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"I'm not into rats, sweetling," the other feien said patiently. "If I have to be in the middle of blood sport, I'd prefer it to have four limbs and be Feien-shaped. Otherwise, what's the entertainment?" Casca also preferred to be in and out in ten seconds. If he didn't do things quickly he was pretty much sunk, considering. "I'm sure Soho is grateful for the rodent holocaust."

Dee had relaxed a little: she wiped her mouth again, apple all gone, fussy. "It was be-yoo-ti-ful," she promised her half-sister. "It was just gor-geous. You were very, very pretty indeed."

((SILVA TWIRLING HIS STAFF IS THE BEST))

Regretfully, Burgundia shook her head. "I never met our daddy," she said. "We share him, you see. Isaac. You have a different mama in your breedin', but we're both Isaac's chirren, sure as sure can be. I might've met him, but the Fleet erased my memory when I got transferred to Rose-mama. Maybe we'll both meet him one day. I'd like that just fine."

She smiled at Soho, fastidiously rearranging her pink skirts. "I guess we look a little alike, don't we? Your eyes are just like mine only on account of you having three and me two and our hair's the same colour."

Cascati looked at the staff in his one hand, laughing as he took it, accounting for the solid weight. It wasn't a particularly happy laugh. "Darling, it's not quite my style. You know you're just going to beat the sheer s**t out of me." That look in his eyes again, taking it in both his hands, cigarette transferred to one corner of his mouth. "So come on, sweetheart."

Aleric's staff immediately clattered to the floor: nothing loath at the stab of pain, Casca raised his hand. It took barely a second for the collected moisture in the air to condense, fracture the light into a hard icicle of his element: that he could carry. And it soothed what was going to be bruised fingers, too.

"But blood is the point, ducky," he said, slightly muffled by the cigarette; and then he came at Silva wholesale, mindless, not so much a tactical move as attempting to cling to him like a particularly determined and suicidal limpet. His skin was arrestingly cold.

"Oh, of course," Dee was saying happily: she and Soho were like the cuddle channel in comparison to the WWF going on just a little way away. "I wish you would. I can't do a single blessed thing with it except tie it back, it just falls in spikes. It's such a waste on a woman, I wish I had your hair."

He stumbled: he used the momentum to push himself around, hands on the floor, pushing himself back to career right into Silva's back. He was worse than weak; he was slow as hell. However, Casca knew one thing, and that was God or the Devil loved him, because he was lucky. He didn't want to win. He just wanted the hurt. Him or Silva's, Casca didn't give a damn.

"I always back it up," he murmured: and he was damn small, which sucked, but there was a lot of Silva. His hand shot out with the cigarette from his mouth and planted the burning end firmly into the other Feien's lower back.

Burgundia was giggling again: a bit like she'd never giggled properly before, which she hadn't. Soho was more than a little infectious. And her small hands tickled. "Well, I do try to keep it nice," she admitted "So who have you met out in the big ole wide world, Ruby?"

Dee''s opinion of Silva softened: obviously he was not such a bad father if he was affectionate towards Soho, though in her biased opinion everybody on God''s green earth would probably be affectionate towards Soho given ten seconds'' worth of chance. At least she had an, um, varied home life. "God love you, Ruby, you do have a lot of people. It sure is kind of lonely back where I come from," she said wistfully. "Apparently there''s another Feien called Simon who lives there but I haven''t ever clapped eyes on him, and I''ve heard all about Corvus but nobody seems to know where he is, so it''s just me and Casca. I suppose I should be thankful. Gives me a lot of time to have beauty naps and contemplate God. I need a lot of beauty sleep, you see, on account of being pretty." The last was possibly Burgundia''s First And Incredibly Lame Joke, and was accompanied by another giggle.

Silva''s blow was more than glancing. Stunned, the juvie flew down hard into the surface of the table, probably concussed: it took him a moment, but he staggered to his feet again, more out of gut masochism than any kind of stamina. He was grinning now, hat having fallen off long ago. His eyes were unfocused. Casca staggered forward like a zombie, picking up his icicle where it had rolled away, heaving himself back towards the adult with a sad kind of inevitability. He was no match for Silva.

"You hit hard, ********," was all he said, jaunty, and then it began all over again.

Casca struggled for a moment, an object in motion, trying to get out of Aleric's grip; but then he stopped, head hanging down, an impressive bruise already beginning to form at his hairline.

"You would have been doing me a favour, darling," he said, trying to catch his breath still. "You probably would have been doing the whole wide world a favour. Que sera sera, I suppose. Thank you kindly - " That was towards Aleric, now, blankly. "Thank you."

Burgundia thought about it, leaning back so that her hands were propping her up and her head was dipped back closer to Soho. "Well," she drawled eventually. "I met a couple, I guess. I met Valsharess a little, only if you'd believe it I didn't meet her much because she was getting all cozy with my brother five minutes in, and I wouldn't say anything bad about her only that struck me as a bit brazen, and her brother Rurik - oh, God help me, darlin', but he's a mean low-down evil thing. Don't you go near him, he's a little wretch."

"He did," her sister said, still indignant with the memory. "First off he was sayin' all kinds of vile things - swearing and carrying on and just making me mad. Now, I'm just a tiny itty-bitty thing, so I gave him a little whop through the face, I admit it - a girl slap just to show him he had no manners. I have tiny liddle hands, wouldn't hurt a fly. But he goes and chunks me right back. I hate him soo-ooo-ooo badly."

Cascati looked up at Aleric, skin tingling faintly as it was healed by the life feien; his eyes uncrossed, crossed again, and then went back to normal. "Not at present," he said. "Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye, etcetera, etcetera. Besides, it's such an ignominous place to die, on a picnic table."