The journal continues, and life continues.

I did nothing, in either case. I did not serve Enedel. I did not serve the demons. Maybe I was staying balanced. Maybe I was just being a rock, passive again.

"Augh! These cookies are like rocks!" dark-haired rosy-cheeked Maggie cries.

"They can't be," worries Gegi, rushing in from the kitchen, her hands sticky with batter. "I just had one..." And pauses as she sees how her friend is grinning at her.

"They're delicious," reassures Sparrow, crumbs on his shirt enforcing his words.

Maggie grins and licks chocolate from her fingers, then shrieks as Sparrow, beside her, sets to tickling. Gegi smiles. "Thank you, love," and turns back to the kitchen. "Mother would be proud, I'm finally cooking." There's a thump as the other two fall from their chairs, still caught up in a ticklefight. Gegi eyes the half-full bowl of cookie dough, then the pair on the ground, wondering if the second batch is worth it...

But it could have been different. The elf cannot always act, but surely the demons realize that they're bungling things with me. We don't have to be enemies.

What am I thinking? Allying with darkness?

Vampire bait. I suppose it's in my personality. I always thought it was silly how many monsters and villains are destroyed by their passion for a woman - pure human females as the achilles heel of evil. Even in ridiculous cases like the devil of Legend who had no business lusting after a girl.

"Look at him, he looks like that thing from Legend with the huge horns! They call that Bacchus?"

Gegi, sitting on the floor between Manda's legs, shrugs. "Hey, their dryads are flying skeletons. They weren't going for anything -close- to the stories here." She watches the screen. "Bacchae, Bacchae... good word, that."

"You're just enjoying watching Gabrielle in vampire makeup. You still have Goth in you yet." Sparrow smiles, and stretches out on the old green couch.

"I enjoy watching Gabby in -anything-," Gegi corrects. "Or nothing. Lucky Xena."

Manda stops playing with Gegi's hair and purrs. "Bite me, Gabby."

Gegi leans back against her. "No, no, I'd much rather be the one doing the biting. Oh, what I'd like to do that little blonde..."

"Hey, I'm blonde," laughs Manda. "Do it to me."

Gegi grins. "Yeah, but you're not helpless, it's not the same..."

Manda nips at her ear. "Or -you- just like terrorizing virgins," she murmurs, and giggles.

"I wouldn't count Gabby as a virgin... hey, Joey? Get up and get us some ice cream." No response. "Sparrow?" Gegi swivels around to check the couch. "He's asleep!"

Manda laughs. "Want me to get it?"

"No, you stay here. I have plans for you..." And Gegi bends to capture her lips in a passionate kiss.

We laugh at it, but in a way I think we're trained to believe it - that desire for us can paralyze the hardened criminal, that our love can tame the wild stallion and save the lost soul. We're raised to expect the madman in the dark to be the Phantom of the Opera. When we meet evil, we expect it to seduce us. And when we stumble, but do not fall, we expect to conquer it.

I had a dream. He was a true demon, a Fallen angel, cast out of heaven for Prometheus' sin; loving the world and mankind too much, he brought them fire. He, old, lonely, and finding the world too fragile. Michael. Each of us afraid, not so much for ourselves but the harm we might do the other. Fearing the end before the beginning. But I knew him for what he was, and loved him. And he loved me, and we were not alone.

They sit together, hands clasped, fingers interlaced, watching the sunset. "You're thinking of him again," he whispers.

"I'm always thinking of him," she answers quietly. "Sometimes it seems like whatever I'm talking about, his name finds its way to my tongue, whatever I'm dreaming, his memory surfaces... and even if I never see him again, years from now I'll wake in the middle of the night and reach for him..." She sighs and squeezes his hand. "Everyone needs a dream."

But that's not the way it is in the waking hours. They're not tragic, romantic figures. I don't want them. I may need to talk to them again, for the mission, for the world... oh, who am I kidding? I'm nothing to them... but they will come after me again, when it suits them. It's my desire to be the center of attention, of trouble, that they should be exploiting.

Temptations regardless, playing both sides regardless, I have no intention of selling my soul. Especially not for some "noble" reason like getting Jay pulled off this mission to protect him. (A soul in love belongs only to itself - who said that?) I'm not a good enough lawyer - the minute they'd have me completely, they'd find some way to destroy him and make me watch so I'd know I'd done it all for nothing. Or worse, play us off each other. That's another scene that gets played to ridiculousness in the art - one partner sacrificing to save the other, the other immediately sacrificing self to try and save the first, and round and round. If they would stop being such overblown martyrs and -talk- to each other (not that I should accuse people of being overly dramatic!) Or a partner witholding information to try to protect the other, who of course gets into trouble anyway... look at Lois Lane! You have to trust your partner to make decisions, you have to be able to trust them. Am I making sense? Which is the greater love, to mother and shelter and protect blindly, or to respect someone as a reasonable, wonderful, capable adult?

The sheets are tangled at the foot of the bed, the blankets on the floor. They lie together, skin to skin.

Her fingers trace a path from his right ear down his neck and along his shoulder, then back up to curl in his hair. "How did it happen?" she asks softly.

Sparrow's hands stroke her back. "A little girl. Her name was Anne, and she had dark, curly hair, and brown eyes, and she was wearing a little blue dress that day. She was with her mother, in the park, and she had a headache." He closes his eyes. "And then she cried out, once, and she fell. I could see that the blood vessels had burst, I knew there was no time. Her mother started to shake her and call her name, and I ran to them, and told them it would be all right, I told her she had just fainted. And I tried to bring her back." He opens his eyes and looks at her again. "There was no time to prepare, and I failed. But I couldn't accept that I had lost her, and I tried again, and again... and that..."

She cuts him off with a finger to the lips. "Compassion. Not pride," she says.

"Maybe both. It doesn't matter." He squeezes her gently. "What matters is the time I do have."

She rests her head on his shoulder. "Am I in heaven here or am I in hell?" she whispers to herself.

Not that I don't, wouldn't mother and protect and sacrifice as well. We know me.

She reaches up to kiss his forehead in blessing.

Sacrifice is always part of an epic. I doubt this will be different. It's the one part of my fantasy the backwards man didn't mock. Enedel said that part of his little test was set up to see if one of us would be willing to give eir life for the others. I've had a dream a few times since this started. Not quite a dream, but more than a recurring thought - oh, it's silliness. Being in a dark room, handed a knife. Two tables - Skaar on one, Jay on another, and I told to choose one to die. And sometimes I attack the one who gave the knife and asked the question. More often I turn it upon myself.

Her knees supported by the soft blue rug, her bare toes cold against the ceramic tile. Gegi looks down at her arm, opening and closing her hand, then tilting her fist back to examine the blue patterns of veins. A quick pass of a hand. Nothing changes at first. Slowly two thin red lines blossom against the background of skin. She opens and closes her hand a few more times, watching the blood bead. She tilts the arm, waiting for a drop to fall into the water below. After a while, she puts the plastic cover back on the razor.

Of course, I think that one is still more about trying not to do what the mysterious man wants. But if the time comes when someone has to go, I'm willing. I'm not going to throw myself in front of the others begging for a chance to be a martyr. But I'll do what needs to be done. As Skaar did. As Jeremy did. I hope I can. I don't have a future to go back to anyway, if Jeremy was right. Of course, I can get around that - I can go back later, or elsewhere. But they don't have to know that. If need be, I can use it to convince them to let me go. If need be.

In her hand a clear crystal, quartz, prismatic, a pyramidal tip. "I bind myself to thee..." she whispers.

[A picture of a woman in a flowing dress, arms raised.]

Gegi stands at the brink, her hair tossing wildly in the wind.

wind in time

rapes the flower trembling on the vine

and nothing yields to shelter it

from above

they say temptation will destroy our love

She checks the harness to be certain it's secure, then peeks over her shoulder. It's a long way down...

a never-ending hunger

but I fear

I have nothing to give

I have so much to lose here in this lonely place

tangled up in our embrace

there's nothing I'd like better than to fall

to Fall

...and she closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and leaps backwards... freefall...

all the fear has left me now

i'm not frightened any more

it's my heart that pounds beneath my flesh

it's my mouth that pushes out this breath

...heart pounding, mouth opening in a cry of exultation.

companion to our demons

they will dance

and we will play

with chairs, candles, and cloths

making darkness in the day

"You don't need a crystal ball," Sparrow laughs.

Gegi sighs and moves to the next display case. "I know, but I still love rocks... oo, look, labradorite. Look at the colors change." She smiles. "I don't have an evenly measured step, but I know a few things."

"And it doesn't take a magickal scan, either." Sparrow adjusts his jean jacket. "You might want to ask them what they do with the leftover pyrite dust."

"Mmm, more art projects."

peace in the struggle

to find peace

comfort on the way

to comfort

"Comfortable?" Gegi asks, her arms around him, her chin on his shoulder.

"Mm-hmm," he mumbles cozily. "You have a very nice lap."

She reaches up to brush a strand of his curly hair out of her mouth. "Thank you."

and if i shed a tear I won't cage it

I won't fear love

and if I feel a rage I won't deny it

I won't fear love

"I love you forever."