[insert title]

[Millicent Grim]

Title: "Shake your fist at the gates saying, 'I have come home now.'" -- Tool

Crazy how it feels tonight
Crazy how you make it all alright, love.

He knew she was coming. As sure as Angel was dead, he knew that she, this pale reflection of his hypnotic muse, was here�

Was home.

With all his preternatural graces, victories, travesties and tragedies� he knew. And thus, he was the dark, sleek, shadow-cat leaning against a wall in the alley as she rounded the corner onto the street. She would never see him coming. She never had, and she never would. Not before, not now, and not in any future left to her or him or them or us or they.

She rounded the corner like a ghost, but he knew she was actually a winter storm. He couldn�t help but cross his arms over his chest�an utterly useless defensive stance for something that sickens the heart and tears at the soul through time and space. If only she had the constitution to become a weapon. So much potential. But really, that was the irony of it, wasn�t it? She wouldn�t hurt a fly or a flower� on purpose. She would lay waste to king and country with not a modicum of cruel intent, and they would thank her as the life�s blood ran thick and crimson into the rocks and rivers. He gave an abrupt exhale that still managed to be silent in the drowsy violets of pre-dusk. He inhaled the sweet and earthy scent of this afternoon�s warm rain as it rose from the puddles on the street. He saw the smile on his lips in the reflection near his shoes. He banished it immediately.

�Crush me�.with those� things you do�� the words slithered to him like a harbinger before the crescendo of battle. Oh Millicent�

He realized then, that she was singing and completely lost to the world. She was wearing an asymmetrical, haute couture coat that was somewhere between Victorian and Armani. Shockingly, it was black. But it was a beautiful, rich black that spoke of fur (thick�lustrous�) and soot (dead). But then it drank the sun light. He thought this an odd effect. Magic? Did she? No, probably not. But it didn�t shine like anything that was�well� a thing. It looked like the liquid afterimage of suede or crepe. For a brief moment he thought that this was like how her voice felt. You wanted to wrap it around you and smother yourself with that intimacy that drank you in, caressed you, even as it whispered to you of weeping. She was always the warm breath against the soft skin beneath your ear. He glanced down at his feet again. He smiled softly to himself, as if he shared a joke with her too buried in secrets to make eye contact while remembering. The smile touched the creature�s eyes. Oh Millicent�

�And I do, for you�anything toooo ohhh�.� How old was that song? He searched his memory while he watched her. She had two fingers of her delicate white hand holding a white earbud in her right ear. He noticed that she wore no rings, she wore no jewelry that he could see whatsoever. The milk and bone (swan and dove) was unbroken. She was a little older, but he could only tell when he looked at her hands. They were more slender and defined. Caresses against a cheek. Tuck a tuft of hair behind your ear. They were less innocent somehow. He tried to place the details that tipped the look of the child she had been into the young woman he saw now. He couldn�t place it, it was like sand through the fingers of memory and time.

�Sitting.� He realized then that she had been walking with her eyes closed. She paused now. �Smoking.� Just� in the music. Her other hand fluttered softly at shoulder height like she was conducting a private orchestra. �Feeling high�.� � or no, of course not. It was her goth girl roots. She was conducting, but she was also starting to dance.

�And in this moment�.ohhh� That voice. It was old and it was young. It certainly came from an old soul. It reminded him of Fiona Apple, but it could sometimes become a little lighter, a bit brighter. She could be more playful and demure. He didn�t think there was a girl he�d met, not in 500 years, who really knew how to turn an ing�nue into a coquette so effortlessly. Not like Millicent Grim. But we digress. If there was a hint of some other voice in her�s, he couldn�t put a finger on it. Fiona was similar enough to cloud the mind. Her wandering arm snaked a little higher into the air. He fondly recalled the masses of black-clad girls winding like boiling serpents in the Sacrifice Club.

��It feels so riiighhhtttt.� She had stopped walking. Whether it was whim or maybe even a brief surfacing of self-consciousness, she pushed the dancing left hand back through her unruly, winter-white tresses. Her hair, now, was a more mature mimicry of her signature look. This was not club going, half dreaded, pig-tail locks�the white hair had been pulled back from her heart-shaped face by two invisible barrettes. Her hair was a bit shorter, but the length was indeterminable as the hair had been crimped and teased. There was something animalistic in that unruliness. He felt she looked a bit more feline than usual. Perhaps it was the makeup (a leonine smoky eye), but the look always finished in her features. The length of her petal-shaped, doll lips in relation to her pert nose were a part of it� also something about the way her hair fell in sheaves at either side of her face. No one would say she looked like a cat, nor that she was going for that look�. but out of the corner of the eye� Well. Just a little. And it suited her. But he couldn�t tell if it made her look more girlish, more sexual, or just more impish. He supposed she could also, very easily, look cruel. Hmm.

�Lovely lady�� the left hand, palm forward, went back to conducting the undertow of the song. Her white fingers danced like snowflakes in an updraft. �I am at your feeeeeeet oooo� The other hand left her ear and splayed three fingers across her lips, the tip of her smallest finger traced the lower of the two. �Ooh god I, want you so, badly�� The winding, dancing hand retreated again (� no, it was not self-consciousness, it was the need to feel something) and slipped back to the nape of her neck and up through her hair-- fluffing out those unruly tresses. He looked away for a moment. Remembering.

Her.

Her voice cast the spell of reflection and dreams.

And I wonder this:
Could tomorrow be
so wondrous as you there sleeping?
Let's go drive 'till morning comes.
Watch the sunrise and fill our souls up.
Drink some wine 'till we get drunk. Yeah!
It's crazy I'm thinking
Just knowing that the world is round
And here I'm dancing on the ground
Am I right side up or upside down?
And is this real or am I dreaming?

When he refocused his gaze on her, she really hadn�t moved much. Her inky coat had fallen open to show the very simple white silk shift she was wearing. For a moment he had thought she wore nothing beneath her coat. White on White on White. Then he thought how this plain silk thing looked like a nightgown more than a dress. It was something more likely to be seen on the body of some wondering, somnambulant, B-movie vampire�s victim. Just cobweb-silk from throat to thigh. He saw collar bones, nipples and hip bones through it. Oh. Millicent.

�Lovely lady�� she crooned. Her left hand lowered from her hair, slipping back around her neck, and took to holding the opposite earbud to her ear. Her other hand, fingers like milky rain, trickled down from her lips to her chin, then down her throat to her silk-wrapped collar bones. �Let me drink you pleaasseeeeeee.� It kept moving down until eventually she wrapped her arm around her ribs, just below her high breasts. She rocked softly to the music in her ears. �I won�t spill a drop no, I promise you.� The music began to sway in her hips. �Lying under ..the spell you cast on meeeeee eeee.� He could hear the hush and mumble of silk on the skin of her thighs underneath her voice. �Each moment, the more ...I love... you.� She had stopped on the edge of a puddle and the sandals (half-Spartan, half-Bowie) that striped her calves in black leather splashed quietly in the warm water. He could smell the scent of her- honeysuckle, myrrh, magnolia� vanilla�. ambergris. He was carried away on those susurrus scents and sounds. Fall leaves. Wet streets. Dragon�s Blood resin. Violence.

Crush me.
Come on. Oh yeahhh!
It's crazy I'm thinking
Just knowing that the world is round
And here I'm dancing on the ground.
Am I right side up or upside down?
Is this real or �or am I dreaming?

Her shoulders undulated and she danced to the interlude. She patted out the rhythm on her stomach sometimes, sometimes a thigh. Her hands traced the perfect story of the music in the air and on her skin and silk. She pressed and traced the liquid cloth against the outline of her figure. She was the music and the siren. But Millicent was also the sea that this would drown you in. He was offhandedly aware that there were passersby. He had naught to worry about, of course. And really (apparently?), neither did she. Women, men, and even the occasional child smiled as they encountered the singing girl. Their steps lightened as they passed her, making room for her, as she washed away their sins and their worries in the fount and chrism of her voice.

It was all an accident. A whim. A street miracle. It was priceless. And so very human.

She started to walk again. He thought for a moment that he saw a sliver of those absinthe coloured eyes, but he couldn�t be sure. She must see to walk, non? �Lovely lady�� she crooned. �I will treat you sweeeeeetly,� his heart began to hurt, like a witch or a spirit was wrapping it up with long nailed and skeletal fingers. �Adore you. I mean. You crush me,� could she crush the glittering, pulsing light out of the center of him with the way her voice caught the song? �And it's times like these� for some reason he was forced to think of the paintings of Vermeer. He thought of light trickling through windows-- illuminating, technical, and prideful. �When my faith I feeeeeeeeeeel ....� But so beautiful. So hypnotizingly surreal. More real than real. He stepped back into the shadows, or tried to. He hadn�t realized how he had already pressed himself back against the bricks of the wall in that dim alley. Had he already tried to flee her? �And I know how I love you.�

He shook his head. It knocked the fog from his senses. But not enough to think twice about stepping into the light of the street after he saw her pass. �Come on.� He exhaled thickly. �Come on.� He traced his eyes down her form. It felt like he was caressing her. Maybe licking her. Maybe strangling her with his eyes. �Baby.�

Perhaps tomorrow, he thought. Besides. He had work to do for the Club tonight.

It's crazy. I'm thinking
Just as long as you're around
And here I'll be dancing on the ground.
Am I right side up or upside down?
To each other we'll be facing
by love, by love, we'll beat back the pain we've found
You know
I mean to tell you all the things I've been thinking deep inside.
My friend,
Each moment the more I love you.

Crush me
Come on.
Baby!
So much you have given, love,
That I would give you back again and again
Oh. Love.
The Meaning. I'll hold you
And please please just let me always...

� Title by Tool.
� The song is �Crush� by Dave Matthew�s. (Gross.)

[Millicent Grim]

Post subject: "Oh, Oh on Borderland we run."

�Wait. I can�t stay here.�

Jonathan had already unzipped her bag and began scattering things around on his bed. He stopped, straightened and looked at her. �What? Why?�

�Jon.� She raised one brow and tilted her face to one side, it was both inquisitive and a little exasperated. It was like the weight of that brow unbalanced her entire head.

�Ok, Ok�� he backed both hands away from the bag and spread his fingers, supplicating and asking for a pause. �I mean. I get that. But �� The next diatribe was all about rapid fire convincing (or maybe the shotgun effect): �I haven�t seen you in years. Where are you going to go? You have a hundred million things to talk to me about. I missed you. This is nuts. Do you really think there�s someplace safer? Some place more private? Eventually they will all know where you are, it�s going to be about being effective about keeping people away. Who do you think is the best at keeping people away? (Or just� keeping people anything?) Hell, I can even think of three people who are. And you know what? They are all here. Here!� Jonathan no longer had to breathe, so he hadn�t. And he talked so rapidly it was alarming. But his eyes glittered. (What colour were those eyes?) And they held the rest of his huge, bright, � and fanged smile.

Had she ever seen his fangs before? She didn�t think so. She imagined that was something they taught in vampire school. Lesson One: Smile only This Much. (Or not at all.)

�I just�� she inhaled slowly �can�t.�

Well. He couldn�t argue with that. They both sighed.

�Ok, Milli,� he said quietly. He had such a gentle touch. It reminded her of before everything had happened to them. That tone made her heart actually ache.

They both took a moment and thought. She pursed her lips. He bit the corner of one.

�Look,� she began, �I still have some time. I should have come back here before I put that thing out. You know.. to catch up and� just be around� but I just... I guess I put it off as long as possible. But this will be the first place anyone looked.� She pursed her lips, �Hell, they may just come here to ask why it wasn�t a Black Hand label release. They may come here to interview Lorne or something. I can�t just be hanging around.�

He thought she was done and began to say something, �But-.�

�And I�m just not into this scene right now.�

��What scene are you into?�

She laughed. They both laughed.

Then it was silent for a little while. �Do you know who bought the loft?�

Jonathan looked guilty. That white brow raised on her face again. �Geh. Milli! Ok, I never sold it.� He threw his hands in the air.

�Wait� What?�

He frowned and then �Hey. If you didn�t even notice the change or lack of change in your bank account who�s really the problem here? I mean really.�

�I don�t think that�s�. Ok, you have a point.�

�I just couldn�t. Besides, do you know who made me the first offer on it?�

��who?�

�Let�s just say you would have �. Just no. They even offered over-market. I couldn�t do it.�

She imagined different people that she hadn�t liked that much dictating to a crew of movers where to put boxes in that big, 3 story room with the windows that she loved.

�Ok.� And then, �Thank you.�

He grinned at her. It was so boyish and bright and truly happy. There was an awkward, poignant silence when he stopped. And she knew it was coming before he moved. Which was good, because she really didn�t see him close the distance between them. He was 3 or 4 feet away and then he was none. She was scooped up in arms and lifted from the ground and hugged roughly and tightly and securely and perfectly. She was all tension but he wouldn�t let her go until she gave in. And she did, eventually. She went soft and supple in his arms and she wrapped her arms around his upper chest and buried her face in his shoulder. She was overwhelmed by the memories of these hugs, just as she was overwhelmed by his very pure emotion (delight and sadness) at seeing her again. All of this caught in her throat. She almost spoke but she realized that whether she wanted it or not, she was going to cry. Millicent was not a crier. She started to become uncomfortable, but Jonathan knew everything so he just let the hug last a little longer while she composed herself. She nuzzled his shoulder and he traveled a shuffling mirage of memories as he breathed in the scent of her hair.

�Ok, Jon. You can put me down.� He dropped her a few inches when he realized that yes, he had picked her up off her feet. Then he lowered her the last few and placed her gently on the floor.

�F***. I missed you.�

�I missed you, too.�

They just smiled at each other for a few more seconds. Then Jon was a flutter of movement. �Ok, Ok, Ok! Let�s get you home.�

�No.�

Of course. Of course it would be no. For all the reasons she already said and a few hundred more. He paused for just a second and then continued gathering up items here and there. �K. Then let�s get you to �.� He thought � �Lars� place and we�ll��

�He�s still alive?�

Jonathan glanced at her over his shoulder. �What? Yes. � Is he not supposed to be?�

�No, I�. I just� I�m surprised by that.�

�I forget. Did you get along with Wintermute? Because if you didn�t then we should��

�Yes.� She was smiling just knowing that that big dog was still around as well. �Yes, I did.�

�Ok, good. Because if you didn�t then it would be no Bueno.� He turned to face her. ��I picked Lars because no one would look for you there. Lorne runs the label� My house doesn�t make sense�� It was the people he omitted that told her a few things. �� I clearly didn�t even consider Laurent�s but ��

�Yeah. No. That�s ok.� They both shared a shiver. �Lars� is fine.�

�Cool. He�s not here by the way. So Winter isn�t either� but I�m not sure when they are coming home. Besides, we�ll find you a place and move you out maybe even before they get back.�

She thought it was a great idea.

�I�ll send him a text.� He glanced up and to the left, thinking. �I think he�s in Germany� Do you have a phone?�

�No.�

�I�ll bring you one. Besides,� he continued, �he has that really cool balcony thing. And that back yard. And that veranda�� Both of them had always liked Lars� place. Milli had only been there once. Other than what they imagined he sometimes used the balcony for, they couldn�t figure out how or why a guy like Lars lived in such a � provincial place as he did. It was easier to think of Lars� place as Lorne�s and vice versa.

�Which one of them had that cool pool?�

�That�s Lorne�s. But Lars has that hot Jacuzzi thing. Germans.�

�Oh yeah.�

And off they were. One tragedy avoided.




**Title by U2.

[Millicent Grim]

Jonathan had seen to everything, for the most part. Being fussed over so emphatically was difficult for her to stand in large doses. At least, when it was by friends and people not obligated to care about her. She had very simply forgotten that that was also his job. She had had looked just alarmingly tired when he had returned 45 minutes later to bring her a phone. He�d gotten it in white. But he could tell she just wanted to be alone. It had nothing to do with him, it had all to do with being forced to interact, almost intimately, with multiple people for several days. And all of these interactions were under the threat of discovery as well as the electric energy that filled the air around her. She thought she could feel the internet in the air. She�d log on from her laptop and see smoky tendrils reaching for her. A lot of it was positive, people who missed her and good reviews. But all of the hands reaching through the ether were greedy and removed from her well-being and her heart. She felt them grabbing, but she was also aware of the brutal strength that pulsed from her and eradicated the after images of these grasps. She was numb. They couldn�t touch her. She checked on these things out of a morose curiosity as well as an echo of self-preservation.

Oh that was funny. She believed it, but it wasn�t self-preservation-- she just didn�t want to be surprised. She was going to go about her business and her day to day until she knew that she needed to lay low for a while. She would do that until people felt like they couldn�t make money off of her because she was uninteresting. The most persistent and pervasive thing that Milli would probably have to deal with was the fans. And Milli never cared about the fans. Wait, no. She cared about them, but she never worried about them. Not for herself. Jonathan was always alarmed by this. He was sure that if a fan wanted to capture her in a cage and lock her up in their basement Milli wouldn�t even argue. She�d do her duty and warble from between the bars until whoever it was was ready to let her go. Whoever it was had had enough. The idea sickened and terrified him. Jonathan�s protectiveness of Millicent was like a sleeping madness. And everyone knew it was there. It was always there, somniferous at the edge of his eyes when he was with her. Jonathan knew that Milli would probably wait till they were done-- had their fill. The problem was that no one ever had their fill. �Christ,� he murmured when he left Lars� place for the last time.

He called Lars. �So, you�re sure it�s ok?�

�Doesn�t really matter. I�m not there.� Jonathan almost double checked but he knew that Lars wasn�t someone to be passive aggressive. This was about logic and efficiency. He had a place. He wasn�t in it. Someone else may as well be.

�Ok. Cool.� Jonathan tried to remember if he had extended all the obligatory pleasantries that one should go through when one invited themselves over someone else�s place.

In the silence, Lars added. �So� she look all right?�

�Uh�� Jonthan grimaced. It felt very weird and unnerving to be asked a question like that from a man who lived in black and white. The nonchalance was like nails grating on a chalk board. �I mean� Wait, what do you mean?�

Lars considered this. �I think that answers the question sufficiently. Does Neil know she�s around?�

�I think he knew before she did.�

�Ah.�

�I don�t think that�s reassuring.�

�Wasn�t meant to be.�

�Should I talk to Neil?�

�Should you?�

Jonathan couldn�t tell if Lars was refusing to ask the question, commenting on his use of the word �should� or what� �I really don�t understand how this could be an issue.�

�It will be, or it won�t.�

�I realize you are saying you don�t really care, and you wouldn�t get involved, but you sound like a f***ed up soothsayer. (And an a**hole.) You sound like Lamia.�

�Gross.� Lars laughed.

�Yeah. Gross."

�Well. Whatever. Thanks for the head�s up.�

�Do you need me to do anything or tell her any particular rules?�

�No.� What did Jonathan expect? Lars had probably lived out of a burn bag more than once. Lars� life always reminded Jonathan of Robert De Niro explaining what the title of the movie �Heat� meant. �Just tell her I�ll be back in 3 weeks. So sometime around that Monday she should wear clothes when she walks around the house.� Jonathan could hear the wolf grin on the man�s mouth. He could imagine the shine in those ice-blue gunslinger�s eyes.

�Uh. Yeah.� Awkkkkward.

�Auf Wiedersehen.�

�Later.�

In the house, Millicent was staring at the phone and wondering if she even had any contacts to type in.



**Title by STP

[Millicent Grim]

Title:
�And now my bitter hands cradle broken glass of what was everything
All the pictures have all been washed in black, tattooed everything...�
- By Pearl Jam



Millicent stood under a willow tree, on the edge of a brook, in the middle of the park, near Lars� place.

A warm-electric thunderstorm was rolling through the air. You could feel it on the skin in a lover�s caress or a muscle memory. �Or just a memory. It felt like ghost-fingers writing in warm paint and electricity. Her heart ached for that touch, yet with all of her will power she could not manifest the heart of the storm from the breeze. She was alone, but she was haunted. Not even the storm could keep her company or grant solace. She turned her head into the wind for a moment, nuzzling that sensation with closed eyes. She stood there for a long while, storm-dreaming of the wreckage that imagination can leave behind.

It had not begun to rain but the heat lightening was furious. That ferocity was barely bridled by the snapping, snarling locks of white hair that flung around her. She was an opera played on the wind- white tangles were the negative spaces between bars of sheet music and her face was the beginning treble clef. She was also a chiaroscuro medusa in the bruise-purple haze of the woods after dusk�wild and ominous like fever-greedy Delphic oracles poisoned on portent and omniscience. The image was captured as an after image in negative just at the corner of the eye. (Look away so you can see the less-bright stars. Don't get lost on the sea.) She was all spirit photography and Victorian s�ances. But there was no trickery nor witchcraft. And Millicent has never been captured by anything.

She looked like a spectre that stepped out of a more refined but more savage time. The long, white silk of her breasts-to-ground silk dress licked and hissed at her ankles as the rest snapped behind her -- all loyal familiar, wary of a threatening stranger in the form of a lone willow tree. I am no stranger of the willow�

Light struck upon her features, and the angles became vicious. It was a full on assault of this moment in time. She was summoned. The electricity felt like it was gathering around her� Had the storm truly started? No, it was just the light of the phone as she cycled it on. Digital ghost. Your heart only beats ones and O�s. She tapped one of the few contacts she had in her phone. She hid the phone in the tangle of her hair�.

The air was so thick, it may have looked like she was an underwater thing. Sea-secrets and a siren.

He didn�t pick up.
Of course.
But the sound of his voice in the voice-mail struck at the center of her like a blow to the solar plexus. (That is not your center of gravity, Millicent.) She couldn�t breathe. She was drowning.
The tentacles of her hair and the edges of her dress rippled like they were hit by a sound wave in the sky, her heart had been its source of origin. (A drip of water in an instant of stillness... and white waves in the silence.)
He broke her sound barrier.

Her voice started as a whisper but it gathered strength. The wind lapped it up greedily but soon it could not overcome the weight and portentousness of the incantation. She recited him a poem.

�i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)�

-- e.e. cummings

She closed the phone and slumped to the ground. All the magic left her. She was no longer a medium of the kindly ones. She curled up her knees to her chest and turned her face into the ground. She cradled her features above the dirt by laying her forehead on her forearm. She cried. Her shoulders were wracked with sobbing and the storm covered her with a blanket of hot rain. There, there� The silk of her dress discoloured to something more like cream and sepia as the water was absorbed. (Still photography of bygone eras.) Maybe it was trying to dissolve her like sugar in the bottom of a glass. All that would be left is the absinthe of her eyes�

The tears that ran into the moss of the stream-bank were sucked up into the ground. Venom being sucked from a mortal wound.

[Millicent Grim]

Title:
�Everything all white
And everything�s gray,
Now you�re here, and now you�re away.� � Bush.

It was a perfectly dark, Saturday night and Millicent sat on the floor, surrounded by windows and snow-white silk. She wore a plane white kimono that trumped her form by several sizes. Honestly, it wasn�t hers. It was Lars�. And he had about a foot on her. She imagined he wouldn�t be all that pleased with her borrowing such a thing, but she also knew she had a little leeway in that regard.

So, she had poured herself a glass of almond champagne (a new introduction to her life from last night�s wanderings) and sat on the floor in what she called the tower room. Lars� house was provincial, particularly German provincial. It had modernized versions of antiquated rooms. These additions were complete with a tower that looked out from an extra two stories onto the well-manicured back yard. This room was � like some viewing room. An antechamber to the staircase that went up another story to the jacuzzi that resided on the top floor of the tower. The structure and the notions it invoked were modern, but romantic. Interestingly, Millicent had never, not once, thought of Lars as romantic. Modern, yes. Harsh. Angular. Sardonic. Laconic. Etc. But not romantic. She had never known him to date, and he was the least social of the regulars that were still around the Club. For the most part, Millicent was certain that Lars mostly preferred the company of his wolfhound, Wintermute. So, Millicent was sitting there imagining him, alone, climbing these stairs in his white kimono, like a deadly spectre, stepping silently but swiftly up the stairs to shed the white for more white (his skin was as light as hers) and dipping into the Jacuzzi, alone. Sometimes she imagined him with a book. She imagined his disheveled raven hair being pushed from his features by his long fingers, whisking the slashes of black away from his arctic coloured gaze before reaching to turn a page. She tried to imagine him leading a woman up those stairs, his hands bookless. What would she look like? Honey coloured locks, coffee skin? No, maybe a mirror of him, black Irish, beautiful with an equally haunting stare. Maybe a woman that smelled like jasmine and bougainvillea and had midnight skin that matched his hair.

Millicent sipped from her champagne flute and leaned against one of the modern windows. She inhaled and exhaled heavily, it was a sigh. She was bored. And she was lonely. Her heart felt heavy in her chest and she started day dreaming of the shores of Uig and Portree, of pale skin and red hair. Her brows furrowed as her eyes focused. She smelled the salt air and tasted the sweet smoke of Talisker on her lips. She could feel fresh shorn wool through her fingers, and the soft silk of his hair. She looked down at the white shell of her phone laying near her on the carpet. Would he answer? ��Ello.�

Would he forgive her? �Where are you?�

Did she even want to be? �I had to.�

Some doors were better left closed. �You were so beautiful��

Especially if they should never have been opened in the first place. �I can�t��

Something outside caught her eye. A movement amid the trees. In the house, a quiet alarm began to sing. She saw the glow of a monitor come thundering through the doorway as it came to life. Millicent got to her feet, wrapping her white up in white. She turned back to look outside, and for a moment she thought she saw a face peering back at her. She nearly dropped her glass, it swished and swayed in her hands as she caught her breath and her balance. �It must have been the night glow from the changing light in the room. Maybe a reflection. Hers?

She touched the corner of her eyes with a splay of her fingertips. When she looked out the window again, the pale figure that slid from view behind a bush in the yard was clearly not a figment of her imagination. She crouched down like she could hide. Like she wasn�t an illuminated effigy in a crystal tower for all within the grounds to see. She stayed low, her muscles tense and all of her ready to move � her heart fluttered in her chest (always a bird in a cage, dove). Never removing her eyes from where she last saw the figure, she groped for her phone on the floor. At first she considered calling Jonathan. Instead, she called Eve.

�Eve!�
�Uh. Oh, s**t, Millicent?�
�Eve, someone�s in the yard.�
�Where? Wait, at Lars�?�
�Yes!�
�Did the alarm sound?�
�Yes.�
�Which one?�
�What?�
�He has two. One.. one is .. it�s like a buzzer, the other is like a bleeping.�
�Bleeping.�
�S**t.�
�S**t?!�
�Millicent, he has a saferoom. It�s��
�Jonathan showed me.�
�Go there.�
�What the f**k is ��
�Later. Go. There�s a phone in there. Call me from it.�
�Eve, I��
�Go!�

She went.

[Millicent Grim]

Title: "Hear my sinner's prayer. [I am what I am.]. .... The only one I know." -- Lady Gaga.

It was the music that pressed her, it was all over her tonight. In truth, it was why she had wandered out. She wasn't quite in the mood to go dancing, but she was indeed in the mood to surrender to something a little greater than herself. A few of her favorite options for that were ...scarce. Missing. Deviant. Truant. And honestly, that fact left a bit of a hole in her chest-- somewhere where a pulsing, fleshy thing should be beating away. Well, alcohol was a decent second or third choice.

So, it was to the Inn. And after coming in from the chill that was Rhy'Din in deep fall, her white hair blowing in before her like apropos coils of snow, she found herself a favorite bottle of Glenfarclas behind the bar. She palmed the bottle of Scotch and rolled it in her hand to inspect the fill level. The glass was too dark so she placed the bottle on the counter top and leaned forward to get an idea of what she was working with. The firelight from the hearth revealed that the bottle was one fourth full...That wasn't quite acceptable, but it would keep her entertained for most of the evening. From behind the bar, the Scotch thief straightened and slid her gaze over the room. What was to become of this evening?

Making eye contact with the instrument was an experiment in electric gravity. It was like glimpsing a future lover - first sight and chemistry all ablaze. She actually sighed. It started in her diaphragm and ran through her lithe figure, slumping her shoulders at the tail end of the sound. That last reverberation shivered with a note that was comfortable and familiar - I know you, seduction, I know you well. It was a welcome base-note to the top-note of excitement.. It's so strange how that first initial infatuation turns to obligation in that alchemical mess of relationships. And Millicent had a relationship with that piano. Every piano. Platonic Ideals.

But Millicent was mercurial. It was hard to catch the algorithms in her undercurrent and predict what flame or tincture would rise from a crucible containing the white haired singer. She was shameless passion and a creature of the moment-- pure as sugar cane and 24 karat gold. Most fell at her feet due to the indomitable force of nature that resided in just the fact that she was completely undiluted. But when she herself was slave to desire there was always a hurricane. And she could rarely predict its inception or its trajectory.

And there's a storm you're starting now
And there's a storm you're starting
I'm a wanderess
I'm a one night stand
Don't belong to no city
Don't belong to no man
I'm the violence in the pouring rain
I'm a hurricane
I'm a hurricane
I'm a hurricane - Halsey

An askance glance at her bottle told it that it would join her in this soiree. Menage a trois? She asked with a raised brow -- and, since it was, well, you know, alcohol, it agreed. The definition of externalizing behavior. She plucked it up from the bar and let the inertia of fate and destiny carry her over to the piano.

She approached it like a lover, all hip-led and coquettish smiles. She hid them not once, but twice, behind a swig of her Scotch. She lifted her chin to greet the piano like a man who really doesn't give a crap and just wants to get his hands up a skirt for the evening-- that familiar solemn, square jawed and slightly dead eyed regard beneath the faintest lift of brow that belied in-grained patterns of behavior rather than effort. Every woman had seen it a thousand times. The mimicry was the only lighthearted thing she did, and she laughed at herself like it was a private joke.

Millicent pursed her lips as she stepped lightly towards her prey. She prowled and approached silently, stepping one foot in front of the other like a model on a catwalk. Her little sway from the song she had been humming when she walked in began to fall away - a snow angel melting in the heat of the inn and the alcohol in her throat and solar plexus. She smoothed the hem of her corset over her hip, tonight she wore black and it seemed appropriate for the scene of debauchery and coveting. She plucked the steel boning with the side of one of her thumbs like she could play herself like a violin. With a tilt to her smile she ran a fingertip along the seam at her hip. "You like that, baby?" her absinthe coloured eyes asked the piano. It did.

She took her time during her approach. If it had been a man in her bed she would have been pushing clothing off her curves and angles, leaving a trail of black satin detritus in her wake. But it wasn't. And she was in the Inn. She slowly licked her orchid-petal lips as she reached the piano -- stretching out the long moment to the tune of muscle shivering anticipation. Touch me touch me touch me. It's only when I lose myself in someone else.... that I find myself. She ran one of her fingertips over the sloping wood at the side of the keys. Just a tease before she laid her palm over it and stroked the warm, smooth surface.

After she finished kneading the arm of wood with heavy fingers, she pushed that palm over the top of the piano and pet it proper, like a steed. A wild one at that, for she leaned down and decided to speak to it in calming tones. "Easy there... " Mmm, or it was the same man calming an inebriated girl half tipping out of her chair and half way in a dark alley behind a 7-11. Her words dripped honey and laudanum. She gave the instrument a bit of a pat. Loving and authoritative.

Then she dropped a grin in its ivory lap. It was a gesture of false truce. Then she dropped herself ceremoniously into the stool in front of its own toothy grin. She ran her hands down either side of her body to smooth her clothes from the undercurve of her small breasts to the curves of her slight hips. She nuzzled her hips into the stool. There we are.

She raised her piano-player's fingers to stroke lewdly down the grooved wood where sheet music should be. She purred at the instrument and took a swig of her bottle before she committed her first violation of the evening which included placing the wet-bottomed Scotch bottle on the heartwood of the instrument. And she knew it too. "But you'll take that from me, right baby?" said her eyes and she raised a brow at the piano like she expected a retort. Or a struggle. Delicious.

"Let's see..." she murmured to the poor instrument. She tickled a key or two in the higher register. The piano sung a few notes for her- chortling prettily at her command.

Mine.


*Depeche Mode lyrics in here.

[Millicent Grim]

** Title by Tool


You know that the coming is so close at hand
You feel all right
I guess only women in cages can stand
This kind of night
I guess only women in cages
Can play down
The things they lose
You think no tomorrow will come
When you lay down
You can't refuse

Will you still have a song to sing
When the razor boy comes
And take your fancy things away
Will you still be singing it
On that cold and windy day
- Razor Boy, Steely Dan

Millicent was humming quietly to herself as she arranged her music books in her studio. She was putting things in order after a furious night of writing. In truth, there was rarely a time when music was not on her mind. The world in her (and that's all worlds are, really) always had a background soundtrack. This one was out of place, though. It wasn't really a band she had intimate relations with, in any way (mind or body), but this particular song had been recommended by an old friend, a long, long time ago, and she was thinking of him fondly.

More explicitly, she was thinking of things he reminded her of, fondly. Here and there she was also thinking about the way his hand felt on her hip, or on her throat. That exhilarating first kiss in a parking lot. How goodbyes that weren't goodbyes held a special place in her shadow box of collected favorite things. She thought of the soft stubble of his chin and his conversations about guilt. About how they had changed. About the constellations of human experience that were software in lieu of the other things, the hardware, that remained stubborn and immutable.

She had not agreed with him. Well, she had. But she didn't believe in being a slave to hardware that wasn't appealing, or wasn't comfortable. Millicent was a force of nature and change. Sometimes they were mutually exclusive, but that's not something to be scrawled out here and explained. They were secret, narrative, divine things that fell somewhere between apocrypha and dues ex machina. He had spoken at length about how his father, a first rate bastard, had made guilt part of his hardware. How he had spent years in therapy trying to unravel the bruises and leylines mapped out by a man jealous of ...well, the world. Experience. She had watched the fates weave for him a saga of self-loathing and self-destruction. I mean, Scorpios. Am I right? But with the words "prodigal son" tattooed on his skin in ink almost anyone could see, they had gone their separate ways. Both her and him, and him and his father. Millicent pursed her lips, worrying that petal-soft and petal-shaped, ashen pink feature between her teeth. When her eyes refocused she had an old guitar in her lap, and she stroked at the strings with the back of her fingers like someone in an old movie would imagine a sultry Spanish guitar player might.

In this revelatory state, Jonathan came in the room.

"Girl...."
"Mmm?"
"You were miles away. I've been calling your name all over this weird churchhousething."
"Oh. Sorry. Was thinking."
"About?"
"A friend."
"Greek ***?"
"N-no. ...Well, I don't think so. No."
"Who?"
"Do you remember ____, he writes plays now."
Jonathan squinted his dark chocolate eyes.
"From when I was little."
"Had that penchant for weird violence? ...Scary music taste, too?"
"Yes. Him." Millicent smiled softly.
"Why were you thinking about him?"
"I dunno. I mean. I guess cause I was talking to him a little while ago. ...I don't know. ***'s weird. I'm in a weird place with everything. Life."
"I mean, I get that. ... like, why do you still live here?"
"I... cause it's perfect." She shrugged.
"Is it though? Is it really?"
"Sad, yes. But perfect, too. And quiet."
"You going to go out any time soon, or do I have to call the mental police?"
"Ah-- I have a date. I plan on going out."
"A date?" wtf face.
"Oh, not like a date-date, just to see an old friend."
"Playboy? Ahaha I like that. Play. Boy."
"No."
"Oh."
"Do you know where my car is, Jon?"
"Ehhhhh...so about that. I think Sickboy ..--"
"***."
"Yeah."
"I think he was mad at you. You know. For leaving."
"Fair."
"Really?"
"Well no, but... I get it."
Jonathan looked at her and picked up a record, smoothing the vinyl with his thumb as he thought.
"So maybe I should get a new one?"
"Yeah. Sure. Neil would be fine with that. I mean, you need a car. What kind would you like?"
"Something black."
"Ah... I meant more than colour."
"Mmm. Something that goes Grrrrrrrr vruuummm."
"Ok, so 8 cylendar."
"I want it to look mean."
"Do you want like super sporty like the TVR or like muscle car?"
"Mmm. Hmm."
"Want to go car shopping?" Jonathan perked up, like a puppy hearing squirrels.
Millicent laughed softly and laid the guitar down. "Yes. Yes, I would."
"Sweet!"




** Credit to an inspirational interaction. Veil crossing.

[Millicent Grim]

[Ageometretos medeis eisito-- "Let no-one without knowledge of geometry enter." According to tradition, this text was displayed on the
entrance of Plato's Academy.]




"Please, Neil?"

"You realize that was actually a person, once, right?"

"Geh."

"Laurent is... you know what Laurent is, child."

"I thought it was just ...leather."

"Well, it is. Technically."

"...do you think this is a *** up present, then?"

"Wait, you are going to give it to someone else?"

"Well... Yes."

"Millicent."

"Neil." A duel of names- personal cartography.

Neil sighed, audibly. It was a paternal and ironic sound. It was not one that rolled off his tongue easily. "Girl, giving away priceless, *** up artifacts to people ... who would actually appreciate them-- well, it alarms me."

"Too late, really."

Neil actually frowned at her, and stopped what he was doing to look up from his paperwork and truly regard the winter siren with his chocolate amber eyes. His response was obligatory and perfunctory. "Nothing, is ever, "too late.""

"Your concern is."

"Are you asking me to be more concerned? I thought you were less guile-some than that, Millicent."

"No I just... I dunno. You know me." She was eating her words and draining elegance like a deflating balloon animal, and Neil watched her rather perplexed. She rarely got in her own way, so this was a rarity to regard. It made him think of art. Music. Muses.

"No, Milli, sometimes I don't think I do."

"I feel like I'm going to get in trouble over this somehow."

"With whom? Me? Us?"

"Yes."

"In the nature of �business� type trouble, or in the �you are in trouble� type trouble?"

"I'm not in trouble. But he's probably trouble."

"Ah. The Greek."

Millicent cocked her head and frowned at the vampire. "... cheater."

"I do love you, Millicent, but you are, also, an investment."

"Neil." Millicent actually sounded angry.

"And a liability."

"Fine, whatever."

"And like, almost, kind of... like a daughter.... which is *** up considering--"

"Gross."

"-- is he worth the trouble?"

"I don't understand the nature of trouble you are implying or whatever."

"This, this conversation right now. Is it worth it?"

"-- everyone is worth it."

"Not what I mean, fey-thing."

"Are you calling me a liar?"

"No, just duplicitous, mercurial, flighty and unfathomable."

"...I feel like you just complimented me."

"I did."

"...look if you don't want me to take the map-book, I get it. It's old. I just-- you guys never care about your stuff. I think he'd really like it. I'd like to--" She pursed her lips. Like to what, Millicent? Make him happy?

"Your company should be all--"

"Oh, for ***'s sake. I feel like I'm being scolded. Forget it." She put down the book on the desk-- she half dropped it the last few inches as she pivoted to turn. It made a supple sound as it landed on the surface. It almost sounded like people whispering-- secret things, blood and sacrifice. Sanctity and blasphemy. If only she had known.

"No, you're right. It would be nothing to give to you. Laurent has another in his home. And if your friend does find such things enchanting, well, a gift from the heart is truly priceless in and of itself." He paused and steepled his fingers together in front of his lips. "By the way, so is the book. It's one of three in existence, now. Laurent ...knows. I believe there had originally been 5. ...or 10. You should ask him. See the maker�s mark?� Neil gestured at the book. �When Laurent was apprenticed for several arts and trades during that time, that was the name he went by. The way he bound his tomes was a bit of a *** up joke."

"That's kinda creepy."

"He's been called worse." He is worse.

"...so... ..wow. Yes. Please, can I have it? If he doesn't love it I'll bring it back. But I think it would really make him happy, and none of you care. Maybe Laurent would even--"

Neil clucked his tongue, that request was a whole other bag of drowning kittens. "I care because it's old and it's a part of history, both personal and lost (and personally lost). But I know how you are with gifts, Millicent. No need to premise it with its return. You may have it. I just hope ... I just hope-- Just don't get hurt. I don't need more work right now, ita?"

"Thank you! Thank you!" Millicent veritably bounced as she came around the side of the desk and actually kissed Neil on the cheek like a dutiful daughter. Neil somewhat comically scowled. Always attuned to old-world decorum, this was just too much for him. And already feeling paternal, this was a bit too grandiose. But the look on his face didn't sit well, the slick cool of his chocolate hair and the pale perfection of his skin sang of Blue Sundays and L.A. Women not protective gift dealers. He collected himself elegantly and resumed his musing from a more composed glower. However, it couldn't help but soften at her delight. Not even the dead.

"Millicent."

"Yes?" She beamed at him as she picked up the book. This book in question was a medieval, Slavonic tome of illustrated maps of Wallachia and Bucharest. To her, it was the city that had caught her attention. It had been the reason she had plucked it from his shelf while she waited here to discuss music and ...Twitter. To anyone else, especially to the occultist or neo-anything, the priceless antique was worth murder and subterfuge. Even more so because most of these texts were destroyed - either by time or by the Church. For there were things in here that could be unlocked. Not just places or ideas, but things. And Laurent loved hiding things in... other things.

"Be careful."

Neil walked his delicate fingers through his book of contacts, and chose a method of delivery that would wrap the gift accordingly and remain utterly discreet. For him, he was pleased to also have insight into where Sinon resided, if he was ever in need. Millicent would send it to the hotel that evening. On an egg-shell coloured card, in fountain pen, she drew a mermaid, and a vampire. Sufficient and succinct. From me. To you.

[Millicent Grim]

I.
black and blue - rolling thunder of bass and bodies of strangers - pure context
white light in the dark, skin and shoulders - vectors of intent. There you are.
the right ratio, golden in the proportions - chryselephantine
took all the noise in his skull and turned it down, down, down.
an audio grainy sound of skipping vinyl (needles) in the heart and mouth
The sea churned with sirens and rocky shores - see me down here with the neon glow fish
helical necessity in an iron staircase - the murmur of undertow in the wild

II.
�I�m taking you home with me�
down the ribbons of black road
leather and luxury and a purring engine
skin-milk-skin, a catch of fingernails in the raw silk
Tracing maps of you. Game of view.
'thank you's in flesh and bone
grateful secrets in a sleeping city

III.
hot breath across a mirror - in the light
the cold streak of skin across glass - fingerprints and sweat
peeling layers back - exposing shadows
'look at this' - watch
see me see you see yourself
a white rose in bloom
top floor

IV.
this place is not safe
for you, not home for you
the foundations and dust and bone
and the mortar blood
but if you stay with me, I promise
I will be the only one to hurt you
ever again

V.
You are a field of vision - my point of view
where the brightly shining sea is clothed in the sky
Surrender like a song, pulling Truth and words of weight
Sacred geometrics and sweet gravity - shift
This world, our world, is only us
And we fit together like
An equation of land masses

VI.
here is a thought, an idea,
[it�s been keeping me up]
an idea of an endless want
endless need, a depth to sink into
and inhabit, like a sea, like the sea,
ouroboros waves
let me show you exactly what I mean

VII.
A new landscape, pristine snow still tract less - we soar
A system integration - need-aligned
Wordless connectivity
spiral -maps and math mingling in the in-betweens
the way men lost at sea are sick for the water
This is your fault
The ocean black swallows him whole.

VIII.
We are laminar, yet
spooky-action-at-a-distance
A slowly spinning-churning of honey and milk
Saccharine sweet like an opiate illusion -- no. Real!
So real I can *** touch.
Resonating in unison - electrons are electrons are electrons.
Spirit is fire - Taste, consume

IX.
Words: A gospel, so good on his tongue that it must be sin
Ad infinitum - lands unseen by light [ no dawn, no day, and no dusk ] and unknown by foreign eyes
drinking hemlock or stripping naked in the freeze-- inherently dangerous
A Saint granting blessings- where no one should ever want a priest
Recursive - a seashell capturing the ocean
he swept her up and carried her the rest of the way, the man on the road in all his dimensions [ Death, Mage, Fool, Knight ].
Starfire and halo moon-lit skin of delight - divinity

X.
�I want to draw you.�
�I like you selfish.�
�All we are are choices.�
�Oh, Sinon. I want you.� Like wildfire. Like opiates. �...Undertow. Hunger. Faim.�
"Do you know," ... "how dangerous those words are," ... "to say to me?"
Make me.
�It is sacred. Promise me.�

[Millicent Grim]

The water poured like rain from the expensive shower head. The water pressure had been harnessed and transmogrified into an allusion of nature.

It was dastardly subterfuge, for oh how she loved the rain at night.

The bathroom was all glass and marble with accents of gold.

There was black and there was silver. There was a water spout for every angle.

They reminded her of the water-spicket mouths of angels and demons on the roofs of old chapels. One in particular in the Scottish countryside. She stood before the glass of the shower and regarded herself thus in the many mirrors: a moon-pale girl, a naked girl- white on white on white on white. The blood under her skin blushed several pieces of her chiaroscuro image in a soft, ashen pink, but for these signs of life she was white with just a slash of gleaming green for a conjurer's gaze. [High Priestess]

But that was just Millicent. That which she carried with her in flesh. Tonight, Millicent was a slash of white with sacred, black burning hands. And tonight there was also red.

It looked like he had written on her in smoke, for the fine edges he had drawn had smudged and blurred when they touched. And the red of his blood on her occluded some of the more arcane ministrations.

The charcoal glyphs lined her skin in whirls. Square, circle, triangle. Sacred, sacred, sacred. The seed, tree, egg, flower, and fruit of life danced along her fine bones-- fingers, knuckles and forearms. He had drawn her, true. [His powerful dragon embroidered kimono was spilling off her milk shoulders and wrapping around her pale body loosely as she watched him watch her watch him. She had hung off the side of the divan as he slid his black, infinite-gaze over her. She peered at him upside down, her snowy tendrils of white hair splaying on the floor as she pressed a cool strawberry to her lips. As she became berry stained he had gotten up to get something red to capture her with. Foreshadowing. Forewarned is seldom forearmed.] But he had also drawn upon her.

They spoke a language of touch, a true conversation. Memories of him blended and blurred- his tongue formed thoughts in the ether between them but also wrote them on her skin as well. Her pale form had hummed quietly with a soft light and soft energy that he drew from her and reflected back in his own way. They were still tuning forks discussing soft lightening. Galvanics. And he wrote spells on her, even as she had wrought them on him in return. Treble Clef. Eye. Heptagram. Meditation, repetition and contemplation. The hands make, the heart conceives.

Her palm was Metatron's Cube, drawn there perfectly in divine proportions by Sinon�s murderous, articulate and dexterous hands. She opened her palm in front of her, spilling her absinthe coloured, half-mad gaze on the vision of declaration, definition and intent. Her delicate piano player�s fingers curled their fine china bones and she stared. Absently she leaned her face into her wrist and softly nuzzled her own skin, lost in thought and� anguish. And love.

Millicent resisted the urge to lick the soot from her fingertips, to ingest and bless the thaumaturgic scripts he had claimed her with. They had smudged on the black silk sheets as they slept, they were translating into spectres of themselves and she thought about inhaling them like they were ectoplasm in the air. They had blurred as they marked him smoke-coloured as she touched him. They were like beautiful memories sifting through dust-motes of the mind. Her heart ached at the idea of washing them away.

Had her phone not died, she would have taken pictures of them. She would have decoded them like an archeologist for days. For months. For years. She would forever dig for secrets of him.

Skin-secrets.

Blood secrets.

Millicent rotated her arm and found a place where his red (flashwhite!) blood had flooded the black incantations on her skin and written its own intentions (gravity, oaths, threats, pacts, armistices) in negative space. In colour. Millicent traced the accurate-suicides running vertically down her forearm with her fingertips. Traced where Sinon had spilled himself on her. Where he had smeared himself between their skin when they had embraced in the sacred violence and seminal storm.

She remembered his hot-white tears and regretted not tasting them as well.

Her brows furrowed.

She swore she could smell him like earth on a hot, humid day after rain. Like his ghost was warm and wavy, defying gravity, lifting from the foundations in the misting bathroom as the hot water fogged the glass and blurred, even further, the white boundary lines of the girl amid the steam.

Millicent looked at the door of the bathroom. She had a hundred things to ask him before she washed him and his alchemy away. She wondered what he did beyond the door.

She wondered why.

Truly, why.

Millicent stepped into the warm water. It enveloped her with loving, cleansing fingers of refracted light. Aqua sacris. The charcoal ran to shadow-tears on her skin-- flowing in dusky rivulets down her arms and collecting in the soft inner-skin of her elbow.

She raised her naiadic arms and pushed both of her slender hands through her snow-white hair, making ephemeral streaks of grey as her tendrils flattened and pressed into her scalp. Her sense of self thundered through her as the red and black began to slither down her skin- serpentine, mysterious and portentous. The blood that had wound its way around the Jacob�s ladder of her spine began to fade, shift and run like apocalyptic Highland streams through the lowlands of her milk-skin. The scarlet rushed and flowed, winding around her hips and thighs, making primal swaths down her legs as though it set red fire to the journey-maps his mouth had traveled in its wanderlust. Like she was developing negatives in blood before the photographs dissolved away. Souvenirs of a kiss that held no hunt, and no hunger. [as if whispering into her shadow to the person living inside it.] Soft.
You know that I will choke until I swallow�

I am she whom you have despised and upon whom you think.
I am the one from whom you have hidden and to whom you are manifest.
But whenever you hide yourselves, I myself will be manifest.
For whenever you are manifest, I myself [will hide f]rom you.

Millicent shivered despite the warmth of the water.

Not why. How.

Perhaps what, as well.

What are we?

What am I?

Where are you?

A memory. [Sinon watched her repeat the shape again and again, and felt the power swell in it, felt the very magic of the act. He carried her mark. Already he felt the drums moving in.]

Beneath her, the spiral of water in the base of the shower churned with soot and blood- eulogies to razed cities of the heart. Of the Self. Like cartographies of spinal landscapes waiting for her to discover what it was to be realized.

**Title by Tori Amos, "wildwood"

[Millicent Grim]

14 Aug 2017 06:22
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D Yo. So like.... I was randomly doing my job and I saw some stuff on twitter.
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent Huh?
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D Check your twitter account.
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent Oh. Well. Yeah. Is there a problem?
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D I guess not, but what the hell is that about?
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent Scotch?
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D Not funny.
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent I met some musicians at the bar and we decided to play dueling pianos... you know, music stuff.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D Who's the boytoy?
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent Uh. First off, that's rude. Second off, that's not your business, really? But it's honestly not even mine, I don't have a boy toy.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D You're being evasive.
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent No. You're acting like some shit on twitter means more than what I'm saying.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D So there was no dude?
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent There was a dude but there was no cuddling and no ...nothing. He was just nice.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D You hate the word 'nice.'
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent Ugh. Kind? Amusing? Congenial? Someone to talk to. I've been cooped up at Lars' place for forever. I guess I was lonely.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D You don't have to fuck some dude and have it smeared all over twitter to un-lonely yourself, Milli.
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent Jonathan, what the hell? I didn't do anything with the guy. I just sat next to him on a piano bench and went for a walk. He ... I dunno. I guess maybe I looked a little sentimental but you know me and Mozart.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D Ohhhhhhhh.
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent Uh, so that's it? Mozart won?
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D No, but I get it. How do you want me to handle this?
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent Uh. I don't really care. Is it a problem?
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D You don't have camera people outside already?

[5 minutes pass]

Text to Jonathan, from Millicent Shit.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D What's his name?
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent I don't really see why you need to know, we aren't going to release it or say anything. I honestly feel like he's a pretty private person...and again... NOTHING HAPPENED.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D I ask... Milli.... So we can check him out and prepare any backlash if he does something.
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent He's not going to do something... other than ghost me. ... though I guess that's not doing something.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D You have his number?
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent JON.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D Someone's going to find out, we should damage control. I told you, this is what happens when you get all reclusive and shit. This is kind of a nightmare. Neil's going to be annoyed.
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent Not if I release something soon.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D You have something to release?
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent Yeah... Honestly, I got inspired and finished something. It's piano heavy.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D Oh well then! This is great timing!

[10 minutes]
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D Still alive?
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent Yeah just... ... I hate this stuff, y'know?
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D Well, don't hang out with people who tweet shit.
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent That is NOT the point.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D I beg to differ.
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent Just do your job, Jon.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D Are you mad at me?
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent ... no. Never.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D ... I'm going to come over.
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent Ok.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D Put Wintermute outside, she scares me.
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent ... lol
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent: What did he think?
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D: Shit, Milli. Shit. Second. Still here.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D: Can we call you?
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent: No.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D: Uh.
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent: Did he like it?
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D: Dude. Laurent is losing his shit. He's kinda mad at you. It's kinda weirdly scary.
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent: Damn. Did I rip off some ancient dead organist for the Nights Templar that died in some house fire or something?
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D: AHAHA omg. Omg yes. I mean no, but I wish that was it.
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent: Why is he mad then?
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D: Because it's fucking GOOD. Like "WHY DIDN'T I THINK ABOUT THIS?!" Good. I think he called you a "termagant" and a "virago" or something? Wtf does that even mean? It didn't sound nice. He hit his piano. Like, he broke it.
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent: ...and Neil?
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D: He thinks it's hilarious!
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent: No, what did he think of the song?
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D: Oh. He doesn't get the amount of classical and he's not sure how to market it yet but he knows it will have an audience. He thinks this could be good for you. Also. Milli. It's fucking good. It's fucking sad though, are you all right?
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent: Yeah. I'm fine. Look, I made a longer version. That can be like a radio edit or something, but the album will have a longer version.
Attachment: .wav file EphemeralLong3rd.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D: Oh. That may work actually.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D: Yeah, Neil actually really likes that and doesn't think a longer version should be the first release.
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent: Great. I'm not done with the longer one yet, but soon.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D: Any new info on the rest of it? Is it all going to be like this?
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent: Yeah. It is. And. I need some cash to travel to finish a few of the songs.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D: Like for a particular studio somewhere? Where do you need to go?
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent: No, like, I need to go spend some time in a few places.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D: like inspiration shit? Like the second album?
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent: Yes. Exactlly.
Attachment: A photo of a note written in Milli's handwriting.

Spinal Landscapes.

0. Iron stairs
1. Black silk sheets.
1. Bucharest.
2. Tangiers
3. Edinburgh
5. New Orleans
8. Cathedral
13. Star-gazing
21. Sinon
34. Millicent
55. Aeternum.
89. Never.
144. Ephemeral

Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D: Oh. Oh shit.
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent: I need to do at least 3 places overseas. I'd like to also go back to Edinburgh to make sure I get it right. And why don't you come with me to NOLA?
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D: ROAD TRIP!
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent: yes.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D: Laurent demands hearing what you have already for Bucharest. He also is saying something about a book. He's talking really fast in French right now. I don't know if it's creepy or annoying.
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent: I can send a few snippets of what I think are finished parts. But that is the least finished, and I can't finish it till I go.
Attachment: .wave file BuchShitUgh
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D: They also both like the track numbers. I think Laurent giggled. THAT was creepy.
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent: Did that come through?
Attachment: .wav file Iron. Black. Sinon.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D: These are Sexy. Like weirdly sexy.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D: ... wait. Is that that dude's name?
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent: Yes.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D: Can you hear me groan from here?
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent: Do you like that one? I'm kinda wary about that one.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D: ... it's the best one. Damnit.
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent: Muses.
Text to Millicent, from Jonathan D: Damnit, Millicent.
Text to Jonathan, from Millicent: Can you hear me shrug from here

======================
Millicent had spent most of the day writing. There were beautiful whirlwinds in her - slow, seething symphonies that gained speed like digital snow storms. Each grey, flickering flake in her mind's eye held notes and stanzas, and bleeding glissandos between parted lips and poignant deaths. Some for you, some for me. Unspoken secrets that no one else could interpret or guess. Their private fermata - discourses in silence, trepidation and revelation. Something unnecessary to discuss. Known. She wrote these thoughts upon paper she'd found, piling up combinations of this grey, drifting world in her mind for everyone else to observe but never touch-- peeking through frosted panes, through clef lines and progression into these internal thoughts and personal landscapes.

During the day, she had noticed that her cell phone had been dead. Unsure how long or if it mattered, she had plugged it in. She'd flipped it on but never looked to check. It really just was an absent remembrance and a semblance of patterns and muscle memory. Millicent had been alone with and in herself until...beautiful polytonality. So much music to make, the world outside the windows did not interest her in the slightest. A bird in a snowy, singing cage that smelled of inspiration and intimacy.

The indicator light flashed harshly in terrible ostinato. She noticed it in the dark between her white lashes and reached for it from her supine place of rest and white on a sea of black.

Text from Jonathan D, to Millicent Grim: Yo. Anything else to listen to?
Text from Jonathan D, to Millicent Grim: Is that a no?
Text from Jonathan D, to Millicent Grim: I'm dying to hear the second half of ephemeral.
Text from Jonathan D, to Millicent Grim: Hey, sorry, fell asleep. Can I drop by today?
Text from Jonathan D, to Millicent Grim: Milli?
Text from Jonathan D, to Millicent Grim: Hey, just shoot me a text. It's fine but I just want to know you're ok.
[3 Missed calls from Jonathan D.]
Text from Jonathan D, to Millicent Grim: Milli. Shit. You aren't here at Lars' either. I'm worried. This sucks.
[2 Missed calls from Jonathan D.]
Text from Millicent Grim, to Jonathan D: Jon. Shit, I'm so sorry. SO SORRY.
Text from Jonathan D, to Millicent Grim: Jesus christ. Are you ok?
Text from Millicent Grim, to Jonathan D: Of course, of course. I've been busy. Writing.
Text from Jonathan D, to Millicent Grim: Where?
Text from Millicent Grim, to Jonathan D: At a friend's place.
Text from Jonathan D, to Millicent Grim: That's bullshit. You need to tell me. I was really fucking worried. You need to at least keep your phone on, or check it ONCE A DAY or something. Jesus.
Text from Millicent Grim, to Jonathan D: ... I get that you're pissed but. Regardless, I was writing. I really didn't think about it.
Text from Jonathan D, to Millicent Grim: I'm at Lars'. Come talk to me.
Text from Millicent Grim, to Jonathan D: I'm kinda busy.
Text from Jonathan D, to Millicent Grim: Yeah, 'busy' with 'friends' and writing.
Text from Millicent Grim, to Jonathan D: Ok, Jon. Fine. Give me an hour.
Text from Jonathan D, to Millicent Grim: I'll make coffee.

[Millicent Grim]

Jonathan opens the door before she is able to touch the electronic keypass to the sensor. He must have heard the jangle of the keychain. Millicent had carried no bag with her when she had left a few days ago, so the keys had been hidden on the property. Lars would have been appalled and angry but it would be out of training and decorum rather than any true need for safety. Afterall, if there were windows in a building then locked doors were just suggestions ('do not enter') to the type of people who would come here wishing harm to him or his. Besides, Wintermute was here. Somewhere. Jonathan must have truly been worried if he had braved the anger of the wolf-dog to locate Milli.

"Hey girl, how--" he could smell him on her. Blood and-- It completely broke his concentration, slamming into him like she�d struck him - disappointment and anger cutting into marrow. Thus, his greeting was vivisected as the unfamiliar presence washed over him like a tidal wave. A primal old fear forcing old gods and a little bit of madness on him. Oh he could tell that the scent had been wrought bone-deep and critical because he could barely smell her beneath his scent. And it wasn't just that the Greek's scent was strong, it was that it was more present than she was. Millicent's natural soft and gentle skin-scent of amber and vanilla was a nocturne and he was a partial - a harmonic he could not stop from ringing in his nostrils. "Oh, Milli." Jonathan sighed softly.

The way his entire demeanor changed in five words stole any greeting that would resonate with her. He stole her from the moment. His somber sigh alarmed her, she reached for his hand "Jonathan? What, what's wrong? Is someone hurt?" Something must have happened. Something he wouldn't tell her over text. She was worried.

Jonathan's lips parted and then pursed. He did look grave, and his brows furrowed. "Milli... I--" I love you. I miss you. I'm worried. I'm jealous. I can't watch this happen again. You're going to lie to me. I just want to be with you and keep you safe. "No. No, no, sorry no." He came back to his senses, trying to block the other man out of his mind, and he clasped her hand gently in both of his. "I'm sorry I scared you, no. Are you ok?" Oh just *** lie to me, Millicent. ...say you aren't.

"Jonathan, what? You're acting crazy."

Crazy for you. "No, sorry, just, you took me off guard. I thought it was Lars. He just called to say he was coming home and I was worried you wouldn't be here first. You took longer than you said."

"Oh." the syllable sat on her o-shaped lips for a little too long. Something about him wasn't being... honest. She sensed it. Like she could taste it. Her vibrant, humming perception of that was entirely too present for a natural inclination and it made her head swim for a moment. I know he's not being truthful. He's hiding. It was such a stark contrast to the experience of the last few days. Self-destruction wears many faces.

Jonathan felt the need to fill the pause, maybe because he wasn't that great of a liar. "Come in, sit with me." He was reeling her in, a mermaid on a hook. He wished he didn't have to. He wished she'd come of her own accord. Accord - bitter, spicy violence and sweet smoke. A chord - something fragile, played by piano till it fractaled and frayed.

"Okay, Jonathan. But, you need to tell me what is going on. Why did you need me back here?" They were walking through the slick, modern entrails of Lars' beautiful home. He'd spill himself over the black leather L-shaped couch in front of the huge TV. He'd pull her down with him, next to him, their thighs pressed together.

"I needed to know you were okay."

"Of course I'm okay. I told you."

"I just... it doesn't feel like you're ok." What have you done? What have you promised? What have you given away?

"Jonathan," she laughed softly at his innocent and laden concern. Something about it was too much. She reached up and tamed her snow-white hair behind her ear. "You think someone stole my phone? Maybe some kidnapper was texting you instead of me?"

"You never know."

"No. I guess you don't."

Jonathan reached up to absently touch her white hair, to press and pet and spread a tendril between his thumb and forefinger, streaking his pale skin with her white lines. He felt the texture of it, soft and silk. The familiar gesture eased her and she lay her brow against his shoulder and stared out over their knees at the blank TV screen. Jonathan felt her slide away into her thoughts and he protectively, a little selfishly, wrapped his arm around her back and pulled her a little closer. Stay with me. Stop day dreaming. I know what you are thinking about. He felt her go adrift on a black silk sea and he refused to surrender her to that storm. "What did you get done?"

"Oh." Her return- resplendent. She straightened some. "A little bit of a few things. I had a few ideas I needed to work into Ephemeral. I'm actually starting... I will tell you soon. But I can play something for you."

He heard her and what she was saying, and he heard the muses in her. The heady booziness of love and inspiration. He could not tell if it made him sad, or angry. But he did know he wanted to hear her play. He had a vision then, a pale haired ikon with a golden diadem that glittered like the sun. Her eyes were emeralds, speaking of earth and sea and�. A ruby red heart, glittering like crystal and pulsing with vitae thundered in front of her chest. Disembodied. The liquid in it was like pomegranates and paint. So red. Life. Her hands were white, marble and so, so white - striking. Striking�? Deep grey tendrils wrapped and wound between her fingers like snakes and lifted into the sky like incense smoke. She gleamed and lifted (and lightened) the heart, his heart, but she was cloying. He whispered as the vision dissipated, but it had choked the voice from him� "Yes. Please, Millicent." The vision scared him but it felt more like he was hallucinating pure symbolism. It hurt. He wondered if he should tell someone�. something.

The weight in his tone made her pause, and in a characteristically Millicent way, she pushed herself up and kissed his cheek softly before she stood up from him. But Jonathan held her hand just a little too long and Millicent, just for a moment, frowned at him. "Jonathan, I need to do this." I need to be myself.

"To do what, Milli?" Like he was waking from a dream.

Millicent looked at him almost disapprovingly. I know what is bothering you. Don't make me say things that undermine love and music and friendship and...

"Milli... I'm worried about you. I know how this goes... the music and the guy and-- "

"You make me sound like a lost child. Like it doesn't matter. Like I can�t handle this. This-- being me."

"What you want matters. I'm just worried about what he does and doesn't want. And what will happen after you finish what you're writing? You just got up and disappeared for a year and a half before. This guy shows up and you put the fear of god in me? What the hell is that? Are you doing drugs with him?"

Millicent blinked several times, fanning her white lashes over her cheeks, flickering absinthe green at him like strobe lights. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You can't know someone in a night."

"That's your expert opinion?"

"He smells weird."

"What?"

He waved a hand at her almost dismissively but also like he was just going to throw down a secret, like a gauntlet, like a dead animal, because he'd already said it in his tone and he didn�t care if it hurt her. "I can smell him all over you."

A Millicent of not that long ago would have blushed a deep pink at such a comment. Instead, she sighed. "... I like him."

Jonathan frowned. Millicent didn't 'like' anything. The word was so banal it felt like she was lying to him just to shut him up. It actually hurt him like she had struck him. Again. Violence.

She explained further, "I truly feel music when I'm with him, lately. A song I never heard before. ...I need to experience this song. It tells me about all of the other songs. I--"

He cut her off, he knew what she was going to say and it was too much for him to hear. This man, coming in, like a thief in the night and stealing her from him before he had gotten the courage to tell her. It was like the man himself was in the room calling him a coward. Hurt and anger. Hurt and anger. Maybe he could find something to convince her otherwise. "Did you use protection?" How many times did you *** him? No, how many times did he *** you? Jesus christ, I can smell him on your insides as well as your out.

"What the ***, Jonathan."

"Well that's a *** 'no.'"

"What the hell are you even asking me?"

"I can't be here right now." He got up quickly, swiftly, preternaturally. The rush of power almost had him fantasizing about biting her. Slipping his ivory fangs into her throat and taking what he wanted. Making her his forever - alive or dead. The latter would be forever. Millicent was forever, sideways 8, but he knew that no one could ever have her like that. One can only burn so long. He looked at her and saw her burn, so bright, so white. Maybe it would be better. Maybe that was the answer. If he couldn't, than he at least could. The thought terrified him and repulsed him. He almost put his foot through the glass coffee table just so the blood and shatter of it would remind him not to murder her. He almost pushed her when she put her hand on his shoulder. He snapped back to this unfulfilling reality. His eyes flashed at her, a deep, rich earth colour that pulled instead of pushed.

"Jonathan. I'm sorry I scared you. Please. Please let me play for you." Her voice was like a warm wind over a roiling sea. If she had seen the light in his eyes, or the hint of fangs at his lips, she did not address it and did not react. He was in the center of an unpleasant hurricane. Millicent the storm. Something about that tasted familiar to him. Heat and electricity and brine.

"I'm sorry." He said softly. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. "I -- men are *** assholes. You're so soft.... and so precious to me. And I've seen you so hurt and they just never understand." A sigh. "No one understands." But I do. I don't understand everything but I do. And I'd never hurt you. God, where the *** was this coming from? Oh. Right. It�s always been here, behind the eyes. In the cavity of his chest. Rotting in his teeth.

"It's okay, Jon. I know you care so much about me. You're -- " like a brother. But no, she would never say that to him. He knew too much. He was like no brother she knew. "I love you, Jon."

And he hugged her. Pulled her against his black swathed chest and crushed her there like he could crush out this tempest of feelings he had for her. And he did. It took several moments but he did because he had to. She was gone from him for a while. His Millicent had left the building. She had her muses, he could see it in her eyes. He could hear it in the song he had heard and he needed to steel himself against the things he was about to hear from her now. Maybe next time. Maybe after him. I'll be there to make it better and after him I will tell you.

Millicent hugged Jonathan back softly but strongly. The waves of comfort lapped at both of them, sometimes for her, sometimes for him. The hug took a long time. He ran his pale fingers through her hair because it soothed him to sooth her. It soothed him to not find that slash of sunlit-gold materialized on her crown when his eyes were closed. He kissed her hair and got a sense of her he hadn't had yet today, but the heat of her still quivered and rose with that man's scent - galbanum, labdanum, white flowers, patchouli, and something sweet - cacao, something dark - woodsmoke, blood and gunpowder. ***. But at least it gave him a sense of purpose. He needed to take care of things and make sure this wasn't something else. Let Millicent have her playthings, as long as they weren't dangerous. He was her manager. Maybe he'd get an album or two. Right. Work. That's what he'd do, he'd do his job.

Eventually Jon let her go, and she unfurled from him and led him over to the long electronic keyboard she had set up in the corner of the room. He had helped her hook it up to the surround sound system so the quality of the sound was heady and sharp at the same time. It took you places.

Millicent played for him.

The music spoke to him of her, but he knew she had written it for someone else. For everyone who would hear it, sure, that was her gift, but for him specifically. The piano was all fragility-- the music quivered like those moments you feel connected to someone. How they are bright and electric and connective. And how they never last. No matter how hard you try, usually the harder you try, or if you try at all, you ruin them. Strangled by our coveting. It�s a first singularity high, a novelty, and then a shadow of itself. Never to be felt that way again- running after an event horizon. Those moments of true expression of yourself (terrifying) and how exposing such beautiful things should strengthen a connection that should last forever. But they never do. Time, and distance, and change crumble them into dulled forms. Dying stars, burning so bright, leaving only pitch-shadows on the backs of your eyes that dull everything that reflects there again forever after. Ephemeral experiences. Yet, echoes and ripples of experience touching you forever more by highlighting the absence of him or her or that moment of sacrificial vulnerability and protection in trust. Shadows of you and him together, entwined. When you realized what it was. What this is. It was the realization, the discovery. It was before the acceptance and revelry in it. You only make me (materialize me) here once, and then I�m here. It�s not the same. I am becoming. We are becoming. It was the flare of existence in the existential dark. Us. We. Everything after this violent, harmonic moment was different and degrading. The song captured just the dawn, not the day of it. Awe and infatuation with what was possibly to come. Before it came.

Millicent didn't notice that Jonathan had cried.

When she had finished she smiled at her piano and said "oh oh, and then this, too, something else" and she started playing a piece of something else for him. She never noticed what she had done. In truth, she was scared to. So she took him somewhere else without looking at him or taking his hand. She took him for a time on a soft journey on a black-sea ocean. It wasn�t sad, it was sensual and vaguely threatening. A vision of endless, recursive want that blended the sea and the sky into one interlaced mass of milk and caramel skin. Forever hunting each other on that horizon. The moments when they had each other rendered immemorial only in contrast to when they drifted apart and yearned for each other again. And in this song they had each other, and they held together, winding around the moment (roiling sea and storming sky) and creating a context of This. We have this. This is ours.

The songs complimented each other in imagery and intonation but they said something very different. Entire cities of emotion captured in bottles. And when she was done he was certain he had to go make sure that gunsmoke and blood was not going to harm his dear, dear friend.

**Title by Dionne Warwick

[Millicent Grim]

Sinon was the sated savannah lion to Millicent's slender kitten. He was all olive skin flushed and salted with dried sweat. Limbs sprawled, Sinon lay half-in/half-out of the sheets, still too warm from the hours behind them to settle beneath the black. If not for her and the desire to touch her, hold her, feel her weight on him -- he would have laid entirely in the cool air, drying and luxurious, a beast after his kill. But she was there, so he fit himself between the two worlds, and had been taking time to kiss her shoulders and hands and anything else she dared to get near him while they laid together.

Millicent was absently reveling in his soft attentions, the black sheets spilled like shadows over her white hips and lower stomach but left her ribs and thighs to gleam like soft moon-light. She was toying with the tie around her throat. His tie. An aesthetic choice but she was also playing at a cat with yarn. The tie had been around both of their wrists in the night, perfectly utilitarian [binding rituals], and at some point she had decided to do a very simple, over-under knot of it around her slender neck. Aesthetically she enjoyed knowing that all her white was slashed with a pattern of his choosing. But then she had an idea-- she twisted with new energy, and turned to face him, propped on her elbows. "Can you tie one of those Windsor knots�(is that what it's called?) For me?"

He might have even been drifting off when she asked, and for a moment all he did was eye her from his back and raise a brow at her. Really? He smirked at her. "I love you," he murmured, reaching up with one set of long fingers to undo her knot, then rolling onto his side to use both hands. In only a moment it was done.

What are you made of, Millicent?

And the fabric slipped around her throat, silken and neat. Winding through her hair as though it would make bows of itself� Sentient. She laughed softly, quietly in her sleep, in the real world and in the dream. The black-slash of silk flickered a ruby-jewel tongue in her ear and she giggled at that, too. But then, from the coiling tendrils of her hair, made of the same cloud-stuffs, the serpent raised white dove�s wings, and took flight. And in the nature of dreams, the serpent was both shadow and light. It hovered above their forms like a storm cloud, and began to wind itself in the air in a softly undulating tempest. Sideways 8s. Sideways 8s and wings. Dream Sinon tilted his head at her. An afterimage of memory [another one, that same night] flickered in the imagery. Brows rose and his head dropped to the side. Finger tap to her chest, indicating heart. "I want this, so perhaps not anything we want. But plenty." Watching her. It was a duplicate motion like deja-vu, blurring Sinons together over each other. Millicent stirred in the real world, but she was comfortably constrained by his arm still wrapped around her naked form, hugging her to him like a child with a teddy-bear. All the while, dream Sinon grew and glowed. His edges blurring with a soft light that began to burn and darken as that rim of white that flickered at the edge of his space-deep gaze began to brighten to burning quick-silver and cast after images like holy ghosts. His gaze pierced the veil of her dream and burned all but their outline from view, like the reel of film had ignited with an inner heat. Like his eyes were heaven that she looked on with hope from...

Fire. The serpent untwisted itself in a 4th dimension, flattening to a line and then folding open like a book. It became a circle. Inside it she saw a distant shape. A triangle. A pyramid. It was off in the distance like the serpent was a portal or a door. And then it flattened, too. And then a square. A circle. Millicent recognized it immediately. Her mind�s eye transfixed as the triangle grew over the horizon of the lines. The geometry was perfect-- the square in ratio with midlines. The triangle dared not touch the snake, not in the dream, not ever.

And then the snake, now made of holy smoke, began to blur and shine. It turned to mercury and it twisted to unfurl a hood of silver. On it blinked an eye, just one - embossed. A relief. Just one. One black, peering gaze. In Sinon�s arms Millicent shivered as it watched her.

--and his invisible should be clothed with form. He therefore opened his mouth and uttered the Word like unto himself. This word standing before him showed that he was manifesting himself as the form or type of the Invisible One.--

The words thundered through her like vibrations. They were not spoken nor sung, they existed. They resounded. Terrible and triumphant. Word. Logos. It shook-- shuffling reality like a deck of cards. She felt it in her teeth.

Millicent woke.

She was warm. So warm. But she drew Sinon�s arm around her tighter, as if she had been given a chill in a fever and needed the weight of him to banish it. He murmured softly in his deep, deep sleep. Beset with travel and misery, his body was reveling in a peaceful unconsciousness. She would not wake him.

She turned gently, twisting to catch a glimpse of his sleeping features. She had no concept of the time. He�d returned in the early afternoon and the day had melted away into �i missed you�s and sweat and sleep. But she had been well rested when he had come home, and she was unsure how many days he had gone without proper respite. Any other day, she would not have dared to touch his sleeping features, but after the dream, and with an assurity through experience of his home-coming, she pressed the underside of her soft fingers against the curve of his jaw. Real. His soft skin on his sharp features. She touched his hair. She inhaled the deep, sweet but dark scent of him. And though Millicent enjoyed his impossibly dark gaze, enjoyed it and its mystery and perpetual danger and mirth, in this moment, she was content to be free of it. Not only because she wished for him to rest.

She could not escape the simple perfection of his long-missed embrace without brushing her ash-pink lips against the curve of his chin. A timeless act of sanctification before she gently, like a white spectre, picked his arm up from her body and slipped out of bed.

She was keenly aware of the pang of gravity in her chest, calling her back to his sleeping form as she stood there for a quiet moment looking at him. It had been days. Perhaps� But� She had to draw the dream. She had to capture the image in her mind. The winged serpent. The geometry. The shapes. She knew what it was, and she had to capture it in order to bring it into reality in its unadulterated form.

Millicent stepped lightly, leaving the room. Leaving Sinon. She sought paper and the charcoal pencils he had used days-- weeks ago. Millicent, a white shadow, wild and bewildered, slipped almost somnambulantly through his apartment, gathering up the items she needed to collect herself upon a soft chair. Cradling the sketchpad in her bare lap, she began to draw. In truth, Sinon was a much better artist than she, but she needed to capture the details and the iconography. It was an obsession. It was necessary. It flickered green flame in her somniferous almond eyes. And she did. She captured each perfect detail. For if she had forgotten one, she would not be able to have it crafted. She would not have it made. Magic was dangerous mis-spoken or mis-cast. It was the whole. It was the ritual of it. It was End through Beginnings. And this ritual, this sketching of dream things, was something she had done before. She enjoyed bringing the fire of life to the surreal-- the things that lurked the soft places of hypnagogia. They meant things. They were portents, heralds between conscious and unconscious. She had done this often when she was a child. Where had those journals gone?

Millicent regarded the drawing.

Of course.

Of course.

She hoped he would understand.

She would add two things before it was cast.

**Title by Tool

[Millicent Grim]

Laurent propped his feet up on the glass coffee table, draped out like a silver fox pelt. He wore grey slacks, with a grey belt, and a tight, fashionable, grey t-shirt. The wiry muscles of his chest were smooth, but taut. There was a slash of white where his navel showed unceremoniously. He didn't have a desire to waste time and adjust it. His long, luxurious lean was just comfortable and useful enough to cradle the metal cylinder on his chest and pop it open. He could smell...age. So after the hiss of the revelation, he slowed. One of his fine silver brows rose expectantly and he glanced between Millicent and Lars.

There they were. Three of them like peas in a monochromatic pod, sitting together on Lars' beautiful black couch in a spectrum fade from white to black. Millicent in her white, and Lars wearing almost the same thing as Laurent, at least in essence, but his Armani t-shirt was black and so were his jeans. Lars leaned forward to look at Millicent over Laurent. "What does our silver friend have there, k�tzchen?"

Milli shrugged her shoulders and made an 'I dunnooooo' sound. But then she said "Make sure you don't have any butter on your fingers," she intoned to Laurent.

Laurent tilted his head as he looked at her. "I have not touched your popcorn."

"Yeah you did."

"I did not."

Lars: "Yeah, you did."

Laurent's head swivled towards the other man, there was approach to it but it was more like a cocking back. Like a hammer in a gun. No, like a snake.

Lars met the happenstance threat with a quick grin that said 'gonna do something about it?' Then he said to Millicent, "Does this have to do with the new gespiele?"

Laurent laughed. It was more of a melodic chuckle. "Yes. Yes it does." He was slowly dipping his long fingers into the cylendar and reverently removing the contents.

"Has he been in the house yet?"

"No." Laurent answered for her again.

"Ah. So Winter hasn't gotten to check him out yet?"

"No. Lars. ***."

"Hey, I'm just curious. It makes my job easier, later."

Millicent's white brows rose as she listened to the two vampires talk like this. It was convivial but vaguely threatening in a way she only somewhat appreciated.

"You know he can come over. Especially while I'm here." A sly smile bared white teeth in Lars' pale mouth.

"You don't like guests." Millicent said nonchalantly.

"Wouldn't be my guest."

"I would think you liked those guests even less."

Laurent nodded at this observation of Millicent's, then added "Can you imagine what they do together, anyhow?" Laurent wrinkled his nose.

Lars just raised his black brows.

Laurent glanced over, "Oh. That, too. I meant more like the infatuated fawning of artists and new lovers. They probably giggle and--" Laurent visibly shivered.

Lars frowned. "I was just trying to arrange an interaction with the least amount of effort. Now you have me trying to remember if my ear plugs are in my carry on, still."

"You sound like a bunch of nosy big brothers that have been plotting something not very funny."

"Oh, it'd be funny," said Laurent.

Lars nodded then laughed and leaned back, throwing folded arms over the couch back and nestling his head on his upper arms. "Gonna have to meet him at some point. Especially after what I heard."

"What did you hear?"

"Yessss. What did you hear?" Laurent.

Lars looked at them both somewhat dramatically, but really more studiously. His ice blue eyes were quick and cruel. Analysis conducted. "Well--"

"Yes, out with it."

"Whatthe--"
"*** me."
"***."

The three reactions were a cascade of preternatural nerves. Lars was on his feet, a handgun already aimed at the black clad man standing behind the couch. In truth, Millicent hadn't even seen the transition from unarmed to armed. But she had leapt a few inches into the air, the popcorn that had leapt up out of the bowl didn't all manage to tumble back into it so there were kernels in her lap and Laurent was picking them off his own lap as well. Laurent hadn't moved. His epithet was likely for the spill. One of which he popped into his mouth as he grinned up at Lars. "Losing your touch?"

"No but. ***." The handgun was placed on the table.

Neil was all smiles. His pale mouth was a crooked backdoor man. "Relying too much on your modern technology, Lars?"

"Hey, Winter didn't even--."

"No," said Neil, "She didn't."

Millicent beamed at Neil with a big smile. "I didn't think you'd make it."

"It's Ridley Scott." Neil shrugged and peeled off his black leather jacket like a panther. He handed Lars a bottle. "Four tumblers?"

"Neil." Laurent had pulled the thing out of the tube now and was turning his head to regard the map from many angles. He was chuckling again. "Neil, oh man."

"What do you have there?" Neil walked around the back of the couch and sat right up along side Millicent. He threw an arm behind her on the ridge of the couch as he leaned half over her to see what Laurent was grinning at. "Ur?"

"Not bad," Laurent teased. Neil's eyes narrowed with a furrow of his brow, he clearly disapproved of the comment.

Lars came back and was placing tumblers on the glass table rather loudly. "Wait, like the city? What is k�tzchen doing hanging out with some junge that thinks ...wait why is he sending you stuff? What the *** happened while I was gone?"

"Millicent gave away one of my books." Laurent dramatically rolled his eyes and then snapped a smile at her before continuing. "Evidently her new boytoy approved. He-- huh." Laurent began to re-scrutinize the drawing. Then he got up and walked over to the kitchen island counter top. Neil and Lars looked at each other curiously.

"Wait." Lars had not cared about a thing until now. He had just been making polite conversation. In truth, he also didn't care who was doing what to whom. But... "Did I miss some family picnic or some ***, who is this guy?"

"Another time," said Neil. And this was said like business. Lars understood business. He nodded slowly and started to uncap the Scotch. The comfortable sound of pouring was interrupted by a sort of half-mad sounding cackle from the kitchen.

"Ooh boy. haha. Merde. Ahaha. Agh.... Millicent. Ah, ma chere." Laurent turned to them shaking his head slowly. "Where'd you find this guy?"

Millicent was chewing on some popcorn so there was a heavy silence for a moment. She looked between the men in front of her. If only just shifting back and forth between all their eyes. Neil's chocolate amber brimming with syrupy-stern amusement, Lars' ice-blue gaze that could cut diamonds and Laurent's silver-fog eyes dancing jovially like ghost-lights from his porcelain features. She felt like she had tumbled into a closet full of monsters, and while they were amused, they were hungry for entertainment.

"The Inn," she said, her mouth still full.

The different laughs were also terrifying. Neil gave a soft, rumbling thing and he actually reached down to pet her white hair. Lars gave more of a scoff that clipped out of his thin slanted lips. And Laurent gave something of an amused, rolling howl.

"Hahaha "the inn." Indeed. Mill, you must introduce us."

"Laurent, you never have --"

"First times for everything, my girl. Besides I must say 'thank you.'"

"That was a 'thank you.'"

"Well it looks like it's going to be a 'thank you for a thank you.'"

Millicent frowned.

Lars frowned and started handing out the tumblers.

Laurent began again, "Where does he live? I can always just stop by."

"A hotel. The Grand. In town." Responded Neil.

Laurent's mouth writhed into a grin. He was utterly delighted not only to have the information, but, essentially, the permission all in a few syllables. "Merci."

"Uh huh."

Millicent looked back at Neil. Neil rolled a shoulder into a shrug. "You knew that was going to happen."

"Not really."

"You know. Hmm." Neil paused to pick his words very carefully. "There were certain things about your request that piqued my interest in such a way that I had to do my due diligence as ... well, as a business man."

"Neil, this isn't funny. I don't.. I haven't even made up my mind about things yet."

"You nearly have a whole album written, child."

"That doesn't mean... That just doesn't mean--"

"Oooh," Laurent purred and veritably slithered over to the couch, creeping in like a thick grey mist. "Where were you going with that, my dear?" He was curious in a way that made his mouth water.

"Laurent, maybe you should lay off." Lars actually interjected for the girl.

"Oh should I, Lars?" Gunmetal sneers.

"Look at little k�tzchen. Maybe they aren't figured out-- Whatever. Stop being a dick." Though Lars was realizing he needed more information. "Who'd want to introduce you to anyone when you are like this." Rhetorical.

Neil unwound his fingers from Millicent's hair, "Oh, she's figured it out. He's just scary."

Millicent turned her envy-green glare on Neil. And this, this was actual disapproval. "First off, what the *** does that even mean? You. Saying the word 'scary.' Second off, Lars is right, though I have no idea how, since I don't even remember him liking people nevermind understanding them--"

"Hey--"

"--I don't need you all getting ...what ever this is. You're like a gaggle of dangerous cat ladies. I will introduce you. I always do. But it's not going to be some weird formal--"

"Maybe it should be." Interrupted Neil.

"Why?" she frowned.

"Because I think this is a bigger deal than you think."

Laurent was nodding along from his nearby vantage point, but his smile still dripped like a big bad wolf grin. "I, in truth, just want to talk to him. I'm intrigued. He -- Je ne sais pas. I don't know if he's a dick or if he's funny. But either one is highly entertaining."

"And to be honest, Millicent, the fact that Laurent is so amused actually disturbs me."

"Me too."

"This is ***."

"Just say we're family."

"You--"

"--are your family."

Lars one-shoulder shrugged his approval of that comment as he took a swig of the Scotch. He ended it with a quick, decisive nod after he thought it through one more time. Laurent mimiced the gesture- just a little too exactly. The room got thick with the deja vu. Neil leaned across Millicent's lap and picked up his own glass.

"Millicent, I would also like to meet the man behind the music. I would prefer meeting him with you. That would be much more informative regarding that. The rest is sort of just, icing. But, maybe you should let us say hello, you know, to make sure everything is comme-ci, comme-�a."

"Isn't that up to me?"

"No."
"Not really."
"Non."

Millicent actually scowled at all three of them.

"Bladerunner?" Asked Lars.

"Bladerunner," approved Neil.

**Title by Kesha

[Millicent Grim]

The day after the park (whichever day that was, or more specifically, whichever day she did not wake up next to him) an envelope arrived at The Grand. It was an 8"x11" manila envelope, that was weighted and somewhat thick. The contents were stiff and on the outside it stated "DO NOT BEND" in Millicent's pretty, but spidery script. A professional warning. His name was written, large and in looping script.
S i n o n L a g o s.
She assumed he would know who it was from.

Inside, made of 7" x 7" square bristol board was a card. A thick, folded card. On the front of it was a watercolour willow tree with looping Celtic knots for drooping leaves, and familiar iconography of them worked together in a circular emblem, like a sigil. He would recognize the symbols, most of them having been drawn on skin either milk-white or olivine. Hidden in the negative spaces, and the reason for the particular placing of things, was his name, again. For names had power, and this card was a spell. A response. "I think of you, Millicent. So stop worrying. I love you," he had said. He had woven her into every thread of the day, like he was one of the Norns. She needed to communicate. To sever a vein. It was not quite like that, Sinon Lagos.

Inside the card, his name, again, though simple, began the decent amount of text. The S was illuminated like a medieval manuscript. There was even gold leaf. There was a crown, and rays of sunlight. There was a storm-grey sky that was murky purple and held no stars. The letter read thus:

Sinon,
The places in you are dark. And deep. Turbulent and primal. Some days I see the sea - calm, or just before a tempest. Full of mystery, or full of answers. Sometimes I see space. And it is filled with invisible solar storms, at once in a vacuum that defines all and everything and yet contains within it things we have yet to discern how to measure. You have such... capacity. And here Millicent draws several constellations, Greek. Beautiful night.

It is that capacity that holds me in awe sometimes. I have not had enough time to understand it. I'm glad of this. I look forward to the slow burn and slow devouring of you. I want to roll you over my tongue and commit every last piece to memory and assimilate this into my understanding of you, of me, of the world. Of thought, and of knowledge and of love. I don't want to stumble through and guess and grab for each piece clumsily. I want to learn you slowly, and perfectly. I want to titrate each bead of sweat from your skin, each rivulet, into its base elements, and I want to breathe in and taste and save each part, in one-third measure.

But by the nature of this.. sometimes I don't know. I do not worry. Not really. But I do feel an absence of knowing, sometimes. And I believe you, and trust everything you have said. There will be things that will be hard for me to hear and understand. I have to share you with a century of past that I did not know you, and did not live through. And I am jealous of Time, when I think of this. A futile feeling, truly. I am not a jealous creature, I've never felt that way before. But you ignite those things in me. I believe that is the danger of playing with fire. I burn. I feel you everywhere. And hurt or revel, I want and I want and I want. But I know that it will be hard. I know this, because those times when you seem so, so sad, or there is such weight and gravity in your solemnity... when you are with your most private self, I know and trust that the gravity is immense. And I see the delineation of your event horizon. I think that idea is perfect, in some ways. I know you have a relationship with that line. The boundary between seen and unseen, known and unknown. And sometimes you take me beyond it, sure of our ability to return from that particular sojourn. And sometimes I see you push me away from it. Sometimes for me. Sometimes for you. ... I'm not sure. Just thoughts. Here she draws the brilliant double rings of a black hole. The aura of it is flecked in silver ink, spattered rather expertly like she had practiced the effect a hundred fold before daring to try it upon the card.

But, I do not worry. Just sometimes, when you're with me, I'm greedy to know. We communicate so many ways. With fingertips and tongues. With .... all of me, I speak to you. But my greed for you has no end. None. So, sometimes, when there is a cadence in your voice, when we are soft or you have wound me between your fingers like a lock of hair, and I hum softly, inside and out, and you speak to me.... in your Greek, in words I know... I just want to take, and take, and emboss your beautiful words into my skin so I can keep them, taste them, know them always. I love your voice. I love listening to you, Sinon. It is perverse. And I love adding to the spell of you. There is Truth in all you do, but when I can steal a translation from you in words, I want to press them like flowers, dry them like fragile keepsakes, and make molds of them like keys. They are greedy, frivolous things. Childish, perhaps. But I want them.

I keep them. I will never forget them. They become a part of me. All of this, all of you, becomes a part of me. But these develop the lines of you. Whether they are gravitational (circles, ripples, revelations) or are boundaries of our beautiful, perfect countries... they are both. The ebb and flow of the Byzantine empire. You. I trace them at night when you are not there. I feel them on my skin in the dark. They hum with your heartbeat. Forgive me.

I love you.
Millicent

And it is sealed with a kiss. And near her name, the scent of her is most vibrant. Vanilla and sunlight, amber and tiare.

**Title by Zedd