." He threw the canesword down at Dris's feet. "Prove me wrong, Sheridan. Prove me wrong and start caring about your damned son. This--" He lifted the bottle again, tossing it to the ground where it shattered. "--this isn't going to fix your life. Neither will Icarus. No one will bring Carmine back. So start seeing what he left for you."

The clatter of the cane stopped his movement. That made him flinch and so did the shattering bottle. With a forearm the only thing holding him up against the wall, he hung there, suspended in time and... sniveling. "He's not..." He lifted his other arm up over his eyes, which were -- thank you so much, Sin -- swollen to the brim with tears. He was crying like the great big emotional wreck of a man that he was. Sniffling and sobbing through every choked up hush word, shaking. He shattered apart as profoundly as that damned bottle, and turned to shout through his tears. To defy every word the sinner said. "He ain't my son! And don't you dare! Don't you dare lecture me 'bout fixin' my life. My life ended when his did, Sinjin! An' I know... I know Ica can't fix it! Why? Why'd ye 'ave t'go an' pull me outta the tub, Sin! Why couldn't y'just let me die!?"

"No, it didn't. Because you're still here. I'm not lecturing you about fixing your life, Sheridan. I'm asking you to start realizing that there are still reasons to live." Between them on the ground, the sword began to hum with power and want; Sinjin ignored it. "Ultimately, your life is your own. You'll do with it what you want, and you've turned into an awfully selfish man in that regard. But I'm asking you to start thinking about how your apathy starts to effect the people who care about you. You might not care about your life, but you can't tell me there aren't others who don't care about you.. even those you treat poorly." Sinjin set his hands in his pockets.

Dris ignored the sword too. "My life's my own? Really? Hah! That's a laugh." He threw up his hands, scoffing bitterly despite the continued onslaught of tears leaking out his eyes. "Ye've no idea what it's like fer me, Sin. My life ain't been my own since the day I was bloody born!" He took a step closer, counting them off on his fingers with harsh emphasis.

"M' mother? She wanted me t'be like 'er. T'succeed where she failed. So what'd she do? She taught me t'sing, an' t'play. T'defy what m'father wanted, an' b'tween the two of 'em she 'ad more sway." That was one. Two? "M'sister? She wanted me t'play a game with 'er. On 'er sweet sixteen. T'wear out 'er dress instead of 'erself." Three. "Tha' bloody Frenchman we met at the bar? 'E wanted t'see 'ow much a pretty young thing could drink afore 'e carted 'er up to 'is room so 'e could f*ck 'er. An' when 'e found out she weren't a she? That didn't matter much to 'im either." Four and five. "Lynet an' Nealie? They both wanted a piece o' the charmin' young sair Driscol at the same time. An' they got it. Nine months later they both wanted t'marry 'im. Well... That they didn't get."

Six. "Every thrice be damned pretty young face from 'ere t' th'other side o' the world... worlds... all of 'em. They all wanted a piece o' me, an' they all got it." Seven, eight... He didn't have enough fingers. "Valleana? She wanted me. She got me. Nine months later she wanted a 'usband too. An' then comes Carmine. Back intah m'life. When fer years ... years, Sin ... I thought 'e was gone fer good. Mayhaps e'en dead." And now he was.

"And yet," Sin continued, unphased, "and yet, with all that -- with all that knowing of how cruel life and family could be -- there's a boy you know, a boy who through his interactions is convinced his lot in life is a tool. Some ask him to kill. Others to use his fae abilities until it drives him mad. He is a thing to be used, too -- that's what he's convinced, after all, and if it's proven true time and time again, how can they be wrong?"

Sin's eyes fell critical to the bard. "You're preaching to the choir, Sheridan. We've all had lives. You don't know where mine has been -- and it has been, Sheridan, oh, it's been -- but neither of us can change what's happened to us now. But we can help him. Before it's too late for him to forget that he's a person too, like we did." A moment of desperation struck him, and for a second, the calm broke into something like sorrow. "Can't you see, Dris? Please, god. He's not so different from you as you think."

Dris grit his teeth. It took all his willpower not to snarl and shout and tell the sinner to stop effing calling him that! His face was a mess of streaks, but his eyes had dried up significantly during his tirade. "He's different." He persisted. "Y'ain't un'erstandin' me. All these years, Sin... All of them. I've known. I've always known. What people want. What they're feelin'. An' I've been givin' 'em what they want. Everybody. Even Carmine! What did 'e want? 'e wanted a fam'ly. 'e wanted a son of 'is very own. Me? If I'd been as selfish as you tell me I am...? As .. apathetic ... as you say I am...? I would've told 'im t'bugger off. I didn't want another kid. I've got four ruddy failures of m'own t' account for! But I gave, Sin. I gave 'im what 'e wanted. I let 'im do it. An' what'd 'e end up with...? I ... I don't even know! Everything ye're tellin' me... I didn't know this. Th'boy ain't ne'er talked to me, Sin. An' I ain't ne'er been able ... t' feel 'im. It's like ... 'e's not there. How... How'm I supposed t'treat 'im when I don't know?"

"You ask." Sin shook his head, taking a step back; this was killing him, it was breaking him. Christ.

Dris laughed. It wasn't a ha-ha funny I'm really amused sort of laugh. It was more the shook up, emotional, self-deprecating sort of laugh. Shaking his head, he lifted a hand to grind the heel of it into his forehead and made a strangling, frustrated noise. "Y'can't ... teach an old dog new tricks," he muttered bitterly. Dropping his hand, he looked back up with a frown. "How'm I s'posed to ask when 'e don't come by? When I ne'er see 'im? Oh. That's right! Y'told 'im not t'come see me!"

"I told him after Jaycy, yes. I don't really think you left me another choice. But don't turn this on me, Sheridan; that's besides the point and you know it." Sin lifted one hand, spread it wide. "What you want to do from here is up to you. How many times can he come to you and leave beaten?" Sin lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "Good night, Sheridan." He said all that he could at this point, and began to turn away.

"Don't y'turn yer back on me!" Dris took a step forward. "Don't y'come out 'ere t'lecture me an' then walk away! An' don't y'dare try an' tell me all this time 'im not comin' t'visit is my fault. I've been nothin' but kind t'that boy since the day we got 'im. Since 'e first set foot in the 'ouse. 'e 'ad free reign, 'is own room, an' I ne'er stifled 'im from doin' what 'e wanted t'do. So what is it, Sin? Even to 'im... I gave an' I gave. But 'e was ne'er 'ome, e'en when we 'ad one. Only long enough t'eat, sleep, maybe spar a little in the back yard, go t'school. But not much. I ne'er knew what t'think of 'im, an' I still don't. 'ow can I ask questions of a lad what ain't ne'er talked t'me in the first place?"

"Because you never talked to him -- you never really tried. And you can talk all you want about giving and it doesn't mean a thing." He kept walking away, even with Dris yelling at his back. "So: prove me wrong. Either way.. goodbye, Sheridan."

"F*ck you, Sinjin!" Dris never comes off that harsh. He even kicked something; it was probably the cane. He turned sharply on his heel to storm off the other way.

Sad to say that he hadn't even noticed the cane for what it was. So blinded by his own emotions had he been: shock, horror, guilt, sadness, depression, anger. Just to name a few. For the first time in a very long time, if ever, Sheridan Driscol wanted to punch something really, really hard.


_______________________________
(Adapted from live play with thanks to Sinjin Fai.)

[Icarus Marcotte]

December 4th, 2009


She was a pretty thing with legs as long as a Summer day and a laugh as sweet as candy -- and more importantly, as Icarus discovered, she could sing like a nightingale if all the right buttons were pushed. The bar was packed and there she was, sitting all alone.. and far be it for Icarus to let any beautiful woman drink alone.


Three hours, two bottles of scotch, and several shots of tequila later, Icarus woke up in an unfamiliar room with moonlight glaring down at him through a window, having no recollection of how he got there. Not surprisingly, this wasn't an unusual circumstance; there were many times when inebriation and sex lead him down paths he could only assume he enjoyed, but could never really verify. What was odd, however, was how groggy he was. Groaning, Icarus reached blindly next to him and found the bed empty. His head was swimming as he tried to sit up, attempting to recall the face of the woman he was sure he stumbled here with, but his mind was blank.


Nothing really struck Icarus as odd until he reached for the bedside table where he vaguely remembered placing his cane and found it absent. A chill ran down his spine though he was still swaying from the effects of.. something. At this point, it couldn't possibly be alcohol. Gods be damned, he thought. I've been drugged. He could smell it, in a way, feel it; the sword was a part of him for so long that to be without it was like losing a limb. Stumbling, the half-dressed Icarus crawled out of bed, groggy as he followed the trail of the sword's power out the door and into the evening.


At first, it lead him through a winding trail of the scents from passed hands: the woman brought it to someone else, a man who's scent was unfamiliar, then it passed into the ownership of some sort of shifter before Icarus finally reached a scent he recognized and hissed. "The leech," he growled, stumbling into a wall. Sinjin Fai. The bastard hired someone to steal the cane, presumably to kill him.


Between them on the ground, the sword began to hum with power and want...


Icarus's head snapped to one side as voices lured him, anger, sadness -- and more over, the siren call of the cane. Clinging to the wall, Icarus slithered along it until those voices became more clear and cut through the fog in his mind.


"...But we can help him. Before it's too late for him to forget that he's a person too, like we did. ... Can't you see, Dris? Please, god. He's not so different from you as you think."


The leech, the leech! His mind cried. And with Dris? Confusion boiled over in him, reigning over the rest of his instincts even as he slumped against the wall and fell further along it, the drugs still crawling through his system.


"Y'can't ... teach an old dog new tricks ... How'm I s'posed to ask when 'e don't come by? When I ne'er see 'im? Oh. That's right! Y'told 'im not t'come see me!"

"Good night, Sheridan."

"Don't y'turn yer back on me! Don't y'come out 'ere t'lecture me an' then walk away!"


Anger, all that anger; it made Icarus clutch his head, feeling the weight of rage combine with the hissing want of the sword that drove him mad just by proximity when it wasn't in his hands. What were they even talking about? He didn't understand. The gaps in his mind were making things difficult to connect. All he knew was that somewhere down that street there was a sword and a leech and a bard he cared about very dearly.


"... you never really tried. And you can talk all you want about giving and it doesn't mean a thing. ... So: prove me wrong. Either way.. goodbye, Sheridan."

"F*ck you, Sinjin!"


Footsteps. Anger. The snap of a boot against wood and metal.. and there was the cane, tumbling end over end down the street until it rolled just next to Icarus. The half-dragon stared at it dumbly, silent as a buck in a field -- he was waiting for Dris to come after it. Surely the leech was the one who kicked it to the curb after Dris paid him some sort of rebuke. Surely the bard wouldn't abandon such an important lifeline to the half-dragon here in a dingy Marketplace street--


But no. No. They went their separate ways and there the cane was, forgotten. With a pang of desperation, Icarus suddenly scrambled to snatch the canesword up, to clutch it to his chest, covetous and seeking an aid to still his panic.. the sword, oh yes, at least he had that. If anything, he would always have that. However, the semblance of calm the sword offered him was nothing in comparison to the slap in the face, the confusion and hurt, that clawed through his veins restlessly.


When Icarus finally found the energy to rise again, it wasn't home he went towards. For the first time since meeting Sheridan Driscol, Icarus began to question him.. and the ache he felt in his heart was not one he was sure he could hide with a smile.

[Sinjin Fai]

December 5, 2009


Earlier in the evening, when Sinjin had seen the half-dragon come into the Arena, he had left. Two losses in one night, being shut out in the first one completely by Sal, and then Icarus. He had just needed to go for a walk, and that hadn't really quite worked out as planned.

When he came back down the stairs again, he was more irritated than when he had left. Salvador and Rekah were still there. The girl had been about to say something, suggesting they were mid conversation, but when she caught sight of Sin she paused, brows lifting ever so slightly. His lover likewise sent him a questioning look.

He was muttering in his native tongue, an unopened bottle of tequila in his hand. "Tara stole Santa Claus and cut off his hand or something and now Fio is crying and Ali is yelling at everyone," he told Sal irritaibly. This was news that seemed to strike dumb at least half the crowd in the Arena that night, but Sin brushed it all aside, having seen that Icarus and Jaycy were still present and accounted for as well. Fantastic.

"I'm tryin', I'm tryin', but," the half-dragon was saying. Ica trailed off with frustration, picking up his head again and catching sight of not only Sal, but Sin again too. Jaycy, in his company, looked over at the sinner as well. Her eyes narrowed and she tensed in Ica's lap, hands clenching into balls.

"I think Jaycy's going to punch me," Sin announced. It was fair warning; he was watching her and Ica then. "And if she does, then I'm going to eat her." Also fair warning.

"Okay," Salvador said to Sin. He didn't sound the least bit concerned about any of that.

Rekah, on the other hand, said, "Oh man.. You know.. if you guys ever get angry at me. Please don't eat me.."

Salvador made an amused noise and smirked at her. "I don't think you have to worry about that, hermana." Rekah's aren't tasty.

"Whew," she said, wiping her brow. And no, Rekah's weren't tasty.

"I will throw you in the pool," Sin told Rekah, also fair warning.

Sal gave the sinner a look like: that's probably not a very strong threat. But then, Jaycy and Icarus were moving. She sliding off the half-dragon's lap. Her hands unclenched at her sides, but they weren't quite hands. They were more liked striped, scaled claws.

"..Jaycy. S'goin' on?" Icarus sounded concerned. He saw her hands, and didn't recall them ever looking like that before.

Ignoring that tone, Jaycy flexed her claws, glancing back at Ica. "I'm going to talk to Sin."

Things only got crazy from there. Jaycy and Icarus both approached the small group of Sin, Sal and Rekah. The former didn't look quite as humanish as she had before. Scales seemed to take over her skin. Was she more dragonish, then? It was hard to say. All that really mattered was that she was being pissy, Icarus was confused, Tass stepped in to try to mediate -- perhaps only made matters worse -- and some strange albino-looking girl also thought she was going to back Jaycy up. The Arena was just so crowded full of tension and stupidity, that Sin heeded Sal's advice about leaving, and so they did.

Some short time later... Sinjin, Salvador, Icarus and Jaycy all met in the Great Helm Tavern across the street from the Inn. Jaycy was much quieter then, and looked much more like her usual self. The conversation, however, hadn't been any less headache-inducing for the sinner.

Sin ambled into the tavern, shaking his head. "I'm just walking from cluster f*ck to cluster f*ck today." Irritable? You bet!

Salvador followed the sinner in silence. Sure, he had questions, but he didn't ask them. It wasn't his place to ask. He was a good soldier, a tool; he followed orders and didn't ask questions.

Sin rubbed his face. "I didn't plan things to go quite this way.." He trailed further inside the tavern, heading for the bar.

Jaycy and Icarus were several moments behind, of course. She still wasn't sure she was allowed, but she at least needed to lead Ica to the tavern. She stopped at the door and opened it, motioning for Ica to step through before her, and he did. At this point, he'd dropped his ploymorph form, leaving him to be the half-dragon they all knew and hated/loved as he clutched his cane, looking between Sin and Sal.

Salvador kept his silence and just watched Sin stew, cutting a look back to the door when Jaycy and Icarus arrived.

After a moment's hesitation, Jaycy followed Icarus in and shut the door carefully, almost gently. She remained at the door, however.

Salvador looked them over, calculating, fingers twitching at his sides. Icarus looked more lethal this time. Jaycy seemed to have calmed down. At least the half-dragon hadn't gone full scaly beast form. Salvador looked to Sin, moving from the middle of the room and over to the bar to take up his post at his side. His expression was unreadable; a blank mask. Having adopted his mother's mask of stoicism and perfect calm.

Sinjin's eyes darted to Jaycy and he frowned, but soon he turned his attention to the half-dragon. "So," he began. "Now that we're all not trying to kill each other.. what would you like to know?"

Ica stepped toward Sin with half caution, half anger. "Aye." He tossed the cane down in between them and pointed at it. "Why'd you take it? And why'd you try t'give it to Dris?"

Salvador's rusty eyes flicked to the cane. A brow hiked up when he lifted his gaze back up to Icarus, and then he looked aside at Sin.

Sin watched the cane bounce across the floorboards and roll to a halt with a lifted brow. "To prove a point."

Then it was Ica's turn to hike a brow. "A point? Th'hell point y'provin'?"

Salvador's brows drew together, and he frowned somewhat.

"Dris," Sinjin explained, "decided it was a fine idea to tell Jaycy how to kill Sal. He thought Sal was going to kill Jaycy." He moved forward, reaching to pick up the cane. "Jaycy brought a cold-forged iron weapon to the ring and tossed it aside. What she doesn't realize.. and what Dris didn't think about.. is they both consequently gave an entire community of people, a good many of which believe Salvador is some sort of murderer and monster, the solution to killing him." He walked forward toward Ica. "So I stole the sword to show Dris I could do the same if it really came down to it.. although, admittedly, he didn't care.. and gave it back to him. Or tried to." He extended the cane toward Icarus. "And from what I'm guessing.. Dris left it there, didn't he?" Sin pursed his lips. "I didn't expect that, so for that I apologize."

Icarus was struck dumb again. He didn't care. Ica, mute and veins gone cold, reached for the canesword with all the hope sagged from him like a dog kicked by its master.

And then Salvador knew who it was told Jaycy about the iron. Rusty eyes flicked aside to look past Icarus at the wall/door lurking Jaycy. His expression didn't change much. It wasn't a completely angry expression, and he didn't look at Jaycy for long. His eyes turned circles, calculating further, absorbing all this information. Which he hadn't been told before... He turned aside and took a step, not sure what to do with himself now.

Jaycy bit her lip to keep from hissing a response at Sin. Even by the door she was listening intently, gaze narrowed on the two - Ica and Sin. Sal didn't get a thought. He was as much on the sidelines as her.

Ica's fingers wrapped around the cane quietly, knuckles gone white. "..I heard what y'were talkin' to him about, Sin."

Crossing his arms, Salvador just stood there. Not leaning against a wall, or the bar, but turned aside enough that he might as well have had his back to all of them. Head bowed, he stood vigilant. For all intents and purposes, he and Jaycy were silent referees. Though if it came down to playing interference, one could only hope the Great Helm had great property damage insurance.

Sin frowned for Ica's words. That couldn't have been a pretty conversation to hear.

"It ain't none of my business or concern, how he treats Sal. It ain't no one's concern but his own and Sal's," said Icarus. Cat-slit hazel eyes lifted. "But as for th'rest of it? ..Y'may just be right." Icarus got the answer he was looking for, at least. And now he was starting to retreat. "An' Sin? If y'steal what's miine again.. I'll kill y'." No one messes with a covetous dragon's sh*t!

Salvador's brows twitched tighter together and he tipped his head toward their voices, chin toward his own shoulder. What was between him and Dris? Boy was he confused! Jaycy equally so. Her brows furrowed at the words as well, scowl fading. How he treats Sal? What the hell?

"Fair enough," Sin murmured, and watched Ica move off, his eyes darting momentarily to Jaycy. She met Sin's gaze - at least the eyes are no longer narrowed and angry. Then she turned to Ica - she was leaving with him.

Truly, he didn't give a hot damn about Jaycy any longer. He kept his word, and her assumptions were enough to end his civility with her. Turning himself, he moved toward Sal, whose eyes were cut aside to watch Icarus and Jaycy moving to leave. He didn't look at Sin.

"I told him," Sin sighed quietly, "that he didn't deserve you. I told him that I didn't want a man that careless in my life. I told him that he was an idiot, more or less." Sin slumped in a chair. "I'm sorry, Sal. I know it wasn't my place. But f*ck all if I could just.. sit here and watch him nearly kill you because he isn't thinking."

Salvador was still eyeing the door, left wide open, when the sinner started speaking. Though he ticked his eyes down to watch the shadow of Sin's body slump into a chair when he did. He continued standing there, arms crossed and silent. His teeth were clenched, the muscles tight in his jaw. What was there to say? He didn't know.

Either did Sin any more. Really, he was expecting Salvador to walk out of here in silence and go brood and fume and leave Sinjin to his mistakes; instead, there was silence and an empty tavern. And Salvador didn't live up to the sinner's expectations...

[Delahada]

After all that he had heard, Salvador stood in silence for a very long time. He stood in the very same spot he had been standing in since after hearing Sin's testimony. Dris decided it was a fine idea to tell Jaycy how to kill Sal. So it had been Dris who had told her. It had been Dris who had betrayed him, sold away his secret, his weakness, to a woman Salvador had lost all respect for, if he had even gained any for her at all during his brief time as her squire.

His mind was in turmoil over the facts at hand. Dris, as the world knew him. Dan, as he had known him. Dani, as his father had known him. Jaycy had told Sin and Sin hadn't thought to inform him, Salvador, his lover and most trusted friend. Lover, for certain, but most trusted friend now? Had he ever been? Eventually, in a low, dull tone, he asked, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because every time I thought about it, we were both so damn.. stupid and happy and I didn't want to ruin it again." Like Sin always managed to accidentally do, despite his intentions. "I thought I could handle it without you having to worry. But Dris -- really, I don't think he saw the cane at all. I don't think he cared."

Slowly, the boy uncrossed his arms and turned to look down at the sinner. He didn't know what to think. Fair enough reason, really. He didn't tell Sin things on account of not wanting to make him unhappy too. They were both stubborn and stupid like that. But why would Dris tell Jaycy about the iron? "He's an idiot," he decided, agreeing that the man probably hadn't noticed the cane. But he had another thought. "Where did you talk to him?" Not when. Where.

"You want to See it." It was a statement, not a question. Sin knew.

"Where," Salvador insisted. Yes, and Sin wasn't going to sway him otherwise.

"Please." Sin didn't want him to; he didn't want anyone -- not even Icarus -- to hear what that stupid bard had said.

Salvador's eyes narrowed shrewdly. "Either you tell me where, Sin, or I scour the whole goddamn city finding it myself." Which would be worse for him. Soaking in all those memories from everywhere until he pinpointed the location? He'd go mad! Again.

"Fine," Sin murmured, easily defeated. "Fine." Rising, the Spaniard began to move to the door for Sal to follow. "It's not far from here." He had actually been planning to take the bard here.

Set on his course, he moved to follow the sinner. Angrily pensive in his silence.

Sin wasn't even sure who that anger was directed at any more and he felt horrible for it. Moving out of the tavern, Sinjin lead him just a bit further down the main road before turning down a side street that at this hour, just like that night, was mostly unoccupied and closed for the night. Slowing to a halt near a broken bottle of alcohol, Sinjin sighed. "Here."

Not to worry, Sal wasn't sure who that anger was directed at either. He was just ... mad. At the world, maybe? Life in general? He didn't know. When they got to their destination, he stopped and had a look around. Eyeing the walls of the neighboring buildings, the street itself, up and down, the broken bottle. If he had ever doubted the sinner's honesty, which he never did, the torn up label testified beautifully. That had definitely once been scotch.

Nodding curtly and keeping his silence, Salvador just so very simply stepped out of his boots. He took a deep breath and shut his eyes before he put down one bare foot on the cobbled street and then the other. As soon as he opened himself to the torrent of the past, that held breath shook out of him. The only movement he made were his eyes behind his eyelids, flicking rapidly back and forth as if he were caught in the midst of a deep dream.

All Sinjin could do was watch and wait and wish that the day hadn't turned out so horrible.

Turn back the clock. The world was his VCR and his thoughts the finger on the rewind button. He sifted through the hours, discarding the days that had gone by in between. His brow wrinkled in concentration, and presumably when he frowned was when he found it, replayed it. Witnessed ghosts of the past, an event he hadn't been a part of. A spectator to the truth, to history. Long minutes passed.

And the things Sin didn't see, either: like Icarus, crawling through the streets, like Dris's departing back. Even so.. Sin couldn't even look at Salvador's eyes. Downward cast, he set his attention on the bottle of scotch that still lingered there.

Salvador reacted to things that weren't presently there. He turned his head, his body. With his eyes closed he looked from one ghost to the other, down at the broken bottle that had spent a couple days being trampled underfoot by other shortcut seeking pedestrians. He turned one way to look through his eyelids down the direction Sin had departed that night. He saw through the walls and watched the ghost of Ica's cane skitter down the street. Saw him there. He turned the other way tilting his head in consideration while watching the ghost of Dris head back the way they had come. And then? Leaving his boots behind, Salvador blindly followed that trail.

Sinjin picked up the boy's boots dutifully, following after him at a distance to give him the space of walking in a different world. Quiet, quiet.

The world changes over time. During the time he was in the rain hadn't fallen. Any leftover puddles he may have been stepping in then, along the way, hadn't been there during the time in which he was drifting. He was heedless of everything present and accounted for in current time. Even the startled beggar he very nearly trampled over when they turned a corner into an adjoining alley. He walked on in a daze, brushing aside imaginary bodies that only he could see, ghosts that weren't there now, turning to avoid them as if they were. Down one winding street and the next, deeper and deeper into the seedier parts of the city.

And Sin still followed, growing more concerned as he went. Maybe he should have sent Icarus after Dris. What if Dris had tried to commit suicide again? What if he succeeded? A weight settled on his chest, Sin ignored the beggar as he hurried after him.

Delapidated buildings began to populate the surrounding scenery. Old shops with busted in windows, vacant storefronts. Some portals boarded over, some not. The homeless and criminal underlife of the city frequented these parts in scattered packs and droves. Salvador ignored them all, even those eyes that watched them greedily as they passed by, from their hiding places. The path was full of twists and turns, through a maze of unkempt streets. Until eventually they came to a corner bar which, like many of the other buildings surrounding it, sported boarded up windows and an old faded sign whose name had been scored off years ago by time. Here, several paces from the rusty door, is where Salvador stopped.

Sinjin wasn't concerned; he fully believed he could cut all of them to the ground before Sal even noticed there were people in the waking world beyond memory. His eyes darted through the streets cautiously, watching the boy's back as he paused before a door.

Slowly, like waking from a dream, his eyelids slid open, and he blinked blearily at the dilapidated old building. He swayed where he stood, dropping his chin and lifting a hand to press his heel to his forehead. The disconnect was always dizzying, particularly when he didn't know where he'd left his boots or even if the sinner had followed him. But he trusted that he had. He always put his trust in Sin, and so he stuck out his other arm to feel for him.

Sin was there. He reached a hand to steady the boy's shoulder. "Easy, love," he whispered, slowly setting his boots on the ground as his eyes continued to dart around their surroundings while Sal was still in his moment of weakness.

Hooking that arm up around Sin's back, he clutched at his shoulder to hold himself steady. Bending with him briefly when his boots were put down. He blindly stepped into them, unsteadily, one foot after the other, and then exhaled a shuddering sigh once the world started to come back into clearer focus again. "He went in there," he mumbled, sagging against Sin's side.

"Is he still--" It occurred to him that he wasn't sure if Icarus even saw him. Frowning now, with a pang of worry clawing at him, Sinjin took himself and the boy inside, if the door was still unlocked.

Salvador moved with him wordlessly. He didn't know if Dris was still in there or not. He'd only followed the path of a single day, a few hours. He hadn't looked further. That much walking through history took a toll on his system, and his eyes were fading yellow.

The door was unlocked, though it stuck a bit in its frame, having to be shoved open, and the hinges squeaked irritably from years of disuse and lack of a proper oiling. Inside the front door was a small room coated completely in thick layers of gray dust, except where recently feet had tread a path to the small bar on the other side of the room.

To the left was an upright piano against the wall, hidden under a white sheet. Those same shrouds covered a small sitting area -- sofa, coffee table and arm chairs. They also covered a pool table in the center of the room, a few small round tables and chairs scattered about, as well as the bar itself and the shelves behind it.

The path tread in the dust on the floor led around the bar and behind it, where there was an open door leading back into a small kitchen, and a short flight of stairs set into the wall that turned going higher, disappearing down a hall, to the right. The tracks led up those stairs.

Sinjin frowned and his fears gripped him more cleanly. "Damnit, Dris," he whispered, and followed the trail of footsteps in the dust, adding tracks upon tracks through toward the stairs, making sure Sal was steady along the way.

Oh, he was steady. He was a trooper. Sal walked it off and eventually detached himself from Sin's side so his lover could head up the stairs before him. There really wasn't room for two to walk abreast.

Actually, those stairs turned right twice. Set into the wall three steps to a landing, turn three steps to another landing, and turn up a few more steps to a short hall. There were three doors in that hall, two on the right and one directly ahead. The first on the right was wide open and clearly opened up into a filthy old bathroom whose tile had turned yellow and pipes were starting to go rusty. The second door on the right was closed, but the one at the end of the hall was slightly ajar.

A dim, warm, yellow light cut a line out into the hall. The whole place was cold, but by the way the light flickered it was probably clear it was coming from a candle. There was no electricity in this place.

Quietly, Sinjin walked down the hall, followed the light of that candle to the parted door. His hesitance was brief and clutching as he pushed the door open, calling out. "Dris?" Please don't be dead.

Groggy from his previous escapade through memory lane, Salvador followed along silently. At least the upstairs hall was a little wider, enough for two people to walk side by side, but Sal kept a few paces behind anyway. He wasn't sure if he even wanted to be here, given what he had witnessed.

In that room was a small full size bed tucked up into the corner on the far side. A nightstand beside it held the flickering candle on its stand, having melted down to about three inches by now. A shroud covered some other object next to a cold and empty fireplace, which before it sat two equally shrouded armchairs. There was a desk and a chair on the right, under a window, before the bed. The sheet that had been covering that was currently tucked up with the body laying on the bed. An old armoire stood immediately to the right upon entering the room, against the wall.

A couple of empty bottles littered the floor, naturally. The body on the bed, fortunately for Sin, groaned, mumbled, and tucked itself up tighter into a ball. Apparently, there was somebody here, maybe Dris, and he was sleeping.

Sin breathed a sigh of relief. "F*cking idiot," he muttered privately, moving in further to make sure.. you know, that it really was Dris there and that he was all right.

Salvador leaned against the door frame and peered in warily. Maybe a bit paranoid. He loomed out in the hall and considered beating a hasty retreat should the man unfortunately wake up and realize he was there too.

The hair on that head was black and somewhat curly. That was the first clue. He was all hunched up into himself, though, into as tight a ball as he could manage. An old white sheet really wasn't the best blanket for a cold almost winter night. But yes. Lean in close enough and that face did definitely belong to Dris. His eyes were closed, so he was probably still asleep. At least he wasn't dead!

"Idiot," Sin repeated again dryly, privately, and began to hunt around for something better to cover him with so he didn't die in a less intended manner. When he didn't find anything, Sin relented to shrugging off his trench coat.

Salvador slipped a little further into the room cautiously. He sent a few furtive glances around before turning to check the armoire. Blasted old squeaky hinges! He froze when he opened its doors.

There were blankets and sheets in that armoire. Protesting the noise in his sleep, Dris groaned and flopped and rolled the other way. The buttons of his shirt were undone, cuffs included. So those scars on his wrist were visible when he tossed an arm over his head.

Salvador let out a slow breath, relieved when he realized the cranky old armoire wasn't going to wake Dris up. Taking out one of the thicker blankets, he turned and tossed it to Sin.

The scars made Sin flinch, seeing them like that. Snatching up the blanket, he opened it up and spread it slowly, carefully, across the bard's prone form.

In his sleep, the bard sighed contentedly. Though nice and unconscious, he was aware of another body present, and it eased his sleep some -- no matter how alcohol induced it may have been -- to know he wasn't alone. However briefly that was going to be.

Sin watched the bard for another moment longer before quietly retreating back, joining Sal with a silent frown.

"I don't think he's going to wake up," Sal whispered cautiously. He remembered days like this, at home. Though he always crept quietly through the house, he was pretty sure he could've marched through with a herd of elephants and Dris wouldn't have woke up. Always after drinking. He eyed the bottles with a frown to match Sin's. "Should we leave?" He still wasn't sure, and was still very quiet.

And Dris, predictably, kept on sleeping. Though he moaned some kind of protest when he sensed the body, whoever it was, retreating. Tossing and turning, he tucked back up into a tight ball and continued to sleep.

"I don't know," Sin admitted. "I think he'll be all right?" But these days, with Dris, he was never sure.

Salvador bowed his head, considering. Everything he'd heard, witnessed... The conversation he and Sin had the night before about the cage. These things tied together, and in the end he personally couldn't be mad. Not at Dris for telling Jaycy. Not at Anya for keeping the cage. "I'm going to stay," he decided quietly.

And part of that crushed Sin, too, made his heart fall apart into terrible little pieces. Acceptance. Resignation. "All right," he managed, whispering as he threw a mask of something -- anything -- together for his retreat.

He didn't know what to say to Sin right now to ease that hurt. He didn't even know what he was going to do when Dris woke. Would they talk? Would they fight? Or would he leave before he woke up? He didn't know that either. He just wanted to sit here, watching him sleep, while he thought on it. "You did what your heart told you, mi alma. I don't fault you for that. I just..." Still speaking quietly, he paused and looked over at the sleeping man in consideration. "His birthday's coming up," he reminded the sinner. Not the bard's but Carmine's. Between the two of them, that was still the one thing Salvador and Dris had in common.

"I know." Sin remembered. Funny how he could remember that, but his own birthday always escaped him. Leaning, he pressed a kiss to the bow's messy crown of hair before retreating a step back again.

Lifting his head, he looked into the sinner's eyes with sorrow, seeing sorrow in return. He took a step forward, lifting a hand to touch the side of his neck and leaning in to kiss him somewhat chastely. That link he and the bard had was the real reason why Salvador had been avoiding Dris, but had he ever told anyone? Did Sin even know? "Don't wait up. I'll be home." Eventually. He stepped around Sin toward that desk chair and turned it out quietly to face the bed before easing slowly onto the seat.

The sinner's reply was mute as he furthered his retreat out of the room, out and into the evening again; truly, there were few places his evening could have crashed lower after the troubled length of his day. The idea of sleeping alone appalled him and his thoughts were too troubled for rest; instead, he moved through the streets like a ghost to see where the night would take him.

And Salvador silently sat up in that room, elbows on his knees and bent forward. He clasped his hands together into a single fist and set his chin on his knuckles. Faded yellow eyes set on watching Dris sleep.

[BardGallant]

December 6, 2009

Dris woke up miserable and alone. The candle on the nightstand had burned away its final hours, and the only light coming in the cold, cramped room was the gray of dawn. He groaned a protest at even that little bit of gloomy sunshine and rolled onto his back to greet the blank ceiling with a frown.

Something was different, he realized. He woke up to a room that was changed from what he had left it the night before, though he wasn't immediately certain what those changes were. The first thing he noticed was that he was covered in a thicker blanket. He didn't recall taking a blanket out of the armoire last night. He barely even remembered tugging the sheet off the desk and chair to curl up into.

He had the creepiest, most uncomfortable feeling that someone was watching him. With his arm tucked up over his head, he lay there in a momentary sense of uncertain panic. Nobody should have known where to find him. The last person who knew about this place was long gone from his life, like everybody else. That's why he had come here, to the run down private bar, the last property still in his name.

He and Dean had come here so often. Spent countless nights sitting and talking, boozing and schmoozing. And in this very room, well... Some stories he had yet to tell.

The longer he lay there listening to his heart pounding in his ears, the more he realized that strange feeling of being stared at wasn't going away. His empathy wasn't picking up on anything, though. As far as he could Feel, the room was empty. He was the only one here.

When he turned his head, however, his heart and his tongue met halfway down his throat together. There, sitting in the desk chair, turned to face the bed, with his elbows on his knees and his chin on his knuckles, was the very last person he had ever expected to see any time soon. There, looking pensive and calculating, looking too terribly much like his father, sat Salvador.

"Gods alive, boy," Dris slurred hoarsely. He turned onto his side and spent the next ten seconds coughing against a loose fist. Bugger all, but he shouldn't have drank that much scotch last night, alone. He had a ringing headache due to the hangover and the start the yellow-eyed boy had just given him. "Y'gave me a start." Yellow. Salvador's eyes were yellow. Dris didn't recall them being yellow. They were more a strange rusted metal red, as he remembered. Maybe it was just the bad lighting.

Salvador didn't move, at all. Scrubbing the sleep gunk out of his eyes, Dris blinked at him several times just to make certain he wasn't seeing a drunken hallucination. Of course his empathy hadn't picked up on him. The boy had always been a blank wall to the bard; he had never been able to sense a single emotion from him whatsoever. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Only when the boy blinked, slowly, was he sure that Salvador was a real, living person and not just a figment of his hangover's imagination.

Then the questions started pouring into the bard's head. Why was he here? Had Sin told him about the iron, about him telling Jaycy? Was he here to kill him in retaliation? And then Sin's words slithered into the forefront of his thoughts and kicked him hard in the noggin.

"Do you think Carmine's son really lacks that much honor, Sheridan? Is he really the monster?"

Of course, everything Sin had said to him the night before had repeatedly kicked him in the noggin. No matter how much Dris had drank he hadn't been able to get them out of his head. He had spent the past day or two mulling over it all. Even though he had been mostly drunk the night in question, he had sobered up fast from the adrenaline rush of an Irish temper. Everything Sin said was impossible to forget.

"I told him not to go see you, Dris."

Dris scrubbed an arm across his face, over his eyes, a couple more times. Blinking once or twice more as well, he was certain, then, that he wasn't imagining things. If he looked hard enough he could see the steady rise and fall of Salvador's chest. Every minute or so, the boy blinked slowly at him. He sat there, hands clasped and unmoving -- except for the eyes -- and just stared at him in bloody intollerable silence.

And then ... he spoke.

"We played chess in the afternoon," the boy said quietly, "three times a week." This was Salvador. Nobody should have expected a simple hello, not even Dris. There was little intonation in his voice. He spoke in a dull, droning quality that much reminded the bard of a preacher's sermon, but the scripture this boy was reciting stabbed him harder in the heart than any one about hellfire and brimstone could have done.

"When y'still went t'school," Dris mumbled shakily. He remembered these words. Hell, he had memorized that stupid letter. Not from any act of trying. He had only read it so many times that every single word had stuck to his memory like a porcupine to a bear's behind. No matter how much it hurt to cling to, he couldn't pull the quills out without it hurting even more.

"We played and talked for hours," Salvador went on, skipping a line in the recitation. Though it didn't matter. Easing out a weighted sigh, the boy unclasped his hands and leaned back in the chair, putting his palms to his knees. "But I never talked to you," he told the bard wearily.

Dris didn't know what to say. He felt that saying anything would ruin the moment. This was probably the most that Salvador had ever said to him. Were they making amends? Was this leading to something? He twisted slowly on the bed, fighting back the groan that wanted to rise from the way his head was pounding.

"I don't know why I'm here," Salvador said, sighing, still so quietly, like a man defeated. And he was a man grown now, that was certain. By age he was still a boy, truth or lies. The sight of him still made the bard's heart ache. Sure, he wasn't six foot five and built like a brick house as his father had been, but his face had many of Carmine's features. The chiseled jaw and the stern eyes, the cruel cut of his lips, but sharper cheek bones. Salvador had grown into a beautiful, frightening creature in only a short number of years.

"I ne'er knew what t'think of 'im, an' I still don't. 'ow can I ask questions of a lad what ain't ne'er talked t'me in the first place?"

"Because you never talked to him -- you never really tried."

Salvador crossed his arms over his chest and slouched back in his chair. That gesture was so terribly Carmine that Dris nearly shook from the ache. "You still look at me the same way," said the boy. "I still see it in you like I did then. Your aura's filled with so much green." There was a sadness in his eyes, Dris could see it where he couldn't feel it. "Green, you know. It actually is that color. Envy."

The bard felt his heart and his tongue duke it out again, but this time lower down in his chest. He lifted a hand to his breast and slid back across the mattress until his back met the wall. Only the wall could keep him sitting upright.

"You hated me then, too," Salvador went on. "I could see it. I'm sure you tried to hide it. I'm sure you're usually very good at it. But my eyes don't lie to me, Dan. I always see the truth. You can thank my mother for that."

Dris felt a wash of shame slide over him, mingling with the hatred that the boy spoke about. Though the hatred he felt was more for that woman, Salvador's so-mentioned mother, than it was for the boy himself. He felt himself frowning and tried to shake it off his face, but doing so only made his head throb more.

"It's all right," said Salvador. "You can hate me. I hate myself most of the time, so why not you?"

A moment of desperation struck him, and for a second, the calm broke into something like sorrow. "Can't you see, Dris? Please, god. He's not so different from you as you think."

Gods be damned, the sinner was right. Dris felt his mouth open and his hand fell limp from his chest. He wasn't feeling hatred anymore. He wasn't feeling jealousy. All he felt was a jarring, stabbing connection between himself and Salvador that he had never pieced together before on his own. They were both cursed, in uniquely different ways. The bard had his empathy, and this boy had... What did he have?

"Why?" the bard whispered. It was all he could manage to say.

Salvador lifted a brow. "Why what?"

Clearing his throat, Dris tried again. "Why d'ye hate yerself?"

The boy expressed a breathy, bitter laugh, turning his head a moment to look out the gloomy gray window. "You don't know?" Revelation hit his eyes when he looked back at the bard, and the repetition then wasn't a question. "You don't know," he sighed. Lifting one hand out of the fold, Salvador scrubbed a hand over his face.

When he dropped his hand back against his arm, Salvador recited something different. The memory of a few nights past came surging back more strongly, and impacted more deeply, when the same words were spoken aloud. "There's a boy you know, a boy who through his interactions is convinced his lot in life is a tool. Some ask him to kill. Others to use his fae abilities until it drives him mad. He is a thing to be used, too -- that's what he's convinced, after all, and if it's proven true time and time again, how can they be wrong?"

"How d'ye...?" It was disconcerting to hear Salvador say the exact same thing Sinjin had said, and in almost the exact same tone. So calm. So dull. He had to wonder if the sinner hadn't told the boy everything that had happened that night, verbatim.

Salvador quirked a sly, but tired little grin. "I'm not human," he said, "remember?"

"That's not true," Dris argued, immediately taking back what he had said with a frown. Looking at him even the bard could be easily convinced. Two arms and two legs, a head and a torso. Salvador had all the same basic construct as any average human being.

"No," said the boy. "It's not. I'm not human by half, though. Madre isn't human at all, and what I get from her... Well." Salvador frowned deeply, looking down with his eerie yellow eyes. "I don't like people knowing what I get from her," he confessed reluctantly. "Seamus knew, and he made it a point to tell everyone new I met about it. So did Morgan. Who wants to make friends with a cannibal?"

Dris felt suddenly very sick to his stomach. Suddenly, everything made so much more sense and he wasn't sure he was comfortable with this information. His hand fell to his stomach and he swallowed back the bile that started rising with a hard gulp.

"That's right," said Salvador, gauging his reaction. "I eat people, but... Not for fun. Not for sport, like they think. Thought. Whatever, I don't see them anymore." The boy scratched his jaw irritably, brows fiercely knitted together and frowning. "I do it because I have to, because it's in my blood. And now... Especially now... Sometimes the urge is just too great. When I'm too beat up, wounded, and need to heal... That's when I need to most. I don't like to. I don't like that I have to, but if I didn't... Jesus, Dani. With some of the sh*t I go through, I wouldn't be alive now if I didn't."

The bard was speechless. Naturally, he was horrified. He knew that woman, this boy's mother, had creeped him out for a damn good reason.

Seeing how he had made the man uncomfortable, Salvador stood up slowly from the chair. "I'll go now," he decided. "And I understand if you don't want to see me again. I know how you feel when you look at me. I know you hurt. I can see it." He stood there a moment longer, looking down on the bard and considering. "But don't think..." He paused, rephrased. "I hurt when I see you too. I wish..." Again the boy paused, swallowing. All he said next was, "I'm sorry." Then he turned to walk out of the room.

It was my hand that killed him.

"Sal," he whispered quickly. Dris pushed away from the wall, shimmying across the mattress to the edge of the bed and stood up, perhaps too fast for his head's liking. "Salvador, wait." He held out one hand toward him while the other tried to keep his own head from falling off his shoulders.

The boy stopped just short of the door and turned back. His expression, oddly enough, read surprise. So: prove me wrong. Sin's last words gave Dris his resolve; the bard could never back down on a dare no matter how hard he tried. He met those creepy yellow eyes without flinching, though it took an assload of willpower to do so.

"Are ye..." Dris cleared his throat. Gods, he really needed a drink. What better cure was there for a hangover than more drinking? "Are y'goin' t'Barcelona?" Salvador tipped his head with a blink, and then only mutely nodded. Dris nodded too. "Take me with ye," he pleaded, not too desperately. When he realized the boy's only response was going to be a questioning raise of the brow, he added to his case. "I want t'go this time. I think... I think I need to. And I think... We should go t'gether, you an' I. Even if it's the last thing we do, as... as a fam'ly."

There was a long uncomfortable silence in which Salvador only stared at him. Dris squinted a little in the dim gray light of the room, and by doing so he could see the subtleties. The boy wasn't really looking at him, but through him, yellow eyes ticking side to side only marginally while he inwardly debated the proposition. Eventually, he said, "I leave on Saturday. Come by the house first thing in the morning."

Salvador had never been a man of hellos and good-byes. He said what needed saying, and then he went about his business. Much like his father. When he left through the door, Dris waited until he couldn't hear him walking down the hall and the stairs, and then he sank back onto the bed with a shuddering sigh.

[Icarus Marcotte]

December 6, 2009

I always wanted a happy ending... Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.

- Gilda Radnar


Dris had not been home for three days. His argument with Sin had left him with a lot of thinking to do, and frankly thinking was not one of his strong suits. Those three days had been spent in solitude, one of the last places he wanted to be, and so they had also been spent mostly drunk. The follow-up surprise conversation, if it could even be called that, with Salvador, left him even more on edge than before. With all his nerves frazzled, one of the only two things that finally brought him home, to the cottage, was the fact that he needed to clean up and be presentable for Monday night's work.

There was also Icarus. He couldn't avoid him forever, he knew. Though when he finally did come home and found Gussie waiting for him, looking like an angry wife who had been left without word concerning his whereabouts, the guilt slipped in even harder. Still, it was nice to be home. To have a home to return to, he hoped. So he sighed and sank to his knees to ruffle the dog's ears once he got her off the stoop and in the front door. "M'sorry, darlin'," he said to her softly. "I didn' mean t'abandon you." Just like a dog for her to easily forgive him by wagging her tail and licking his face.

Gussie wasn't entirely alone -- though perhaps Icarus didn't count, since he and the dog never quite got along. The house was cold, even with the small fire popping in the hearth.. and the reason for that became rather obvious: the back door was open. Through it, the strains of Icarus's violin came soft inside the house, echoing across the walls that had been absent of memory for days. The notes varied: melancholy, pensive, passionate with anger. Things not typical of the half-dragon, none the less. He was a cheerful creature, and such darker moods were not meant for him.

The half-dragon's behavior would probably explain Gussie's worried whimper. A harsher pang of guilt hit the bard when he heard those notes trickling in through the back door and into the heart of the cottage. Ruffling up the wolfhound's ears, he stood up and padded quietly through the rooms toward the back door. How much Icarus knew, he couldn't say. All Dris knew was that he hadn't been home for three days. Hadn't left a note or any other word. His immediate assumption was that Icarus was probably worried sick about him, and he was likely about to face their first real argument as a couple. A couple... Fancy that. He crept out into the backyard cautiously.

There was a fine dusting of snow still on the ground, but the half-dragon never really cared; he was a furnace, after all, and even now, the heat rose off of his bare skin, shirtless. He had dragged a chair from the kitchen outdoors where he sat, his eyes closed and turned away from the door while he played. He must've been out there for awhile: many of the horsehair strands on the bow had snapped away, swaying while he played.

Gussie had followed the bard, as a good and loyal dog would. Feeling her warm nose press against his hand, he turned to shoo her back inside and gently pull the door closed. This was grown up business. The house didn't need to turn into an icebox either. Turning back and seeing the condition of the bow, Dris made a tsking noise that likely gave him away. Such abuse! If that noise didn't stir the half-dragon out of his stupor, perhaps the touch to his arm would.

But neither did. He knew he was there; he knew as soon as Gussie scampered off. But even after the noise and after the touch, Icarus allowed himself to finish. The piece strained off in a minor key, hesitant and low as it faded away and Icarus pulled the bow away from the violin's strings. Opening his eyes, Icarus looked up and over his shoulder with a faint smile. "Welcome home, love."

Smiles are contagious things! Though the one he matched to Ica's was just as faint, uncertain. He only met his eyes for a moment before turning his concern on the violin's bow and reaching to take it from his lover's grasp. "Thanks, mhuirnin. Sorry. I didn't expect t'be gone so long." At least right now Dris didn't smell so much like booze.

"Y'all right?" He asked quietly, following the bard's movements as his wings folded against his back, bare arms crossed.

"Aye, m'fine." Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that stance: wings tucked tight against his spine, tense and uncertain. Icarus usually did it when he was most uncomfortable. It made him flinch and kept him from looking Ica in the eyes. He turned aside to feign interest in the violin bow, fingering the snapped strings and contemplating how best to repair it.

"You?" His tools were inside. He used the act of caring for part of an instrument to turn distractedly back to the door, intending to go back inside.

"Aye." Ica spoke quietly. He didn't move inside, didn't move to follow him. Not just yet. Instead, he watched the bard's back as he turned away from him. "We need to talk, Dris."

There were those famous words. We need to talk. Hearing them made Dris flinch and stall. He never made it to opening the door, but he was facing it, absently fingering the violin's bow and tugging at the snapped strings. "'Bout?"

"I don't want you to get upset, Dris. It's the last thing I want. But I have a question for you, and I need an honest answer." Icarus had rehearsed this in his head so many times, but now it all seemed pointless. He bowed his head, looking away for a moment before his eyes darted up to Dris's back again. "I-- do you want to leave me, Dris? Because if you do, it's okay. I don't want to keep you here if you're not happy. It's the last thing I want."

Whaaaaat!? Hearing that question had Dris forgetting all about the very existence of the violin bow. Icarus certainly made an impact. There isn't much that has him displaying so much blatant disregard for something music related. He dropped that bow so fast that it clattered to the ground a few seconds after he had already turned to face the half-dragon. His face was an open canvas of utter pain and terror. "Leave you? What...? Why...? No!"

"I'm serious, Dris," Icarus murmured quietly, meeting his eyes. "If I'm -- not making you happy any more and you want to move on, you're not going to hurt me." He wasn't sure if the terror was for himself or for Dris, but in his hands he nearly wrenched the violin from the very sight of it. It took him everything not to rush over and beg for apologies right then and there.

But the reason for Dris' fear was clear: this was the 'I'm leaving you speech.' Panic hit his blue eyes so hard that he already started tearing up, even in the cold. He could pretend he was shivering because of the chill, though, right? He was an idiot in a lot of ways, including not wearing a coat. "No," he said desperately. Delay too long and Icarus might get the wrong idea. Answer too quickly and Icarus might get the wrong idea. How was he supposed to respond? "What...? No." Where was this coming from!? He shook his head resolutely: no.

"Okay," the half-dragon spoke softly, watching him. "All right. Then that's all I need to know." He trusted Dris -- he always had -- and he didn't think the bard would lie to him. And with a little confirming nod, Icarus began to join him, pausing only briefly to pick up the fallen bow.

But once Ica was close enough, Dris stalled those plans by throwing himself at the half-dragon. Desperately and hurriedly threw himself at him to cling to him, and intercepting his reach to pluck up that abandoned bow. He broke apart that quick and was immediately sobbing against Ica's chest, burying his face there.

Icarus made a soft noise at the impact, frowning quietly, but he wrapped his arms around the bard with a furrowed brow, his wings going lax to encircle them both from the elements soon after. "What's wrong, Dris?"

As if the lecture from Sin a few nights past hadn't been enough. What hurt more? What hurt more was the scare that Icarus just gave him right here and now. He clutched tightly to Ica's biceps, since there was no shirt to cling to, kept his face buried in his chest while he sniffled and sobbed. "Don' leave," he whimpered. "Don't leave me." He was so horrifically terrified of being alone that Dris had never ended a relationship himself - discounting a few women.

"I told you, Dris -- I told you from the start. I ain't leaving unless you want me to go.. and that's why I asked. I had to make sure. I-- didn't mean to hurt you, love, or scare you. You know I wouldn't.." Did he? Icarus frowned even more with that wondering question left unspoken, one hand moving to lift Dris's chin and start to sweep away the tears from his cheeks.

"I don' wan'cha t'go," he sniffled, shivering furiously in the half-dragon's hold. "M'sorry. Wha'e'er I did. M'sorry." There had to be a reason why Icarus would ask! He just didn't know what it was. The ignorance was very clear, even in his tear-filled blue eyes.

"I--" Icarus hesitated. "..I heard you. You and Sin, the few nights back. He stole my sword and tried to give it to you.." Icarus trailed off and looked away. "I thought you didn't want me around any more." The violent kick that sent his sword spinning, abandoned to the streets; the cursing, the anger. It was all a blur to him, but it still stung.

"Ye-- Y'heard...?" This did not ease the bard's trembling down much. Though after one deep sniff, he wasn't sniveling so much anymore. "Yer--" OH. His blue eyes went wide in even more horror, and his mouth fell open. "Oh gods, Ica... I..." He hadn't even noticed it. He'd been totally and completely blind to it! "I didn' know. Oh gods m'sorry." Now he just felt even more terrible, and so dropped his head, ashamed, to press his forehead against Ica's chest. "No, no. I didn' know. If I'd known... M'so sorry."

A weight fell off Ica's shoulders, in a way. The bard hadn't realized. It was better than being kicked to the curb. Exhaling a breath, Icarus swept a firmer arm around Dris shoulders, attempting to soothe him, fingers brushing through his hairs. "You didn't know." Reassuring himself too, maybe. "You didn't know. It's all right."

"I should've known," he berated himself. Muffled against Ica's chest as he trembled against him. "I should've seen it. I didn't. M'sorry. I was so... So mad." Sniffling, he lifted his head and swallowed hard. A few more tears rolled down his cheeks, but he looked Icarus in the eyes. "How much did y'hear?"

"Tail end of it. I was.. still drugged. From when he stole it from me." Gentle as ever, Ica carefully brushed away the tears from Dris's cheeks again, this time gently guiding them indoors. He might be able to tolerate the cold, but Dris was still human. Or at least human-ish.

"He drugged you!?" Oh, now Dris was mad again. Talk about mercurial moods. "That no good, slimy, buggerin' son of a thrice be damned arsehole!" Regardless of pretty much punching Ica in the arm by reflex, since he was the nearest thing to punch just then, he was lead along inside perfectly easily. "I'll kill 'im! I'll-- Ah, bugger." He couldn't kill him. And once he got inside the kitchen, he turned away to knock over the first thing on the counter that happened to be there in frustration. It was a cup of tea, as it happened, and it went skittering across the counter and onto the floor.

Icarus, however, just shook his head. "I already talked t'him. I.. understand what he was tryin' to do, even if it was stupid." He paused a beat, gently setting his violin and bow aside. "Jaycy tried t'eat him, I think."

Dris had detached to spread his hands on the counter and lean over it, head bowed. And here he'd been hoping he could've made up some excuse like a night of debauchery to have covered his tracks. He was good at telling stories. He didn't like the ones that made his relationships... rocky. Though that last bit had him raising a brow, turning his head. "Jaycy tried t'eat 'im?" Say that again?

"She, uh.. I dunno what's going on with her," he admitted honestly, lifting one bare shoulder in a shug. "I think she's goin' through some.. changes." To put it lightly. "That and she don't like Sin any." Not that Icarus could really blame her. Either did he.

"M'not sure I like 'im much m'self these days," he muttered bitterly. Sighing, though, he pushed back off the counter and turned aside. Dris took a moment to scrub his face with both hands. Dropping them, he distractedly patted the concerned blockade of a dog on the head and edged aroudn her to head into the living room. He was sober, and he didn't like it.

"I'm sorry, Dris. I wish I could help. I wish--" He wished he was Carmine and could just.. magically fix things. Make him content. Icarus scrubbed his face with one hand and followed the bard into the living room. "What are you going to do?"

Except Carmine hadn't been capable of magically fixing things either, Icarus just didn't know it. The bard stepped around the side of an armchair and then just so unceremoniously dropped onto it, sagging in the seat with a hard and weary sigh. "I dunno." No, that was a lie. He grimaced, though, knowing full well Ica wasn't bound to like this idea. "I'm, uh... M'goin' t'Barcelona with Sal," he muttered quickly. Looking down at the Irish wolfhound head in his lap was the perfect distraction. He absently scratched Gussie's ears.

Icarus's eyebrows rose quietly, and for a moment he said nothing, watching the bard with his dog. Quietly, he moved to break the distance between them, leaning in to press a kiss to the crown of black hair he loved dearly. "I trust you. Do what you have to, love." Softly.

Dris blinked, a little surprised by that. It was almost a punctuated expression. He shooed Gussie away with a gesture and tilted aside to look up at the half-dragon questioningly. No arguments? Really? All right then. He nodded and looked away. "I think I need to," he said quietly. "Think it's somethin' I shoulda done a long time ago. S'not fair t'you, Ica. Me still broodin' on it." Sighing, he jammed his elbow into the armrest and put his chin in his hand, looking distantly, blankly, at the far wall.

"It's not me I'm worried about, love. It's not fair to you." Icarus dropped down onto the couch beside the armchair, shifting into his polymorph form as he did; made it a hell of a lot easier to sit without the wings. "And if this is going to help you through this.. then aye, this is what I want you to do." He watched the bard with hazel eyes, pulling his legs up onto the couch as Gussie tried to crawl up next to him.

Looking Ica in the eyes a moment, Dris almost started crying all over again. This kind of understanding was unheard of. He wasn't used to it at all. He looked away quickly, knuckling the corner of his eye and feigning a speck of dust being the cause. The hushed quality of his words, however, betrayed him. "I don' deserve you," he whispered.

"Bullsh*t and you know it," he muttered quietly with a faint smile. "I told you from day one, Dris. You've got me 'til you don't want me any longer. I'm here for you." And even then? Dris would always have a silent gaurdian in the background, ready to jump in and defend him at a moment's notice.

Sliding out of the chair, he switched over to join Ica on the couch. Shooing the dog away in the process so he could appropriately tuck himself up all over the half-dragon. Three days he'd been gone and he hadn't yet kissed him upon his return? Shame on you, Dris! He moved to do that now. "I love you," he whispered shakily. It kind of hurt to say it. It probably still would for a while. Every time he said it, somewhere deep down inside he felt he was betraying Carmine. And then he remembered that there was no Carmine to betray, and sometimes that made it hurt more. But it didn't make it any less true.

The words startled him. Had Dris spoke them before? Were they true then? Even if they weren't, he knew they were true now. "I know you do, Dris. I know." He murmured, cupping the bard's jaw in his hands and pressing a kiss to his lips. "And I love you too, you hear? I do." No matter what.

Another couple of tears slipped out of the bard's eyes. He sniffed, feeling like a great big emotional fool, but that's what he was. Smiling, he kissed Ica again, chastely, and turned to snuggle up on him. All the time they'd spent together. The few years they had been together. All that Dris was to the very heart and soul core of his being.

These next words, when he set his head on the half-dragon's shoulder, were probably the least likely thing anyone would have ever expected to come out of Sheridan Driscol's mouth, and it shook the foundations of Icarus Marcotte to the core:

"Will y'marry me?"

[Delahada]

Continued from tangled webs He wove.

Time passed. It could have been minutes, seconds, hours or even days. Salvador had no idea. Time had no meaning to the fae. Especially to those who were eternal, whose purpose could never be eliminated.

She Who Tends the Dead was one such entity. Her purpose was forever long. There was no end to the dead and the dying so long as the living also thrived. The natural cycle of the world, of all worlds, had to continue. One must be born. One must mature. Then, inevitably, one must die. Even those creatures which claimed to be immortal had an end, even the fae. The question that remained, the one that had no answer, the one truth that even She did not know, was when that end would be.

Salvador sat in the dirt and the blood and the bones at the base of the Father's tombstone for a very long time. He had nothing left to say to his ghost. Though he had the power to summon him, he hadn't the strength for it. He didn't want to face him, in whatever form he might choose.

Throughout it all, his mother had kept her silence. She was present, oh he knew. She was always present. As the autumn days dragged on and on, steadily making way for the winter soon to come, her presence remained formidable and unavoidable. Especially here. But eventually, when the silence had gone on for so long and Salvador had not moved from his spot kneeling before Ambrose's grave, she spoke.

"You have come sooner than I had expected," said her haunting, chilling and far too calm voice.

Salvador lifted his head slowly with an exhausted exhale. There she was, sitting primly atop the crest of the split stone, looking down on him as was her way. She had manifested, cleanly and without sign, as the plain-looking human female of stoic features and rigid spine. He was too tired to frown at her, to hate her, to feel anything for her at all. His mind was also a blank, and so he said nothing.

"Winter is yet fifteen days away," she informed him coldly. "Usually, you do not come until that time." She tilted her head slowly to one side and blinked at him in a lethargic, almost quizzical manner. After a pregnant pause, she said, "You have done well this year. I am ... impressed."

That was an unexpected admission. Doubtful, Salvador breathed out a harsh laugh. "Yeah, well. Forgive me for not giving a sh*t about what you think, Madre."

"You care," she countered plainly. Her tone, as ever, lacked any inflection. She was empty of emotion in every word she spoke. She spoke with a certainty that could never be rebuked. "And it is true. I am ... proud. You have far exceeded my expectations, my son. Exceeded the expectations of all your kith and kin as well. Your survival continues to cause quite a stir of whispering among the Courts."

And he knew. He heard them all the time, though could never make out a word that any of them were saying. The world was a constant buzz of whispers to his ears. Only in crowded rooms of present, solid and whole people did he not hear them. Only when he was distracted by better things, like the presence of his lover, conversations with dear friends, did he not hear them. Only when his blood was boiling hot from the adrenaline rush of a fight with fists or swords, did he not hear them.

There was one above all he heard more than most, and that taunting whisper, the hyena's cackle, was a subject of continued discontent between himself and the sinner. "Madre," he asked, "what does the Keeper want with me?"

Faye let a silence linger between them before she answered. Such questions required thought before being directly answered. And answer she must. "Throughout all the centuries of my servitude, always has the Keeper longed to mate with me, Salvador. And always have I denied him. A youngling made of Fear and Death would disrupt the Natural Order, I suspect."

Salvador tried to imagine it, which was no easy task. He thought himself quite the monstrosity on more occasions than not. Death and Life had joined together to create him. The purest essence of Entropy had combined with living, mortal flesh to make him what he was. Karma Made Flesh. For the first time in his short-lived existence, he found himself pondering the true significance of that title which made up his name. "I'm not really Karma," he mused.

"No," his mother confirmed stoically. "You are my karma, sweet child. You are my backlash. You are the price I must pay for defying all the sacred Laws to have made you."

"His life is yours. Else his death be mine," he recited, bowing his head. They were words from long ago. Almost three years now. His mother hadn't spoken them to him, though. It was a pact she had made with Sinjin Fai. And only now was he beginning to understand their full meaning. He shook his head slowly and looked back up. "That doesn't answer my question, though."

His mother allowed herself an expression. Though it was wholly unnecessary, she put forth the effort to make her eyebrows raise, the thin and neat brown lines above her too dark eyes that they were. "Does it not?" she challenged. "I have spurned the Keeper's advances and propositions for all these long centuries, long before you were made, my son. To think that I would choose a mortal man to mate with and not him? This he takes as a personal insult, and he will do all in his power to make me suffer for it."

"And so he chooses to hurt you ... through me." Salvador understood, for the first time in nearly six long years. A short lifetime, certainly, but to him that time had been an eternity. He had lived much life in that short time.

"Indeed," said his mother.

"So you do feel."

Faye's smile was a slim and cut cruel thing, but she allowed it to show for a fleeting moment. "Your friend Ali asked me once ... if there is room in me for regret. My answer to him was simple, and the answer remains yes." She paused to allow those words to have their full impact before confirming the boy's suspicion. "I do feel, Salvador. I am capable of feeling. Though my task does not allow me to be a slave to emotion. I must always tend the dead, no matter my personal investment in a living creature, though that too is a Law I have broken ... for you."

"You didn't claim me." He remembered. The first time he had died had been a fluke. No one, not even the fae, could have expected he and his father would have shared that vital link. When his father's heart had ceased beating, so too had his own. If only for some long few minutes, he had died when his father did, and they had both been reborn in entirely different and drastic ways. "You didn't claim me," he repeated. It was quite the revelation to absorb.

"By not claiming you as I have been charged," said his mother, "I upset the Natural Order. You should not have lived beyond that moment, and yet I refused to allow it to be so. For you are mine, of my essence. As to your father were you flesh and blood. I cannot love you as you may have hoped. I cannot guide you with a loving hand, for that is not my way. But always have I cared for you. Always have you been dear to me. Even so ... my purpose comes before you."

Salvador looked down at the cold and clinging turf beneath him with a frown. Six feet under, encased in ice, lay a man whom a season past he had tried to unbury. A creature he had thought to resurrect with only a name. His fists clenched against his knees, hating himself for his own stupidity. "The dead stay dead," he muttered.

"It would be more accurate to say that where there is an end, there is also a beginning. An end cannot be unmade, but from it is crafted ... a new story."

"A new story," he repeated hushly. A four year old memory came trickling back. A conversation he had had once, with a ghost, in a field...

"Como usted desea." The Spaniard's eyes went half-lidded. His language switched from Spanish to something entirely different-- it was not English or any other recognizable language.. but Salvador would be able to understand it and reply in it. It sounded otherworldly. Like light itself. "Do you know why you feel connected to the sinner?"

That question caught him off guard. Was it the question itself or the language it was spoken in? He tipped back his chin to look at this body, eyes widened just slightly, shimmered with a dusting of dark orange. A different language, one he was not completely comfortable with. He heard a whisper of chime song in the air. Whether he knew or not... "Why?"

"Humanity." Tohias smiled. It was unlike Sin in every way. "Your human side, your ancestors-- it has seen many lives and many souls." The Spaniard lifted his palm. A cool, calm light grew in the center. "You see, Salvador-- your soul.. and his soul.. have met every life."

Faye did not interrupt her son's reverie. She let him recall and remember. Nor did she deny the truth of what had been spoken between the boy and the sinner's soul those years ago. "I spoke to a whisper once," he murmured, reciting something he himself had written only two and a half years ago. "I held a memory in my hand. It was beautiful. It was light. It spoke to me as whispers do..." He was beginning to understand.

"There is truth," said his mother, "even in whispers."

The boy lifted his head again, blinking slowly and uncertainly. "So then... There is something for me in the end? I'm not just..."

"You are more than the sum of your parts, my son," said his mother, as reassuringly as she could ever sound. "My essence will return to me when it is gone from you, but in the end... Even I do not know what is to become of you. At least not where the spirit is concerned. Your soul is your own, and that is no concern of mine."

"Reincarnation, maybe?" Then it struck him, and he looked back down at the ground before the Father's grave. "A new life."

"His time, as you knew him, is over, sweet Salvador. Let him rest."

"Let him rest," he repeated quietly. Almost reverently did he put his palm down on the cold, moist earth of his mother's grove. There was a body down there, six feet beneath him, encased in a coffin made of ice. "It's not me who isn't letting him rest," he realized.

"No more than you have let your own father rest." The truth was never kind. Or was it?

Salvador lifted his head again. He remembered discussing this with his brother once. Wondering if there had been an afterlife for his father, or if the White Shadow had consumed his soul entirely. Mesteno had never given him the answer, and he wasn't about to give away that hope to chance by asking his mother here and now. "I will," he promised. "And so will he." He meaning Dris. "I think it's time."

"Perhaps," said his mother, "long past time." Which was an odd statement, coming from her. For time had no meaning to the fae.

[BardGallant]

December 10, 2009

For a change, Dris was the first to stir out of his dreams and wake to the biting chill morning. The bed was warm, though, which was no small surprise. Beside him lay his lover, snoozing happily at his back with an arm curled loosely over the bard's waist. In front of him lay the enormous creamy wolfhound, taking up more room in the bed than she should as per usual.

His dreams had not been bad, but he couldn't remember them. Whatever they were, they had allowed him to wake up at peace, refreshed and content, which was a pleasant change than what he was used to. Years had gone by in which he had stirred out of sleep feeling miserable and abused, where all he could think of upon waking were the piles of guilt laying heavy on his soul.

This morning, when he turned his hand to look at the long white scar running down his wrist toward his elbow, he didn't feel ashamed. He didn't feel quite so pitiful. He felt that he could live with himself, and this reminder that he'd never try it again.

Turning his head, he smiled when he looked upon Ica's face. The half-dragon looked so content to have him here beside him. He looked so at peace after a long night of love-making that Dris hadn't the heart to wake him. So with the utmost caution, stealth and skill, he slithered out from under his lover's arm and urged Gussie to shuffle in closer to replace him. He chuckled silently to himself while draping Ica's arm over the massive dog, and slid out of bed. Icarus was bound to curse and swear when he woke up realizing who he was cuddling, instead of Dris, but so beat it.

Picking up his pants from the floor, where they'd been discarded the night before, he slipped them on and padded barefoot to the wardrobe to find himself a sweater. The house was cold without a living furnace beside him, and he made it a point to stoke the fires as he went about the start of his day. Down the stairs and into the living room, he stopped to regard the little velvet box on the coffee table.

"Will y'marry me?" he had asked the man. It had been a spur of the moment decision. Dris really hadn't put that much thought into it at all. Something inside him had simply grabbed the words and tossed them out into the open. It seemed right. It seemed fitting. It seemed like the thing to ask, and proved that he still had a few shocking tricks up his sleeve after all.

Icarus hadn't at all believed his ears when the bard had asked him. He felt that same grin forming now, the one that had crawled deviously across his mouth, slowly, those few short nights past. He recalled how he had repeated the words, slowly and clearly, making the effort to cast aside his accent so that there could be no mistake. "Will you ... marry me?"

Even then, Ica stared into his eyes, waiting for some trick to tell him it wasn't true. Dris really wanted.. "Aye," he said hushly, tears welling in his own eyes then with a crooked smile. "Aye, Dris. I will."

Looking from one hazel eye to the other, he was dead serious. His smile was soft and warm. Sliding up one hand, he touched the side of Ica's face, getting ready to catch those tears should they fall. "M'tired, Icarus," he explained quietly. "M'gettin' old. I don't want t'be alone e'er again. Ye'll ne'er leave me, will you?" That was a rhetorical question, and there was hardly a pause. "No." He knew that for a fact. "I love you. An' I prob'bly don't deserve ye, but I know y'love me. So. Marry me."

"Oh, love," Icarus whispered, reaching to take one of the bard's hands and wrap it in his own, tilting his cheek against it. "Y'ain't getting old.. we've got plenty of years of adventure left in us. Plenty of wandering, plenty of pretty girls and handsome men.. and if you want me beside you for it.. Dris, I'd be-- I'd be honored." He'd be happy. So damned happy, in his own stupid ways.

"I can't think of anyone else I'd want by my side," he said quietly. Not even Carmine, and that hurt a little deep inside. Carmine had wanted to cage him, to keep him safe and protected from his naturally hedonistic instincts. To keep the bard all to himself. Ica was different. He even said it himself, just now. Made it plain and clear that even chaining himself to the half-dragon like this, Icarus wasn't going to cage him up and lock him down. But there was one last thing to do before he could comfortably set aside what was and make way for what would be. "Soon as I've said m'good-byes, m'yours. Forever an' always," he promised. And he smirked a little. "Pr'vided y'don't change yer mind afore I get back."

The smile faded away as he crossed the short distance between himself and the coffee table. Dris picked up the velvet box and slid his thumb over its lid. Last night, Icarus had given this to him. Though the bard had been the one to propose, it had been the half-dragon that had provided... He flipped open the lid slowly to look upon them again. Like a treasured music box that had long ago rusted its gears and could no longer sing. Not aloud, at any rate.

They were beautiful. They were perfect. Two platinum rings sized for two men. Engraved around the bands was part of the score to a very particular song, and just looking upon the notes Dris could hear the music. He could hear the song that Icarus had asked him to sing last night.

As you are my love
As you are my love
Say you'll always be
Though the years go by
My heart will ever sigh
You're the love for me

He brushed the pad of his thumb over the engraved notes and listened to his own voice sing as a memory in the back of his head.

Dearest always be as you are to me
You're my guiding star
What you are to me my love you'll ever be
Though you're near or far
It's so clear to me
Why you're so dear to me
As you are as you are

He hadn't thought of anything of it when Icarus had asked him to sing that song. Dris could have thought of any number of other songs to suit them, but maybe this one was right. Of course, it probably wasn't what Dean Martin had in mind when he wrote it, two men loving each other the way these two did.

What you are to me my love you'll ever be
Though you're near or far
It's so clear to me
Why you're so dear to me
As you are
As you are

Closing the lid of the box reverently, he clutched it in his hand and held it close to his heart. He closed his eyes and remembered the night before. It was their most recent conversation, and easy to recall because of that fact.

Fear had gripped him at the sight of the box at first, but when he had opened it that first time and taken a look the anxiety eased away. "Where'd y'get these?" he had managed to whisper. And his cheeks felt warm again, even now, as they had last night when he, of all things, blushed.

"Had 'em made at a shop at the Marketplace.. Y'like 'em, then?"

"They're beautiful," he whispered, still, brushing the fingertips of his free hand over the bars. Feeling out the music etched into the metal. "But... Rings? Ica, I dunno..." He tried to imagine himself actually wearing a ring to loudly and proudly announce to the world that he was a married man! Sure he had proposed, and Icarus had said yes, but seeing these rings put a stronger impact on it that nearly scared him away from the alter before they ever got there! His blues turned up to look into Ica's hazel ones, and he tried not to show how much he was doubting himself. It seemed like such an easy decision before. "I ain't even told anyone yet," he confessed.

"Dris -- this sh*t ain't f'anyone but you an' me," he chuckled quietly, sliding across the couch and toward him. "I don't expect you t'wear 'em. Don't expect you t'do anythin' with them. Like I said, love: on y'own time." He quietly reached across to Dris, sliding his hand over the box and his lover's own hand to shut it. "Now stop freakin' out." He smirked.

And remembering that smirk, Dris smirked too. "In m'own time," he murmured to himself, to the quiet walls. Sighing, he turned and set his eyes on the piano, on the scores of music stacked on its edge. Some of those sheets were blank, he knew. Last night he had caught Icarus at attempting to compose. That thought, too, made him smile.

"I ain't even told anybody yet," he reminded himself quietly. That alone put the devil's own grin back on his face as he stepped over to the piano. "Still got a few tricks up m'sleeve after all. The whole o' Rhydin's gon' sh*t their britches when they 'ear 'bout this." He imagined his sisters screaming and squealing in combination utter shock and glee. He imagined his adopted mother keeling over from a heart attack. He imagined people like Sinjin Fai spontaneously combusting, and that wild thought made him laugh.

Somewhere deep down inside of him, Sheridan Driscol had an ounce of a sadistic streak. But until he mustered up the courage to tell the world of this extraordinarily blasphemous news, he decided that little velvet box was going to have a spot on the top of the piano, beside the attached music stand, on the edge opposite the stacks of scores. He set it there with a fond smile, to remind himself of just how much Icarus meant to him, how much the half-dragon loved him, and how much of a fool he had been all these long years to have never taken the opportunity by the shoulders for a good hard shake.

That opportunity was here, waiting for him. And it would sit here waiting for him until he was good and ready. But before that ... there was Barcelona. Dris sighed and slid onto the piano bench. Two days from now he'd be leaving with the mercenary's son, with a boy who could have been, officially, his step-son. If only years ago he had the gumption to do what he was planning now.

"Forgive me, Carmine," he whispered to nobody and nothing at all. "It should have been you."


___________________________________
The above quoted song is "As You Are" by Dean Martin.

[Delahada]

December 12, 2009

When it came to the planning and punctuality of, well, anything at all, Dris was not the most reliable man in all of existence. The phrase "fashionably late" was one that he pretty much embodied and had a tendency to ask any time he ever arrived for anything. The very last thing that Salvador Delahada had expected was for the man to be on time. He knocked on the door at 7:30.

As soon as Salvador opened the door, he was promptly greeted with a slap to the face and the rather livid inquiry of, "Didja see this?" The slap to the face did not come from a hand, but rather yesterday's edition of The RhyDin Post. When it slid off his face and into his hands, Salvador groaned.

To be perfectly honest, he probably never would have heard about the stupid article if it hadn't been for two things. One, last night Sivanna had called him Numero Dos, and then showed him the paper. And two... Sin had been gloating about it all freaking night, including in the middle of activities best left behind closed doors. This was turning into his next worst nightmare.

"Uh," he said while Dris strode past him. "Yeah. I saw it." Turning, he tossed the paper onto the foyer table and shut the door.

"Number twenty-one," the bard raved. "C'n y'believe that sh*te? Drivel's what it is. Ludicrously falsifyin'..." He snapped his fingers a couple of times. "Wha's the word? In print. Libel? Or's it slander? C'n never remember. In any case, it's bull!"

Lifting a hand to his face, Salvador squeezed the bridge of his nose. Sure, it was still bruised and repairing itself from being broken way too many times in the rings over the past week, but it was totally worth it. The sting was better than listening to Dris rant. "Look," he muttered irritably. "Could you maybe ... shut the hell up? Rekah's sleeping, and probably Sin. I just want to get out of here." Preferably without waking up the whole damn house to put up with the bard's ranting.

Dris gave him a wounded look, his mouth hanging open. "Oh sure, aye. Easy fer you t'say, bein' number two an' all." Frowning furiously, he turned a wild gesture out to indicate the discarded paper.

Lifting his hands, palms out in an indication of surrender, Salvador sighed. "I didn't write the stupid thing. Don't blame me." He turned to go fetch his coat and the duffel bag he had packed up. He didn't expect to be gone for more than a few days, so he hadn't packed much. It was a wonder he had packed anything at all. "And if matters at all, I agree. It's a load of crap." He certainly didn't think of himself as RhyDin's second sexiest man. Though that was partly a lie, because he did certainly think that Sin was the sexiest. Not that he had bothered to tell anyone that aloud, especially not the sinner.

"Aye, good," Dris grumped. He didn't stand around in the hall waiting, though. This being the first time he had actually been inside their house, the bard took the opportunity to trail along and let his eyes roam.

The living room was wide and spacious, with a high ceiling. The walls were lined in parts by seven potted dogwood saplings just waiting for the spring to be planted outside. They certainly filled the house with a warm and inviting aroma, and made it more peaceful and homely than likely anyone would have expected of Sin and Sal. "You have what you need?" asked Salvador while shrugging on his coat.

He turned back to find Dris being nosy and a bit awed by his discovery of the interior of the house. The man blinked stupidly at him and then turned up a lop-sided smile. "Oh aye," he said, making a flippant gesture back the way they had come, toward the front of the house. "S'out on the porch."

"Good," said Salvador, picking up the duffel back and slinging it over his shoulder. "Let's go then." The faster they got out of here, the quicker this whole trip would be, and the faster he could be rid of the man after coming home.

Dris lifted thin black brows at the rush, but turned to head back to the door. "No fond farewells? No g'bye kiss?" He took a quick look up the stairs, wondering if that's where the sinner was hiding himself perhaps. The bard likely wasn't wrong. And despite Salvador's earlier request that he not make much noise, Dris cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted toward the second level of the house. "G'bye, Sin, y'connivin' charmer of a dog!" He also muttered, "Sexiest man my arse."

Inwardly, Salvador groaned again. Outwardly, he rolled his eyes. God help him, if he had to put up with this crap all weekend long, he was pretty sure he really was going to kill the man. Out on the porch, he discovered yet another reason to remain irritated.

Where the boy had only shoved a few changes of clothes into a duffel bag, Dris had brought along a whole collection of luggage. And it wasn't just any average sort of luggage either. The entire group of three pieces just had to be decked out in a floral pattern. Salvador stared at the suitcase, carry-on and travel kit in horror. "Jesus Christ, Dani," he complained. "We're only going to be gone for three days."

"Well, y'didn' tell me that back on Sunday! An' besides..." The taxi that Salvador had called for was waiting in the drive. At least they didn't have to carry them all the way to the airport, though he had to wonder how Dris had got it all here in the first place. Ah, Rhydin and it's amazing selection of multi-dimensional mass transit. "It's been ages since I've been t'Barcelona," the bard went on. "I 'aven't the foggiest what the weather's gon' be like there, an' I might change m' mind on what t'wear. Get that fer me will ye?"

Salvador frowned utter dismay. This was going to be the worst weekend ever; he knew it. Sighing dismally, he grabbed up the bard's suitcase and hauled it over to the cab. The driver popped the trunk and they loaded in their luggage. The boy got into the back of the cab in sullen silence. Naturally, the bard prattled on. He already felt the onset of a headache forming, and it wasn't likely to recede until the trip was over.

"Ain't nobody called me that in a long time," Dris sighed as soon as they were seated. The taxi rolled out of the drive. At least that part of the drip wasn't destined to be long.

Salvador could only hope that the man fell asleep during the flight so he wouldn't have to listen to him. "Called you what?" he asked half-heartedly. Putting his elbow to the rest on the door and his chin in his hand, he stared out the window as the cab drove on.

"Dani," said the bard. At this point his tone had sobered some and at least he didn't sound so God awful cheerful. "Yer da used t'call me that all the time y'know."

"I know," said Salvador carelessly. There was something about that faded tone in the man that unsettled him. He was reminded of a comment Sin had made just the other day.


"When are you leaving?"

"Early in the morning. Plane leaves some time after eight."

"All right. And Dris is still coming with you?"

"If he shows up, like I said. I know, I know. You said make sure he shows up. If he's not here by eight, I'll go get him."

"Good boy. I saw him last night."

"Did you?"

"Mm. He was.. very cheerful. Incredibly so, actually. And he hit me with a drumstick. What did you say to him?"

"Uh... Sh*t. A lot of things. Though nothing that should've made him ... cheerful ... I don't think."

"Well.. I haven't seen him that chipper in months. F*ck, I haven't seen him look at me without cringing in months. Odd."


While he reminisced on that conversation, Dris continued to babble. It took him a moment to reconnect with reality and realize the man was still talking. Though he hadn't heard a single word Dris was saying up until this point. Salvador turned his head to look at him, wondering.

"...'ere we are, eh?" Slapping his hands to his knees and rubbing his palms agains them, Dris turned his head and smiled at him.

"Yeah," Salvador said tonelessly. He nearly felt as tired as he sounded. On the one hand, he agreed with Sin. He couldn't wait to sleep again. But on the other hand, he didn't look forward to dreaming. "Here we are."

Dris sighed and made a face. His thin black brows drew together and his mouth twisted up at an awkward, perplexing angle. "S'gon' be a long trip fer only three days," he protested mildly.

"Mm," Salvador agreed.

Again the bard exhaled, his shoulders slumping in defeat. His whole body seemed to deflate in that gesture. He looked the boy over thoughtfully, as if he meant to say something further, but gave up with a huff of breath and turned his head to look out the window of the cab himself. At least the rest of the ride to the airport went by in silence, but Salvador knew it wouldn't keep all weekend long.

[BardGallant]

After the failed attempt at decent conversation in the taxi cab, during the short ride to the airport, Dris had already been ready to give up. Besides, he had more important things to worry over, such as a suddenly forgotten fear of flying. Oh sure! Gallivanting around town on dragon back was one thing, but being caged up in a metal machine and putting your faith in technology was something else!

Salvador said nothing more to him during the entire length of their flight. The boy took his seat silently, crossed his arms, slouched in his seat and shut his eyes. Dris took that as as clear sign that they wouldn't be having any further conversation. He figured the boy wanted to sleep, but Dris couldn't do that. He was too anxious. Fortunately, he found a charming young woman to flirt with during that time and forgot most of his worries. By the time the plane made it through the portal and landed itself in the airport, the bard had half the passenger cabin gossiping alongside him.

His traveling companion continued to appear sullen and annoyed while the disembarked. From Madrid the took a train to Barcelona, and still the boy wasn't talking to him. This leg of the trip was shorter than the flight, but that hour still felt forever long and again the bard got to talking people up. Dris had probably made half a hundred new friends before the time they set foot in the Spanish countryside.

From the airport to the train station to the next cab and all the way through the short drive to the surrounding villas. The cab driver made a find conversational companion until Dris got his first look at the hotel that wasn't. He had expected to pull up to a hotel, to sleep and in the morning take another ride to a cemetery. What he hasn't expected was a private residence with a gated property.

That's when he finally decided to talk directly to Salvador. They got out of the cab, the boy paid the fare, and Dris stood there boggling at the tall rusted gate that stopped at the end of the drive. "Sal?" The boy grunted an inquiring note while removing their luggage from the trunk of the taxi. "What is this place?"

Beyond the vine plagued stone walls, through the iron bars and up the drive, Dris could just barely make out the tree shrouded walls of what was more than likely a mansion. Perhaps even a castle! The bard hadn't known there were castles in Spain, however, outside the currently renovated museums and art galleries that had once been the residences of the historical monarchy.

Salvador slammed shut the trunk of the cab and slapped it a couple of times to let the driver know he had their things. When the taxi turned away from the end of the drive and its morosely towering gate, he turned to Dris and said, "My family's estate."

They were speaking Spanish, had been since they arrived in the country. The bard's accent may have still been a part, but it didn't mingle well with the language. He turned to look at the boy with wide eyes and his mouth unhinged. "Your... Your family's estate?"

"Yes," grunted Salvador, as if it were no unusual thing. He slung the duffel bag he had brought with him over his shoulder, grabbed the rolling luggage of the bard's collection, and hauled it with him toward the gates. Taking a key from his pocket, he unlocked the chain that kept them sealed shut, unwound the links and pushed on the bars with the sleeve of his coat.

Iron, Dris thought, frowning guiltily at the way the boy avoided actually touching the gate with his bare hands. The lock and chain itself had been steel, he noticed. Not so bad. The gate screamed a protest on its hinges and Salvador slipped in between them. Dris quickly grabbed up the lighter parcels in his collection and wormed his way through as well. Then he stood there marveling while the boy reset the chain and locked the gate back up.

The grounds beyond the vine-covered walls stretched for acres around. The property pretty much had its very own forest, sparsely populated in some places, leaving a clear view of the walls and hills. The drive was gravel and wound its way up over one hillock and around a copse of trees, down through another to where he couldn't see the end. Salvador started walking up the drive and so the bard followed him.

Many of the leaves had fallen already, with winter so close to arriving. Even in Barcelona it was chilly, if not as cold as it would have been in other areas of the world. It was mostly cloudy and the air smelled like rain.

Dris remembered once that Carmine had hinted at coming from an influential and wealthy family, but he had never imagined the man had grown up in a place like this. In all their many years together, the mercenary had never told him about it in much detail. Home, to Carmine, had always been a depressingly hurtful concept. Being here now made the bard feel oppressed and uncertain. He didn't feel as if he belonged at all.

The grasses didn't look as if they had been trimmed in ages, perhaps a dozen years. Wild flowers and vines stole away the beauty of what had likely been lush gardens. Dried leaves littered a fountain at the top of the drive, making the water muddy and murky from years of disuse. And there was the mansion itself.

Constructed of high brickwork, a yellow sun-baked affair, and several stories tall, Dris looked up at the looming dark face with awe. The front doors were just as rusty and unkempt as the gates below had been. The stones that made up the very foundation were starting to turn green from moss growing between its cracks. How long had it been since anyone lived here, he wondered. And, in fact, he asked that very thought of the boy in a hushed and reverent tone. "Nobody lives here anymore, do they?"

Salvador laughed abruptly, but it was still more breath than bark, as it ever was. Dropping his bag on the front stoop, he dug out another key and worked it in the lock. "Not for about... seven or eight years. No," he said, scratching the back of his neck.

The boy unlocked one door and then the next, pushing wide the rusty hinges and dragging half their luggage into the front foyer. The elaborately rich tiles were coated in a thick layer of filmy dust, and their trespassing left tracks where they stepped. "My grandmother lived here for a little while, after... After my grandfather died," he explained. Salvador's voice echoed mournfully through the cold, stone walls.

"Your grandparents," Dris said quietly, recalling. He remembered what Carmine had told him, when he finally came back to him all those years ago. Six years ago, actually. Six years to the three before that in which Carmine hadn't been a part of his life. The mercenary had left him nine years before now, some time. And he had only known why when the man came back. Only when Carmine had told him.

"Yeah, my grandparents," Salvador said, not really realizing that the bard was reminiscing behind him. "There's rooms upstairs," he told the bard, gesturing up the winding horseshoe staircase. "Kitchen's down that way," he added, pointing down a long hallway that ran between them. "To the left, somewhere. Down some stairs. You'll find it."

Dris shivered just trying to imagine exploring his way through this place! "We're staying here? In this gods forsaken old... old castle?"

Midway to picking his duffel bag back up, Salvador turned to look at him with a raised brow. "Better than paying for a room somewhere, isn't it?" When he saw the horrified look on the bard's face, however, he seemed to reconsider. Though what he really did was add on a bit more information. "He's buried here," said the boy.

Dris felt a stab of pain in his heart. He had been holding it back all day with distracting conversations and convenient distractions. Here, in this big old empty house, alone with only himself and this wildly unsettling boy, he felt it sting again. Carmine was buried here, on this property, somewhere. "A family plot?" he whispered.

"Yeah," said Salvador. "The rest of them are here too. Well..." Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he started for the stairs. "Except my grandmother."

"She's still alive?" Dris hurried to grab up his own things, at least the two he could carry without hindering himself. The larger suitcase could stay for the moment, he reasoned. Doubtful it was going anywhere on its own. "C... Carmine's mother? She's still alive?" He hadn't known that!

"More or less," said the boy, carelessly. He shrugged one shoulder while walking up the stairs, and Dris followed him. "If you want to call it that," Salvador added. "She took to a convent after... After her husband died." That, of course, being Carmine's father, and even Dris knew the circumstances surrounding that.

"He killed him, you know," said the bard.

"I know," said Salvador.

"C... Your father said he went mad. That he was doing things. Terrible things to his sister."

"Experiments," said Salvador. "There's a lab in the basement. He also wanted her to marry someone she didn't like. Kept her locked in her rooms when he wasn't using her as a rat. Drove Grandmother crazy too."

Well, so it seemed a bit of insanity ran in the family. Dris had to wonder how Carmine had avoided it, but then he remembered the way the old bear's green eyes used to glint so eerily, like an emerald, so beautifully. "Esme, wasn't it?" He tried not to shiver at the horrors Salvador was hinting at.

"Esmeralda, yeah." The boy paused in front of a door, wide open, and gestured in. "This was her room."

Looking in through the open door, Dris boggled at how expansive it was. From the hall, all he could see was a sitting room with a sofa and lounge chairs covered over by sheets and a filmy layer of gray dust. A little table was set up by floor to ceiling windows with doors that opened up to a balcony. Branching off to the left was another door that he guessed probably led into her actual bedroom. He wondered if later he'd have the nerve to trespass and explore its sad mysteries.

Salvador turned around to indicate another door. "Across the hall was his room." That door too was wide open and similarly arranged. Dris crept toward it with longing. The sheets that covered the furniture in there were yellow with age and coated over with a much thicker film of dust. "You can stay in there if you like," Salvador suggested.

The bard pulled away from the door as if struck. "I... I don't know," he said, looking back at the boy. Oddly enough, Salvador smiled at him.

"Go on," said the boy. "I won't be sleeping anyway."

"You won't?"

"I can't," he amended. "Not this time of year." The smile was gone from Salvador's face as quickly as it had risen. He looked somber, then, forlorn. Not for the first time in their odd relationship, as a strange and uncomfortable family, Dris wished that he could sense him the way he could others, that he could feel what the boy was feeling.

"Well, if you're sure..." Dris had to admit to himself that the curiosity was overwhelming. This was the house that Carmine had grown up in, the house the bard had never seen nor really been told much about. This was the room that Carmine had grown up in. In there somewhere were some of his things, from his childhood. What had the boy bear been like, he wondered.

"Go ahead and look around," Salvador told him, stepping away. "I'm heading into town to get some things. For breakfast. You'll need to eat."

Dris turned quickly to protest further wonder. "What about you?"

Stopping a moment, Salvador turned back to smile wanly. "I don't eat either," he told him. "Not this time of year."

The bard couldn't help feeling a little sad for him. "It must be terrible for you," he said softly.

Salvador shrugged, uncaring. "It's been better this year than others," he confessed. "I manage." Seeing the way the bard was wringing his hands anxiously, he relieved him by gesturing again to the open door of Carmine's old room. "Go on. I'll be back before you know it." And without sticking around for any confirmation, the boy turned and continued back down the hall they had come, to the stairs and down them.

Normally, Dris couldn't stand being alone. That was actually his number one fear in all the whole wide world. No, in all the multiverse. He didn't want to be alone, ever. He never slept well in a bed by himself. But just now, he figured he could use a bit of time to himself. He felt wrong enough stepping over the threshold and into that long disused room to nose about. But even though the boy hadn't said as much openly, he was right. Dris was curious. What more was there to learn about his dead lover in this place? What had he never known? With that in mind, he bravely moved forward to investigate.

[Delahada]

At the bottom of the stairs, Salvador stepped into an alcove and set down his duffel bag. Digging through it, he found a black button up shirt that he had pilfered out of Sin's closet back at home. He took the time to change out of his tee-shirt and into that, then shrugged his jacket back on.

Making himself look even marginally more presentable was not something that Salvador Delahada did often. Sure, he still had on his loose fit jeans and those beat up boots with no laces, but the dress shirt was an added touch that was unfortunately necessary. He had lied a little bit to Dris. Yes, he was going into town to buy some groceries so that the bard had something to eat during their stay, but he had other plans as well.

It was a long walk back into the main provinces of Barcelona, and even farther to his other more secretive destination. One of the few things he had purchased in Spain for himself was hidden away in the old stables of the property. Leaving through a side door of the mansion, he headed there to uncover it from its tarp.

Salvador didn't make much money for himself working for the sinner. If he did, he hardly asked for any of it at all. Ambrosio Enterprises had a bank account secured just for him, and every so often he took out a little bit here and there. Most of what he withdrew went toward spoiling Sin, such as buying all those dogwood tree saplings for his birthday. But once upon a time, here in the old country, he had bought himself a motorcycle.

Fortunately, the tank was still mostly full of gas. Though the old beast rumbled angrily at its disuse throughout the year when he started it, the machine was still operational. It would still get him where he needed to go. He wondered, for a fleeting moment, if Dris had even heard him roaring out of the drive.

There was a big old church somewhere in the countryside, on the other side of the city. That church was a monastery and sanctuary for the more devout of the Catholic church. It was the convent where his grandmother now lived, and it was one of two places he always visited when he came to his ancestral mother land this time every year.

The nuns of course disapproved of his choice in transportation, just as much as they disapproved of the inky black mar on his face and his usual choice of attire. But they were disgustingly courteous and polite beneath their habits and shawls. He greeted the Mother Superior at the door with just a nod when she acknowledged him. "Young master Gonzalez," she said tartly. "We've been expecting you."

Of course they had. He rolled his eyes at that remark but said nothing. Three years ago he had introduced himself to her. Every year since then he had been back. It took them no time at all to realize the occasion. "This way," she told him pointlessly. Turning aside, she led him down the same uniform corridors and up the stairs to the second level where his grandmother waited in her room.

"She still does not speak to us," said the Mother Superior conversationally. "She speaks only with God now. I wonder if your presence does her more harm than good." Though they disapproved of his coming, always, the sisters never shooed him away. He had no comment to ease their discontent, never then and not even now. He only followed in silence.

Enriqueta Molinero had, perhaps, been a beautiful woman in life. She certainly wasn't dead now, but she might as well have been. She looked older than was true to her years. She looked ninety where she was only in her early seventies. She was a small husk of a woman who sat frail and forlornly in a simple wooden chair looking out through a single window. Her room was just as barren as the rest of her, just as wrinkled and old.

Her nun's attire was sad and graying, not much unlike the hair under her habit, which was brittle and short now. He knew only from the lack of strands trying to sneak out of their pins. Her eyes had once been green, he had been told. They looked too dull to be as bright as he was told his father's had been, hers now much too vacant.

His grandmother only sat in her chair, staring out the window with her rosary clutched in her lap. The beads glinted in the sunlight that cut through the overcast and shined upon her body. Just like the last few times he had visited, the past couple of years, he stood outside the door looking in, wonder if he should even bother her at all. It took him several minutes to come to a decision, and eventually look at the Mother Superior with a gracious nod. "Thank you," he said quietly, and with that she left him.

Salvador stepped cautiously and quietly into the room, feeling like a boy disturbing his grandmother while she was knitting. But there were no balls of yarn here, in her room. There was nothing but the small bed tucked against the wall, a writing desk, and the chair he always found her sitting in. The bed was made, just as it always was when he visited, and not for the first time he wondered if she ever even used it. He wondered if all she did was spend all her time staring out that window, sitting in her chair.

Shutting the door gently, he turned back and crossed to the bed. He seated himself gently on the edge, facing her, and stared at her wrinkled, sad face for some time. Clasping his hands together, he bent forward and put his elbows on his knees, bowing his head. "He'd be forty-nine tomorrow," he told her quietly.

Just as always, she did not respond. Not verbally. Not really even physically. Enriqueta continued only to stare out that lonely window, onto the grounds of the monastery. Though subtly her hands tightened around the beads of her rosary, with as much scarce strength as she was capable of using.

"I brought him with me this time," Salvador said quietly, bowing his head shamefully further to put his forehead on his knuckles. "His lover. The one you never met. Not my mother. As I told you, she's long dead."

That was a lie, of course, but he had never had the heart to tell her the truth. He couldn't imagine she would have understood anyway. Rhy'Din was different. The strange and unusual existed there in abundance. Here, in Spain, in the mundane world, an Earth not too much unlike the reader's own, things were decidedly not the same.

"This time it's good-bye for good," he told her. "I'm not sure I'll be coming back again, but the house..." He had never really ever felt attached to any property before. Not until the sinner had bought the one they lived in now. "You should tell me what to do with it." Stupidly hopeful, he lifted his head to look at her, expecting her to say something for once, but she didn't.

Salvador sighed and sat up, scrubbing a hand over his face miserably. "Should I sell it?" he asked. "Can I sell it?" Dropping his hand to his knee with a limp slap, he frowned. "It's not even mine. Never was mine. But it's just sitting there, rotting away." Lifting his hand off his knee, he gestured impatiently at her, still frowning. "Like you."

Restless as always, agitated, he pushed up off the bed and paced behind her chair. "He came to see you too," he told her. It was the same script every year. He always told her that, to let her know that he knew, even if she wasn't listening. "Every time he came to put flowers on her grave. Their graves. But there won't be anyone to put any flowers on any graves after me. It ends with me, Grandmother. It's over when I'm gone. Maybe before that. I don't know."

He turned to look out the window over her head. What did she stare at all the time? Nothing that was actually physically there, he thought. Her eyes were always so vacant, so introspective. She was lost in her own head. Maybe she was with God, even now, though her body remained here and her heart was still beating.

She was always so still and silent, that when she actually moved he thought for sure he was hallucinating. The clatter of her rosary beads made him jump back a step and he stared in wonder at her outstretched arm, her pointing finger. He turned his head to look at the foot of her simple bed. There was a dull old trunk there. He blinked at it stupidly for a good long moment before moving over to it and crouching to open the lid.

The rosary clattered again as her hand withdrew to clasp again with the other in her lap. Salvador looked into the contents of her foot locker. There wasn't much there. A few changes of the same simple clothes, black and white. A prayer book and an extra bible that wasn't quite as worn as the one on her writing desk. He felt sullied and inappropriate digging through her things, but only at the bottom did he find the box that he suspected she sent him searching for.

Salvador pulled the shoebox up out of the base of the chest and closed the lid. Stepping back around to the side of the bed he sat down and put the box on his lap. "This?" he asked, looking at her. He took her slow and silent blink as an affirmative and looked back down, lifting the lid.

Inside the box was a collection of letters and documents. All of them were neatly folded and bound in string. Many of the letters were addressed to the monastery, addressed to her newer and more Godly name. The script was his father's hand, he knew in an instant. There were some written in a different handwriting that he didn't know at all without touching, without letting himself feel out the memories. Some of these letters were from his aunt, Esmeralda, whom he had never met. Fewer still were from his grandfather, again someone he had never known. "He wrote to you," he realized. She didn't respond, but she didn't need to.

Underneath all the letters was another document bound in folded leather. He took that one out from the bottom of the box and uncoiled the leather chord that held it all together. Opening it up, he realized immediately what was in his possession. "The deed to the house," he whispered in awe. She had had it all this time!

The rosary beads clattered again, and he looked up in time to see that she had turned her hand over. Blinking stupidly, he set aside the box and leaned forward to put the deed in his grandmother's hand. She let it slide under her knuckles, onto her lap, and turned her hand again to point to the writing desk. There was a pen there; he picked it up and handed it to her.

In a gnarled old and shaking hand, Enriqueta Molinero wrote something into the margin at the bottom of the page. Her handwriting was slow and certain, and the words not completely legible, but clear enough to get the message across. She shakily closed up the leather casing, wound the chord around the plug, and tucked her hand underneath it when she was done. For a long moment, Salvador only stared at it, then he realized that he was meant to take it from her lap, and so he did.

"You want me to get it notarized?" he asked. The old woman blinked slowly, and again he took that as an affirmative.

All her worldly possessions were meant to have been left behind when she had taken up service to God, he knew. That was the way of things. They should have been given up to charity, given away, forgotten. But here and even now, the last link of his human family still lived in a lie. Or she had been doing so, until today. "But what am I to do with it?" The only answer she gave was the pen slipping out of her lap and clattering to the floor.

Salvador sighed, leaning to pick the pen up and put it back on the desk. Frowning, he looked down at the deed in his hand and opened it back up just to make sure. He realized, taking a closer look at the document, that it wasn't just a deed. And what his grandmother had written in the bottom margin wasn't exactly what he had expected either. All she had done was sign her name. Looking closer, he noticed that this was her last will and testament, that she was giving everything to him.

There was his name, somewhere amidst all the legal jargon. Salvador Delahada Azar-Gonzalez. With a mention of him being her grandson, her only living heir. She wasn't only giving him the house, but her entire fortune. There were notations of bank accounts full of more money than he had ever imagined existing. The house, the grounds, the whole property, and all the money. It didn't seem right. It made him uncomfortable just holding this document in his hand.

The name of the bank was a watermark at the top of the page. There was the name of the person who had put this document together. It was a little different from the standard last will and testament. Another signature at the bottom of the document belonged to the Mother Superior, testifying that Enriqueta Molinero had given herself to God and therefore given up all she had ever owned. She needed nothing of her old life. She had God, and that was all she needed now.

But there was also the box full of letters. Salvador folded up the document and looked to the box beside him on the bed. "And these?" he asked before looking back at her. "Should I take them too?" The old woman blinked again, so slow and tired.

Nodding, the boy put the leather bound document into the box, closed the lid, and picked it up with him when he stood. "I... Thank you, Grandmother," he said quietly. Expecting no further response, he didn't even look back at her. "I'll try to do right. I'll do what should be done." Though he wondered why she had waited three years to hand it over to him. Why hadn't she just given it all away to charity? Then he remembered a glimpse that he had nearly overlooked.

The original name on the document had been Carmine Enrique Molinero-Gonzalez. She had scratched it out at some point and replaced it with his own. She had meant to give it all to his father, not him. Closing his eyes and bowing his head, he said, softly, "I'm sorry." There was nothing left for him to do then but to leave. She didn't say anything to him at all.

[BardGallant]

Crossing the threshold over from hall to sitting room, Dris felt as if he were stepping out of one life and into another that had never been his own. For all that the mansion was abandoned, and dust had settled in thick layers along all the floors and covered furnishings, it had been kept well enough to avoid cobwebs in the doorways. Regardless, the bard felt as if he had walked straight through one. The memories that came with that first step were just as oppressive.

"Some day, my song-bird, I will leave you..."

Not long after their first year together, Carmine had said those words to him. For it was only after that first year, of adventure and gallivanting, that they had dared to admit to each other how they felt for one another. A year of playing pirates, mercenaries and charlatans. A year of a partnership that had remained undefined as strictly business. After that year, everything had changed.

In the late night hours, when they had exhausted themselves on each other, lay awake together in a curl of naked limbs, they had talked. They had gotten to know each other better as people, as lovers as well as friends. Many, many times their nights ended with Carmine whispering those words in his ear. Never had Dris believed him. He had chalked it up to doubt, to the fear of being exposed for what they really were.

Business partners had remained a front for them for thirteen very long years. During the off seasons, when they weren't out hiring themselves as escorts, brigands, thieves, mercenaries, entertainers and all around scoundrels, Carmine lived with them in his sister's house. Deirdre and the closer members of his family had really been the only ones who had known their secret, the only ones who had approved. In those thirteen years, he had become family.

Carmine had helped him raise his daughter Arienh. She had been four when the Spaniard had met her, and she took to him instantly. Of all the children living in that house, she had been the only one to approach him fearlessly. Deirdre's own, Dris's nieces and nephews, had hugged the walls, gaping. It was no surprise. At six foot five and well over two hundred pounds, Carmine had always been an intimidating, fearsome man upon first meeting. It was something he had always used to his advantage when a potential job came their way, and even on the job when they secured it.

The long years went by happily. Some nights the big bear would whisper that promise, that threat, in his ear before they both dozed off to sleep. Dris had only smiled, disbelieving, and dreamed of an eternity in the man's arms. Then, Arienh turned seventeen, and she asked to be sent away, to enroll in a magical academy, so she could learn to be a wizard. After that, the world turned cold and gray. After that, Carmine made good on his promise, and one morning Dris had woke up alone in their bed.

At first he thought that Carmine had only got up before him. The morning sun was rising high and noon was well on its way. Dris had a penchant for sleeping in late when he could get away with it. The house had been bustling with noise already; he could hear Deirdre's kids laughing and screaming in the back yard, already at play. He suspected he'd find Carmine downstairs in the kitchen, keeping his sister company with idle conversation, likely even helping her prepare the day's lunch. The Spaniard had always been an amazing cook.

When he went down to find out, however, there had been no Carmine. His sister hadn't seen him, she said. As the day grew long, the worry and the panic settled in. Dris hadn't been able to sleep comfortably or restfully for the weeks to follow. The nights haunted him with Carmine's words whispering in his ear.

"Some day, my song-bird, I will leave you..."

With no Carmine and no Arienh, depression claimed him. Deirdre eventually had to kick him out. It was her last resort. She sent him away, furious. Dris had nowhere else left to go but the road again. The road led him back to Rhy'Din. Where time stood still. Yet for him nearly twice a decade had passed. He had aged, whereas those he had left behind had remained the same.

Such was the nature of the Nexus. So many people from so many different walks of life, time periods and worlds, crossed paths in Rhy'Din. He didn't belong in his Earth anymore, not without Carmine at his side. Remembering the old days of debauchery and fun, he tried to find a new life again. He had found Valleana Camale. He thought he could make a life with her. Thought he could start over again. Three years had gone by and Carmine had not come back to him. He had given up and picked her as his last resort.

Then, on one fateful February evening, at the Red Dragon Inn... Fate either smiled upon him or cursed him. Back then, six years ago, he thought for sure it was smiling. His relationship with Vall had become rocky and uncertain. Just as things were looking grim, he saw a ghost sitting at the bar, heard a ghost speak his name. Time stood still again. There was Carmine.

Dris had nearly fainted. He hadn't been able to recover even while sitting face to face across the same table with him. He hadn't been able to look away for fear of the man vanishing on him again. He had to touch him to ensure himself that he was really there. Even afterward, when Ariana, his adopted second mother, came to join them, he hadn't been able to look away for long. At that time, Carmine had told him something that even now rang out in his head, here in this old mansion, as he moved slowly through the shrouded sitting room of the apartment that had been the boy bear's when he was growing up.

"You deserve the truth. It is just hard. Time... I will tell you."

It wasn't until two months later that the Spaniard finally got around to telling him. Though it hadn't happened here, he could hear it, feel it, remembered it as if he were there again now. In his imagination the old, dusty apartment turned itself into the city streets of Rhy'Din as they were walking away from the Silver Moon Inn.

In the two months since they had reunited, they had indulged in some very serious conversations. One of which pertained to the bard's fear of turning into his father. Of becoming an alcoholic and dying of a ruined liver. Though he was certain that, unlike his father, if he were to die it wouldn't be unloved and forgotten. The people of Rhy'Din adored him, Dris; he had more friends than he could count, often too many. As the years went by he found himself having the damnedest time remembering names! He knew too many people.

"Now, Sheridan I am in a serious mood. We are clearing the air would you not say so?"

"Aye."

"In that vein there is something I have to tell you, been wanting to tell you. I suppose you have even been wondering about it."

Even now, he could feel the old bear's strong arms around him as they had been that day. At some point he had drifted through the sitting room and into the mercenary's old bedroom. There waited a four poster bed with a high canopy and heavy drapes, likely designed to block out the sun should he have ever slept in too late.

A large walk-in closet nestled on the far side of the room, door open and racks bare. Boxes lined the walls, though. Likely whatever had hung there once had been carefully packed away with moth balls.

Tall windows lined the exterior wall, looking out onto valleys and treetops of the forests beyond the property's line. He could also see the courtyard and a hedge maze; of course they had a hedge maze. A marble terrace led out from the doors below, from whichever room of the estate was under this one, and a short flight of stone stairs led down to the lawn. Even from up here the lawn looked sadly neglected, with tall yellow grasses that could have used a trim years ago. As Salvador had told him, perhaps even a decade.

Dris closed his eyes to the pale gray light of overcast skies and remembered.

Sliding an arm back around to press a hand to Carmine's chest, he pushed away slightly. Liquid blues focusing hesitantly on those too intense greens. "Aye... Every day. Since the day you left even until now with every day I wake up to. Was it something I did? Didn't do? Sometimes... I wonder ... if that was it."

"No, no. It was not you at all. And there is not a day that passes that this happened..." His gaze was steady and deep. "It was something I promised another I would do before I even met you. A mess involving my sister, her intended, and my family. She made me promise that if she was ever to be married to a man she did not want, I would help her escape that fate. And she made me swear not to tell anyone. Not anyone, not even you." The old bear paused then and glanced skyward for a moment, eyes distant with the memory. "Bad things happened."

Then he remembered, too, what Salvador had just recently told him. The boy had seemed so unmoved by his brief commentary on the subject. He had been so taciturn about it, as if what had happened here had been no big deal. Though he didn't know the details completely, just trying to imagine it made Dris shudder.

He had felt it when he first stepped onto the property. This whole damn place was haunted with oppression and sadness. Shivering, the bard wrapped his arms around himself and stepped back to sink onto the foot of Carmine's old bed. A pathetic swirl of dust wheezed out of the heavy blankets and sheets, then spiraled down to settle on the floor depressingly.

Dris had been surprised that day to learn that Carmine's sister had even known about him. Though the mercenary had informed him that his sister hadn't known his name. She probably hadn't even known her brother's lover was a man.

"She knew of you, but not all the details. I kept your existence rather private."

Looking around the room, he had to wonder. Dris still felt completely unwanted even though there had been no one but the mercenary's son to invite him in. If Carmine's family were still alive now, how much of an outrage would his presence be? He could imagine, based on what the old bear had told him that day.

"My father was a merchant baron. As such we were in the public eye. Hell, my father even knew the queen. Would you believe that?" The mercenary frowned then. "He was a very traditional man. So was my mother. Very religious too. They would not have liked you, I fear. Father especially."

His expression spoke his being impressed without him saying a word. Then with that, his brows furrowed, jaw clenched. "Our fathers were very much alike." That murmured so as not to steer him away from telling him the rest of it.

Carmine only nodded. "Sí, they were. And now you know why I understand where you come from. When I learned I liked men as much as women, if not more, I had to keep that a secret. Nobody knew. Not even Esmeralda."

"Is... she all right now? Is she safe?" A beautiful name, he had to wonder if Carmine's sister was just as lovely as her brother. For lack of a better word.

"No. She is dead." That said in as flat a tone as if an anvil just rained down from the sky. "The rat bastard found her in spite of my efforts and beat her to death. I killed him." Just as flatly.

The next words that infiltrated the bard's reminiscing thoughts were not ones that had been spoken, but written in a messy scrawl of handwriting that would have even made a doctor's script look neat and tidy.

It was my hand that killed him.

Like father, like son, Dris thought grimly. And he remembered something else the mercenary had told him that day which stabbed just as closely to home. How alike the boy and his father had been. Maybe Carmine had been touched by some of that hereditary madness after all.

"After that happened....I just sort of lost it. Forgive me for not returning. I just could not face anyone or anything."

Was that how Salvador had felt? He wondered. Was that why it had taken him so long to even write Dris that letter? The boy hadn't been able to tell him in person. All Salvador had told him was that Carmine was dead. He had never gone into the details as to the how or the why. But even though Dris had never been capable of feeling his emotions, he had seen the guilt too clearly in those eerie rust-colored eyes.

That night, Dris has asked Icarus to burn the house down. 213 Merchant Street had too many memories locked inside its walls for even the bard to bear living with anymore. Some time shortly after he had found out Carmine was dead, a part of him had died inside as well. Everything that had made them Dris and Carmine existed in that house, and the bard wanted nothing more to do with it. Without questioning his brash decision, the half-dragon had done as asked and reduced the house to smoldering ashes.

Icarus had never questioned anything Dris had ever done or asked him to do. The half-dragon had never asked him to be what he could not be. Monogamous, for one. Sober, for another. Sitting here in Carmine's old room, the bard felt that pang of guilt rising again. All those years he and Carmine had been together, all the love he had felt for the old bear over any other. Though he'd been in any number of beds with any countless number of people, male and female, always his heart had belonged to Carmine, and now...

Was it possible, he wondered, to love someone else just as strongly again? Was it right? He felt sullied trying to even come to terms with it inside himself. His heart was still bruised and aching, and he wondered how long it would take to fully mend.

"Oh, love," he heard Icarus whispering to him, as gently and sweetly as the night a week ago when those words had first been said. "Y'ain't getting old.. we've got plenty of years of adventure left in us. Plenty of wandering, plenty of pretty girls and handsome men.. and if you want me beside you for it.. Dris, I'd be-- I'd be honored." He'd be happy. So damned happy, in his own stupid ways.

And maybe, thought Dris hopefully, guiltily, he could be happy too.

[Delahada]

Salvador left the nuns at the convent with a final word that he wasn't likely to be back again. In his hand he still held the leather folded document with his grandmother's signature inside. The Mother Superior had only to glimpse it to know his reasons why.

Stowing the box of letters into the compartment in the back of the motorcycle, as well as the forms that passed all his family's possessions over to him, he headed into town with more weighing on his mind than he would have liked. There was still the matter of buying a few groceries, which really took no time at all. Getting the document approved was going to be another matter entirely, and he figured that could wait until the end of the weekend, before they left on Monday, if even that soon.

One major problem he had with that agenda was the fact that Salvador Delahada had no formal identification. He had no birth certificate. The passport he had was a forgery, but nobody needed to know that. Ambrosio Enterprises had always been generous in its resources to its employees. It also helped that he was banging the boss. He knew that to get any of this officially approved that he was going to have to talk to Marcus, and that didn't settle well with him any better than the next obstacle in his way when he returned to his family's estate.

Dris was nowhere to be seen, which wasn't entirely too surprising. He figured the man was still upstairs, probably crying all over the sheets of Carmine's old bed. Though he didn't hear any weeping and wailing echoing through the mansion when he came back in through the side door that led down a few short steps into the enormous kitchen.

There was no electricity in the house. Not even any running water. He had to do with filling up a cooler with ice and putting the perishables in there. Fortunately the house was so old that the stove still had a wood burning compartment, and at least the vents were clean enough to avoid burning the whole place down. Though he conjured up the idea, briefly, of letting that happen anyway. It would save him a whole lot of time and trouble in the long run.

"Boy," said a stern, booming and authoritative voice behind him. Salvador, actually startled, though he should have been expecting it, jumped with a hissed expletive and turned to scowl at a ghost.

In life, Francisco Cristián Gonzalez had been a powerfully large and imposing man. There was no question where his son, Carmine, had gotten his height and his girth from. Much like his son, even as a ghost, the man stood nearly six and a half feet tall with broad shoulders and a wide waist. He had a sort of blockish build with strong thighs and biceps. Though were Carmine had been graced with a kindly face, Francisco had the sort of sharp-edged features that made a man look naturally sinister. It helped that his eyes were always shrewdly pinched together as if not a soul on God's green Earth had ever been worthy of his trust, let alone respect.

The first time that Salvador had come to the estate three years ago, when he had buried his father in the family crypt on the grounds, he had encountered this ghost. Every year since then he had encountered him as well. And every year since then he had been desperately hoping, just like today, that he wouldn't have. Even as a ghost, he hated the man with every fiber of his being. "Grandfather," he said as politely as possible through the skin of his tightly clenched teeth.

In life, Francisco Cristián Gonzalez had been an impeccably dressed man at all times. The moment of his death had been no exception, despite the circumstances, and even as a ghost he cut a fine and fearsome figure of a man. He wore only the finest tailored suits with glinting cuff links and expensive ties. Though in death, as a ghost, there was a dark stain on his shirt and vest, a forever imprint of the wound that had ended him.

"Boy," said the ghost, repeating himself in a sneering, up-turned nose fashion. Francisco did not seem to notice the stain on his clothes. He lifted his spectral hand, which to him likely seemed so very solid and cold still, inspected his fingernails and sniffed derisively. "Who is that man in my house?"

Salvador looked to the ceiling as if he could see straight through it to the upper levels. The boy had never told his grandmother the truth of Dris's relationship to his father. Though his more sadistic side giggled gleefully, inside, at the notion of upsetting his grandfather's ghost entirely by telling him, he knew it would only lead to more headaches. It was irritating enough that he could see the man, as a lingering memory that refused to rest in piece. "A friend, Grandfather," he said with strained respect. "Someone who knew Father."

The ghost scowled as if he could sense the lie, as if he knew. "It appalls me that you insist on calling me that," said Francisco's ghost. "Father. Your father, I suspect. Who do you mean?"

Salvador sighed, pinching the bridge of his still bruised nose. They had gone through this several times already. Twice now in the past three years. "Carmine, Grandfather," the boy grumbled. "Your son. My father."

"My son had no children," the ghost argued petulantly. "My son was a disgrace. A dishonorable wretch who should have never been born. Insulting enough that his mother managed to sway me into naming him her choice." Francisco's ghost turned aside to pace alongside the kitchen island. "He should have had a stronger name, a more masculine name! Not ... Carmine," he sneered.

"Grandmother liked music," Salvador said gently, turning aside. There were still things that needed putting away while his spectral grandfather bitterly prowled around the kitchen.

"Yes, she did," said the ghost. "Music and parties. She always liked to entertain with grand spectacles. No business in it, I tell you, as I've told her a thousand times. Such occasions are all right for making new contacts, but she never invited anyone new! Always the same old boorish fools who wouldn't have known an opportune investment if it had struck them in the face and announced it was what it was." The ghost stopped pacing and turned to look at him. Salvador could feel the cold, suspicious eyes boring into his back. "Where is Enriqueta anyway?"

"Gone, Grandfather," Salvador sighed. They had gone over this before as well. That was the trouble with ghosts. Most of them weren't aware of the fact that they were dead. Especially the viciously stubborn ones like Francisco Cristián Gonzalez. The boy informed him yet again of the convent she had joined, and added on, "After you died."

The ghost of Francisco flickered a moment in stunned silence. They never liked it when you told them they were dead, either. It never seemed to sink in the right way. Many ghosts were prone to violent rages, and the stronger ones, like Francisco, were capable of causing real damage in the whole and physical world. "Died," he repeated dully.

"Yes, Grandfather," said the boy cautiously. "You're dead." He braced himself for an explosion. The last time he had been here, last year, and reminded Francisco of that fact, the ghost had upended several shelves of books in the study. Salvador had spent the better part of his day, then, picking everything up and tossing out a broken end table.

On the plus side, Francisco remembered him. The fact that he addressed him in the same condescending fashion when he appeared testified to that. Though he still seemed to be having trouble accepting the fact that Salvador was his grandson. Even with this being the third time he had told him that Carmine was his father. "And my son is dead too," the ghost recalled vacantly.

"That's right, Grandfather." Salvador sighed relief when it didn't appear as if any tantrums were going to ensue. "He's been dead three years now. Tomorrow's his birthday."

"And you've come again," said the ghost of Francisco, pointing a thick finger at him. "To pay your respects." The ghost turned and looked around, as if searching for something, someone. "Where is he, then? If I'm still here, where is he?"

"I don't know, Grandfather," said Salvador sadly. "Somewhere better, I hope."

"You're a sentimental fool like he was, boy," said the ghost, scowling. He turned back to settle his extremely disapproving gaze on the boy. "His bastard son, aren't you? The seed he dropped on some filthy whore?"

That was the lie. Though in life he had never met his grandfather, and Carmine had never told him for that same reason, that was the lie he had informed the ghost of the first time he had come. When he had buried his own father here. The same lie he had told his grandmother when introducing himself to her. The comfortable lie that made more sense to mundane minds who had never stepped foot in places like Rhy'Din. The only lie that a devout Catholic would have ever believed. The truth was just completely unacceptable. "That's right, Grandfather," said Salvador through his clenched teeth. "Salvador Delahada. You remember."

"At least she gave you a good and proper name," grunted the ghost. "Though the surname is suspect." Given that in translation it meant quite literally 'of the fairy,' and the fact that it was actually the boy's middle name, there was no arguing that. Salvador had dropped his family name some time ago. He never felt as if he belonged as part of this bloodline. The way the ghost of his grandfather treated him only bolstered his resolve in doing so, dropping his family name.

"I'd argue the first name's just as suspect," muttered the boy sullenly. For his first name meant 'savior,' and he still failed to see how he was that for anyone or any reason. Most especially not the fae.

The ghost of Francisco Cristián Gonzalez either did not hear him or disregarded the statement entirely, as even the dead nobility had a habit of doing. Enough time in a few short seconds had passed for the ghost to turn aside again, contemplating, searching for someone or something. He turned back to look at the boy and asked, again, "Boy. Who is that man in my house?"

Salvador sighed, slumping back against one of the many long counters in the enormous kitchen. "A friend, Grandfather," he repeated. "Someone who knew Father."

"Sal?" At this point, Dris had stuck his head in from the hall leading up to the next level. He came creeping cautiously down the short row of steps that led up into the dining room. The house was so old and so nearly empty that it was likely the bard had heard him talking, had followed the trail of his singular voice through the dusty corridors. "Who're you talking to?"

The boy looked around the scowling ghost of his grandfather and smiled crookedly at Dris. "Nobody, Dani," he said reassuringly. He flicked a glance to the ghost of Francisco Cristián Gonzalez and was relieved to note that he was no longer there. "Just the walls," he added, looking back to the bard. "Myself."

Dris was rubbing his left arm, high up on the bicep, in that uncomfortably chilled sort of way that people do when they sense a spirit but can't actually see them. The bard was one of those lucky many who couldn't see ghosts, couldn't hear them or talk to them. Only Salvador Delahada, with his fae eyes, was cursed with that ability between them. "Sounded like you were talking to somebody," murmured the bard uncertainly.

"It was nobody," Salvador reassured him, turning aside with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Are you hungry? There's not much that'll keep without the icebox working. No electricity or anything, but I can make you something with what I've got. A sandwich, at least. Tomorrow I'll make you an omelette if you want."

"A sandwich would be great," the bard said politely, still uncertainly. Creeping further into the expansive kitchen, he explored a new room in speculative near silence. Though wherever Dris was, there was never silence. Never for long. "I didn't know you could cook. Your father was a great cook, you know."

"I know," said Salvador. "I got that from him." He broke out the bread and cut the loaf into a few slices. While the bard shuffled around the dusty kitchen, he fixed him up a hearty sandwich of cold cut meats and sliced cheeses. A bit of lettuce from a bag, sliced tomato and dressing. It made the boy's stomach roil a little jealously. Silently he told it that in another week he'd be able to eat something like this too.

The bard completed his circuit of wandering and made his way to the center island. There he dusted off the surface with the cuff of his sleeve and considered sitting down on an available stool. "Could've sworn I heard you talking to somebody," he murmured questioningly.

Salvador only smiled quietly to himself, with his back turned to the man, and finished preparing his late night meal. He didn't have the heart to tell him. He wasn't sure if telling him would only make him even more uneasy or lead to a barrage of a hundred more uncomfortable questions. So he said nothing. He only turned with that same crooked smile, sandwich on napkin since none of the plates were at all clean, and handed it over to the man.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a glimmer of illusion. The ghost of his grandfather was drifting up the stairs, patrolling his estate in death as he had quite often enough in life. Salvador knew this in the same way that he had insight into so many other events of the past. This house had a history. A dark and bloody history. And he had glimpsed it all.

[BardGallant]

December 13, 2009 - 00:01

This bed, Dris thought, is enormous. A man could drown in it!

Suffocate, really, was probably the appropriate word of thought. The bed was a king sized four poster canopy, elevated off the ground so high on its frame that a three tiered step stool sat on the floor beside it. When the bard had first climbed onto the mattress fully, he hadn't imagined that Carmine had ever much needed it. The mercenary had been six foot five and probably could have flopped onto the bed and sprawled without much trouble.

Dris himself was only five-ten, and he was a wiry stick of a man to boot. Having crawled to the middle of the mattress and stretched out all his limbs, he couldn't reach the sides nor the foot without wriggling either which way to do so. The bedding was unmistakably filled with down, and if he rolled to his side the mattress rose up to smother his nose. For all that, it was comfortable, but not comfortable enough for the bard to fall asleep.

The sheets were dusty and so was the comforter. It had probably been a year since they'd been changed, at least. Dris hadn't cared. Wondering about bothering Salvador to ask him where a clean set might be led him to the conclusion that even those were probably moth eaten and riddled with the stink of age.

The whole house had that smell. Carmine's old room in particular. Underneath the layers of grime was something masculine, though. A very faint stink of musky aftershave, or maybe some kind of strong cologne. The years hadn't been able to wash that away entirely. Though Dris found himself wondering when the last time it was the Spaniard had ever slept in this bed.

Rolling to his side, he pushed a hand down on the rising mound of feathers under their cotton binding and closed his eyes. He thought on that mystery, and all it did was remind him of all that was lost to him now. Strangely, these recollections did not hurt so much, but they did fill his heart with a wistful ache that he knew was never going to go away no matter what he tried.

The old clock on the desk had stopped ticking decades ago, he wagered. Before crawling into bed he had tried winding it back up again, but not having a watch of his own made judging the time a might complicated. Sure, the hour was wrong completely, but he could hear the renewed and distant tick of the gears chugging away valiantly.

They had met on the streets of Canterbury some odd twenty years ago, he remembered....



"Hoy, Driscol!" The bellow came from the doors of the tavern and Sheridan sighed over his tankard of ale. His shoulders slumped in resignation. He knew who that oafish voice belonged to, and he also knew at some point this altercation was destined to happen. He had just hoped it wouldn't have happened in his lifetime.

Lifting his head, he squared his shoulders and fashioned up his most charming smile when he turned. Of course, that was probably his first mistake. That very same award-winning smile is what had got him into his recent predicament.

Towering a little over six feet and holding open the double doors with two meaty hands stood Anton Teague. He was one of those classically barrel-chested, rough-cut, muscular meat-heads who did more thinking with his fists than his brain. Anton was blonde from scalp to chest, hair worn long but in a neatly corded off ponytail. For a brief second, along with a quick glance, Sheridan Driscol imagined the likelihood of him being blonde all the way down. Though that momentary lapse was slapped home with the cold hard reminder that he wasn't likely to ever find out, because, well, Anton looked like he wanted to kill him.

"Shoulda known I'd find your sorry, skinny ass up in 'ere," snarled the brawler as he advanced into the room. Behind him came a small army of equally gigantic brutes who had nothing better to do with themselves but follow orders from a bully. There were six of them in total, all told.

"Anton," Sheridan said sweetly. "This is a pleasant surprise. And y'brought some friends I see! Fabulous! Why don'tcha boys join me for a pint, eh?"

Unfortunately, Anton wasn't having any of the bard's cheerful generosity. As soon as the man crossed the distance between them, he grabbed up a handful of silk shirt and hauled Sheridan up off his stool to the point of which his feet were no longer capable of touching the floor. "You buggered my sister," Anton seethed. The man's breath was hot and rancid in the bard's face. It took all his doing not to turn his head and choke. "And t'boot," added the man, "you got her bloody pregnant!"

"Oh," said Sheridan, not seeing precisely how yet he was going to get out of this predicament. "Oops?"

And that's when Anton hit him in the face. Thick knuckles crashed against the sharp curve of his cheek bone, and for a good twenty seconds Sheridan Driscol lost all sense of what was up, down, near and far. The world rocked blurry before his star-studded eyes. He was pretty sure he landed on the floor after a beat, but then was lifted off of it when something hit him in the gut. If he had a second to guess on it, he would have wagered on a shoe.

There were voices babbling around his ears. Something akin to what he thought might have been the pub owner demanding they take it outside. A few gruffly shouted orders from a booming drone that he was pretty sure belonged to Anton. Someone grabbed him by the collar; he was only sure of that because whatever it was choking his Adam's apple up felt like silk. Then he was flying.

The cobbled streets of Canterbury rose up to meet him, and with a strange turn of unexpected sadistic joy the one he hit slapped him around a little too. When he landed, his palms found a few sharp stones to push up against, and then something crushed him chest first right back down onto them. Clear reality splashed in when Anton grabbed him by the hair, jerked his head back, and growled sweet nothings in his ear. "I'm going to ruin that pretty face of yours up so hard that nobody's going to be charmed by you ever again, Driscol."

Sheridan heard a hissing clink of metal being drawn from leather. Then something sharp was pressing up between his legs to tickle against his scrotum. "Just to be safe," added Anton, "I'm going to do away with these too."

"Hah! Neuter 'im, Anton!" cheered one of his gang.

"Better off cuttin' 'im inside out and makin' 'im a lady-boy," suggested another.

"Nah, don't do that," said another. "I 'eard somethin' from a bloke down at the docks. We'd be doin' 'im a favor if we did that." A chorus of jeering laughter followed suit.

Right about now, a couple of things were rolling around in Sheridan's head. The first was: How am I going to get myself out of this? There was also the matter of wanting to keep his manhood in tact, thank you very much, and how distraught his daughter Arienh was going to be when she saw him. Of course, his daughter, the other one, was the reason he was in this mess to begin with.

"Y'know," he wheezed, trying still to push up from the ground. "Anton." Sheridan realized that the pressure holding him down was due to a knee weighted against his spine. "I knocked Lynet up a good four years ago, right? So she ain't pregnant no more, eh? No point in mussin' me up on account of old business now is there?"

That was entirely the wrong thing to say, he discovered, when the brute of a man shoved his head back down to the street so fast and strong that once again the whole world turned topsy-turvy. Blood swam up into his eyes and ears, rolled around for a little bit like a torrent of so much noise, and he was no longer certain what he was hearing anywhere. In the midst of all that red and black uncertainty were other sensations. Something sharp speared him in the inside of his thigh. A barrage of somethings (plural) solid slammed up into his chest and stomach and probably rolled him over onto his back. Then that crushing weight of a hard, bony knee was pressed down on his sternum. He coughed up blood while the world returned to fuzzy focus.

"Sure enough," Anton snarled, "he's a lady-boy." His much closer cadre of gang members tittered and jeered as they loomed over him. "Or he's gonna be when I'm through with him." Sheridan sucked in a gasp and held what little breath he could, going still as a possum when he felt that cold steel touch up between his thighs again.

"Oooh," crooned a seventh, rumbling purr of a voice that even stunned he was certain hadn't been there moments before. "I do not think you will be doing any such thing, hombre." The words were clipped and strongly accented, and seemed to roll off a tympani in punctuated harmonics. That voice sent a shiver down Sheridan's spine.

Six sets of eyes turned, a pair of bodies turning to make room and clear a path as well, to look at the host of this new and invasive voice. Sheridan would have looked himself if he were capable of seeing anything clearly through the curtain of red in his eyes. Blood was oozing into them, or out from them; he wasn't sure.

"Who the f*ck are you?" demanded Anton.

This is my chance, thought Sheridan. Lynet's brother was distracted by this new player on the field. Here he had an opportunity to strike back. Without thinking, he threw up a fist, and for a second he was satisfied that it had connected with something. In the next second, that satisfaction was gone when he felt a python-like crushing strength crack all the knuckles in his hand. He cried out as Anton's meaty, sweaty fingers squeezed the fragile bones, the way a man might crumple up a troublesome missive and toss it aside.

Anton's fist connected with his face again a moment later, sending the back of his skull smacking against the cobbles of the street beneath him. There was a crack and all he saw was a split second of stars flashing through the darkness that followed. A few lingering seconds of noise and feeling told him that the scuffle had escalated, and Anton Teague's body was no longer weighing him down. But the jarring impact of his head hitting street had split asunder any notion he might have further had of getting up. There was nothing to see and soon enough nothing to hear or feel either. Sheridan Driscol simply ceased to be; or had that been the world around him?

[Delahada]

Winter weather was not too terribly unbearable in Barcelona, but the nights could still be cold, especially in a house without central heating or any electricity. Salvador had stoked up the fire in his grandfather's old study some time shortly after Dris went to bed. The hearth glowed warmly and the heat soaked into the expensive flagstones beneath the rugs. As the hours went by, eventually the atmosphere was just comfortable enough for him to unbutton the shirt he had borrowed from Sin and slouch into a relaxed but miserable repose in the armchair on one side of the gold gilded chess table set up against the wall.

In this room, he had removed most of the white sheets covering the furniture and ritualistically added them to the blaze in the fireplace. The yearly groundskeepers were destined to replace them when the visitors were gone at some point. Until then, Salvador decided that so long as he was here he had to at least try to make a sanctuary of some area of the castle, especially since he wouldn't be sleeping.

He had approximately eight hours until sunrise to kill time, and he wasn't looking forward to all the thinking that was going to come from it. Right about now, looking around the large expanse of a dead man's personal sanctuary, he would have almost even entertained the notion of calling out to the ghost and asking his grandfather to keep him company. But sound traveled loudly in old abandoned mansions, and he didn't want to risk the bother of waking Dris up. So he sighed dismally and kept to his silence and solitude.

Two plush, claw-footed arm chairs nestled around the fireplace with a small round table between them elevated to match the height of the armrests. Once, in the past couple of years, he had touched that artifact to get a feel for its past. His grandfather had always sat in the chair to the left and always kept a glass of bourbon on standby on the table. Those two chairs had matching little ottomans that tucked in under the seats, and more often than not his grandfather had, when sitting in that chair, propped his feet up on the one beneath him to warm his feet while he thought.

The chess table was tucked in against the northern wall on the far side of the room. Two low slung fabric armchairs flanked either end of the board. The backs of those chairs were nearly flush with the high walls of bookshelves. An indented little thinker's hideaway, and here his grandfather had equally spent countless hours thinking. Sometimes, when Carmine was still young enough to be impressionable, he and his son had played chess together in this room. Francisco had taught his son Carmine everything he had ever known about the game, and in a strange twist of unexpected tradition, so too had Carmine taught his son.

Salvador pulled out the drawer and squinted at the neatly aligned rows of lighter colored pieces. By memory, some not even his own, he knew this was the side of the table where the white pieces were stored. He plucked out a pawn, lifted it to eye level with his elbow propped on the bowed arm of the chair, and twirled the piece between his fingers. This piece here, son, is called a pawn. The object whispered its historic secrets to him in his grandfather's voice. Salvador frowned and rolled it back into his palm, clutching it there in his fist, and brought his knuckles back to rest against his chin.

Lining this northern wall where he sat to either side of the chess table were heaps and heaps of books on shelves. Those shelves made up the wall, it seemed, with the table itself wedged between them. A window with thick velvety curtains was set in the wall above it. The brush of old memories from this place told him that during the day those curtains were drawn back to let in the light and make it easier to play. But at night only the dim glow of the fireplace, perhaps an oil lamp or two, illuminated anything at all.

On the eastern wall behind him was a long stretch of windows that were likewise shrouded in velvet. A chord at one end could be pulled to peel them open like the curtains on a stage. Just in front of the windows sat an enormous desk, the leather armchair's back to the rising sun whenever it came. Stacks of filing cabinets stood up against the southern wall by the double doors that led out into the side hall that tracked and coiled around to the front foyer. To the other side of those doors, nearer to the hearth, was a wet bar that was still fully stocked. A panel of the wall concealed a hidden door on the western wall that led into another room that was truly his grandfather's sanctuary. Salvador had never gone in that room. The impressions left behind on the framework of the hidden door unsettled him. This house was too full of too many dark and frightening mysteries.

He could hear the sobbing now leaking through the foundations of the walls from upstairs. It must be about near one o'clock in the morning, he thought. The ghost of Esmeralda was up in her room crying, as she always was at this hour. The first year he had investigated and found her praying, transparent, at the foot of her bed, rocking back and forth and holding a dangling, quivering rosary that he could also see clean through. He had tried talking to her that once, but she was a broken record who only irritated him to listen to. Hers was a ghost stuck in time, depressingly not very interactive at all.

By now all the other ghosts would be stirring too, and he wanted nothing to do with them. Most of them were like his dead aunt, completely oblivious to his existence, though he was fully aware of them. They replayed old tracks of the distant past over and over again, following the same depressing paths to their same old morbid demises. None of them ever came in this room, though, except for Francisco on occasion. After crossing paths with him earlier in the kitchen, he wasn't surprised that he didn't see his grandfather now. He was almost a little disappointed, though. Salvador envied the bard for being able to sleep when he couldn't in that moment.

To bide his time, as he almost always did in these such circumstances, Salvador set up the board on both sides of the chess table, pieces black and white, and started up a game with himself. Once or twice in the past few years, he had actually played this game with the ghost of his grandfather. Francisco had not been able to move the pieces himself, of course, except when he was truly frustrated and sent them scattering with a spectral sweep of his hand. When he was calm, however, he had simply cited his moves to the boy and Salvador had moved his side for him. Tonight he played the game with his own ghost, the one that lived inside of him that he struggled to keep in check more often during the autumn months.

This piece here, son, is called a pawn....



"Father? What are you doing?"

Carmine looked up from the chess table in the cozy little study of Driscol Manor, located on 213 Merchant Street in the seedier sections of Rhy'Din. The old bear of a Spaniard smiled when he saw his son. "Ah," he said in the same distant language that was more familiar to them both. "I am playing chess."

The mercenary had arranged the study in this old house much the same way it had been designed for his father back in Barcelona. The walls were lined with bookshelves. There was a cozy fireplace set into northern wall. A couple of plush velvet wing backs sat around a short sofa and coffee table. The southern wall had a writing desk with the chair back to the windows looking out over the room, and on that eastern wall, between shelves, is where Carmine and the chess table sat. The furniture wasn't quite as expensive as the artifacts in his family's old mansion, though. In fact, this room was rather cramped in comparison.

"Chess?" asked Salvador, creeping uncertainly into the room. His attention darted left and right; he was nervous as a mouse daring to step up to a pampered house cat. After a quick examination of his surroundings, he looked quickly to his father and wrung his hands. "What is chess?"

"It is a game, my son." Carmine swept a massive hand out across the strange little grid-like table to indicate the chair across from him on the other side of the foreign little pieces. "Sit. I will show you how it is played, if you like."

Carmine was still a stranger to him in ways. He had only met the man only a few short months before, when they had found him in Madrid, in the old church, under the care of monks and nuns. That life seemed like a distant memory now, as well it should, for it wasn't even honest. That life had been a lie. Only, Salvador hadn't known it then.

The boy crept forward obediently and slithered onto the chair across from the giant of a man and his game. He looked down at the bizarre little pieces, squinting hard at them to determine that some were a lighter shade, likely white or yellow, and the others darker; he couldn't tell what color they might be. Perhaps black, or even brown. They were a strange shade of near-black gray to his eyes. "Chess is a game?" asked the boy, looking up at eyes whose color he could actually see.

His father's eyes were the only eyes of a color he could see. Everyone else had eyes that varied in shades of gray. Some were lighter, others darker. But Carmine's eyes were green. The old bear of a man rumbled a short laugh and nodded. "Yes, son. Chess is a game. Would you like to learn how to play?"

Salvador considered this. Human interaction was still a strange concept to him. Back in the monastery he had been mostly ignored. Only Father Ernesto had ever taken the time to talk to him like he was somebody. That felt like a dream now, here in this house where everything seemed so much more real. Why was that? He didn't know until some time later, months from then.

He had been so timid in those days. People spoke to him, were kind to him. He had been so used to slipping around in places like a shadow, unseen and unheard. Children should be seen and not heard, Father Benedicto had reminded him a dozen painful times before. Even the concept of play was beyond him. Life in the church had been prayer and chores and regular beatings whenever the devil came out of him. The boy blinked owlishly at his father and nodded meekly. "Yes, Father," he said obediently, uncertain of the kindness in the man's smile. Sometimes a smile could be a trick to lure him into a false sense of security, right before a beating came. "I would like to learn how to play. Will you teach me?"

The large man whom he had come to know to be his sire smiled broadly and nodded himself. Then he began to rearrange the collection of pieces around on the grid until there were four rows, two on either side of the board. The darker colored ones were on Salvador's side of the table, and the lighter colored ones were on Carmine's. The front row all looked the same; eight short little pieces with smooth little bulbous tops. The back row had different pieces, most of them in pairs of two, but the center most pair were both different from each other. One had a little cross on its head, the other a crown. "This piece here, son," said Carmine, lifting up one of the front row pieces from his side of the board and holding it between his fingers, "is called a pawn."