I hear you. As I always have. As I always will. I do not belong here yet here I am. There was someplace I was meant to be....but I have forgotten....where that is. This is not home. Why have I come here" Why is your call so much louder now...

Cobblestones and the wet condesation of the fog and mist. Cinders of the soul was the shade of eyes in opening.

There was so much pain.

It tore through her. Her voice broken, hoarse as the cry escaped her.

In the streets of the Marketplace the fall to the stones had not been so hard.

Not so rough.

Not something that should hurt this much.

Cracked nails. Bleeding and chipped.

They would crawl on the walls of stone, that ancient foundation as she found her way to her feet.

Looked to the world around her and remembered nothing of it.

This was not as she remembered.

Nothing as it was meant.

This world was dark and cruel, dirty and rough. Savage and raw.

Not at all what she remembered.

Memories were fleeting.

Her face raised to the sky and she thought the light was blinding. Blinding and Beautiful.

Now it was nothing but oil and street lamp glow.

Dirty and destroyed.

A look down to herself. Expecting the white silk and the polished porcelain of skin and to see the silver glisten of eyes.

Instead the puddles on the stones revealed that she....was just as dirty and savage. Raw and worn.

There was no beauty here.

Her cries were soundless.

She would not weep for what was lost. It would mean she wept for herself.

If I hear you does this mean that you listen to me" That in the night as you sleep you hear my cry' I knew you once....but now I remember nothing more then this. The sound of your voice. Still this is all I have while I have fallen into my silence....I know nothing of where you are....and here...it is so quiet. I have grown....silent. Never will I sing again.

Oaths broken. This is how the night hours feel. Dark and heavy. I'm doing nothing more then chasing a figment. Your voice has become a sweet torment to me. I've never cried this much...and yet....when I hear your voice, no matter how much it makes me long for something more....there's peace. I miss you.

Silent tears would never stain her face, the soot and dirt smudged features had found a way to be rubbed clean.

Scalding baths had left her feeling nothing more then raw and exposed.

Wary of the world as she moved through the hustle and bustle of an afternoon marketplace.

A door jingle jangled open a merry chime of bells and the sound left her confused. Made her forget where she was.

Made her believe she was back somewhere else. A place that she had belonged. If only she could remember where that was.

Chiming bells.

Lips parted as if to speak but voice came mute. Silent. Wings.

The sweet ring was a clarion cry. So beautiful yet it left her with such agony in the pit of her soul.

Gaze tracked the sky. Wandered over the line of a cloud.

A touch of warmth on her skin and she almost smiled. It reminded her of something...

An embrace. A touch.

Till she realized that warmth at her skin was nothing more then a trash can on fire.

This was not home. A silent cry that wished to be a scream. She looked around. Lost again.

The more I move, wander, I feel like I have found you....I hear you so well....but I wonder now if your voice cries out for me like the bells never did. Maybe....you are just a lie I made up. Perhaps I have gone mad. But if this is madness....I will take its poison. Each and every day.

~Past - Another Place~

"That's it, Michael. I'm done."

A look of concern from his old friend. "What do you mean, done?"

"I mean done as in 'finished.' I can't do this any more...leaving Argent...fighting, having to forget her every time to be able to focus on the fight. I can't...this last time..." He shakes his head, not able to put it into words. "She and I belong together, Michael. She's more important to me than this."

A sigh from his friend. "I should have known this day would come. When you first told me...we've kept this a secret between us, and the Divine...he won't be happy, Kethan. We have plenty of warriors, but only a few leaders. But you always have the choice, of course...only..."

Anger in his own voice now, as he senses a condition coming. "Only what?"

Micheal sighs, his head bowed, his voice quiet. "When you go, you have to forget. You know how this works...you know you have to find her again, but this time will be much more difficult. You won't have her voice this time to guide you."

"Wait a minute...what?" He's not only angered, but confused.

"Her voice...it's not hers anymore...she...lost it when you left this last time. I'm not sure why, but it has something to do with her..." The last is uttered in tones so soft Kethan can only just make them out. "...with her being pregnant."

The anger is erased, the words wiping it from his mind, replacing it with a sort of joy that is as rapturous as the voice he had loved for so long. "She...Musette is...with child...?" The look on his face is transported joy for a moment. Without another word, he turns and begins running.

As he is reaching the crossing point, the place where life reigns, he feels it happening.

Memories draining away. Her face falling from his mind, the feeling of joy being forgotten. He pushes harder, faster, trying to outrun the sensation.

But to no avail. Her name is on his lips, crying out to her one last time, as he is taken away...

~Present Day, above the RhyDin Marketplace~

The joy of flight.

No matter what it is he's forgotten, no matter what else he's missed, he never forgets this sensation - of being up in the air, of being simply and utterly free of hindrance except for the laws of physics.

A look down into the marketplace from this height might be hard for any normal human. With his eyes, though, he is able to see far clearer than eagles, able to pick out details that a bird of prey would miss.

He is about to pass on when he sees her.

The woman, slumped against the wall of the store. Dirty, disheveled, blood upon her flesh, tears upon her face.

There is no familiarity, save perhaps for a fleeting sensation of deja vu that is there and gone in a moment. With everyone passing her by, no one offering to help. What is the problem here"

A moment's consideration is all it takes. Angels are, after all, made to help, no matter what the problem is.

The wings tip, tilt, circling downwards, ever in a spiral, towards the earth, gliding down to the stones of the marketplace, landing lightly on his feet. He approaches the woman slowly, the wings tucked behind his back just visible over his shoulders, hands out to show he means no harm to her, pale blue of his eyes kind as he walks over to her, his hand extended in offering as he approaches and kneels before her.

"Excuse me, miss...but is there something I might do to help you?"

The Void of Memory - the past

Something is wrong...he can feel it. He has been here, in this place before, that strange place between memory and forgetfulness. Where he can, if he concentrates, remember why it is he is here, and for whom.

But never before has he been here this long.

He feels as if he is waiting for something.

It is some time before he becomes aware of another presence nearby, watching him. The white void all looks alike to him, but finally he is able to find the presence.

Another of the Choir.

Her hair red like the blaze of embers, her skin ivory blessings of purity, eyes the deep blue of the ocean as the sun shines down upon it.

"Dear Kethan."

He knows that voice, but he cannot get a fix on the name for the longest time. Finally he is able to grasp it. "Evangeline?"

She smiles. "You remember me...that is good. Dear Kethan...we know of what is happening. We of the choir has ever been enamored of the love you and Musette share...it has affected us all, and we cannot help but be moved by your plight. So we come to offer you a gift."

He is confused at the words, able to grasp their meaning but not understanding. "A...gift?"

She nods, smiling as she comes closer, her hands coming up to rest against the side of his face. "A gift. We cannot let you be sent from this place with no hope of finding your beloved. This is our gift to you, that you and Musette may have the happiness you both so deserve."

The confusion is rendered palpable on his face, and he opens his mouth to ask, only to find fingers pressed to his lips. "Our gift to you is this: there will be one chance we can give you, one small boon. But you will have to listen so very carefully for it, dear Kethan. When you find her, when you speak to her, she will know your voice, and you hers...but you will have to listen so very carefully."

The hands are removed, and he can feel himself falling away, falling, falling.

"Remember, dear Kethan. Listen carefully, and you will find your love."

RhyDin Marketplace - the present

He might not have heard it at all for the din of the marketplace.

Might have missed it entirely, might have missed the chance.

The one chance.

But as she covers his face, something - some strange instinct - tells him to listen closely. Tells him to lean in close.

Together with instinct, leaning in close, and hearing so finely tuned that has ever served him well on the field of battle, the faint cry from her reaches his ears.

Even in the faintness, the whispery, desperate tone, that voice is glorious.

Rapturous.

Divine.

With that one, faint, bell-like tone, everything comes crashing back, a wave of memory and emotion that it is near a physical blow to him as he kneels, bringing him to his knees before the one he sees before him.

That beloved, beautiful face he has woken up to so very many times, to watch it in sleep, fingers moving over the silky softness of skin on her cheek to brush errant ebon strands from her face.

The lips that he has tasted, that he has savored, that he has felt on his skin. Every touch a blessed delight.

For a long moment, he is struck silent as she, as every memory comes back, right up to the last.

The promise of new life. Of their child.

At long last, he is able to find words. To find his own voice. And yet, the only thing he can bring himself to say is the same thing he has said every time since the first that she had brought his memories back from their place of forgetting, a revelation of truth.

"Argent...I love you."

~The First Time~

"You should talk to her, man."

He looked down at his friend, one of the few he had acquired. Always the poor, the downtrodden. But they are the most noble, the strongest despite their apparent weak appearance. "No way, Jack. I mean...look at her." He looked away, watching the dark haired girl across the street from the alleyway he is standing in as she shops at a fruit stand. "She's...beautiful. The loveliest thing I've ever seen. And I'm a man with wings. She'll see me like so many do - as a freak."

Jack laughs, a raucous sound. "Dude, you're an angel. What woman wouldn't want you?"

"Oh, sure. You know that." He is still watching the woman. Too far away to hear her voice, but every time she speaks to someone they light up with awe and wonder, as though it were the most beautiful thing they had ever heard. "She doesn't."

He feels a shove from behind, and turns his head to see Jack pushing him out of the alleyway. He's wearing his long coat, hiding the wings at his back. The smaller man's shove is ineffectual, of course, but he finds himself moving anyway. "Go on, Kethan. You been starin' at that girl for the past week and then some. What've you got to lose?"

~Present Day~

Her voice. Even haunted, even in panic, even with the feral note, it is the single most beautiful thing that has ever touched his ears.

Even dirty and disheveled, even tear-stained and in sorrow, he finds her as beautiful as he did that first day.

Moving closer, the long, white wings spreading to either side to shield them from other's view, he reaches out with his hands to cradle her cheeks in them, tears touching his own eyes, running down his cheeks.

But not tears of sorrow...these are tears of pure joy.

"Argent...does this feel like a trick?"

~Past~

"Kethan..."

He knows that voice. That sweet, beautiful voice like silvery bells pealing in perfect harmony. That voice had brought him back from ruin when he was almost destroyed, that voice had been in his mind ever since.

Thou shalt not covet, and yet from the first time he had opened his eyes to see her looking over him, she had been all he would ever want again.

Warmth and comfort at the feel of her so close, and for a long moment, he stays there, in that place he never wants to leave, afraid to open his eyes for fear that the dream will be dispelled and that he will find himself in that lonely place of awaiting the next battle again.

It is hard to believe that the Divine's creation of a soldier would ever find it hard to summon courage.

Finally, he opens them. To find himself just where he wished to be.

Lying in the arms of his beloved, the possessor of the voice that would become his memory. His words to her will be echoed back, in the distances of time, as he reaches up to brush onyx and crimson strands from her face to see the smile that was for him alone.

"You're really here..."

That smile that he never will understand comes to her lips, amazement mixed with hope and love. Her words to him, too, will, in the fullness of time, be spoken back to her...

~Now~

"I've always been here."

And it is truth. Somewhere in his mind, every time, he had been here, even when he was not. Indulging the simple pleasure of holding her in his arms, remembering again what it feels like to be complete.

And again marveling that he ever could have forgotten, even for a short time.

His hands move along her body, one following the gentle lines of muscles in her back, the shallow valley of her spine.

The other caressing her front, over the lush, full mound of her breast, down to her stomach, and finally pausing.

The slow, tenderly circling rub over her stomach and the small but easily definable rise there. The feel of it makes the breath catch in his throat, the tears well in his eyes, as he looks into hers, his expression one of transported joyous realization as he remembers, his voice the husky, low counterpoint to her heavenly voice.

"It's true..."