Welcome to Gaia! ::

Cressa roused herself off the earthen floor an hour or so later to find her teddybear missing. She sat up quickly, looking around, and found him moved across to Luathrae's side of the fire.

She couldn't help but feel a little pang of jealousy, as much as she tried to swallow it down. It was not as much as it could have been, however, as the other woman herself was lying down, asleep, not far from her. Jessie seemed to have been trying to meditate, for he'd fallen asleep sitting up, head dropping down onto his chest. It was one of the disadvantages of their kind, for whom sleep is so much like a kind of meditation. It was very difficult to remain diligent for long.

She got up and padded barefoot around the dying blaze. As she knelt down next to her long-time friend, she could feel the connection between them solidifying, like a radio being tuned in to its proper frequency. Strange, dreamy thoughts that were not her own began flowing into the part of her mind that belonged to him, and as she gently took hold of his shoulders to lay him down on the comfortable grass she couldn't help but reply to them.

You're dreaming about her again.

He'd been doing that a lot those past few days. It was strange, for Cressa. She'd known for many years, of course, that he'd been in mourning. It was one of the first things she'd picked up on when they met. What astounded her was the fact that he'd kept it so well hidden. She'd heard not a peep about her ever since she had Soulbonded him... until their conversation beneath the tree at Barton. Then, it was like all of his barriers were just breaking down, and long-hidden thoughts and feelings were flooding out.

That had been a really bad day for him. It was a strange feeling, for her. She'd thought... after she'd performed the ceremony... that she knew everything about him. She knew his thoughts before he did. Sometimes, she felt she knew him better than he did himself.

Obviously, she had been wrong.

That's what you get for cheating. For taking without his knowledge. That's what you get for being a thief. A witch. A freak. A pathetic, deluded weakling. Unfit for leadership.

He gave a small wince in his sleep, and she tenderly ran her fingers through his fringe, as if that alone could soothe the torture running wild in his sleeping mind. She wished that she could go probing about in his mind to help calm things down, but unfortunately their connection only went one way. Mother knows she often wished someone would do just that for her.







She'd known this time would come. It was the bitter alternative - the nightmare version of her dreams. She'd tried to be happy for him. Mother, she wanted him to be happy, she really did, but he was making a mistake. That's all. That's how she tried to see it. He was making a mistake, and eventually he'd come to see that his happiness didn't lie with her at all. Not her, or her, or anyone else.

Just her. Cressa.

"You can't make him love you, you know," said a voice from behind her as she knelt, stroking his hair.

"I know," Cressa whispered. Then, her head snapped up in surprise, and she looked round to see Luathrae sitting up, hugging her knees and watching her. Her emerald eyes retreated behind a tough, hardened shield. ""

"Yes, you do," the wise young woman replied quietly. She lifted her hand and raked it through her long, black hair, and even though it was impossible to tangle she still managed, in the dying light of the fire, to look like a wild, untamed ranger - the kind she might have been if she'd been born a few milennia previously. Instead, she was a young woman, with wisdom and ambition but very little skill to her name. Ambition without knowledge...

Cressa was gazing away from her darkly. "" she bit, ""

"Nothing," Luathrae said.

"'Nothing?'"

"Nothing. " she said sadly, ""

"" Cressa snapped, pulling and pinching at the material around the neck of Jessie's shirt in her temper, ""

"knows how you feel, and you know it. He's ignoring it. I've seen it before,>" she insisted, ""

"" the sorceress suddenly shrieked, rounding on her. ""

"" she advised, unflinching in the wild-eyed face of the fae sorceress, ""

Cressa glared at her solidly, not wanting to admit that she had even a grain of truth to her advice.

"" she said through gritted teeth, ""

Under her steely gaze, Luathrae sighed and got to her feet, dusting off her borrowed trousers. "I'm going to collect some more firewood."

It was a pretence. As she walked out of the circle and was lost among the line of trees, Cressa was left alone to mull over her thoughts.

"" Cressa spat, after several minutes of unhappy thinking.

"" Corie whispered. Cressa didn't react - didn't rip the bird out of her cloak and throw it into the dying fire, didn't explode with rage as she might have done.

She bent forward, hair brushing the ground, and pressed her lips to Jessie's as he lay asleep, just as she had done many times before. With a sigh, she straightened back up - but then, on second thoughts, dropped down and kissed him again, one hand cupping his jaw as if it were the kiss of life.

""

"" she whispered.

"Hm..." came Corie's pessimistic croak, ""

She didn't reply.

"How many men have you known? And yet you keep on choosing to give yourself to the only ones who refuse to fall at your feet->"

"" she suddenly cried, "person. If I could just make him see... If he could just love me... just as I am...>"

Just as she was. Just as no one ever had before.










"" the bird replied, ""

~~~~~~~~~

The next morning, a small outpost on the edge of the mountains was baffled to find itself invaded by alien elves. The three politely took up a small, circular table in the airy cafe, and sat jabbering in their foreign tongue over a breakfast mainly composed of bacon and toast. The staff watched, warily, from afar.

"Police across Gaia are baffled by the spate of seemingly unrelated crimes which struck our shores on the day which journals are now calling "The Day of Darkness, Crime, Terror and Blood." From mass robberies in the early hours of the morning and a supposed terrorist attack to a massacre on the outskirts of Durem and gang warfare in the streets..."

Jessie glanced up at the newsreader on the TV affixed to the wall, and raised his eyebrow pointedly at Cressa. ""

Cressa just smiled an unfathomable smile, and slightly turned her head towards the wall.

~~~~~~~~~