(M) Traveling Light (Ghanon)

[Anonymous]

The flame continued to flicker, emitting an overpowering heat.  There was a thin layer of moisture settling on her skin from the sweltering flames that made her twinkle as if she had been sprinkled with fine silver dust.  Her expression remained stoic and reflective as he spoke, her thoughts heavy with the gravity of his words.

The tale he recited was one that had been prevalent among the myths told to infinite generations of her people.  In fact, it had held the most import among her people, as the tale of Dragolir's death only solidified their belief in the necessity of harmony in existence.   Lana was far too young, despite her awesome length of life, to have come close to touching the time frame in which everything had occurred.  But like any bloody battle, or the overthrowing of a monarch, it was significantly marked in history.  

She cast her eyes over to him to read the impassioned expression on his face.  It was evident that this story held a great deal of importance to him, too.  Her shoulders peeked out of the blanket cocoon, her round breasts baring the tiniest amount of cleavage, looking nestled in the black, fuzzy fabric.   She gazed at him serenely as he made his case for Dragolir, a character so far removed by time that he seemed like the adversary from an age old fairy tale.  Anyone who knew her identity would expect that she would argue for the side of the counsel of gods who had decided Dragolir's fate, being that she was inherently responsible for providing balance to all life in her realm.  However, there was a reason that her Kingdom had been so demolished.  Perhaps, in a manner of thinking, she had been an unwitting harbinger of a portion of Dragolir's dream in her alternative universe.  After all, balance was never meant to be truly constant.  And all life had the chance to play a part in a shifting of the worlds.  

She turned to face him more, half of her face cast in stark shadow, a mirror of her inward conflict.

"Perhaps not justified." She replied calmly, "Born of fear. But fear is rarely justified."

[Lion]

History was such a wide-snapping thing, and it was a dream Ghanon had dreamed before, back to a time and a place when dreams had once meant something to him.  It was not easy define a god's destruction.  Not easy to tell when it happened and where.  Only that it happened, and when events such as that occur, it tips the balance of the universe in a manner which affects all sorts of worlds.  It was so long ago that Ghanon would not have been surprised if she did not know the story well.  The dead god's image was suppressed and wiped off from the face of any and all worlds, his memory a dream of a shadow at your door.  A door that only Ghanon had bothered to open.

The story suddenly made him silent and found he had to look away as his eyes set upon his hands, the hands that had killed, had hurt, had destroyed, and made change time and time again.  He smirked when she answered, feeling so surreal and that liquor swim down on his thoughts again, and again time felt so languid.  He turned and gazed upon her with lazy, candle eyes again, eyes that could flicker into a silver inferno in less than a moment's notice.

"Actions born of fear..." he mimicked her like a parrot.  His left hand gripped his right wrist tightly.  "That's a new one," he admitted and smiled at her, a grin wry with amusement and such liquefied attraction.  He stalked a little closer and sat across from her on the couch.  "Fear is never justified.  Fear is a poor reason for anything.  And I do not believe his death would make a pint of difference to the worlds they govern.  They made a mistake.  Can a god, any god, make a mistake?  There was one thing they overlooked.  Me.  I am Ghanon, the son of Dragolir."

Perhaps it was a half-truth, but Dragolir had been more of a father to him than his own father had been and the words felt right to say them.  Ghanon looked at her again with that curious, wandering gaze and asked her.  "Do you know what is like to lose everything you've ever loved?  Have it ripped away from you?"

[Anonymous]

Lana had nearly forgotten about the amount of drink they had consumed earlier.  Her emotions took control of her body and purified her mind to a temporary clarity only produced by the rush of adrenaline.  By the undertone of anger in his mannerisms, the bitter micro-expressions in his face and the intermediate transitions to weariness, she could see he was not quite as unaffected as she.  Perhaps it was because he had nothing to be anxious over in her presence, and she had her whole world to protect against his prying.  

"Fear is never justified. Fear is a poor reason for anything."

His words stung her, the first of an onslaught of painful pricks resulting from his bitterness.  Fear was the only thing that gave her life.  If she were to ever be unafraid of exposing who she was, she would be stoned, murdered, disposed of.  She had already known the devastation of rejection, lack of understanding, and fear had become as necessary to her awakening alive every morning as taking that first deep inhale that stirred her from her dreams.  He could not convince her that fear was not a necessary evil...

He continued to echo the past thoughts of her own mind, but soon brought her wandering mind to an abrupt halt, "Can a god, any god, make a mistake? There was one thing they overlooked. Me. I am Ghanon, the son of Dragolir."

The confession was less frightful than surprising.

As he spoke, his burgeoning power was almost plainly visible.  His aura made her tremble with both indomitable desire and apprehension, the two polarized feelings feeding off of one another.  But if nothing else about her emanated strength, her face remained of steel.

And then it happened.  As he poured out more of himself, he unintentionally pierced her with the most innocent of questions.

"Do you know what is like to lose everything you've ever loved? Have it ripped away from you?"

It was then that her solid image broke, and she turned her face away to fully fall under shadow.  Her jaw was set against a reply, in case she could not withhold the confession that remained suppressed under good sense.

After a difficult moment, she released the air that had been imprisoned tightly within her chest, and her bosom fell, "You must realize, Ghanon..." the name dripped from her tongue like liquid ice, "That all us of share a common difficulty.  Error.  You would be selfish to think that there is no one else out there in the world who might share your pain."

She still did not meet his gaze.

[Lion]

Valdric's eyes...they were so filled with the emptiness of disappointment, void of anger, of pain, of shock.  Perhaps if there had been any other look in the emperor's eyes, he might have been able to take it, been capable of forgiving the man that had cast him through the Void, cast out to die in the vacuum of the universe.  But the disappointment had struck him like being stabbed with a blade forged at the heart of a star.  It cut and dug deep into the core of his soul, of his mind.  It was a gaze that he could never forget, despite all the effort he put towards doing so.

Ghanon had come closer to her now, having bared himself and perhaps even her with that simple question.  He knew it struck deep by the way she reacted, turning away from him.  He set his jaw and reached for her face again.  He could easily have struck her with the anger that surged through him at the memory of his father that flashed before his eyes.  But he also felt cold suddenly, his skin shivered despite the fireplace heat.

Outside the snowfall had long since began, just as he predicted, though the wind was starting to pick up and the snow flurried down to the ground.  Ghanon did need to look out the window to know that the snow would only get worse.  It always did in Darken Vei and with being so close to the mountains, it could very well turn into a terrible blizzard.

Ghanon was gentle in his touch and said lowly, softly, "Look at me.  Don't be afraid to look at me.  You would be a fool to think that I don't know that.  I know just as well as anyone.  The things I have seen, I can give my sight to you.  But even though I know, it doesn't dull the pain any less.  My life is gone because of my own foolish errors that I would give the galaxy for if I could only undo.  But I cannot.  If you know pain, then you can understand.  Don't you understand?"  He leaned over her, his other hand held out to grasp hers.  It was a terrible feeling to admit the fact of his own mistake, but he was not sure he would be able to go into detail if she asked him of it.  But first he had to know if she understood, and that would make all the difference.

[Anonymous]

His touch was icy cold, the touch of a dead man's fingertips.  Perhaps it was only a side effect of being truly dead inside.  She wasn't sure.  She wasn't sure about much of him, only that he forced her to linger in the groundless space between the ache of ripping open her chest to divulge her bleeding heart, or the pain of suppressing the explosive secrets that would eventually ignite against the pressure.  She hated that he would not let her regain herself, instead closing in on her like four solid walls threatening to crush her under their weight.  Contradictory to what boiled inside of her, his voice was soothing with an undercurrent of dark electricity.  What could he possibly stand to gain from abusing her this way?  Did he wish to plunge the both of them into the depths of despair if only for the sake of remaining covered in the shit of their own disgusting existence?  Whatever he had done...  it had been brutal, it had been bloody, of this she was assured simply by the sizzling fury that lurked just behind his eyes.  And a darkness passed over her once it registered that they were no different from one another.  She was a disgrace to her purpose, a malformed creation set in the direction of greatness only to stumble on defective legs miles away from the finish line.  And he wished to immerse himself in this?  Roll around in it as if it were the only way to feel alive?

Her breath came rapidly now, but her lips remained steady, and her hand balled into a fist within his own much larger grasp.  

"Your sight would do nothing for me." She whispered bitterly, her eyes welling against the impossible force of his influence, "For I have seen enough to haunt thousands of future lifetimes.  And each of my lives will most certainly be tainted.  I can understand, Ghanon."

Another breath escaped her, releasing some of the tension in her throat, "I do understand....Ghanon."

[Lion]

What had burned in his eyes was a mystery altogether.  If she stared into them long enough, she too might be cast away into the sea of anger, bliss, rage, love, lust, danger, depression, pain, all the emotions that he'd carried with him like an invisible boulder that weighed him down try as he might to leave it behind.  There was a purpose to everything he did.  Or at least he tried to convince himself in this.  Perhaps he had reveled in chaos so long that he'd become the very embodiment of something he thought he could control.  But unlike others, he'd learn not to fear it so anymore and wanted her not to fear it as well.

Ghanon lingered close to her face and his hand had closed in over hers just as she balled her fist in his hand.  He gripped her hand firmly but gently as to not crush it with his own strength.  Corrothim blood was strong in him still, and his heart was pounding furiously in his chest, so much that his skin warmed the instant it touched hers and the fire was no help either.  The grip showed his relation to her, tried to show her his empathy and that in loss, they were one.

His other hand brushed a thumb on her cheek and he saw the tears well up in her eyes.  A tear of his own had broke away and was already trailing down his own face, unable to contain it.  The emotional volatility was not one he'd experienced in almost ten thousand star spans.  But time was a weightless thing to him, as relative as reality.  But right now he was feeling all too real.  "That is all I ask of you," he whispered, close to her lips before leaning in and pressing his lips to hers, kissing her softly.

[Anonymous]

Her lungs expanded as if she had been holding her breath under water, and had only just come up to breath.  The pressure of his lips against her own caused her mouth to naturally part and accept the fullness of his kiss.  He tasted hot, like cinnamon, every pore in his body now radiating warmth into her.  The blanket around her was becoming a prison of intense heat, but her senses were diverted away from the minor concern.  Instinctively, the hand that had been held so firmly within his embrace tore from its prison and flung backward against the couch beside her temple.  Futilely, she arched her back into the cushions, pressing, compressing, wishing to melt into the fibers of the furniture and disappear.   But it was pointless, now, to pretend that it wasn't wonderful, that it wasn't blissfully masochistic.  Her arm relaxed against the cushion, drifting downward to her side as the rest of her body became fluid to his direction.  The single tear that had stained his skin rapidly escaped along the peeks of his face only be consumed in the meeting of their mouths, the salty taste greeting her tongue and immediately fading.  

Lana's mass of tight curls provided a full frame in which she nearly disappeared, the strands now and then caressing the supple skin of his face.  She found her heart was slowing to a lullaby beat, and she was grateful for the relief it brought to her gradually loosening figure.

[Lion]

He pressed against her further until she responded to him.  The kiss gradually deepened from the softness he introduced as the breathe was nearly sucked out of him at every stroked.  When she relented to it, perhaps the kiss had been a little rougher than usual, but he went ahead and wrapped her in his embrace.  The taste of her was warm, sweet and salty all at the same time, tasting cool like fresh water that quickly warmed when her tongue struck his.  He was enticed and he pulled away briefly to take a breath before pressing his mouth to hers once more, he couldn't get enough.

Ghanon pulled an arm to go around his neck and melted into her form.  He leaned into her and let his hand reach out to feel along her skin, the old fear of touching her vanishing in an instant and he felt along the tip of her exposed breast and up along her arms.  He kissed along her jaw and neck, and inhaled her the scent of her flesh there, getting a high by the smell of her sweat, and he sighed against her, unable to get enough of that either.

[Anonymous]

It was a good thing that Ghanon had wrapped one of her slender arms about his neck, and she held tightly to him.  The settee was hardly sizeable enough to support one of them, and as he took freedoms to taste her, his rigor was gradually sending them to the floor.  At first, she attempted to secure them by gripping her small hand around the cushion, but it was a feeble attempt at best against their vigorous movements with one another.  They sloped down onto the wood floor with the blanket half caught on the couch, the other half still managing to conceal most of her nude form.  The jewels that followed the curvature of her spine pinged against the solidity of the ground.  Her emotions soaring, she felt herself smile and gave out a small laugh at the predicament.  Ghanon remained the dominant, having landed softly atop her.  Her fingers explored the silken fibers of his hair, gripping lightly as he found new tender areas.  While he kissed the vulnerable areas of her neck, a noise much like a kitten's cry escaped her lips.  She responded well to his touch, finding that her hands roamed his muscular frame of their own free will.  His god-like body was comforting and safe to her, a strength to cling to in her state of oblivion.

[Lion]

All of his emotions, swirled like a hurricane, caught up in the tumult of their actions as well as the storm that went on inside his head.  He didn't know what to think or what to feel.  Making love had always been so physical for him, with no room for emotions, no time to give thought to himself.  He did it based on necessity to solidify or execute a change in another.  And never had he prepared to do so after exposing so much of his past.  Even if a lot of it had been vague, merely referencing to it was enough to make him burn in madness.   Here was another that understood him, or at least said so.  But her physical reaction was enough to tell him that his interpretation had been an accurate one and he did not wish to squander that reaction.  He still did not know who she was, but perhaps it would be easier to find out if she continued to relent.

His heart was pounding fast and the clothing he had worn had shimmered away a long time ago, though he made no note of it and was sure she was too distracted to say anything.  He slipped beneath the blanket with her almost as if he needed to be closer to her than he already had been. Though his body was warm as he caressed her, the pit of his stomach grew cold with fear, though fear of what, he didn't know.  Perhaps it was the fear of knowing that was what scared him the most.

Ghanon gave a faint chuckle and buried his face in her hair as he kissed her jaw and remained steady as their lips met.  His right eye opened and shot an eye at Canis who was still asleep by the fire and grinned a little at the thought that the wolf hadn't yet been awakened.  But his attention fully remained on her and his breath shuddered when their bodies locked together.

[Anonymous]

A part of her felt ridiculous for giving way to his advances.  Perhaps after all of this, he would think of her as conquered land, and it would be revealed that his tortured story was in actuality a clever ploy perfectly designed for the naïve, lost little goddess she was.  Maybe she was simply desperate to be touched, roamed, even abandoned afterward.  Love and hate often were two sides of the same coin.  Why couldn't pain and pleasure also be?  

But she chose, for this moment, to believe that what they shared was entirely wonderful.  It didn't take much to convince her of how strongly she craved the caress of his lips on the rounded curve of her ample breasts.  He slipped beneath the blanket with ease and she felt shrouded by his warm, protective physique.  Her plentiful bosom pressed against his bare chest while the remaining halves of their bodies collided and soon glided together in one fluid motion.  She felt him become a part of her, invading the invisible barrier of inhibition that had separated them before.  She made yet another noise and buried her face into his impossibly wonderful neck to conceal the tears that finally threatened to flow.  Guilt, satisfaction, greed, desire, and the need for any affection.  They all coexisted at the same moment within her, none of her feelings able to be reconciled with the others.  But it didn't matter much now.  What had begun had to be finished, and she desperately wanted the experience to come to its full fruition.

She parted her damp eyes from their warm hiding place and looked up at him between dewy lashes.  He brought her such a mixture of ecstasy and misery, but she wanted it to go on, and she cried out his name with just as much undecided sentiment.

[Lion]

If she had trepidations in thought about the moment, she was not alone.  Ghanon could just as easily let himself believe that she was as innocent as she appeared.  Maybe she was just like him in that she could forget herself for a moment and didn't care about the heart of another.  He knew the kind of person she was, but he couldn't say the same for her.  For all he knew, he may just as easily have been manipulated by her.  But it was a thought he didn't like lingering on, he'd opened up old wounds that he'd worked long to bury beneath his own subconscious and didn't want them to stay open longer than they had to.

Ghanon let his lips linger by her chest, unleashing a languid moan as he paced himself.  Though his body never tired, there were times when his mind did, and the release, the distraction of shrouding with another was very much needed for himself.  And for the first time in almost forever it seemed that he was at peace, with himself and the universe, if only for a moment.  He didn't know her name and only breathed the lie she had told him against her ear, hotly and looked at her with sincerity.

"Tell me your name," he implored in a heavy breathing whisper.  "I must know."

[Anonymous]

Their heated recreation had distracted them enough that the howling outside the cabin hadn't been noticed until they lay in the silent aftermath of their love making.  Feathery white powder danced outside the few windows that periodically decorated the thick walls.  The temperature was lowering, and Lana felt comforted by the arms that held her steadily.  

The sound of his labored breathing was music to her ears.  She lifted her fingertips to tenderly sift a few strands of his pale blonde hair away from his forehead.  Her smile was genuinely caring as she tucked the tress behind one of his ears.  But it was quickly replaced by a look of concern.

Again, he selfishly demanded of her an answer to the one question that put tension in the air between them.  A heat swelled up within her and expanded to her palpitating heart.  Holding the settee for balance she was at once sitting erect again, gathering some of the blanket close to her to ward off a bit of the icy air.  She left enough for him to remain warm, though why it mattered to her she was oblivious to.  For a  long period of time, she gazed down at her motionless hands as if by doing so, a plan to escape this treachery he'd committed would form.  

Her brow was pinched, and finally, after several shallow breaths, she spoke, "I am as much to blame for being a part of this as you are."

Her violet eyes, wrought with sadness, traveled upward again, "I should have known you would do anything to find out who I am.  I only ask that you spare me the humiliation of seeing you again.  And if you have the decency in you, that you'll keep the knowledge to yourself."

[Lion]

He had no decency, nor pride, nor shame.  And felt none when she pulled away from him.  He looked at her with silver eyes filled with that tumult that raged inside him.  And that thought of being manipulated once again slithered its way back into his mind.  He frowned at her, not understanding exactly what had just happened.  But it didn't take long for him to realize that she wouldn't be relenting anytime soon.

Ghanon kept his expression stoic and he sighed before releasing a small grin.  A small part of him felt betrayed even for he had given so much and she so little.  Tendrils of anger seeped through his chest from that fear in his gut, but he shoved it away as best he could.  He may have threatened whatever trust had occurred between them, if any at all, but he would leave it at that and he sat to the side, looking at her piercingly in her nakedness.

"No, milady.  Do not bother trying to save your pride.  All the blame is on me, for it is I that seduced your innocent, innocent heart," he said with biting sarcasm and coldness.  The words were vaguely pained but he doubted very much that she'd care to pick up on it.  "You do not know the full extent of my power, to think that this was the best I could do.  I could rip the information from your skull when you least expect it...  But no, I opened up myself to you and you, so coldly, so cruelly believe that it was I that manipulated you."  He may have exaggerated in that ripping information from the skull part, but he had his ways in obtaining information through subterfuge.  He really didn't want to have to do that if he didn't have to, he would have preferred if she could tell him, for people were so vulnerable as they dreamt.  Still the pain at having been so blindingly betrayed by her remained.  Perhaps the stupidity had lied almost fully with him, for he had believed that if he bared himself she might too.

He felt the pain within her, had known it through her touch and the way she'd clung to him, had called his name, had left her eyes moist with sadness.  It was ironic in a way to suddenly feel lied to, for he was a natural liar himself, but in the one instance that he'd been honest in his existence, it all backfired on him, like getting caught up in a blast from a dying star.

"I will keep the knowledge, and among that, my presence with you.  I cannot take that risk now that you know who I am.  I have a feeling you will be seeing me more and more.  So keep your hallowed pride, it's the only thing you will ever have if you keep pushing people away.  Those that want only to comfort you in that pain that I know is there."  He had spoken softly, and not without bitterness.  He brushed off what blanket she left him and placed it on her, gently and almost mockingly, but peered at her with a softened expression.  "Your shroud of dignity, darling, because it seems that's what you want most, not the warmth of another.  You seem to want....to be alone now, so I'm going to lie down in the other room, but before I go, would at least answer one question: Why is it so important to you?"  His silver eyes were calmed, but gazed into her with the sincerity of the question.  That was the least she could do for him and hoped against all dashed hope that she might at least answer that.

[Anonymous]

The way he acted, in light of their profound intimacy, disheartened her.  The life within her wilted as he delivered a passive aggressive outpouring of his own pain and misunderstanding.  It was clear his desire to draw her near had stemmed from a source of destruction rather than the tenderness she had clung to.  She bloomed in his care, if only for an inconceivably minute moment in time; a rare accomplishment that would not have been achieved by men with lesser qualities than his own.  The only other who ravished her body as Ghanon had was decaying in a grave.  If only Ghanon knew the gravity of what they had shared...  What it meant to her...  

"You do not know the full extent of my power, to think that this was the best I could do. I could rip the information from your skull when you least expect it... But no, I opened up myself to you and you, so coldly, so cruelly believe that it was I that manipulated you."

She winced as he spat empty half threats like freshly honed daggers.  In his overwhelming fury he was not able to see the obvious feeling she had for him.  When all other worlds had proven to be cold and desolate, even while brimming with populations of beings, when the ache of loneliness had become a way of life for her, they had stumbled upon one another, and he had only ever acted as the grateful guest of her presence, had given her shelter and food, had asked nothing of her except her company.  Perhaps a part of her had hoped that his befriending her was genuine.  But she knew that it was foolish to believe life was ever fair or right.  She had only lost herself for a moment, and now struggled to regain the cynicism that he had first encountered in her.

"I will keep the knowledge, and among that, my presence with you. I cannot take that risk now that you know who I am. I have a feeling you will be seeing me more and more. So keep your hallowed pride, it's the only thing you will ever have if you keep pushing people away. Those that want only to comfort you in that pain that I know is there."

As she listened to him degrade her character, she realized that he hadn't fully understood the meaning of her words to him.  The knowledge she had spoken of was the knowledge he so desperately pined for.  He had used her body as an access point to her secrets, and she planned to fulfill his desires at the price of their acquaintance.  But his uncontrolled anger had caused him to turn a deaf ear, and she wasn't about to correct him.  He wasn't a child, and she wasn't in need of his approval.  If he wished to demean her in this way, having no sense to question his hasty assumptions, then she would play the part of the vindictive bitch he blindly expected to see.  

He continued to insult her, and she found herself ripping the blanket from her lap in response to his underhanded demeanor, exposing her nude form.  

"Your shroud of dignity, darling, because it seems that's what you want most, not the warmth of another. You seem to want....to be alone now, so I'm going to lie down in the other room, but before I go, would at least answer one question: Why is it so important to you?"

It was then that she stood, insulted, knowingly bringing herself near to him until her breasts grazed his chest, her eyes narrowed as she locked into his gaze.  He boasted of knowing her pain, and yet he could not even begin to comprehend it.

"You." She began, words escaping her as frustration took hold, "You believe you can decipher me.  You believe you see through to my interior, thinking that your perception of life and all that resides within it is the ultimate truth.  And yet you've known me for a few hours shy of a mortal day.  I could tell you, you are mistaken.  I could show you how miserably wrong you are, but all you will see is what you think is real, and then, what value will there be in my efforts to convince you otherwise?"  

She paused to look at him with sincerity, then took in a small breath and continued, "I am broken, Ghanon.  You," she placed a tiny hand on his chest, compassion beaming from her violet eyes, "Are demolished."  Her hand moved to his arm, fingers pressing into his firm flesh, lightly squeezing him to gain some sort of connection.  "You must know that I feel you.  Your bitterness....  Your suffering.........  And though I want desperately to commune with you in our iniquity..."  Her voice trailed off there, finding that words could no longer serve this thought.

She released her hold on him and folded her arms over her chest, backing away now and looking more like a frightened, dismal child, "The things I have done, Ghanon...."  She shook her head, torment etched in her brow, "The disgrace I have brought upon myself...  If I were to even speak it into the air of this world, I would yet again find myself utterly and completely displaced..."  Her next words were broken and quiet, spilling from the overflowing cup of emotion she fought to contain, "My options for places to run to are not endless, and are rapidly growing scarce.  The galaxy is far smaller than you may think..."

[Lion]

She was right.  And he knew she was right, but still he could not find it within himself to face the fact.  He knew he was long since broken, he was past demolished, to the point where the winds of time and a billion suns had drifted away whatever remained of him, what could have been saved.  All that was left was a poor shadow of a man, of what had been Prince Ghanon, if the man had ever existed at all.  He could never return to he was before and could only look toward the blackness of Beyond, falling into the Abyss that was the center of all existence.  He was a shattered reflection gazing up into the corpse of his former self.  The man he could be no more, if he was a man at all.

He listened to her but could not to bear to look into her face, fearing what he saw there, of the truth in her words and he wanted to destroy her right then and there, to tear body apart limb from limb until all was left but the bleeding heart, which he would burn into oblivion.  But there was something in her words that prevented him from doing so, but he found himself grasping onto her forearms with a death-defying strength, that showed his own inner frustration.  She wasn't the only one fighting battles and she seemed to try to reconcile that fact, make him understand an understanding he'd long since burrowed in his mind.

He didn't want her anger, he only wanted the truth, and if she'd given him that from the beginning, then he would not have to suffer beneath her pity and vile compassion.  He wanted to reject her from this plane, but the anger was consuming him within more than it could be projected without.  "Then show me!" he demanded with fire, and his eyes shifted in a multitude of colors that tainted the silver, until they were returned to normal.  "Tell me!  If I am wrong, let me be wrong.  If I am a fool, then let me be a fool.  But do not hide from me.  Don't be afraid of who I am, of who you are!

"If we are equal in our suffering, then let yourself go!  I know my own faults, what I have done that I can never again amend.  You think that I am blind, but I couldn't have been given more sight.  Not into who you are, because you've told me nothing.  How can you expect me to understand when I have nothing?  I...am nothing."

Ghanon's tears burned in his eyes and he rejected them with all his being, he sank to his knees and let go of her, sighing.  "Don't you see?  We both will leave no trace.  We don't belong here no matter what we do.  In the least, I know that I will not.  I am but the mere reflection of a dream.  I have no place.  But of all my fears, I can at least face that one.  Stop running, and see here before one who wants to know you."  He looked up at her now, finally, with no more words to say but these, "The galaxy may be small...but the universe is infinite.  I am infinite."  He was just as much a part of the universe as it was of him.  And he felt his body waver in ethereality, his wished nothing more than to vanish from this earthly plane.

[Anonymous]

It stung her to hear that she might never find the sense of normality she earnestly sought.  Even though her good sense told her that she was too far gone to hope to resuscitate her unhappy existence, the sweet seduction of hope, if she was even entitled to hope anymore, was far more powerful than the hideous truth.  This was her very purpose, now, to find rest in the solitude of no identity.  It was as if uttering even her name to him would shred the paper palace of protection around her false life.  But if it was so feeble, why bother to uphold it at all?

Even beyond her own hurt, he was struggling with something more.  There was an ugly mass of truth he had never dealt with, and she knew in her eternal time that for beings like themselves, any emotions that were allowed to build would eventually swallow them whole in a rage of madness.  He seemed on the border of it, teetering on the edge of profound understanding and immense pain.  The only solace was that they were together when it happened, able to, if nothing else, at least be privy to each other's affliction.

"Don't you see? We both will leave no trace. We don't belong here no matter what we do. In the least, I know that I will not. I am but the mere reflection of a dream. I have no place. But of all my fears, I can at least face that one. Stop running, and see here before one who wants to know you.  The galaxy may be small...but the universe is infinite. I am infinite."

It was as if he wished to see her stripped of any desire to live, bringing her down to the level he now sank to.  But, was she truly supporting herself that well?  Wasn't this just the inevitable end to a futile endeavor, and he was just the unwitting messenger?

The words he spoke trickled like music from his tongue only to continue caressing her senses.  She watched him transform from the holding her in a painfully solid grip to slumping to the despairing figure that knelt before her, like a child.  He begged her, implored her!  To help him release some of his toxicity through her confession.  Suddenly, visible quivers overtook her body, and a hand fled to her face to sloppily hide her eyes.  Together, they were the very picture of ruin, in their nakedness an Adam and Eve not of Genesis, but of the Apocalypse.  They hadn't only tasted of the forbidden fruit, but gorged on it until their stomachs were distended.  And there was nothing left to do except to welcome the maniacal chaos that accompanied their pitiable survival.

He had sufficiently torn her apart from the inside out, treating her to his kindness only to coerce her into bearing her soul to him.  And now there was nothing left to do but to relent and give him what he had worked so hard for, as if it were his reward.

Her shoulders began to heave as inaudible sobs escaped her, and she took a moment to fully open her heart to the inevitable.  She had placed a single hand on the back of his head, nestled into his soft hair, and had drawn his forehead to her abdomen while the other hand feebly tried to conceal her face.  

"I..." she stopped to control a wave of tears, "I am she who once held the Cosmos in equilibrium."

If he truly were so knowing, her ambiguous meaning would be clear to him.  He would have at least felt the quake-like shift in this Universe as the alternate began to die, all of those years ago.  To any other being, it would have meant nothing more than a bit of extra rain and an inexplicable shift in nature.  To someone like him, he would have known that a much grander force had been at work.

"My name..." she wiped away her tears, "Is Lana."

[Lion]

His form shifted like water as he reached up and held her close to him, to try and hold her steady.  The storm began to calm inside of him, like ashes drifting down after the explosion of a volcano, soon to be burned by acid rain.  He'd stood before the door of another world and had chosen to step through it, once it closed behind him, he could never return again.  That was the dilemma he faced.  Not so much that he'd once been the one that destroyed his own life, but that he was beyond redemption.  He clung to her as if she were the only real thing in this room and he looked up at her as she slowly confessed that which he sought so hard to discover.

When she said it, at first it didn't quite register and her true name was not one he recognized.  But even so, there was a familiarity there that he knew he felt before.  He was at the Connexion Point, the meeting place of the beginning and the end, waiting for a moment, when suddenly it was as if he'd been hit by a supernova.  But on the scale of which was more than astronomical.  He couldn't describe it, but he looked up at her and there was a gradual repulsion that he felt, but did not show.

All this time, she was an Architect like all the others.  And she caused him to be so exposed like that.  Ghanon didn't know what to think but immediately he recoiled from having been so previously vulnerable and found the self that had at once been deceiving.  Suddenly his eyes were filled with a horror...  Could this have been a trap?  To get him at his weakest, to make him admit what he'd done wrong.  "Lana," he breathed, eyes wide.  How could he have been so naïve?  So stupid!?

Ghanon fell back on his haunches and leaned back on his elbows.  He felt cornered, like an animal forced to the back of the cage by the prodding weapon of the handler.  He stared up at her with confusion.  "That was you I felt then...  Like a ripple across the stars.  You caused it, didn't you?"

[Anonymous]

Lana watched in horror as he seemed to recoil from her.  What was the reason for his reaction?  Hadn't he just finished begging her to reveal herself, only to spit in her face?  She couldn't read the emotion in his face, but she did know that it was not in favor of her.  Perhaps what she had done really was that heinous...

She subconsciously began to rub her arm, shoulders slumped in shame like a child that had just been punished for a bad deed.  She bit her lower lip and a few tired, golden locks fell over her face.  She couldn't bring herself to look at him, unsure if she should try to flee or remain under his scrutiny.  Her body was hot with humiliation, and worlds of old wounds reopened as sharply as true flesh wounds.  But these, she could not simply touch and heal.  They would only continue to fester, and she held her breath, hoping that somehow she might've mistaken Ghanon's reaction.

"Yes." She could not find her voice at first, "I was at the pinnacle of destruction."

[Lion]

Ghanon slowly found his strength and stood before her.  His mind was ever calculating, wondering if this could mean danger for him, a potential threat.  But he couldn't be sure.  Self-preservation was the highest of all mortal instincts and though he was no longer bound by that coil, he retained that more than any other. He could have just as easily fled from this place, left her behind to wonder as to the origin of his existence or if this had all been some strange dream.  But part of him also needed to understand why she had come here.  If it was to hunt him, he would destroy her where she stood.  His purpose was not yet spent.

He softened his expression, sympathetic, curious and wanting to understand.  He stepped near her and threaded one of his hands into hers.  "Your world...it is gone now?" he asked gently, seeing that it was difficult for her to speak of it.  "What happened to it so that it so strongly affected this place?"  She didn't have to answer, and he placed his body near, now solidified, enough for her to find comfort in if she needed it.  He was wary, but willing nonetheless.