Gegi and a blond man with pointed ears stand on a pretty green 
hill, beside a rock. The man speaks. "It is within your own power to 
determine your lot in life."
 	"Who you are now you may not be always, or you may choose to sit 
passive and changeless as a rock while the world passes you by.  Do rocks 
have thoughts? Would it matter if you learned that all rocks possess 
minds that think if they are still unable to interact with you?  One 
might attempt to be kind to a rock in certain ways, but a complete lack 
of interaction or communication, one would never know whether one's 
actions were torturous or kind to the rock, and thus the revelation of 
the rock's intelligence should have no logical bearing to one's actions.  
The slightest communication, whether now or ages past, whether
directly or indirectly, might change matters, but a rock that sits alone 
will be ignored and passed by.  The rock will be subject to the whims of 
the weather as its face slowly wears away; it lies at the mercy of any 
passerby who might choose to throw it or chip it or take it where he 
pleases; it is subject to gravity which might cause it to travel 
downhill, but it moves nowhere of its own accord; it might be viewed as 
having inherent beauty or usefullness, but such is only as lies in the 
mind of the observer, and the respect is accorded only to the beauty or 
to the use rather than to the rock itself.
   	"But if the rock were to grow legs and choose to become active 
rather than passive, it could affect not only itself but also the world 
around it.  The rock can hope and think to itself all day, but without 
clear communication it is all all for naught.  Rather than thinking to 
itself, 'Please don't hurt me,' it could firmly ASK or TELL someone not 
to throw it.  And thus, by choosing an active rather than a passive role, 
the rock could evolve from being a mere prop to becoming a true player on 
the stage of life."
	Time passes in a dream, then begins again. "Who are you?" the man 
asks, and he seems to wait for a reply.
	"I am me. I am Gegi. I am who I am. I have rather a lot of names, 
you want the list?" She laughs.
	He does not seem to be amused. He answers:  "Some names are 
merely words, while others convey meaning and description.  Who ARE 
you?"  He again pauses.
	"I am an artist. I am a healer. I am a dreamer. I am one who 
cares." She shrugs. "Some would say I care too much. I say others care 
too little."
	He responds, "Artist.  Healer.  Dreamer.  Those are terms used to 
fit yourself into neat categories by comparing yourself with others."
	 "No, they're terms used to refer to what I -do-, or wish to do. 
Which still isn't who I -am-, I suppose."
	 "Who are YOU?"
	She smiles. "The Queen of Cups. The moon. You expect me to 
express something complicated under the limits of language? I -am-. See me."
	"While seeing you is simple, understanding you is complex. Do you 
claim that your outer, physical form represents all there is to you?  Or 
do instead claim that witnessing your actions allows a viewer to 
understand you?
	"I didn't mean see with your eyes..."
	"The wording of my question is short, but you provide similarly 
brief replies without even attempting to stretch the borders of language 
to give a true expression of all that forms your being.  Or perhaps is it 
that you avoid a true attempt at answering the question because you do 
not know the answer
yourself and at some level are trying to hide such a fact either from me 
or even from yourself?  And thus I ask again, WHO are you?"
	"I am purple. I am music and magic and madness. I am passion. I 
am loyalty. I am the belief that clings past all reason and will not give 
up. I am the child of the rain, water-in-air, Aquarius. And half Cancer, 
because I fit both "types." I am passive agression, the manipulator, 
submitting myself to the will of others while dominating that will. I am 
the lightbringer, supporter of the underdog, lover of the hopeless, the 
comforter. I am creation. I am the broken mirror. I am my own greatest 
fear, and my undoing."
	She shakes her head and continues. "But those are all 'what', not 
'who'... language, language! I am she who is all of these things. I am 
Georgina, oldest of my generation, the pride and joy of my family and my 
teachers and everyone who expects great things of me. I am Emily the 
temptress. I am Estella who wounds and Esta the frightened child who 
accepts the wounds. I am Synthea, Tremere by birth, Malkavian by choice, 
always seeking love, seeking to be useful, and burning with the inner 
madness. I am Christine, the will and the belief that will not be 
conquered, fighting to save the world. I am Selene. I am Gegi, the
actress, the gamer, the writer, who creates all of the others and 
inhabits them and -is- them. I am a soul undying, a child of God. Know me."
	He looks at her without reaction. "You are correct in pointing 
out that you answer first the question of `what.' Words of categories and 
feeling are not you, but aspects of them may lie at
your core.  You are no archetype but are an individual, and your brief 
words grant description with little meaning.  Even these simple groupings 
have limited meanings.  Do you refer to the water-bearer and the crab of 
the Chaldeans, or those of the Ancient Greeks, or those of the New Age 
astrologers of your own time period?  The Queen of Cups brings forth an 
imagery, yet the image is different not only to all who have read her but 
even in each dealing her interpretation differs according to whims of the 
beholder.
 	 "Your next attempt to speak starts to bring forth true feelings, 
yet still you hold to what you wish to be and what you would make 
yourself rather than what you truly are. Finally, you grasp for false 
faces--masks you have worn that hide your true self yet simultaneously 
bring out true aspects of yourself
which you would not otherwise dare to show.  While the masks can act as 
tools, you must not allow them to became a prison, and you must be who 
you are regardless of what mask you wear.  Regardless of what you want to 
be or pretend to be, there is an inner self which should not be-- but may 
be--altered and reformed by the mask.  Are you the mask, or she who wears 
the mask; the distinction might seem blurred, but at some level deep 
inside there is a division--though perhaps not the one you wish to find."
   	"Somewhere underneath there may lie an individual self, but I 
shall not force you to find where she lies.  You may dig if you wish, and 
I have done no more than to point out her existence.
 	 "But there are two points on which I will not debate with you: I 
suspect that you may be your own undoing."
	She glares at him. "You have told me -nothing- that I did not 
know. Don't you think I've thought about it? As a writer and an actress 
and a psych student, as a person who so often responds the way she thinks 
other want her to, don't you think I've thought about it? Where are the 
reflections and the masks, and where am I? It is not knowledge of self 
that I lack. It's the means of communication. I know who I am. I don't 
know how to tell -you- who I am."
	"Of -course- the symbols are ambiguous. What the words mean to me 
is never the same as what they mean to others. I attempt to convey 
impressions."
	"And even if there -were- words for what I mean, would I want to 
use them? To label is to limit, to transform a Thou into an Object. And 
if I knew a Truename, if such things exist, I certainly wouldn't give it 
to you."
	She pauses. "Two points. What's the second?"
	The elf answers, "You ARE a child."

* 	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

	A woman holds a tattered photograph of two little girls. 
"Garret?" she says in a slightly quavery voice "Who are these cubs?"
	He takes a deep breath and swallows painfully.  "Before I tell 
you, you have to promise me something.  You have to promise me that you 
won't try to reassure me, and that you won't mention it to me again.  I 
know what I am, I know what I did, and I know what I deserve for it.  I 
don't want to be told that I'm not a bad person or that it's not that 
awful.  For me, it is."  This last is said almost like a personal mantra.
	He takes a deep breath, and his face goes slack and empty.  His 
voice is a steady monotone with no emotion or inflection at all.  Because 
he's normally so full of passion, this makes it sound very cold and dead.
	"Those two pretty little girls represent my greatest sin.  You 
see, they have no mother because of me.  They are victims of my inability 
to understand anything except my own pain and need for vengeance."
	"After my parents were murdered and I awakened, my Avatar led me 
to an Euthanatos in Arizona named Alberon Zane, who agreed to be my 
mentor.  I was completely alone.  My parents were dead, and I had no 
other living relatives.  I was...angry.  I was angry that they had been 
taken from me, angry that I felt I had been pushed into a life that I 
hadn't even asked for, angry that I had been herded and chased like an 
animal.  I couldn't see the larger meaning of what I had become because 
of my rage.  Alberon saw it, and tried to temper it with discipline.  I 
took to the discipline, but only because I saw in the magick a way to 
take revenge on the people who had hurt me.  It's amazing how quickly you 
learn when bloodlust is driving you forward."
	"When Alberon died in a duel, the last thing holding my anger in 
check vanished.  I proceeded to disregard everything I'd been taught 
about mercy, compassion, and responsibility and used the other things I'd 
been taught to kill Technocrat mages.  Hand-to-Hand combat, blades, guns, 
silent movement, shadowing...I learned how to kill without learning how 
terrible a responsibility it is.  At first, I went after the agents in 
the NWO who ordered my parent's death...after that, I didn't much care 
who I killed, as long as they were Technocrats.  And I was amazingly 
successful.  It's possible to be very effective when you ignore your 
conscience and don't care whether you live or die."
	"I must have murdered over a dozen.  Many of them were new 
recruits, still green, easy prey for someone with my skills, 
determination, and patience.  After a while, even killing them wasn't 
enough.  I wanted them to...hurt...for what they'd done to me.  Do you 
know that with life magick, it's possible to keep a human being alive for 
over a day in constant agony before they just...give out?"
	He doesn't even seem aware of what he's saying anymore.  It's 
like he's a tape recorder or a telephone, simply reporting facts.
	"One day, I went after a young Void Engineer.  Vibrant, pretty, 
her whole life ahead of her...not that I cared.  I was feeling merciful 
that day, though.  It only took her seven hours to die.  While I was 
bundling up her things to take to a nearby alley and dump, her purse 
opened and her wallet fell open on the floor."
	"She had children.  Twin girls.  I looked at that picture for a 
long time, and I thought about how they would feel when the inevitable 
someone told them that their mother was dead.  And for the first time, I 
thought about what kind of creature I had become."
	"Then I ran, I think.  I just...ran.  From myself...from the 
truth...whatever.  I thought about suicide.  I mean, it was no more than 
I deserved.  But I didn't.  I wandered for a while...empty.  Lost.  
Eventually, with the help of someone who came to love me, I saw that I 
had two choices: give up and go on to the next life, or move on and try 
to make something good out of my evil.  I chose to move on.  It was... 
very hard.  Their faces haunted me at night...still haunt me.  Grief and 
guilt are hells all their own.  But I *did* go on...and I *did* get past 
it."  
	"The trick is not to fool yourself into thinking you can atone.  
I can't.  Even if I could bring those people back, what could I do to 
make up for their pain?  I did it by accepting that I was evil, and that 
part of me always would be.  But I still had choices, and I could still 
make good ones.  In a way, it made me very strong.  I know what evil is, 
because I have looked and seen it in my own heart."
	He appears to come back to himself, a little.  "I'm telling you 
this because you are not half so evil as I am.  If a murderer and sadist 
can move on, then so can you.  Leaving your blame behind is the first 
step.  Accepting what you are is the second.  Move on from there.  It's 
not easy, but you are lucky.  Like me, you have people who love you and 
will help you.  And eventually, you come to understand that people will 
still love you, despite what you've done..."
	His eyes flick to Rhiannon.  "Or at least, you hope so," he says softly.