Each season, and birthdays

[Silas]

Coming awake in the morning is a switch ­ from off, to on. There is no subtle slide from dreaming to waking, just darkness and nothing, then light and sound. Silas is still, assessing the situation. There are important things to know, now: if he's alone and if not if Arianna is awake. How many of the roommates are still home. Where the hounds are. And so on. [The hounds, upon waking of their master, make their way downstairs for breakfast and a run with Tony. Dante has already been called in to the hospital. Only Mark remains downstairs, once Tony and the hounds make their way outside.]

With waking, Silas' breathing doesn't change much ­ at least not until these assessments have been made. Arianna may not realize it's happened until he allows her to know.

[Arianna]

It is morning, and the aurora of Spring comes crashing through the window behind her. It touches the fine hairs that break away from her braid ­­ twisted quickly between deft hands, without the assistance of a mirror ­­ and illuminates her, casts a halo about her head. It is an unfortunate echo to her father's resonance and avatar; it is borrowed and not her own: unintentional. Arianna is dressed in the clothes she'd worn to visit him the night before. Dark but not black slacks, less perfectly pressed after a night on his floor; soft pink sweater, with the points of her collar and her cuffs lending it a sense of precision and professionalism. She is seated on his divan, canted forward, elbows on knees, hands come together, with the pale slip of yew that is her wand held easily in her projective hand. Beside her, resting on the divan but well within arm's reach, is the outmoded brick of her cellphone.

Earlier, when he had still been sleeping, she had reached out to someone trusted. It's possible that he heard a name in his slumber (Kestrel), and marked it for a dreaming thing, an echo of spring.

When Silas wakes and takes his assessment of the house, the bros, the state of things, among the first of note will be this: there is no hand above his heart; there is no warmth of her body beside him; the sheets beside him are cool to the touch; she has been gone for awhile. And next: she has not gone far.

It is easier to remember, now, with the fire of dawn caught all around her, that she is the capable daughter of a terrifying Flambeau. That she is trained in Ars Potentiae with the finest of their shared House. And that, in Ars Mentis, she has studied with a Tytalan ­­ though perhaps this last he does not know; perhaps this last is why he felt the press of her, and her emotions, but not the quick of something deeper and biting. The Hunt, in its want and need and rage, and with a measure of his hand to guide it toward her, had chosen not some hapless prey but a competent and dangerous quarry. She watches him, the first movements he makes toward rising, with an intensity that contradicts her casual posture and neutral expression.

How can you tell, she has asked this Kestrel, If a man's mind is all his own?

Whatever the answer, it has led to this.

[Silas]

Arianna is not beside him but has not gone far, and the movement that brings him to seated with his bedding pooled in his lap. Perhaps his skin still bears the marks of last night ­ mother's blood and bruises from the battering of water, or perhaps that was just conceptual and the marks are only in the Hunter's mind. The blue eyes that come to rest on his Star are clear in a way that they hadn't been before last night, although there is an uncertainty there that Arianna hasn't truly seen since they were last together at Conclave. Silas as she's met him now is a paragon of predatory confidence . . .

. . . or was, until now.

Study of her posture, the scene, is quick; if the appearance of her Wand is startling to him, he makes no show of it. In truth, the phone gets a slightly more lingering look because, as foggy as memories of fighting his way through to the Rite may be, Silas remembers exactly what transpired between them after. Every. single. detail. So there is wariness in his posture but not fear ­ never fear ­ as he looks at her, all in the few seconds between sitting up and speaking.

"Morning." Not 'good', not yet. "Are you well, Stella?"

[Arianna]

They are all but strangers to one another now, that much is clearer in the light of day. She is more or less the same seeming; the green of her eyes is the same; the line of her jaw is familiar. Years have passed and honed and shaped them separately. He is right to be wary of her, a self­possessed woman and seasoned Initiate. Her posture and expression give nothing away: she is better at this, too, than she had been when last they knew each other. It's her wand that betrays her, tiny and involuntary tensions in her fingers translated into movement of the thin slip of yew she holds. He sees how his words affect her not in the shape of her mouth, but in the twitching of the tip of that instrument.

Her mouth opens, then closes as she thinks better of whatever she might have said. When she holds back. A lesser woman would burn brightly with anger; would yell, make demands. Arianna is the picture of control, collected, without seeming exactly calm. The aire of calm is borrowed serenity at best; it is a trap.

"No, I am not well," she tells him. To say she was anything else would be a lie. No woman is well after what had transpired between them, however over­written it had been by the resemblance of choice and control after. But there is no fear showing in her eyes, either; nothing but solitary strength in the way she holds herself and holds herself apart. It is terrifying in its own way. So there is this: she has not lied to him, in words, yet.

"Explain to me," she says, carefully, without hostility though it is banked and ready in her breast, "What happened last night. Explain it to me in small and careful words, like I am a child; as if I might not understand. Because I am desperately hoping that I have misunderstood something. The explanations I can make myself lead nowhere good."

There are hidden things in this request, and Silas is smart enough to mark them. It is not a time for levity; there is no place for half­truths here. Because Arianna may only be an Initiate, but she is trained by Adept Majors. In a heart beat, she could have one here. Reinforcements might be on their way already, and Silas is left to imagine how the others who hold his Star dear might feel having heard only her side of this story. He can use as reference how brightly his anger would burn had she called him with similar news. He can imagine how it might feel to a creature who cannot cross the threshold of his home uninvited to be so taken in the night.

[Silas]

His pause might be seen as hesitation, marked as weakness, but it's neither; Silas is taking as much time as he can to frame his answer not in a way that makes what he did acceptable (because there is no such way), but to make it . . . understandable? Something less than abhorrent, anyway. But perhaps Arianna has never heard the call of the horns. Even if she has, Silas is almost certain that she's never answered it.

"I woke to the sound of hunting horns," he says slowly, deliberate and clear, his eyes held fast to hers as much as she allows. "It was the Equinox. I answered them; I had to." Of course he did ­ she knows him of old, and even as a child, prior to his Awakening (or hers), Silas was a Hunter. His favorite things to do at Conclaves were always the mazes and puzzles, the finding of things. That doesn't excuse his behavior last night even a little bit, nor does the part where he wasn't fully in charge.

Because he should have been.

"So I went on the Hunt. There was a cavern that led tunnel, which I followed to the birthing bed. I missed the rising of the God­child." This is almost forlorn; he is a follower of the old ways, is Silas, and a Life mage. Of course he should have been there to witness it. "But I continued following the scent, and fought my way through a storm flood . . . to a Faerie circle." Whatever most people may think of the existence of Fae ­ even most Hermetics in this day and age, the Robinson clan has reason to believe they're real. "I was the Hunter, and the Celebrant. There was food, and wine; a nearly literal bacchanal, in truth. It was the conclusion of my Hunt, and I was meant to take my due there, among the others."

Here, he adjusts his position so that his hands can come together in his lap, the fingers on his left twisting the ring on his right.

"But I left the circle and ran as the wind, back to the house. Back to you. And I'd lost all semblance of control in the crossing." Perhaps, in hearing the story, Arianna can mark the point at which he regained it ­ the point when Silas pulled away, looking so horrified. "So I came to you, and you were mine ­ ours ­ and . . . I took you without your consent. It was wrong, I know. I should have exercised better control."

Or any, for that matter. But as drained as Arianna was when she came to him, Silas is now. He was more so, last night.

[Arianna]

Arianna Giametti has most certainly not ever felt the call of the horns. Unless, of course, one means the connection she feels to Silas himself ­­ which is not at all the same thing; which does not ebb and flow with the suntides or peak at the solstices and equinoxes. Which is not to say that she is unmoved by older things, that the sense of something Othered does not follow in her wake. She who cannot touch technology without leaving it unstable and a­fritz; she who cannot cross thresholds without invitations if they lead to someone's home; she who cannot speak without hermeticism dripping from her tongue; who is enamoured of glamours and riddles and symbols; who speaks as many languages of man as her head will hold; who speaks the language of the Angels as well. She is well acquainted with the old ways, if not these Old Ways among them.

"So..." Eyes narrow; voice calm: suspicious. "It is like a Seeking?" She does not understand, not in fully. It sounds suspiciously convenient, from where she is sitting, suspiciously like Something Made Me Do It. There is a tiny gesture ­­ with her hand and not her wand; she does not want him to answer that. That is not something that will help her understand. It will not sate the anger within her; it will not make her feel less violated.

"When did you know?" she asks him. "When did you know that I was not consenting; that you had taken without asking ­­ because the oath I swore you does not encompass this, this is not a thing I've sworn to you; I am not ­­ I did not..." Her anger flares. She schools it back, pulls it back behind her teeth. Her eyes go from the gleam of oil over steel to something less deadly. "When did you know?" she asks him; she does not ask: have there been others that you have so taken?

[Silas]

When did you know? Arianna asks and Silas isn't entirely certain of the answer (there are consequences to these things, are there not?), not without thought. Did he know when he pushed into her sleeping body, or when his fingers dug in to push her to the position he wanted? Or . . .

"Not until you pushed into my mind, I swear." It's not quite a capital S swear, but it carries the weight of Truth nonetheless. There's a quiet moment, and still (if it's allowed) blue eyes hold hazel­green; Silas is not submitting, nor is he letting himself off the hook. He wants ­ no, needs ­ to see every expression that comes in answer to his words and deeds. It is clear in his expression that [now, at least] Silas­the­Man knows he's done her wrong. That he's hurt her in many ways, including physically. ".....I'd never left the circle without completing the Rite before. I didn't know what would happen, just that I wanted you. And that She looked like you, but wasn't. The eyes were wrong."

And more than that, if he thinks it through; even that afternoon when they were teenagers with a stolen bottle of wine, his Star hadn't behaved in such a forward manner. On the last, though, his voice is quieter; he's admitting something deeper than the words themselves might indicate, so tone and timbre make short work of evidencing it. Only once before has he come close to this depth of conversation ­ and that was nearly a decade ago, when they'd parted on good terms with an Oath between them.

"This is not a thing you've sworn to me, no. And you are more than my behavior credits you." More to him, and more in general.

[Arianna]

He was to see every expression that comes in answer to his words and deeds. It is a foolish thing to want, more so with a woman like Arianna, who has been trained in their shared Tradition since the moment of her birth, trained to not give voice to weakness or vulnerability. Her father is an instrument of war, her mother a scholar of their history. It surprises no one that she gives him only her profile, the severity of her cheekbones and her chin, the proud and regal line of her nose, the tightness of her mouth and eyes and not the full bearing of her gaze. It should not surprise him in the slightest.

"You are lucky," she says, and the words are tight. They are low out of necessity, but had her voice not been so diminished it would have been louder. The force of it is all the same. "If I had not recognized you, however changed you say you were, it would have been more than my Mind in yours. Ars Mentis is not my strongest suit."

The warning could not be more clear. For all that had happened, she had pulled her punches.

It takes a long moment before she will give him more than her profile. In it, he can see the tension in her frame, how it is pulled taut despite that nonchalance she borrows; he can see the marks that he left on her neck and collarbone, just visible beneath the neckline of her shirt. He can wonder over who left them there, Silas­the­man or Silas­the­Hunt. He can wonder after all the hidden marks upon her, and their authors and owners. Because things are hazy for him that are not to her.

She is considering this, weighing it carefully; it is not a thing one's mind should be able to rationalize, and yet she tries. Stranger things have been explained to her, but not perhaps after first taking so much from her. And yet, she has been foolish. She has known for a long time that Silas is a Hunter; she has seen Sylvanus in him for herself. She has reveled in and around the truth of it, but never long enough to touch upon these darker things.

"I am torn by this. You stripped my Will from me and, as a magus of the Order, I am livid with you over that presumption. It is the deepest transgression, however it has happened." This, this is the expected response. He can see the truth of it in the green of her eyes; this is their foundation, their bedrock. He knows the offense is deeper than the physical hurt. He knows the consequence to his person, on any other night, would have been graver.

"And yet I am called to you, and you are called to this hunt, and think perhaps it is more a part of you than even you know. And I enjoy the way we move together, even the abrupt and suddenness of it ­­ up to the point where I realized that you would not stop and could not hear me."

[Silas]

It is a foolish thing to want, the knowledge of every expression or thought that flickers across Arianna's face, but want it he does. To be denied such is a punishment of sorts as well, though Silas understands well enough why it's kept from him. It surprises him not at all. She asserts his good fortune and he nods his comprehension; he is lucky on many levels, yes. He could have hurt her so much worse than he has.

"I am," he answers her statement of luck, and still his eyes search her face, her bearing, still they linger on the marks he (Silas­the­Man, Silas­the­Hunt, each an instrument for the other) left on her tender skin. "In so many ways."

Now Silas shifts his position, the sheet still keeping him relatively modest, so that he is seated at the edge of the bed. He is closer to his Star now, though he doesn't touch her ­ knows that he doesn't currently have that right. Nor should he, all told. The guilt is far less paralyzing than it had been when he pulled from her last night, before she murmured again, but it's still there ­ a thin, translucent veil between them. And what he says first doesn't seem to be in answer to her assessment of ambivalence.

"Now I know what will happen, if I leave the circle without completing the Rite. Never have I had cause to learn that before." Never has he had anything to pull him from the celebration. "Never have I been overtaken so. I very much regret the ill I've done you, Arianna."

Let us not forget that Silas was also raised by an instrument of war and an academic of high order ­ two of them, in fact, if one includes the influences of his Uncle. He was also raised by a Xaosian, and a Verbena. He is well enough at keeping his thoughts and feelings to himself, but he is also adept at knowing when, perhaps, that isn't the wisest course of action. He is not completely bare before her now, but he is honest. He speaks truth, with no deception and little reservation.

[Arianna]

He is better trained for moments like this, times when compassion must come to the fore and well­ingrained arrogance and distance must be set aside. The models she has for this are peers and not elders, they are imperfect and young, they are not exactly guiding stars. So she struggles, and that struggle is evident however she tries to school it away from him. That she is here, and still talking to him is evidence enough. Had she made up her mind entirely, repercussions of one type or another would have already arrived.

There are questions, now. And the cant of her shoulders is less sure, less imposing. How often do the horns call you? she asks. And do you always answer them? They are personal, as they address his relationship with his Avatar. In another context, she would never ask after them. Arianna knows enough of the old stories to know in them that women are often objects, or objectives. She also knows that they are goddesses, and oracles, and keepers of ancient wisdoms. Women are powerful or powerless and there is not much room for them in between.

She will not be powerless. This leaves only one other option.

This is a conversation for the edge of air and darkness, for the covering of night, for the pricking of starlight or the wide wash thrown by the moon. They have none of those comforts, bathed as they are in the unrepentant light of the first Spring morning. He is bare beneath the sheet, but she is wrapped in the raiments of their mortal lives. The distance burns him. She is bare and wounded before he who is a Hunter; wounded things are not long for this world when their predators are near. They are equally undone.

"If you don't come for me you will be like this ­­ your Hunt will end like this with another?" she is asking for clarification, but it is clear like sparkling glass and crystal in her eyes that she does not want him so completely with another. She never has; it calls forward echoes of finding Lucy in his suite at Conclave. Not so specifically, but it calls up echoes nonetheless. "And if not someone within the circle, and also not me, then the Hunt will find an egress somewhere ­­ and that I cannot abide. Not for that unknowing someone, and also not for you. It wrongs you."

She looks down, and the sweep of her lashes hides her eyes from him for a moment. This is not purely about rationalizing an unconscionable thing; there are other feelings and wants muddying the water. Aside from want, few things have ever been unmuddied between them. It is no surprise.

"I... I like that you chose me over the other in the circle. More than like. I'm more than pleased; it is an ardent thing in my breast, not pleased but closer to glorified." Ah, yes, the Hermetic ego. Though hers has been quieter than some. "And I like even, in ways I do not understand, the thought you were overcome with need of me and no other. I do not, did not, mind the insistence or even," there is a small flush of color to her cheeks that has more to do with embarrassment than shame, "The forcefulness. But I do mind the not knowing; the fear of not knowing whether you would come back to me. I do not believe for a moment that your Hunt cares for me.

"But I know that you do." Her hands are not still now. They are a little shaky. Everything in her conscious mind is fighting what she is about to say "You must promise me that you will come for me after. You will always come for me after. Never so spent or so consumed again that you cannot find me on your own." Arianna does not cry. It would be a good time for tears, but none prick at the corners of her eyes. She will not be weak in demanding this of him.

[Silas]

There are answers: Sometimes once a month to a lesser Hunt, every quarter and cross quarter day, not all rites are Great and so on. He has been with others in the name of the Rite, but always inside the circle ­ and he's never certain in which level of reality they reside, only that they are Other, more so than either he or his Star, and that they have ever been willing, knowing participants. The labyrinth at Samhain is different than the sowing at the equinox or the fires of Beltaine. In this part of the conversation, Arianna learns more of Silas and his paradigm, the way he's been taught in their times apart, than she ever might have otherwise.

She also learns that over him, she was never powerless. On some level, perhaps it was that power that drew him back to her last night, in the darkest of times (a star as guiding light).

"I suspect," he offers, and it's a low, quiet thing, "that I chose you before I knew there was a you to choose. Perhaps He did as well, for every Hunt needs a guiding Star, does it not? I have always come back to you."

And in their history, as stuttered and stalled as it is, this is true; though they have spent longer apart than together, and much of their together time has been tainted with anger and a lack of communication, he has always found his way to her ­ or she to him, as the case may be. And yes, he is far better at being vulnerable when the circumstances call for such; even in it, there is the air of his upbringing, his place in Order society, but the pride [hubris] that guides so many of them is, for the moment, lacking.

"I asked you, once, why that was ­ do you remember?" But that's not so important, really, and now? Now, he stands and moves to her side, the sheet still wrapped around his hips as he carefully, gently, places a hand on her shoulder. "I do care for you, more than I understand. More than reason dictates I should. But what you ask of me ­ it holds the demands of a stronger Oath between us in the near future than 'when we are together', because I don't think I can make such a promise unless you are fully, always, forever mine. That you will not leave and strike me from your life again, as we have both done in the past. Given how close I know you to play your cards, it will seem rather sudden to everyone you know."

With, of course, the possible exception of her parents, who may or may not have been watching this situation develop since Arianna and Silas were children. This game may have began before the offering of flowers and treasure maps, after all.

"Are you ready for such things, my Stella?"

[Arianna]

The Hunt is clever, and it moves within his words and actions even now. It seeks to bind her to him for the bounds she has tried to impose on it. But Arianna is also driven by older things, the sort of old and heady magicks that drive men to their doom; she could be Helen of Troy, or the Lorelei; she could launch men on their ships or also beach them on the shoals and cliffs. She is not kind and neither is she always patient, but she is clever and cunning and mercurial in the oldest ways. The Hunt within Silas will know her best as the Leannansidhe, and it will think it has the better of her; it will never know that they are well and truly matched.

Sometimes a once a month, he says, and quick as fire flickers in a breeze she dismisses it. It is weighed and slides past her, this opening feint in their negotiations. "Each month is too often. I will not bend to that." This is said easily, as she rises from the divan to stretch, having sat too long in one position, having let the coldness settle too deeply in her bones. Up and up she stretches, and it bares a pale crescent of olive­hued skin at her waist, where the sweep of her sweater does not meet the rise of her slacks. It is incidental, of course, this showing of skin, this tease and when she lowers her arms again she smooths her hands over her middle, smooths the fabric down and over and this glimpse is hidden again from view. It is a thing denied him.

This is not mindful, or is it? Arianna is tricksy in the worst of ways.

"Though once a season I could abide," she says, thoughtful, moving slightly to further shake the tension from her frame. She paces, but idly. As if she were more feline than human, as if there were some inward grace to her after all. She paces as she lays the boundaries of this binding around the Hunt, and so taken with the watching of her it may be that it might not seem to notice. Not when there is the line of her to mark, the way the palm of her hand presses against the side of her neck as she thinks. The way it calls his attention up to her bust, to the strength of her features, to the mouth that shapes these small concessions, and that mouth twists, wrily, an echo of the warmth between them, echoing even now: "And perhaps on birthdays."

Which calls to mind, of course, the first of times they were together.

It is no surprise to her that on one of her nearer transits he rises; that he reaches out to break the distance between them and place his hand on her shoulder. It should not surprise him either that she turns toward it. That she does not dodge the contact or shirk his nearness. She is drawing the lines to define their newness in each other; she is deft at this; almost as deft as were she drawing them with ink and paper. Her eyes are not angry when they find his now, the green of summer grass against the blue wash of the sky.

"I am the wronged party here," she tells him, but the heat of anger is gone from it. The heat of something else is brimming, kept just restrained but shown enough to peak the interest of his Otherness. It is a dangerous play; it is one only she could make. "And I am making concessions of my Will and body; taking in the darker parts of you. I have not turned from you this morning, or left you in your cold bed alone without opportunity for explanation. And you would ask of me further bindings? Today, Silas Owen... you would ask them of me this morning?"

The words are deliberate. She takes him in ­­ it calls up echoes ­­ she evokes her body ­­ and in its nearness, always echoes ­­ and in these base and simple things she speaks through him to the call of Wyld buried in his breast. She has offered it more than it had right to expect: each season, and birthdays. She has offered it a bright and shining Star as tribute. It knows, even if Silas doesn't, the quarry it has challenged and met. It knows the risk in over­reaching; to take too much too fast and lose the prize entirely. It knows, too, the hope that resides within the swell of her belly ­­ that she may be well and truly caught already, that she is His (and his) whatever words play across the surface on this day.

And then, the boom of it, lowered slowly on him and the Hunt, like the lowering of her lashes make this admission a thing sacred, quiet and unexpected. It is most definitely not an Oath, and it is most definitely not binding, though it is hard to say if either side of him might care as it is undeniably honest; excruciatingly true in all measurements. The greatest tools of deceptions are those that cut to the quick; that bear no trace of misdirection:

"It wounds me that you could think there would be any other for me."

It is most definitely not an Oath, but does that truly matter?

[Silas]

Silas' hand rests on Arianna's shoulder and she stills then turns to him; idly, unconsciously, his arms move around her and he pulls her close, hands coming to rest over her stomach. Touch lingers there, warm and life giving when its applied to dirt and seed or bulb, but not yet so adept with more complex organisms ­ even if he harbored a conscious desire to encourage his Life to take root in her, he couldn't do so. Not yet. What he can do as he holds her so, though, larger and encircling her, guarding her, is realize some things.

Though she was wronged . . .
Though she was afraid . . .

Arianna is still his. She is still here with him, in his arms, taking him in (and yes, there are stirrings, though Silas is well and truly himself now ­ Silas the Man is well and truly in control) and invoking her body. She is calling to the Wyld in his breast. Though he does not back down from his statement of need for a more binding Vow, neither does he reiterate it; his arms around her, his hands over a stomach that may grow heavy with his Life soon, he knows it's enough (for now). There are Echoes . . .

"Forgive me, Stella. In time." There are no intimations of the need to forgive himself as well, though she's seen it there in him. And yes, there are implications that it's done? But there are old rules, old laws. He still has to ask. He also has to say, "I will guard you when you cannot. I will keep you safe when you are not strong. We are bound deeper than our words can portray, regardless of how we frame them."

[Arianna]

He has to say it, because she needs to hear these things. It is what she has been asking of him, most truly. Not that Arianna pretends dependence on any others, this is part of her cavalier charm. Nick has called her out on her mistrusting ways, and she has glibly ignored him. It is difficult to glibly ignore Silas, with his warmth wrapped around her, as she subconsciously relaxes into his embrace. There is hope in her that he will slip his chin over her shoulder, so that the point of it rests in the hollow of her collarbone. That holding her this way, from behind, with his arms bare against the soft of her sweater (a scent that echoes faintly the lanolin of his kilt the night before), he will afford her this structure of safety that his words promise.

It is her way of acquiescing to his requests. Forgive me. Her hands cover his, slide past them as she wraps her arms over his across her middle. They are, indeed, bound by deeper things than their words portray and this realization has come upon them suddenly. A few days ago they saw each other anew for the first time in a coffee shop, and here at the dawn of Spring there is intimation of engagements and other, deeper things. This is more than she had intended when she came over to see him; more than she had known she was offering when she brought food and wine to feed his host of roommates. More, even, that she would have suspected when she followed him to bed and laid breathless beside him.

"Then guard me now, for I have spent all the strength in me to stay when I was frightened, to hear when I would not. Keep me safe, and keep me close." There is more to say but Arianna has run out of words. Her voice is still a little raw; her will is spent a little low. She craves the comfort that he offers, to shelter the scared and wounded places in her behind some greater bulwark against the storm. The snow is piled high outside the walls of his keep. They do not keep to the cycles of Sleeper work weeks or holidays. There is no reason she must leave, if he will give her ample reason to stay.

[Silas]

As Arianna relaxes, Silas' chin does dip over her shoulder, into the hollow of her collarbone. His breath is warm and steady where it blows over her, and his stubble is scratchy­soft against her cheek. The arms her hands slide over, her arms come to rest on, are marked with ink ­ they tell the story of a Hunter, of a follower of a Star. When last she saw him, Silas was tattooed, but not to this extent ­ last night when they first laid to sleep beside each other she saw more ink on him than this, but perhaps didn't take in its extent, its level of detail. Perhaps now, she looks past it blindly.

"I am here. And I will hold you as long and as close as you desire."

There is more to say, but these are all the words that matter. After holding Arianna here, so, for immeasurable minuteshoursdays ­ when they are both tired of standing here, still ­ there is breakfast. Or lunch. And then there is sleep and mending.

There is some level of peace.