Under the Windings of the Sea by Nancy Brown (nancy@rat.org) copyright 1997 Disney, Buena Vista, and no doubt many lawyers own the characters. This is meant as a work of fiction, done for my own perverse enjoyment and not for profit. This story takes place in the same universe as "Aft A'Gley" and "Firstborn," and is to most extents a sequel to "No More A'Roving." While the first two are optional, the last will probably be vital to understanding the events unfolding, and is hereby recommended. Feedback helps us serve you better. The scent of lilacs hung in the air like a presence, almost a being of its own whispering nonsense tales to the child within his soul. He'd never pictured the owners of this place in a scene of lilacs. Roses, perhaps, heady with ancient passion, or even lilies nodding their heads in remembrance of times best left dead. Yet sure enough, as he walked down the road towards the farm, nearly enclosed in a tunnel of oaks and maples, he spied well-tended lilac bushes in neat order interspersed among the trunks. Some things had changed. His pace slackened as he approached the main house. It had been nearly a century since last he'd seen either of them. They had parted on good terms, but again, things did change. Now that he was rather inclined to live, being struck by an arrow tipped with iron would be the height of, well, irony. There was movement just out of his range of vision. A child, or at least what he presumed was a child, zipped past him and into the house before he could draw breath. His shout formed instead into a smile, as another head poked out of the door, eyes darting towards him in razor-sharp appraisal, before registering him as a known quantity. "Hello, Stranger," he said, opening his arms to indicate his total lack of weaponry. Of course, when one could build a bomb less than a millimeter in diameter, even a thorough examination wouldn't reveal it; fortunately for them both, he had no such bomb, and no such intentions. This time. "Indeed. What brings you here?" The other man's accent hadn't faded in the years since they'd first met. He found it easy, comforting. "Believe it or not, I've dropped by to say hello." "I don't believe it." His face was drawn in a frown as he stepped outside and closed the door behind him. In a window on the second floor, two round faces peeped out from the curtains. He affected not to notice that the other man's arms were covered to his elbows in what was most likely flour, but it was more difficult to ignore the smudges of the same on his cheeks. It appeared he'd been cooking. Nonetheless, his eyes were bright, his shoulders broad, his entire body radiating health and good cheer. Not bad for a man pushing fourteen centuries. "It's good to see you, Macbeth." He snorted. "You used to lie better than that, Xanatos." Still his gaze gave away nothing. "I'm not lying. I've changed. I want to explore what I can do with this immortality of mine. That includes talking to the only other immortals I know." Macbeth watched him closely, distrust still gathered closely around him. "Perhaps." Then his face broke into a grin, and he took his hand. "It *is* good to see you, too. We'd thought maybe you'd finally dropped off the face of the earth." "I did. Went all the way to Mars. But this is home." "Aye." They spent a silent moment, then, "Come around back. I'll make some tea and we can catch up on the past ninety years." He looked around as he stirred sugar into his tea. "What brought you two to France? The last I'd heard, you were back in Scotland living it up." "We were. We must have spent sixty years in that village. Then the town decided to move, lock, stock and barrel, to another planet, somewhere in the Caldos system. We thought about joining them, but, as you said, this is home. We'd spent time in Paris before, and one day, we went for a long ride and quite by accident, found this place for sale. It's small, it's quiet, and no one bothers with us much. We started taking in the kids about ten years ago. It's so much brighter around the place with young ones about." "I was going to ask ... " He laughed, a touch of sadness in the sound. "No, no halflings in this bunch. I've met a few hybrids, and I suppose we could go that route if we chose, but I think we're both done with having our own children." He paused. "In fact ... " "In fact," said a familiar voice behind him, "we've just received word from one of them." He turned. Dominique, if she was still using that name by day, stood at rest behind him, her muscles twitching just slightly beneath the cotton blouse she wore in the early Spring warmth. She wouldn't attack first, but he would regret it if she had to fight back. Understandable. Again he held out his hands. After a moment, she took them, pulling him up and into an awkward embrace. "We thought you were dead." "Funny thing about immortality," he said, giving her a gentle squeeze, "it eliminates that death problem. As you should know." "So it does." They parted. She poured herself a cup, and spooned three heaping mounds of sugar into it. The expression on her face as she sipped was pure bliss, and he hid his smile at the sight. "So," she said after making a healthy dent in her tea, "Why have you come?" "Can't a man visit his two oldest friends without a reason?" "No," he said, as she said simultaneously, "Not you." "Fair enough," he said. "I did come primarily to see the two of you, though." "And the other reason?" She would grant him no quarter. He knew her that well. "I want to wake up the clones." Only as the words came out did the plan crystallize in his psyche. The thought had been in the back of his mind for years, always to be batted away again. How could he justify putting those poor creatures through the misery of life when he could only barely persuade himself to wake up each day? Life had melted, shifted, become less of a burden. Now he wanted to see what it had to offer, maybe make up for lost time. The gargoyle clones, poor confused shadows of their originals, were his responsibility for a thousand reasons. Bringing them back would be a way of making things up to spirits long at rest, as he had so recently set Fox and Alexander to rest inside himself. This was assuming the pair before him went along with it. "No," she said simply. She stood up, taking her teacup with her, and went into the house. Macbeth looked after her, then turned back to him. "Are you sure that's wise?" "It's something I have to do," he replied. From within the house, he heard a scream of rage. "Um ... Has she learned how to control her temper, or should I start running now?" "Stay. She'll shout and tramp around, and then she'll feel better. The children know to stay out of her way when she's in one of her moods, and she knows better than to take it out on me." "I heard that!" came a shout. The door flew open, and she stomped back out, her eyes blazing. "How can you even contemplate waking them, waking *him*? Nothing's changed. You still want to die, don't you??" He held up a hand. "You created them as much as Sevarius and Thailog did." "And now they're dead. Let them sleep! If you tell me where you're keeping them, I'll happily send them to hell for you." "My love," said Macbeth, taking her by the shoulders, "let it go." "He tried to kill you, too," she spat. "Doesn't the thought of revenge hold the least interest for you?" "If it did, I wouldna be sleeping beside you every morning." She sighed, watching her husband's face. Finally, she rested her head against his broad chest. "I'm a little on edge. I'm sorry." "It's all right," he said in a soothing voice. He had quietly observed the couple; something Demona had said earlier worried at the edges of his mind. "You said you'd heard from one of your children?" "Angela. She was in Wales went she sent the message. She's looking for the descendants of the clan, and wanted to know if we'd seen them recently." He sat back in his chair, holding his cup in his hands like a child might hold a bird, too tightly. "She was on Avalon when the gates closed." He knew it, but had to state it, see Macbeth's confirming nod, for the rest of the knowledge to sink into him. The gates had been opened. Oberon would again allow his Children and the gargoyles trapped on the island out into the World. He may even have sent them out as he had that first time so long ago. Angela was back. His mother-in-law would again be able to play her games with the mortals inhabiting this and a myriad of other worlds. And if Oberon hadn't ended his miserable life, even His Majesty's most favored servant would be free to roam the World again. "Damn." "So you see," she said, "you have your choice of magical beings from whom to chose. Ask one of them." "I have nothing to do with any of Oberon's kind." And never will again. "Then you have a problem." She started putting the tea things away. The afternoon was growing late; it would not be long before her transformation. "It is however not my problem. Drop us a letter if you find a way around it." "Love," said Macbeth, placing a hand on her wrist, "don't be so hasty." She removed his hand. "If I never see Thailog again it will be a century too soon." "Perhaps we could come to some kind of arrangement?" "Name your price." Now that he knew what he wanted to do, he would not let anything stand in his way. Already he felt much like his old self. They would see who dealt whom. Macbeth named the cost for their assistance. The hulking statue shimmered and faded from view. It hadn't been moved far, merely to a shuttlecraft parked on the wide lawn above them. The rest of the gargoyles remained in the same unknowing poses they'd had since their "deaths" nearly four hundred years before. Five lives in exchange for Thailog's statue; it was a hard bargain. He's tried talking them from it, knew Thailog was his responsibility even more so than the rest. He'd been the second clone brought forth by the hardworking men and women of Gen-U-Tech, and possibly the most damaged of all the creatures made in Sevarius' lab. Sotanax had problems, certainly, but never so bad as his second child. He'd hoped to make it better for Thailog this way; the thought of his being subject to whatever whims this pair had for him (for some reason, he had nightmarish pictures of their using him as a hatrack for truly hideous floral sun bonnets) made him uneasy. Once Demona had heard the deal, she could not be shaken from the notion of having her former lover in the house to do with as she pleased. She stood before him now, poring over scribbled notes on a piece of real paper. According to her, datapads simply didn't work as well as the written word. Macbeth was inspecting the statues for signs of any decay. As their predecessors had been, they were remarkably free from erosion, even after such a long, brutal time. "All right," she said, simply, folding her wings around her. They'd waited for moonrise; the time had come. He lit the five candles surrounding the gargoyles, as Macbeth stepped nimbly from the circle. He moved in a counter- clockwise pattern, repeating the mantra she'd taught him earlier in the afternoon: life from within, stone into skin. It was stupid, even she admitted, but it would get him into a proper state of mind. When the candles were lit, he took the bronze bowl from their work table. The scent of dried flowers caught him as the fresh ones had when he'd gone to the farm two weeks before. Macbeth took a handful of the stuff, and made a clockwise circuit on the outside perimeter of the candles, sprinkling the flower- dust and murmuring his own chant as he went. Demona picked up the silver bowl next, and spoke in bastardized Latin as she held her hand over it. The contents, liquids whose identities he really didn't want to know, gurgled and bubbled. She stepped within the circle, then brushed the liquids onto the foreheads of the four males. "All of them," he said. She scowled, then placed a few grudging drops on the forehead of the female, Delilah. She raised her arms to the sky. Already, he could see the moon just beginning to peer through the one window in the tower. Despite the candlelight, the touch of it upon her wings seemed to fill her with ten times the brightness as before. She shouted something he could not understand, and became too bright to be seen. He shielded his eyes, and when he dared look again, could see the glow surrounding the clones. It was working! "Now!" she yelled. "The golden bowl." He picked it up. It appeared empty, but looks could be deceiving. She'd called it a matter of faith. He'd called it a matter of some gases being invisible. He stepped into the circle, holding the bowl before him. dear god his mind stopped there was brightness yes brightness the clones were light and dark and alive and trapped stone and flesh he wanted to scream he wanted to laugh so this was what being within life itself demona said breath it drink it feel the life he sucked it down not air not gas lifeforce uncluttered he was the moonlight so was she this must be like what heaven is now breathe out she commanded begged breathe upon them give them the life he breathed he gasped over each one lifeforce from him into them stone crumbled inside take my hand said the one outside step out with me no come inside it's so beautiful go you idiot she said he was tugged through ... and fell out onto the cold hard ground, still aching to go back inside that magical place. "Please," he whispered. Demona stepped out from the circle, shaking moondust from her wings. She snapped at him, "You could have ruined the spell, you fool. You could have killed us all, immortality or not!" "I'm sorry," he muttered, his memory of the circle lingering, but dulling with every moment. "It was so beautiful." "So is hemlock," said Macbeth, and he helped him up. Demona took the final object from the table, a thin iron dagger, and touched it to the edge of the circle. The glow flared and collapsed. Five rather confused-looking gargoyles stood in the middle of a ring of burnt-out candles and flower petals. "What -- what happened?" asked Brooklyn's clone. Oh yes, Malibu. "You turned to stone when the decay completed," he answered. "We woke you up." "We're not sick anymore?" asked Broadway's clone. He looked to Demona, who responded, "Probably not." She grabbed her bowls and stacked them, then turned to her husband. "We're finished here." He nodded. "Xanatos, good luck with your children." "Aren't you going to stay?" "We have children of our own to raise," he said, and bowed lightly to Delilah. "Welcome back to the world." And they left. "Hello," said Hudson's clone. "Where are Maggie and Talon?" asked Delilah. "Are we in the castle?" asked Lexington's clone. "I'm hungry," said Malibu, and Broadway's double nodded eagerly. Welcome to the world, indeed, he thought, and went to work. Angela hadn't yet sent him a letter regarding the young gargoyles; it remained to be seen whether she would correspond with her mother again, and if Demona would tell her about them. In the meantime, all the duties of parenting had fallen to him. He'd slowly introduced the clones to the knowledge they were no longer in the time they'd known, but centuries later. They'd been only a few months old when they had been forced into stone hibernation for so long; as children did, they adjusted with greater ease than the first clan had. He could not help but compare them to their predecessors, although he knew it was wrong to do so. Each time he worked with Brentwood, he would again try to introduce him to the newest feat of technological magic, always to be met by Brent's near-blank stare. Hollywood was just as much unlike his own genetic precursor: where Broadway had been a gourmand, Hollywood was just as happy with peanut butter and jelly. On anything. The others were the same, and he felt a strong sting of regret at that. He'd somehow hoped that bringing the clones to life would ease the hurt of the loss of the other gargoyles, that Malibu might remind him of Brooklyn, or Burbank of Hudson. Instead, he found them to be pale mockeries of the others. If he compared them. If he pushed the other images from his mind, though, a different picture took shape. No, Delilah had neither Demona's strength nor Elisa's courage, but she had a calm down-to-earth sense that both her predecessors had lacked. Brentwood couldn't touch a computer without sparks flying, but he drew extraordinary pictures of midnight landscapes with crayons. Hollywood could sing like an angel when he wasn't too shy. Malibu was one of the best listeners he'd ever known. Burbank's green thumb set every plant in the castle to blossom in the days and weeks following their rebirth. No, they weren't the living incarnations of the others, but when he stopped trying to see them that way, they were five wonderful little people. May rolled into being, with still no word from any of the rest of the gargoyles save Demona, whose letters were always brief and to the point. Without bother from the outside world, their lives settled into patterns, and he observed those patterns from a careful distance, relearning small steps towards joy with every new discovery. He could almost convince himself he was at peace within himself. "Mr. Xanatos?" He'd been sitting by the fire, poring over a datapad filled with figures. He had other people to run his business through a dozen different channels; only a few knew his real name, and none knew the true significance of it. All they knew, and all they had to know, was that he was paying them far more than their worth not to be nosy. But he still liked to look over things once in a while. It kept his people on their toes. "Yes, Delilah?" She minced over to his chair, and sat gracefully on the floor before him. He smiled at her; she was the most advanced of the five, and had fallen into the position of leader. When they went anywhere, even to the towers to sleep, she was the one to tell the others. When they wanted or needed something, she was the one to ask. This required her to alternate between being Very Serious as a leader, and her more normal state of playful wonder. He had the feeling whatever had come up required the Very Serious attitude. "We need to talk." Very Serious indeed. "Of course. What would you like to talk about?" "Why did you awaken us?" He heard Demona in her voice, demanding, always demanding. He composed his answer mentally before speaking. "I wanted to make up for the past. I created Thailog. He created you. That makes you my responsibility." "Is that all?" "No." He had made a promise to himself to be honest with them, except on one point alone, that being the location of their former leader. Even that he would tell them when they were ready. "I was lonely. I thought having the group of you around the castle might be a way of lessening that." "Did it?" He smiled. "Very much so." She returned the smile. "Good." She rested her head against his leg, a strangely affectionate gesture from one so young. Then she surprised him again, raising her hand to rest beside her head, and tracing small circles with her talon on his knee. She moved her hand to the back of his knee, and started tracing upwards. He stopped her hand. "Delilah, what are you doing?" She raised her head, met his eyes with her own smoke-filled gaze. "Didn't you like it? I can do other things instead." Her other hand settled higher up on his thigh. He was getting a very bad feeling about this. "Delilah, don't do this." She was confused. "But you woke us up. I must repay you for giving us life." "Is that what Thailog told you?" "He did not have to tell me." Of course not. She'd been programmed with the information from the vat. Damn Anton. No, he was the one who programmed Thailog. He damned himself. "You don't have to repay me. I told you, I did it because I chose to do it." "To ease your loneliness." "Yes." "But that is what I want to do. You are still lonely. You made us happy by giving us another chance. I will make you happy now." She exchanged her perplexed look for a more coy one. As if a light had switched on somewhere, the room grew warmer. Fast. Over the centuries, he had occasionally been struck by her statue's resemblance to Elisa. Oh yes, he could see traces of both her mothers in her face and form. Thailog had created what in his twisted mind must be the perfect mate. By his genes, he was Goliath, but by his programming, he was far more his own son and Anton's than any other's. That implied Delilah would have a healthy dose of Fox in her, perhaps not genetically, but emotionally. He looked for those hints now, still holding her hands still. "Don't you want me?" she asked in a breathy voice. "That's not the point," he said firmly. She pulled away from him, hurt clearly written on her pretty face. He thought she might run, but instead she curled into a ball. "I -- I'm sorry," she said. "You said, and you were ... Thailog was right." He wasn't sure he wanted to know, but he asked anyway, "About what?" "He said no one would love a hybrid except him, that I was lucky he wanted me. And I was. He loved me, and now he's gone, and even our new master doesn't want to love me." He sucked in a deep breath. "He said that?" She nodded. In a minute, she was going to start crying. He expelled his breath, no longer regretting his deal with Demona. Hell, at the moment, he was ready to shatter the bastard himself, reckoning or no reckoning. "Delilah, that's not love. If we were to ... " "Have sex?" she asked. "Umm ... yes. It wouldn't be love. At best, it would be misguided gratitude, and at worst, another form of slavery. It would be terribly wrong, on levels I can't even begin to explain to you. Just by waking you up, I have a kind of power over you, never mind that I'm partly responsible for creating you in the first place. That kind of power should *never* be mistaken for love. Love is for two people who are equals." He thought again of Fox, felt a stab he'd thought he'd lost. She sniffed; this wasn't working. "Pygmalion fell in love with Galatea." Thailog *would* program her with that myth. "Pygmalion was in love with the goddess he fashioned her to resemble. He loved the dream of her, not the reality. Trust me, you don't want to be loved for what someone thinks they can make you. You want ... you *deserve* to be loved by someone who knows who you are, everything, and who wants you for that." "You know who I am." She returned her hand to its former place, forcing him to again remove it. "Yes. And I do love you for who you are." Her face lit up. "You're like my daughter, in a way." "Daughter." She tried the word, didn't appear to like it. "Yes," he said, and placed his hand on her head, moved it to touch her face tenderly. "You are like my daughter, and I am therefore obliged to kill any dirty old man who even thinks about you funny." He grinned, and hoped she would catch his joke. "But you had a bath today." Hello brick wall. "That's not what I meant. I need to protect you from things you don't understand yet, including me." "So I can find an equal?" "Yes." Her face grew long. "I have no equal. In all the world, I am the only one like me." He had no answer for her. She would have to find her own path, but he would be there with her on the journey. "The sun will rise soon. You'll need to sleep. We can talk about this later." "All right," she said, and got to her feet. She ambled to the doorway, all child until she turned around. "But I was right. You are still lonely," she said in a woman's voice, and walked up the stairs. He returned to his datapad, stopped when he noticed he wasn't seeing the numbers. Hadn't the thought of her been a part of the reason he'd woken them? She was beautiful, and she was kind, and if she wasn't Fox, she was in part both Elisa and Demona, both of whom he'd admired in more than one fashion. During the years, he had often spent hours simply watching her, wondering what it might be like to free her from her stone. He had even run that myth through his mind, late at night, felt the marble/granite come to warm life beneath his touch. The chance had come and he'd turned her down. Because ... Because. Because love took years to grow. Because taking her to his bed would be like taking a child. Even if she had been mentally an adult, it would be wrong. He agreed with the reasons he'd given her, that he had too much control over her, that she might even come to resent him later because of it. The more he grew to knew her, the more he knew he could never hurt her that way. He did love her, as he loved all five of them; the kindest thing he could do for her now was to turn her down, let her discover what love was with someone who *wasn't* her master, or her saviour. Then his thoughts turned to her parting words. And stopped. He was dying. He felt the warm light inside of him, the part of him he knew to be David Xanatos, slipping further and further into a quiet darkness. Nothing could be done. Not a pill, not a spell, not a new body. In a short time, perhaps a day, perhaps a few hours, he would cease to exist. Utterly. Completely. He had met gods in his day, but he honestly didn't expect any of them to be waiting to catch his spirit like some etherial butterfly. He would gasp his last, and then there would be nothing. "Fox ... " He reached out, trying to take her hand, unable to see it anymore. "I'm here." The pressure of her touch against his own brought back memories. The first touch. The first kiss. The first night in her arms. The first time he'd held Alex. He struggled for words, to express what he needed to say to her before the illness defeated him. "You are everything," he whispered. Her other hand joined the first, wrapping around his tenderly. There was noise, muttered conversation beyond his hearing. Her voice returned, less certain. "Owen wants to talk to you alone." "Hurry back," he mouthed. He didn't know if she could hear him. With another touch, this time of lips to his cheek, she was gone as if she'd never existed. There was silence. Had Owen left after all, leaving him alone to perish? "Are you there?" "Yes." The voice, beloved as the rest, sounded sad even to his own ears, an echo of the past. "I'm glad you came back." The words took more effort than he'd thought. He rested several moments, waiting for a response, any response. Even with his senses turning off one by one, his mind remained clear. Owen had needed to speak with him. "Tell me. I don't have time to wait." There was another long empty time. "I can give you time." "Time ... " "Immortality, my friend. I can grant it to you." He could have it? The dream? Live to see Alexander's marriage, hold his grandchildren? Need he ever ask? A future memory touched him, with visions of himself no older than now, kneeling beside two graves; he was older than time and so alone, and hadn't the Puck lost his powers? How dare this self-righteous Child offer him that kind of hell??! Strength flooded back into his arms, his vision to his eyes. He reached out, wrapped his hands around Owen's neck, and squeezed until he held tendons crack and give way ... He sat up in bed, panting, shaking, clutching the blankets like a little boy. The nightmare had come back, just when he'd thought he'd banished it from himself for good. Over and over, he lay dying; over and over, he was offered the gift. Each time, his mind cried out to turn it away, refuse the offer, die a man. But he hadn't, had he? Given the chance, he'd clung to life like fraying twine in his fingers. He'd accepted the gift, had felt the blood flowing in his veins strong and free just minutes later. He'd sat up, called for Fox, held her for the longest time. His recovery had been hailed as a miracle. At Alexander's wedding, just a month later, he'd stood proudly at the front with Samantha's parents and Fox. Owen had been there, too, as had the clan, and the hatchlings, and their friends. Alex had wanted all the beings he loved nearby, and Alex had loved *many* beings. It had been a glorious moment, the proudest in his life, as he watched his son pledge eternal love to the young woman before him. Eternity had lasted all of two years. The battle had been swift, brutal. Oberon had seen Alexander as a threat to his authority, being of the Queen's line, and had taken it into his head to fight him. Even with that, Alexander would have probably survived. But he himself was no longer immortal, and his frail human body could not withstand the blows. He'd watched, entrapped in the first moments of the fight by his sisters-in-law, unable to help, unable to move, forced to observe as his son was struck down, and the others who'd gone to his defense killed with him by the King and his mad daughters. His mind's eye had replayed the scene to him nightly for centuries: Fox, her body twitching with the residuals of energy she'd absorbed when she'd touched their son; Goliath and Elisa, caught by stray shards of magic from the Sisters as they defended their father, vanishing from sight forever. Broadway had been hit by a glancing shot, had died two nights later. Worst of all, though, worse than the sights, worse than the screams, above all the rest, his mind replayed one moment, over and over like a record caught in a scratch. Oberon had appeared on the scene, his eyes filled with murder, already poised to attack. Owen had changed into his alter-ego, had flown between Oberon and Alexander, had said, frightened, stammering: "This was not our agreement!" Oberon had turned to him, regarded him as he might a particularly annoying mayfly. "Really, Puck. You should know better than to make an agreement with the King of the Tricksters." And the attack had begun. When it was over, when the wounded and the dead lay intermixed, the Sisters let him go free. He'd run, trying to overtake the fleeing souls before they departed his life for all time, but when he reached him, when he reached her, they were gone. He'd taken her limp form into his arms, held her against his body willing life back into her, knowing it was impossible, dying inside with the effort. His eyes had risen, had met those of the man he'd trusted with everything he'd ever loved, had seen regret and guilt reflect back at him. Before he could act, Oberon had commanded the portal return, had beckoned his daughters and grabbed his servant. The doorway closed behind them, leaving him alone with the dead and dying. He hadn't seen a member of the Third Race since then. Angela for whatever reason had taken her son, Samson, with her back to Avalon. His daughter-in-law had given birth a few weeks later to twin boys. She told him in no uncertain terms they would be raised by her as humans, that he wasn't welcome in their lives, that a magical heritage hadn't saved their father. He couldn't bring himself to tell her the truth as he now knew it: how Alexander had surrendered his immortality to grow old with her, how he should be dead, and Alexander holding his own tiny sons. Funny how life worked out sometimes. He lay back down on his bed, pulling the covers close. Maybe he would be lucky and not dream this time. Maybe. He stood at the top of the tower, where once Goliath roosted by day, and looked out over what had become of his city. There were yet clouds below his castle, but no longer were they tinged with the smoky hint of pollution. Atmospheric filters, and plain common sense, had finally eradicated the major problems plaguing the air and the ground and the sea. The breath he took in was clean oxygen. It wasn't quite the same, he mused. When there had been such things as movies, he'd heard a line that called back to him, although the man who'd spoken it had gone to dust hundreds of years ago: "I don't trust air I can't see." Well, perhaps it hadn't been quite that bad. He tried smiling, and failed. Tonight wasn't a smiling kind of night. He touched his left hand absently. Not a smiling kind of night at all. The anniversary had come; not his, for November had already appeared and gone quietly. The other anniversary was here, the one that had given him centuries of nightmares. He'd sent the kids out. They were safe in this new world, far safer than they had ever been in the old. Beings of a dozen races walked or slithered the streets below. A set of wings was no more unusual than pointed ears. He suddenly pictured Oberon taking a stroll down the 5th Avenue of today. No one would give him a second glance. Oh, but that would annoy him beyond belief! Maybe that was why he'd reopened the passage between the worlds. If he wanted to teach his Children humility again, what better way than to introduce them to people who would look at them, shrug, and keep walking? Most of them, anyway. His knuckles dug into the aging stone of the parapet, as he shifted his grip on the dagger. Pure iron it was, deadly for any of Oberon's Children who might feel it slide between their ribs, or for one whose immortality had been stolen from one of them. He'd had it made two days after Alexander's birth, for use in case of unwanted visits from his in-laws. After his son's death, he'd kept it with him, oft times taking it out, watching the dull shine, running it idly against his wrist until the burning sensation from holding it too long forced him to set it down again. Using it to break the circle, now several months past, had been his way of finding some good for it, then setting it aside forever. Tonight he'd taken it out again. It was a ghost night. The wind, always stronger up here than down in the streets, made every hinge, every tree branch, creak with the whispers of magic. The warm breeze was dead silent, and loud with apprehension of what yet could come. Since the children had left, several times he'd sworn he'd heard footsteps behind him, only to discover the incongruous sight of the scattered husks of leaves, fallen dry in the height of a humid New York summer. Fox's voice was long-stilled in his mind, but it wasn't the only song of the past begging his attention. On this night, the blade before him spoke just as loud without making any more sound than the air itself. He felt a presence at his back, did not turn to greet it. "I knew you would come," he said quietly. "Once I was allowed out, how could I not?" The human voice rather than the fay spoke to him. He flared with anger at himself; he'd pictured the confrontation to be with the fairy side, knew he could gather his pain into one tight ball and hurl it at that smug face. He was less certain he could do that to the human side, although he knew, he *knew* the only difference was in the form, not the spirit. "I can think of reasons why you couldn't," he answered simply. As from long ago, there was a lingering pause before the other replied, "Alexander didn't want to live forever. He saw what it had done to Demona and Macbeth. He chose to become mortal, so that he didn't have to outlive Samantha or his children." "I figured that out years ago. You knew it, and you used him. You used me. You knew I was dying, that I would do anything to live again. How many pieces of silver did Oberon promise you to do the transfer?" He heard a sharp intake of air, knew he'd struck hard. "You. Don't. Know." More emotion filled the three words than he'd seen in a lifetime from the other's human form. "Try me." "You wanted immortality. You didn't know what it was like, didn't know what it was to suddenly be bound to one existence, one place, for all eternity. Unless you have changed yourself into an eagle and dived down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon just to pull up at the last moment, unless you have called the dance for the lives and energies of a city, unless you have created your own world out of illusions and set it to life, you have *no* concept of what it is like to lose that." "I know what it's like to lose." "I gave you what you wanted." "You took from me what I needed most." A whisper, "It wasn't supposed to be that way. He promised me he would allow Alexander to grow old in peace, and with you immortal, he would offer the same to Fox to please his Lady Wife." Another question, one that had been plaguing him since the beginning of things, returned to mind. "Why didn't she step in? Why didn't she stop it?" "He didn't tell her he was going. By the time she found out what he had done, it was too late." He could accept that, but not the rest. "He killed her daughter and her grandson, and she stayed married to him?" "No. Why do you think he closed Avalon off? She divorced him a second time, but he would not allow her to leave." "But the barriers are down again. You're here." "Not even Oberon can bind Titania forever." That felt like the truth. His mother-in-law was the most formidable being he'd ever encountered. They were not here, however, to discuss his mother-in-law. "I hated you. Every time I looked into the mirror, I cursed at you. I don't care if Oberon doublecrossed you. You made a deal that cost me my two reasons for living." "There is nothing I can say or do to make up for that." He heard the grief, for the first time wondered how many times his former friend had also woken up screaming for the visions behind his eyes. "I wanted to die, tried to die, for longer than this 'Federation' as they call it has been in existence. And then I took a clue from Macbeth and Demona, and found other reasons to live." "The clones?" He nodded. "They're like my children." "They're your grandchildren. We created Thailog. He created them." He let that pass through him, lost himself in thought. The past and future spoke to him. He came to a decision. "They'll be home soon. You should meet them." "That would require your not killing me in the interim." "I don't intend to kill you today." He turned from his inspection of the skyline. Sure enough, Owen stood before him as always, double-breasted navy suit hopelessly out of date but present, left fist still caught in stone. He looked as if not a day had passed since they'd last met, as if at any moment Fox might step out of the elevator just below them, her face full of mischief at the latest scheme the three of them had hatched. Could he face the thought of the past being so near? First, to have the clones as mirrors of the other gargoyles, now to have his once closest friend, who stood, waiting for whatever was to come next? Could he face the dark things inside of him, threatening to bubble up with the slightest mention of what had been and could not be changed? Did he even dare to dream, knowing the checks and balances he was still due on a cosmic scale, that there might finally be a return, if not to the way things were, then to at least to some equilibrium between what once was and all the potential of what was yet to be? Yes. He heard the soft *chink* as the dagger slipped from his fingers, lay resting on the stone. It watched him accusingly, reminding him that it alone had not abandoned him these past centuries, that he needed to pick it up again, polish it smooth, keep it next to his heart as he had for so very long, let it drink blood for blood, for him. Rust in peace, he thought, and without another word, he turned from it, walked past the other man, went down the stairs. A few moments later, he heard even footsteps behind him. He paused at the bottom of the stairs, waited the few seconds it took Owen to reach him. They walked into the Great Hall together. The End Author's Note: While I was plotting this out, and I have been for some time, another story in much the same vein was posted by E. Liddell. If you have not read her fanfic series, I highly recommend it as an excellent journey into the mind of David Xanatos. Not only are they well-written, the stories demonstrate a unique insight on the character, as does Constance Cochran's "Legacy" (another Drop What You're Chewing and Read This Now story). Opinionated? Me? Hah!