[ Watashi ]

[ Tomodachi ]

[ Saint Seiya ]

[ Clamp ]

[ Fanfiction ]

It took Dominique endless minutes to unfold her legs and stand up from her meditation spot right under the two tamaris trees. Siel watched her all the while, toying with the thought of shaking the silent, oblivious Virgo Gold Saint until she begged for mercy--not that she'd ever abase herself to that or allow herself to be manhandled in this unseemly fashion, of course. Many of the things she did were for show, but some were not. It was hard to guess whether her slow, lazy motions belonged to the first or the second category, and in this moment Siel was almost past caring about that.

The two tamaris trees were set on a small rocky plateau on the right side of the House of Virgo. They were part of a garden of sorts where Dominique enjoyed spending her time, and where she accepted to receive guests. There was another garden, at the very heart of the sixth temple, but its doors were closed to outsiders. It was said that the beauty of it was such that it took the breath away, and that in its center two twin trees were growing, spreading their canopies of leaves and branches toward the heavens. Twin Sala trees, the Virgo Saint's dying place. A terrible battle had once taken place there, long ago, when one of Dominique's predecessors had chosen to sacrifice his life, and to die at the hands of his friends and peers.

Taking his mind away from tales of ancient times, Siel heaved out a sigh, even as Dominique smoothed the ankle-length maroon dress she was wearing. "Impatient?" the damn woman smiled. "That's not like you."

Siel bit back the snarky comment that had come to his lips. He had no time to indulge in games of taunting and verbal fencing with Dominique--and besides he hated losing with a passion. "Unfortunately, time in the mundane world proceeds along its course without a care for the workings of higher planes." Siel gave an imperceptible shrug, then added, "Have you given a thought to what we should do?"

Dominique stepped past the Pisces Gold Saint, her eyes stubbornly, maddeningly closed. Every Virgo saint did that, a more than annoying habit passed down from each Gold Saint to his or her heir--a frighteningly efficient way of focusing one's cosmo as well. "A thought, yes," Dominique replied in a calm voice, "but a decision...." she waved her words away for the wind to catch.

On the previous day, they had buried Brennan. It had been a small, discreet ceremony. They hadn't told the others: no Silver Saint and no Bronze Saint knew of the demise of the Sanctuary's head. It might be some of them had picked up something of the short, deadly confrontation in the temple of Athena, but fortunately none of them had grasped the truth of what had transpired. All the Gold Saints had agreed to wait before saying anything. No matter what any of them thought of the policy adopted by Brennan, they all understood that his brutal death would change matters, and that it was vital to ponder all the consequences.

Was it wise to reveal that Brennan had been murdered?

Was it wise to release the true name of his murderer?

There were many other such questions, as well as muted ones--essential ones. "Have you come to push me to commit myself?" Dominique asked, her voice distant, stepping beyond the protective shade of the tamaris' lace-like canopy of delicately intertwined light green needles.

"Every moment you spend meditating," Siel began, joining her side--and he froze.

From where they were both standing, Siel could glimpse bright stains of sparkling blue at the edge of the Sanctuary's deep valleys. The sea. The Aegean sea, which bordered the Sacred Domain's eastern frontier. Drawing in a breath, Siel went on, "Carey spends plotting and preparing."

Dominique scoffed. "That much is certain." Her unseeing gaze was still set on the distant stains of sea. She wasn't listening, not really.

Siel willed a veil of calm to come over him, and faced her again. "Will you then keep playing games while he takes over the Sanctuary?" he asked, his tone flat. It was in Carey's eyes every time Siel stumbled upon the dark Cancer Saint. Brennan's death had offered him a golden opportunity to seize power, and Siel knew with cold certainty that Carey wouldn't let it pass.

"Oh, please," Dominique shook her head. "Carey will never sit on the throne of Athena's temple. This is simply too preposterous for words," she snorted. Before Siel could argue, she added in a whisper, "Besides, don't you think it's a bit too early to make decisions like who will replace Brennan?" She was still focused on the sea.

Siel pivoted to follow her unseeing gaze in a slow, deliberate motion. He wouldn't look away, he wouldn't flinch. "Yours," he told her in a pleasant, even voice, "is a dangerous game."

"Is it?" she had turned to confront him, her long golden hair taking in the wind. The same smile was still on her lips.

"Tell me," Siel said softly, "should I kill you, or should I kill Shamira Goldstein?"

She raised an eyebrow, as if the question had come as a surprise. "Shamira Goldstein? Ah," she gave a nod, "so she did know."

It was what Siel had heard--that she had truly, deliberately abandoned the jumpship pilots once she had learnt that Loki had fallen into the hands of the Sanctuary. There was no way to be sure, but she was likely to have known that the trident of her Lord was being kept here--and of course she knew that Loki wouldn't fall prey to the madness, couldn't succumb to it, being the last of the Solo line.

The line of human beings Poseidon chose as hosts whenever the wrathful god decided to incarnate himself and wage war with Athena.

Knowing all that, it stood to reason that Shamira Goldstein had made the cold, merciless bet that Loki would feel the presence of the terrible weapon that was his birthright, and that he would avenge his parents' death--avenge Shamira Goldstein herself, who hadn't been able to save the Earth-Moon shuttle's precious cargo.

"Do what you will with her, Siel." Dominique shrugged. "That woman died seventeen years ago when Brennan murdered the one she was sworn to protect, the one she had raised and loved like her own son." The Virgo Saint once more turned to face the sea. "You'll be doing her a mercy."

Laughter spilled from Siel's lips, brief, unhappy sounds that he quickly stifled. Silence came back between them, which Siel allowed to grow. He'd wait. Dominique wasn't done yet, and both of them knew it. "Even though I couldn't put a name on what I felt in that moment," she whispered at last, "I suspected. Had I been certain, I would have stopped him, but as it was--"

"Had you chosen to make certain," Siel corrected her. She had allowed Loki to traverse the House of Virgo, and she had done so aware of the possibility, of the threat he could represent. She, the sharpest and most sensitive of them all, who juggled with planes other than the material one. Because she had gambled on probabilities, Brennan had died. Because of her games, Loki had reached the House of Pisces, reached Siel and--

"Justice is a complex," Dominique turned toward Siel, "ever-changing dance between things that feel right and wrong, things that hurt and bring joy--darkness and light." There was a strange, knowing smile hovering on her lips. "Brennan had fallen out of step and crossed the line for a long time."

Siel blinked. Dominique had deliberately stepped aside, and let another do what she could not--must not do, lest the roots of the Sanctuary wither and the order of Athena's Saints die with it, sink into obscurity and be forgotten. "In truth," he hissed softly, "I should kill you."

"You should try," Dominique countered.

Siel smirked, then remarked in a quiet whisper, "That's why you're here," he smiled, a thin, humorless smile that twisted the lines of his mouth, "to watch."

Beside him, the Virgo Saint nodded. "Even though there's nothing one can feel--that place devours everything." For a moment, Dominique went silent, as if she was weighing her words with care, then she said, "There was too much anger, too much rage and grief." A small sigh escaped her. "There's no chance for him."

Had there been the faintest hint of sorrow in the proud, indifferent woman's voice? Siel bowed his head, but he didn't step back--he didn't feel the sharp pain of roses' thorns tearing at his heart. "I came here for a reason," he made himself say. "Will you, or won't you support Shane?"

Dominique heaved out another, loud sigh--very loud. "You won't let the matter rest, will you?" Hissing air through her teeth, she turned away from the sea. "We should let him speak for himself. Shane!" she called out, all of a sudden, and she muttered under her breath, "Where is that child?"

Child.

Almost, Siel laughed. Everyone who wasn't a full-fledged Gold Saint was "child" to Dominique--and so it was for most of them, Siel included when he thought about it.

Everyone but Loki.

Everyone but that bright, wild flame--enough. His jaw set, Siel refocused on Dominique. The Virgo Saint had sparked a tiny fraction of her cosmo, calling out after Shane once again. Had she tried to summon another Gold saint in this fashion, she'd have been certain never to be answered--or in a most unpleasant manner. It was rude, outrageous even, but Dominique was Virgo, and magnificent, and powerful. She also had far too much self-confidence.

Before both Gold Saints, the air rippled and red-haired Shane appeared out of nowhere. "What is it you want?" There was weariness in the question, and lingering hints of grief.

Dominique beamed at the young man. "There's a Gold Cloth waiting in the House of Aries. When do you intend to go to her?"

Shane winced, his usually clear blue eyes haunted. "Not yet," he breathed, "Perhaps never."

"I don't think so," Dominique retorted at once, with implacable gentleness. "None of us have a choice, when that moment comes. It may not be joyful, it may even be hard and painful, but there is no longer a choice--not when a Cloth had chosen and embraced you. You are Aries," she finished softly, "this you can neither deny, nor refuse."

Shane shook his head. "Is this why you called me here? You--" He drew a sharp intake of breath as he took a step back. "You want me to replace Brennan, to lead--no. No!" It was almost a snarl.

Siel looked him right in the eye. "We wouldn't press you like this if we could avoid it, but Carey won't wait and give you the time to grieve. As soon as he can decently do so, he'll move."

A grimace of disgust twisted the lines of Shane's face. "He's a demon," he spat.

"And a Gold Saint," Siel murmured.

For a moment, Shane stared back at Siel in silence. The blue eyes were stormy, and the expression on Shane's face was an unreadable one. Abruptly he walked past the two Gold Saints to stand on the edge of the small rocky plateau.

Eyes set upon the sea.

"Tell Carey I am Aries," Shane said at last, his voice strained. "Tell him I won't let anyone, not him, not any of you make a decision concerning Brennan's succession." He drew in a deep breath. "Things must change--fundamental things. We must decide what to do with Azure Traverse, we must heal the jumpship pilots and bring them here, let them wake close to the sea--but not now." There was a rigid set in Shane's shoulders when he added in a breath, "Not while Loki lives, not while he's caged in the cell under Cape Sounio. Not while he's locked in darkness."

Watching Shane's taut back, Siel envied him, envied his ability to express the emotions that were tearing at him inside--envied the generosity of Shane's heart. "Carey will wait," Shane said harshly, "whether he likes it or not. We will all wait," he went on, pivoting to face them both. "It's not decided." The blue eyes were focused, distant. "It's not decided!" he repeated fiercely.

Deep inside Siel's heart, Shane's words echoed--and hurt.

Emptiness.

It's the first thing that assaults the mind. There's timelessness, too, but it's easier to shy away from. There is neither beginning, nor end here, in a night blacker than the infinite void between stars. It doesn't matter; it doesn't touch me. The emptiness does--the silence. It hammers at me, it batters at the failing barriers of my spirit. There never is the slightest sound.

Not when the waves start licking at my feet.

Not when I fight my way up, clutching at the cell's walls in my attempts to escape the waters' embrace.

Not when I cry out.

Not when I scream.

It's a cave; at least I managed to ascertain that before I lost all feeling in my hands. It's because of the sharp rocks of its faces, because I must cling to them with all the strength I have when the tide rises. The waters would drown me if I didn't, so I close my fingers around the razor-sharp edges, and hang on to them. I don't think there's much skin left on my hands; most of it must have been rubbed off, torn away by now--but it doesn't matter much.

Nothing matters, but the tides that keep rising and falling, endlessly. I don't know why it's so, I don't remember. There's pain everywhere in my body: in my skin-torn hands, in my back that the waves have repeatedly slammed against the cave's walls, in my insides and my kidneys. I'm thirsty, so thirsty that once in a while I try drinking the salty waters which want to drag me into their depths--but that sends coughs raking my body, and then it hurts even more.

There are other kinds of pain, or maybe they're other things. The silence that gnaws at me, that has devoured a piece of my heart. If I close my eyes, I'll see faces of people, and the pain will tear a cry out of my throat. It won't make a sound--I wish it would, though.

I'm here because I'm evil.

I blink in the dark, but the thought refuses to retreat and fade into nothingness. I'm here because I was brought here--imprisoned here. That's a paradox, it clashes with timelessness. There's pain in my face, as I feel my lips shape a smile--or maybe it's a grimace, but no one will see.

It's too dark.

Darker than the night, darker than a glistening flow of night whose memory hurts so bad I scream again--and again. The Deep, the sea of stars...it has been torn away from me. In place of it, I've been locked away here, in a cave washed by dead waters.

Lifeless.

Silent.

Cold--I used to have warmth before. It was ripped from me the first time, and it rejected me the second.

Because I'm evil.

In the unending night, I sob, but that makes no sound either. The waves are lapping at my waist, and cold is rapidly spreading through my body, numbing pain here and reviving it there. Again, I try to reach out to the flow, to the stream, but it's dead. Unable to control the reflex, I climb up to a small ledge, where I can rest for a moment before the waters reach it as well. Once they do, I'll have to clutch the rock, and hold myself above--well, my head and my shoulders. I can never manage more, and the ceiling would make it impossible if I could.

This is what you did.

Unblinking, I wait until the ethereal whisper has faded from my mind. It's a ghost. We share this place, it and I. Often, it comes when the waters rise. It doesn't make sense, but then ghosts rarely do. This is what you did, it insists.

It's wrong--they're wrong, those who imprisoned me here, in this small cave under the ground, in the bowels of a mountain that looms over the sea. I removed a demon, a disease. I would never lock someone away in the dark--in the silence.

This is what you did.

The waters have reached the ledge. I lift a hand and close my fingers upon a rock's sharp edge. Pain, savage, robs me of breath and I fall.

The waters close upon me.

Black.

Cold.

They choke me.

They crush me.

On instinct, I claw at them, but they embrace me.

This is what you did.

No--no! It's a lie! It's false! This is too dark, it hurts too much, it's--

What you did.

Somehow, I manage to get back to the surface, but I can't find the ledge anymore--I can't reach any of the stones I normally use to keep my head above the waters. Cold is spreading through my body, and the silence is suffocating. One last time, I try to reach out to something--anything. The attempt is far too weak, doomed to fail.

This is what you did, the ethereal whisper fills my mind, colder than the waters. This is death.

No. No, it cannot be true. Because if it were, then what I did, what I felt when the heart of that man stopped beating, and when the light faded from his purple eyes--no! It's not what I wanted! I can't find a grip on the rock. The waters are dragging me down--greedy. Desperately I struggle to keep myself afloat, but I'm too cold. I'm too weak. I hurt too much.

This is what you did.

The soundless murmur is a cold, cold fire. If it's true, if that's what killing means, if it's sentencing someone to this, to darkness and cold and silence--if to do it I used and deceived one who had embraced me and become my anchor to the world, then....

I am evil.

I-- Please! I beg the silence, Please, help me! Let me take it back! Of course, there is no answer. The silence swallows me, gobbles me up, and the waters scorn me. I'm theirs, and they're not letting me go. I had better yield to their pull on my legs and my body. I should let them drown me. After all, I am evil, and I deserve this.

This darkness.

This emptiness.

This pain.

It's what I did, so it's only fair that I sink into the same black void, where there are no stars and no light, where there's only silence.

Will you die, then? It's the ghost, it has come back to watch me fade into the dark. Will you be so cowardly that you'd rather die than face what you did? It mocks me, but it doesn't understand, or perhaps--one last time, I refuse the cold and kick my way back to the surface.

There's nothing to see, nothing to hear or feel, except the silence and the cold. But the ghost must be here. Certainly it's hovering somewhere in the narrow space between the cave's ceiling and the surface of the waters. Help me! I beg again, but this time I focus all the strength I have left. Maybe I can touch the ghost the way it touches my mind, maybe it can do this, maybe that's why it's been waiting this long--why it's been coming back time and again. Take it back. Please. I'll sink, I'll drown and be smothered in the dark and the cold, but if only it will hear me, if only it-- I want to take it all back! Undo it! Unmake it!

There's no answer.

The ghost is gone.

Frantic, I try to focus again, to shape thoughts in my mind, but I have no strength left, no will. The cold floods my being, and chokes the life out of me.

And I sink into the dark, lifeless waters.

I sink into the Deep's corpse.

Instead of the void, there was pain, distant and dull. There was a familiar roughness covering my body as well--linens. There was darkness, but it was different, tainted with faint hints of light. I was lying in what must be a bed, propped up against pillows--they were one among the sources of the pain, pushing against my back as they were. The other source of it was my hands, in my fingers, even though I couldn't get any feeling from there. It was a deep, throbbing ache which seemed to radiate from the bones. During an eternity, I marveled at it, at pain and sensation and imperfect darkness. Then, something touched me.

"Hold still." The absentminded voice reached my ears even as I tensed. A shiver ran up my spine, and I gasped. There were sounds--audible sounds! Even though the silence within, the tearing sensation of something lacking inside--a piece of my soul--was still firmly rooted in my being, the silence without had withdrawn. Then--then it was gone. I choked back a sob. It was truly gone, the ghost of the dark, the black waters--

The Deep's corpse swallowing me, ever so slowly.

"Hush." It was the same voice. A careful hand squeezed my shoulder, holding me. The deep, rich tones of that voice were like liquid fire cascading down my throat--like a burning wind scorching my eyes. Fingers touched my temples and worked at unfastening something there, then the slight pressure on my head and my eyes lessened.

The stains of light grew wider.

"So," the voice said, thoughtful, "it looks like we can try taking off the blindfold all the way, this time."

This time? Did this mean there had been other attempts before? Many others? I couldn't remember. The only memory inside my mind was that of cold, dead waters and of the taunting ghost. The fingers were gentle as they removed the last layers of bandages covering my eyes.

Light.

Colors, grey and blue and brown and white.

Stones. I blinked. A wall of stones and a roof supported by massive, ancient wood beams--beautiful, precious wood, the most precious of luxury items in the great space stations whose hearts were shining metal. Space stations, space, and the night full of stars, eternal.

The sparkling darkness of the Deep.

Dragging in a breath, I looked away from the wall before my eyes and the memories it summoned. Down that path awaited things I didn't want to know, not yet--things dark and brutal and evil, things that the ghost had whipped my spirit with until I had given in and looked at them, looked truly.

Things that I had done.

And in that moment, I had understood, I had grasped the full horror of them. Again I blinked, and reflexively tried to close my hands into fists.

I screamed.

Or anyway, the blinding pain that clawed at my throat was a scream, but what came out was more like a pitiful croak. For the time of a heartbeat, my head swam and my vision wavered, then all of a sudden blue eyes met mine. Someone was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching me. It was a man, tall and lean and beautiful, whose lustrous black hair reached down to his lower back. His gaze was that of a hawk, unwavering and proud.

Haughty.

Cold.

I didn't try to reach out to him. Even though he was sitting less than a step away from me, he felt more distant than the stars lying on the other side of the galactic rim's abyss. Besides, I had no right to do so. "Si--" my voice was dry and hoarse, and shaping sounds into words was difficult, almost impossible. "Siel," I managed at last, more a moan than his name.

He gave me a slow nod. "The gods have released you," he said, and a smile briefly touched his lips. "It shouldn't be too long until you're whole. Then," he went on, standing up, "you'll be free." With that, he turned his back on me, and left the room.

During minutes, maybe hours, I stared at the door he'd gone through. Daylight was coming into the room from a high window on my left. Slowly the shadows changed shape, like lazy dancers following a tune so sluggish nobody but they could hear it. Siel had watched over me, looked at me, but he hadn't seen me. He would no longer acknowledge me, I understood that. The pain of that understanding was unimportant, but he should know--know! I clamped my jaws tightly shut, and bit my tongue until I tasted blood in my mouth. Lifting my hands up, I blinked when I saw the bandages enfolding the fingers on both of them. On my right one, the bandages covered the whole hand up to the wrist, and on my left, it left a good half of my palm and the outer edge of the hand free. I had expected them to be gone, reduced to ugly stumps after the savage and cruel abuse I had put them through.

Clutching at razor-sharp stones in the dark.

Fleeing the waters' horrible embrace and the hissings of a ghost inside my mind.

Bowing my head, I released a shaking breath. The ghost had been right about me: I was a coward. I couldn't face Siel. I needed to, I had to. It was a blind, raw want, a hole in my soul. On impulse, I moved to stand up from the bed, and managed it with a muffled moan. Gods, my hands--I drew in a breath, and went in wobbly steps to the wardrobe set next to the door. Opening it brought tears to my eyes, but I bit back the pain and reached inside. After finding pants and a shirt, I spent long, awkward minutes to put the clothes on. Once that was done, I went out the door and left the room.

Well before I exited the high hall of columns, their sweet scent reached my nostrils. When I stepped on the parvis of the Pisces House, I looked at them, and a smile trembled upon my lips. I looked at them, and wished that their sight would fill my mind, fill my spirit and free me from all the things that hurt and smothered me--but of course that pitiful, despicable wish wasn't granted. There were no whimsical Dwellers here, to sniff at human madness and toy with illusions. In slow, careful steps, I left the protection of the twelfth House, and entered the garden.

A slight rustle rose in the air around me, as an almost imperceptible breeze glided over the field of roses, wandering from one of the valleys below. It swept away a few petals at first, then more and more when it grew--when I walked deeper into Siel's garden. All of a sudden, the breeze became a wind, and a myriad of petals soared up in the daylight, obscuring the sun and spiraling around me, faster and faster.

A storm.

Standing still, I watched them surround me, circling me and darkening my vision. They were like a hailstorm gone mad, like walls of blood closing around me. The wind hurled a rose toward me, and its thorns tore at the unprotected skin on my left hand.

Anger.

Fury.

Falling to my knees in the field of roses, I wrapped my arms around my bowed head in an instinctive gesture of self-protection. Another rose slashed at my left forearm and a yelp of pain escaped me. Yes, I closed my eyes, the flowers were angry. It didn't make sense, but anger had engulfed them, raw and fierce.

I had deceived them.

I shuddered. I had deceived them, like I had Siel. "I know," I forced the words out of my mouth, unheeding of the sharp pain in my throat. "I know." I was shaking. "I used the bond of trust, I lied to you. I deceived you." I clenched my teeth. "I betrayed you like I did Siel. There was anger," dragging in a breath, I made myself look up at the storm of bloody rain imprisoning me, "so much anger, so wild and so brutal." I shook my head. "I let it overwhelm me. I could have fought it, pushed it back, but--I allowed it to claim me, to consume me, and I..." I bit my lower lip. "I hid it from you, from Siel. I shied away from him, so he couldn't know and help, so the anger could keep growing inside me. And then I killed him. I killed Brennan Aries." Despite the wounds in both my hands, I hugged myself. "I sentenced him to the dark and to a silence so horrible they shred the soul and devour it. I know what I've done. I know." Head bowed, I whispered, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Abruptly laughter spilled from my lips, a croaking, ugly sound. "It's not enough. It's nothing. Nothing. I know that too. "I thought--" I made myself look up again, and willed the words to come, adding, "I thought the ghost would let me unmake it, take it all back if I gave it my heart to feed upon, but it didn't. And I'm sorry, and that's meaningless. I don't know what I can do, I--" my voice broke. "I don't know how to tell Siel. I can't tell him, speak to him...."

The rasp sounds of my voice faded into silence, then something that was half-chortle, half-sob tore at my throat and spilled from my lips. "It's crazy," Again I shook my head. "Crazy and pathetic. I'm talking to flowers, and the truth...." I sucked air inside my lungs. The wind had paused, but the myriad of petals was still surrounding me, as if frozen in time and suspended in mid-air. "The truth," I willed myself to say, "is that I'm aware of what I've done--that I've snatched a man's life away. I'm a murderer, a deceiver, and there's nothing I can do, nothing I can say that will change those facts. Sorry is irrelevant. Regrets are irrelevant, but I'm sorry." I blinked back tears, and repeated in a breath, "I'm sorry."

All around me, the blood red wall was still obscuring my vision.

Shivering petals like snow flakes.

Bristling with anger.

"Enough." All of a sudden, the petals fell to the ground, as if until now they'd been held in the air through thousands of invisible threads that a great hand had severed in the blink of an eye.

A shadow disturbed mine, and Siel set a knee down on the ground on my left. He didn't look at me. Briskly he took hold of my left wrist and pursed his lips, staring at the deep gashes the Royal Demon Roses had left in my hand. "Anger," he snorted softly, and a narrow grin split his face, "indeed." With that, he bent down, lifting my hand to his lips, and gently kissed the wounds. I tried to jerk away, to free my hand, but he held me back. He was far too strong for me to prevail against him, even though I struggled to win free. I didn't want him to be here, to do this, to-- Violently I shivered when I felt the tip of his tongue lick the blood away and when he sucked at the cuts.

Removing the roses' poison--nothing else.

Nothing else!

Less than four heartbeats later he released me, and I looked into the stark blue eyes. I looked into them, and saw absolutely nothing. "Siel," I said. I had to tell him, I had to no matter what it cost me or how it hurt. "You have--"

"Be silent," he cut me off in a quiet whisper, and pressed his right forefinger against my lips. "I won't hear it a second time." The ghost of a smile hovered on his face as he added, "Those cursed roses are indiscreet busybodies. Whatever is being told them, I hear. Once is enough," he sighed, "more than enough."

Currents slowly swirled into being.

Ethereal.

Streams of light that were of the Deep and then not.

Warmth.

Warmth, which coiled up to me even as Siel wrapped his arms around me and brought me close, hugged me, pressed me against him and tucked my head under his chin. Drawing in a shaking breath, I closed my eyes and leaned into his embrace. I could feel him, feel his heartbeats, feel the whole of him like when-- "Anger poisoned me as well," he said in a distant murmur, and again I shivered when I felt the words vibrate in his throat. "Like you, I allowed it to gain over me." Laughter was coiled up inside him, but he didn't release it, even though it must tear at him, claw at him to win free. His right hand rubbed my back in gentle circling motions, and tears spilled from my eyes, unstoppable. There was no controlling them, it was as if he had released a lock deep inside me.

"I'm here." He rocked me like one would a child, gentle, careful. "I always was." His other hand combed my hair in a caress. "You couldn't know," a painful chuckle resounded in the air as he whispered, "I'm good at hiding things."

I hugged him, then. I hugged him with all the weak strength that I had, denying the pain in my fingers. I hugged him, and remained silent. I hugged him, and savagely smothered selfish, senseless words inside. Unuttered, they echoed within me, but I made myself deaf to them and denied them--unthought them.

Eventually he released me and I did the same, like Griffin Out Falling from the Deep, severing myself from the flow but never truly, never completely so. Looking up, I saw him stand, and I accepted the hand he held out to me. Around us, peace had come back to the field of roses. For a moment, I stared at the flowers and thanked them in silence, for being indiscreet busybodies and for being the release of Siel's anger.

For having forgiven me, even though nothing could ever repair the harm I had done.

Drawing in a deep breath, I told Siel, "I must talk to Shane."

He gave me a sharp, startled glance, and a shadow flickered in the hawklike gaze. "I suppose," he bobbed his head in a slow, reluctant motion. "But it can wait for a while, until you're healed and," he chuckled softly, "until your voice sounds more human than crow."

Wiping the tears away from my face with the back of my left hand, I nodded at him. "All right." There was relief in my tone, and I hated the sound of it. I dreaded the thought of confronting Shane; the mere idea of it churned my stomach, but I would do it. Even though I had snatched at Siel's words like a ravenous man, grateful for a reason--any reason to delay what I must do...hell, I wouldn't let myself run away from this.

"Hush." Siel wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me against him. "Enough. Give yourself a rest. You have time. You'll speak to Shane soon enough." I wanted to bury my head in the crook of his shoulder, I wanted to breathe the scent of him--I wanted far too many absurd things, so I stifled them all and nodded instead. "Fool", he growled softly, and ruffled my hair.

The rising sun was painting the mountains a pale shade of pink. Slowly the night's lingering shadows withdrew before the light of day, reluctant children shooed away to bed. I watched the changing tableau as I walked down the great Stairs, all the way from the House of Pisces to the very first of the small temples set along the steep path leading up to the mountain top. Nobody stopped me, none of my self-appointed judges deigned show themselves--none of them was curious enough to bother and gawk at the murderer who had been released from the terrible cell under Cape Sounio.

I had no clear memory of it. I had no idea who or what might have saved me in the instant of death. The only thing that was certain was that no one in the Sanctuary would ever have dared interfere, not even the prideful, arrogant Gold Saints. That place seemed to be a source of quiet, muted dread, as if it was somehow taboo. So the how of my release from its darkness was a mystery, and would likely remain so, unless I ended up going with the story of unnamed gods deciding to forgive me. At times, I thought it was the ghost which had freed me from that tomb-like place, and then I laughed to belie the cold creeping inside me.

Coming to a stop at a left turn of the Stairs, I watched the small temple waiting below. The House of Aries--Aries, like Shane, and like Brennan who had used the name like a lastname when he had walked the mundane places of worlds and space stations. I hadn't blinked when I had heard the sounds of it for the first time. I hadn't made the link between it and one of the twelve great constellations of the Zodiac. But Shamira had known, oh yes she had. With a low hiss, I willed my cowardly mind to stop reaching out to each and every random thought that traversed my brain to avoid contemplating the sight set before my eyes.

I had to get down there.

I had to walk into the House and pass under its shadow.

I had to.

Biting my lower lip, I set a foot down on the first step, and let the slope's momentum draw me down. It was only walking, only that, and it wasn't difficult. Yet, I could feel my heart hammering in my chest as I left the small temple's parvis and entered the House proper. Fortunately the echo of my steps started resounding in a low, rhythmic melody of drums, thus covering the sounds of my heartbeats. I found Shane in the temple's left wing, or rather he found me. As I was about to give up and decide he wasn't there, he had appeared from a side room.

Clad in gold.

Shining figure of times ancient and past.

Noble and proud.

A lump in my throat, I had frozen in my steps. The first time I had seen this, I had been in the throes of hatred and grief, blinded by a storm of raw fury and fear, but now it was no longer so.

Now I saw Shane turn toward me, a knight in shining armor whose presence sent shivers through the world. It was as if the stones of the ancient temple acknowledged him, as it the land, the Earth recognized him--as if he and they were myth and legend incarnate, as if they truly were the holy warriors, servants of a goddess they claimed to be. Shane was an entrancing sight.

Exhilarating.

Frightening also, as the feeling sent the currents and the waves of the Deep recoiling, hissing softly behind the Curtain of reality. The sensation of Shane's presence was so strong it could draw upon the flow and disturb the tides there. That turmoil of mixed emotions assaulted my senses, and I stood very still, waiting for it to recede.

"You're healed." There was a hesitant smile on Shane's face. All of a sudden he blinked, and waved to the right. "Oh, sorry." Abruptly the Cloth of Gold covering his body started shining so bright that I had to avert my eyes. Within the time of a heartbeat, it split itself in a myriad of glittering fragments which left his body and rushed aside to reassemble themselves in the shape of a great ram at Shane's side. "This is Aries," he said softly, looking down on the lifeless statue that had been an armor mere moments before--no.

Not lifeless.

As I felt ethereal streams of power swirling around it in lazy spirals, my eyes widened. It was this statue, this Cloth which had been the source of the unearthly keening howl that had filled the great Stairs and the temple of Athena, mourning the death of Brennan Aries.

Mourning the death of a part of itself.

Unable to help myself, I flinched before the sight of it, and barely heard Shane as he spat, "Shit!" In the blink of an eye, he was standing on my right and drawing me away. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been wearing her when I knew you were coming. I should have remembered--"

"It's all right," I interrupted him in a whisper. It was absurd: I was the one who was supposed to be sorry, not Shane, and certainly not Aries, whatever it was. "I'm--"

Blue eyes met mine. "Not now. Come with me." I did so, there was little else I could do but follow Shane and obey. I couldn't force him to listen to the empty words I needed to tell him. They would help me more than they would him and that was unfair, but I didn't know what else to do.

Shane took me through all the lower levels of the Sanctuary, drawing more than a few stares from young people he identified as apprentices or older ones he called Bronze and Silver Saints. None of them called out to Shane or made a move toward him. Loud conversations fell into silence, and frenzied combat training came to an abrupt halt as people got a glimpse of us. There was a strange, subdued atmosphere wherever we were spotted, but Shane wouldn't slow down, wouldn't stop or let me ask him what it all meant.

As last, we came to a remote valley, away from all the small houses and training grounds. The terrain was more or less flat here, except for hundreds of small rectangular stones which looked like somebody's idea of a forest of rocks. "They know," Shane sighed as he paused next to the first stones. There were words engraved in the rock, rough carvings that looked like the wind had made them. "They knew who we both are." My heart skipped a beat, and cold hit the pit of my stomach as I whirled toward Shane.

"We told them the truth," he said in a quiet voice, deep blue eyes set on me, clear. "We explained, and they understood. Shay and Cassandra opposed it, arguing that it would cast shadows and confusion in their hearts. Dominique wasn't interested in the debate or the decision, and neither Micheal nor Carey wanted to choose a side. Siel and I pushed Dominique so she'd side with us, which she did when she agreed that secrets have a knack for coming out when you least expect it, and in the worst moment possible. So we told them." Shane looked away, and added softly, "At first, they hated you," he bowed his head, "as I hated you myself."

Reaching out to steady me when I swayed under the words' assault, Shane locked his gaze with mine. "But when the first moments of anger and grief were past," he whispered, intent, "when they listened to the rest, all that was left was sorrow, sadness and a terrible feeling of waste." Numb, I stared back at him. Gone was my pretty speech of meaningless regrets, drowned in Shane's stark sincerity. Wordlessly he closed his right hand over my forearm and drew me along, into the strange forest of small stones.

Names.

I gasped and wanted to stop, but Shane wouldn't let me. Silent, he pulled me among the random stones that weren't simple stones but funeral stones. This place was the Sanctuary's cemetery.

"We're all put to rest here," Shane said at last, his voice gentle but shadowed with pain. "There's no distinction here, no rank, no Gold, Bronze or Silver. We all come to sleep here for all eternity under the loving gaze of Athena." In the moment he said so, I saw it, made small by the distance, at the other end of the remote valley.

The statue of Athena, the goddess they swore themselves to.

It was the only thing of the Sanctuary that one could see from here, as if they had wanted to keep the cemetery a place as private as possible--a spot that nothing must ever disturb, watched by the immortal eyes of the statue set at the top of the great Stairs.

The heart of their Sanctuary.

Shane briefly rested a hand upon my right shoulder. "We're here," he murmured. We had come before one of the stones. As I read the name carved upon it, I blinked.

Brennan. Aries.

For a moment I stared at it, transfixed, then I squatted down before it. My vision wavered and I reached out to the stone, stopping just short of touching it. What was I doing here? My presence in this place was preposterous, outrageous even--but Shane had brought me here. Shane wanted me to be here, to see this funeral stone.

"I'm sorry," I heard myself say. I tried to stop myself before it was too late and I insulted the dead as well as Shane with my self-pity and my guilty conscience, but the words tumbled from my mouth despite all my efforts to control them. "I always knew there was pain in you, terrible pain next to the hatred, but I didn't want to acknowledge that, not really. I wanted you to have only hatred, to be only hatred. I made you so in my mind, and I let anger and fury cloud my judgement. It was--" my voice broke, and I bowed my head. "It was easier that way." I closed my eyes. "Easier to kill you. I," my fingers blindly groped for the stones, and touched the rough carvings of his name in it. "I cannot unmake it. I cannot unwind Time, not even if I were to plunge down the heart of a storm in the Deep." Biting my lower lip hard, I made myself look up. "I can only say that I understand what you did, because we're the same. I cannot forgive, no more than you could." I sighed. "There's one thing you should know," through the tears burning my eyes, I smiled as my fingers followed the shape of his name, and said, "the trident you feared so much, the power you dreaded--it's gone. It's fallen deep into slumber, and it won't wake again. Ever. This I swear to you and to Shane." Releasing my breath in a shaking sigh, I stood up and faced Shane.

"Enough," the redhead shook his head, resting both hands on my shoulders and squeezing gently. The blue gaze was set on me. "There's nothing you need to say to me. What matters is what you told Brennan. That's why I brought you here." A crooked smile touched his lips when he saw that I wanted to argue. "I told you, Loki. At first I hated you, but even then I wouldn't lock you away at Sounio. I--" he looked away. "I think it may have been important to send you there, but it was a dark thing to do, and I couldn't bring myself to it. Not even then," he murmured, looking back at me. "I don't hate you, Loki. I heard what you told Brennan, and it's enough for me. I won't forgive you," he said softly, "but then I don't think you'd want me to. I'll accept you, though, and allow you to stay in the Sanctuary for a while, even if," he released me and added in a calm voice, "you'll have to leave, eventually."

In silence I nodded at him, bowing to what sounded like a judgement. Shane had changed since that horrible night, he had grown. He spoke like a leader, and felt like one.

"Oh, no!" he chuckled, a sound full of irony and sorrow. "No," he repeated, gazing at the distant statue of the goddess Athena. "Things are going to change here, Loki," he told me, reading my thoughts like an open book as usual. "I'll make them change. It may take me some time, but I'll make them understand." Refocusing on me, he added, "There's one thing that won't wait, and I'll need your advice on how to proceed." Again, he smiled, a gentle smile as he said, "I'm bringing all the Azure Traverse pilots here. I'll have them set on a beach, as close to the shore as possible. Then, I'll have them awoken. You'll help me do this, heal them and free them, won't you?"

I raised a hand to my mouth, but didn't quite manage to stifle the sob that won through my lips. My vision once more blurred with tears, I nodded at Shane--at this young man who could overcome hatred and grief, and whose heart was too great, too generous to be human. I nodded at him, and didn't embrace him, didn't hold him tight, no matter how I ached to. I didn't say anything, and I didn't hug him.

Inadequate.

"As stupid as Siel warned me," he laughed, and he closed his hands over my arms. "Now come, we've been here too long, and Siel will be angry because I forced you to walk up and down all the levels of the Sanctuary," he grinned at me. When he pulled at me, I followed him, my mind a blank except for a single thought.

They were going to heal Fi.

"They're coming," Siel murmured moments before a low, distant hum reached Shane's ears. Nodding, the new Aries Gold Saint took one last, long look at the beach they were standing upon--the place they had selected, Loki and he, to be the waking place of the Azure Traverse pilots. The sea was quiet today, peaceful even, its waves gently lapping at the shore even though just the day before it had been roaring with fury, showers of meerschaum whipping at the faces of visitors foolish enough to tarry on the beach by such a weather. But today the sun was shining in a clear blue sky free of clouds, and the tide was rising, ever so slowly.

Siel's hand pushed at Shane' right shoulder. "Go," he said, eerie blue eyes set on Shane's, intent. "Shield him." There was no need to be more specific. Shane knew that Loki was in Siel's thoughts and heart, and that the Pisces Saint feared the day's toll would be hard on the heir of the Solo line--with good reason.

"I will," Shane lied, smiling, wishing he could really protect Loki, wishing he could find words of reassurance, but there weren't any for him to grasp. Pivoting away from Siel, he got a glimpse of a rapidly growing shadow in the southern sky. The hum had turned into the loud vibration of powerful engines. The med-cargo ship would reach them in a matter of minutes, Siel was right. Closing his eyes for a fraction of a second, Shane sparked his cosmo and left the beach.

When Shane materialized next to the redhead, he found Loki waiting for him. They were both standing on the protective shade of an agria, which made Shane sigh in relief. At least Loki had been smart enough to pick a spot where his sensitive skin would be somewhat shielded from sunburns. Reaching out, Shane let the fingertips of his left hand brush against the tiny, bright green olives strewing the tree's canopy of green and silver leaves. Too young, he pursed his lips, they would take a few more months to mature, but the agria would bear a lot of them this year, a bounty that nobody would harvest. The tree was an agria, a wild olive tree which grew on its own in the most arid places, but the oil its fruits yielded was said to be too sour for most palates. With a little smile, Shane let go of the fruit, and turned toward his companion.

"They're landing," Loki said, his emerald gaze set on the beach below them. Their watching place was set atop a small hill that gently sloped down toward the sea. They were close enough to see and feel everything, and far enough so that the waking pilots wouldn't notice them--so that Giuseppina Baldini wouldn't catch sight of Loki upon winning free of the coma-like sleep she'd been drowned into.

"They are," Shane agreed. "Sit with me," he bade Loki, who for once obeyed without protesting. He was tense, awfully so. Shane could see it in the set of his shoulders and his back, and in the way he wrung his bandaged hands even though that must hurt. But the pain was perhaps a good derivative, a way of focusing Loki's mind on something, anything other than anguish.

Before them, the heavy ship landed, which really meant it hovered a few inches above the ground--it would have ruined the beach otherwise. Quickly a hatch was opened, and Shane winced when he heard Loki's sharp intake of breath. Coffin-like pods were unloaded from the medical ship's holds in a matter of minutes, and set down in the sand.

"Thirty-eight." Loki's almost inaudible whisper was flooded with pain. "There's only thirty-eight of them," he bowed his head, shoulders slumped. In silence, Shane reached out and rested a hand against Loki's left arm. There was nothing he could say. The harsh truth was displayed before their eyes, that almost two thirds of the pilots hadn't survived, either truly lost with their jumpships while frantically attempting to escape, or--Shane shivered.

Or killed by Silver Saints who hadn't been able to master the pilots once the madness had had time to overwhelm their minds.

Loki must never know this, they had all decided. Perhaps he could guess, being far too perceptive and sharp to the Gold Saints' liking, but it didn't matter. That was a black truth which would never be uttered. With difficulty, Shane dragged his mind away from the darkness of the past and refocused on the here and now. Beneath the fingers of his right hand, he could feel Loki's taut muscles. The calm appearance worn by the Solo heir was a sham, but that had been expected. If it hadn't been so, if Loki had revealed himself to be capable of watching this without having to struggle against a turmoil of emotions, it would have meant that the human part of him had given way.

But it wasn't so.

Poseidon was gone, as was Athena. The wrathful god hadn't been lurking in the darkness of the cell under Cape Sounio, it wasn't he who had freed Loki. Carey had tried to argue so, but Siel and Shane had refused to listen, and Dominique had scorned Carey for picking tactics that lacked even the smallest amount of subtlety. Now, Shane had undeniable proof that Siel and he had been correct, and it lifted a heavy burden from his heart.

While the medical transport took off again and disappeared beyond the horizon, they waited. They waited, Loki and he, on top of the small hill--Siel, Dominique, Shay and Cassandra on the beach, standing next to the pods. None of them were wearing their Cloths, so as not to frighten the waking pilots or push them down madness. There was no way to be sure it wouldn't take hold of them when they'd open their eyes and find themselves imprisoned within a planet's atmosphere--an inconceivable thing for an Azure Traverse pilot, Loki had explained. They belonged to space, to the stars and to hyperspace, the Deep as he kept calling it, as if it had somehow been alive. The sea was kin to it; it was movement and flow and tides, so it was the only chance they had of giving the pilots something to hold on to besides themselves. The blue waters' song was the only thing that could stifle the tearing call of the Deep according to Loki, who had experienced this on a remote world of the Outer Colonies with Giuseppina Baldini.

On the beach, Dominique raised a hand. "Now," Shane told his companion, fingers squeezing Loki's arm. "Brace yourself." Loki nodded without ever looking at him, wholly focused on what was happening below.

They would wake Giuseppina Baldini first, along with Muir Braedan. She would know the sea and hold on to it, and she'd be an anchor for Muir Braedan, who in turn could steady another--or so Shane fervently hoped. And in this scenario was a harsh, difficult possibility.

Next to the line where the waves came dying ashore, a pod opened.

A young woman sat up in it, her movements slow and sluggish, still groggy with sleep. The wind took in her short brown hair, and then she turned toward them.

She didn't see them.

On Shane's right, Loki hugged himself and gasped despite his clamped jaws. The despair and grief in the woman's hazel eyes were mirrored in Loki's green gaze. "She's gone," he hissed between clenched teeth, eyes brimming with tears. "She's not here anymore--she's gone." Cold invaded Shane's stomach, and his heart wrenched with pity. It wasn't the madness, but something else, which Siel had feared.

There was no link between Loki and Giuseppina Baldini anymore. The bond uniting them had been severed, because Loki had gone on while she was frozen in death-like slumber, and because Loki had reached out to Siel--Siel who had bidden Shane shield Loki from this, but there was no preventing his companion from feeling this, from having to deal with it and accept it.

Grasping the edges of the pod, Giuseppina Baldini awkwardly struggled to stand up. Siel came to her side and helped her out of it. Hazel eyes met blue, and tears streaked the young woman's face, all of a sudden. With a shaking nod, she accepted the Pisces Saint's support and pivoted toward the sea. Upon seeing it, she froze, and would have fallen if not for Siel's presence by her side. The wind brought Shane a muffled sob, and beside him Loki shoved the inner edge of his right hand in his mouth and bit it. Savagely. Shane gave the young man's arm another, fierce squeeze, but remained silent. On the beach, a second pod had opened. This time, a man clambered out of it, watched by Dominique who didn't make a move to help.

"Muir!" The shrill cry had come from Giuseppina Baldini. The young woman had whirled away from the sea, as if she had been able to feel the second pod opening--she had felt it, Shane realized as he saw her tottering toward the man who was still struggling to stand up.

She had felt *him*.

Soulmates, Loki called them, lovers who were halves of the same whole, bound for eternity, beyond the abyss of space, hyperspace and even death. It was what the Azure Traverse pilots believed, and Shane found himself wondering when he saw the two people embracing. The bond between them could have been unmade as well, even though none of them had reached out and tried to fill the emptiness within with something or someone else. It was perhaps true, then, that there was no breaking this--no severing it.

"They'll be all right," Loki whispered huskily, all of a sudden. He had allowed his right hand to fall back to his side, and Shane could see blood staining the bandages where he had bitten himself. There was a smile trembling on Loki's lips, and he repeated in a voice full of a soul-rending mixture of joy and grief, "They'll be all right." The emerald gaze met Shane's. "They've found each other, and they've felt the sea. Fi will be fine. She'll heal." It hurt him to say this, to acknowledge that she would go on without him, but he loved her. He loved her truly, and so he could find strength in a sight that was tearing his heart apart.

"We'll help them," Shane said softly. "I promise you we'll be there for them until such time as they can fly again." Even though Loki Morgenstern was the last of the Solo line, he was nothing like Poseidon, nothing like the god of storms, always eager for war.

But that changed nothing.

Nothing at all.

Before them, other pods started releasing their precious charges, and Loki and Shane watched while the scene they had just witnessed repeated itself over and over. Cassandra had to intervene only once, as well as Shay, to bid two pilots sleep again--two young people who hadn't been able to deal with the shock of waking up stranded on a planet, cut out from space. In time, perhaps they'd find a way to wake them--perhaps.

"Two of them," Loki sighed, head bowed. He was hugging his shoulders. "It's less than I feared," he said, looking up at Shane with a crooked smile twisting his lips. "It worked better than I had hoped."

Shane nodded back at his companion. "It did." It had been hard on Loki, was hard on him still--and it wasn't over. No matter how cruel it was, Shane had to tell him while there remained time for Loki to be close to Siel, to reach out to Siel if he needed to. "Not all of them will be able to grasp sufficient mastery to be allowed aboard a jumpship again," Shane told Loki, his voice quiet. "Those who can will be taught and given back their jumpships, and will be allowed to go back to their lives, under the Azure Traverse banner." Humanity needed Azure Traverse, needed the jumpships and their pilots to reach out beyond the night, to link all the worlds together, no matter how far away--needed the jumpships and their pilots to touch and talk with the alien lives they shared the heavens with.

Brennan had refused that, he had wanted humankind to close in upon itself, but that way lied death. A slow, withering agony. They had to gaze outward, to grow. It was in the human nature, it was in all of them to do so. Azure Traverse had been right in this, and perhaps Poseidon himself.

"We'll embrace the others," Shane continued, "we'll shelter them and give them a home. It will take time for your friends to heal and learn, too much time..." Shane hissed air through his lips. "We cannot let you wait for them to be ready. I'm sorry," he stared at Loki steadily. "We accepted you only for a time. It cannot last much longer. You are who you are, and here is not your place. You can never belong. You'll have to go, and Siel--"

"Siel belongs here," Loki smiled, his gaze locked with Shane's. His face was an expressionless mask, but the set in his shoulders-- "You need him here to help you run things, to help my own. I know," he breathed. "I understand. I'll go," he turned his back on Shane.

Tense.

In pain.

"I'll go," Loki said. "Just give me a bit of time."

Shane nodded at Loki's back. This he could give the redhead, but it was all he could give--all he could afford to give the heir of Poseidon.

End of Chapter 7.

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