The rennovated brownstone was well known to the denizens of Westend. Once held together by unstable magics, the new building stood solid, the product of manual labor. A rare thing in a place where all ley lines converged and the wild magic flowed like rivers through its streets. The rivers split, ran into shallows in the Westend and so became doubly unstable and risky to use.

A Crow could fly unmolested by dragons and other webwinged things that infested the lower end of the city. A Crow could perch amongst the gold and silver leaves of a Nesting tree and view the Westend's rubble and the life within.

A Crow could roost at the brownstone. A Crow planned to do so for a long while.

Jagged chunks of blue glass bounced into the air and then settled in the dust of a typical WestEnd vacant lot. The Brown Man winced as another bottle shattered against the cinderblock set in the direct center of the patch of nothing. No, not nothing.

The Brown Man knew things lived in the left over waste and scrub. Lived and died and scattered for the hills in the wake of the Crow's rampage. Again, the Brown Man knew he thought wrong. The Crow wasn't rampaging. This was a methodical shattering of spirit traps. The bottles, so recently hung on the Nesting tree, planted by Crow and Ancient, contained less than desirable things.

Wisps of consciousness drifted scattered amongst the glass and dust and life of the lot, joining and mingling with the dozen others the Crow let loose. Away from the Brownstone. Away from all that he ever cared about.

"Still not here," the Crow muttered, kicking up dirt and slivers. The spirits whispered around him like an ill wind but gave him no pause. They were lesser temptations, vices and doubts. He had no use for them though they paid him homage. He was the Knight of Ghosts and Shadows. He'd spent years in Summer establishing himself as such.

"Perhaps it is more clever than you," the Brown Man mused and capered about. "Cleverer" Cleaver" Clevar?"

The Crow lit a cigarette as he watched the Brown Man dance. "Perhaps, but it will pay me homage. It will bend its knee to me."

"Or kill you," the Brown Man cackled.

Imagine.

The Crow.

Dragonslayer.

The Brown Man stopped laughing when it spied the look in the Crow's eye.

It was late when she finally arrived back in WestEnd. Early, actually, the near false dawn. Her Ebon Knight and twin stars were still asleep on the upper floors of the Brownstone. Dressing in shorts and a clean tank she tried to engage her mind by continuing the rebuilding of Baby's engine. Despite the fading link from the mage bike she could still feel its ire, but she simply wasn't up to the task. Too many things wrestled within her mindscape, pulled at her attentions.

Having left the coffee pot on all day, it was just how she liked it. Pouring a cup, she moved out into the true dawn to sit beneath the Nesting Tree, stretching herself outwards to watch and listen to all that was happening about the neighborhood she called home. So restless she was, and as eyes began to swim with darkened threads, her body still as stone cross-legged there on the ground, the Ancient allowed that restlessness free rein away from her family's immediate vicinity.

"I always feel sad when the moon sets," he spoke softly, as if it was not her for which the words were intended. He had caught her unawares, just another thing that niggled at her brain. Still, her Crow was here. To hear his voice so close with all that was roiling inside, after so long a time of its absence in this realm, words could not describe how it made her feel. So, she let her face and body tell the story of just what he meant to her. The smile warm and bright for him alone, a pale hand reaching out to bring him near with desire and need.

"She be waitin' for ye." It sounded like such a simple phrase.

"Is she?" Eyes of silver true followed his light-stepped movement as he lit a cigarette and came towards her, then past to snap a blue bottle from a rope attached to a branch of the Nesting Tree. He peered inside the glass and her body sang with fire. Gods and Demons how she wanted him to take her, right here and right now! This wasn't a new feeling; his presence, the mere thought of him brought waves to crashing force within her.

Spun-lace silvered brows furrowed while he fiddled with the bottle. "Wha' be the Knight o' Ghosts an' Shadows up to, m'lord" Wha' delicacies gather in ye bottles o' glass?"

So often, she knew, it was he in the position of trying to catch up, to understand all the myriad befuddling things having to do with her and that around her. She really had not been fair to Scottie all these years, purposefully leaving him in the dark. For his safety, she would rationalize. And, for the most past, this was truth. Yet, would he chuckle to know the Trueblood was just as perplexed about him' Mystery. Many things that had to deal with her Crow oft left her clueless.

"I'm waiting for someone." His answer came with a sidelong glance and that sly, cunning coyote smile that made her want to jump his bones. Fox light danced along her own smile, the bottle's arc followed as it flew from his hand to shatter somewhere distant beyond their backyard.

"Now who be keepin' thin's from who?" He was upset, and she wasn't dense. This was not a conversation she wanted to have. A little distraction, just a touch, and long fingers stroked a soft trail down from his hip along the leg of those pajama bottoms she wanted him out of this very second.

Fast, a hawk diving for prey, he snatched up her wrist and crouched. Time spent in Summer had changed her Crow. All that she knew was there from the beginning now showed itself full-fledged, and she burst with pride. Her body remained at rest, relaxed, watching those dark eyes. Of all the beings that moved in and out of the Ancient's existence, her Crow was the only one to whom she gave true and unguarded trust. He owned her, completely. Though, she did not know as they ever spoke of it.

Silver true met his glittery gaze, and the tilt of her head was bird-like imitation. Perhaps, just perhaps, she could sway him from this path he was determined to drag her down.

"Ye be....upset."

"Without us they will die. Winter will come and all will be cold, Manon."

Winter. First Winter. My mind travelled back and back to long and long ago. The remembering of it, I knew, clouded the unglamoured silver of my gaze as I lifted my head to Jack. Before Mab had meddled in both our memories, when the Moon was lost to a thorny Thicket of Sorrows, and an Ebon Knight came on wing as messenger to bring the Moon down.

The thought of such time, of all I'd wrought, brought that damnable water to my eyes and when I pulled away and he let me, the shiver of his form and the sadness that hung about him gave me pause at the stairs' edge. He seemed so lost, like the first time I saw him in a Summer meadow.

But oh, what this male does to me. So easy it would be to let it all fall away without his strength so near. To deal with immediate threat, fight the fight that comes along. Give over to the warrior and forget about the Maiden. Become; exist as I was created to be. Let others move the pawn; forget about the whole of the game.

For all Jack gave to me, I could resent him. For all he gave to me, I never could.

I stepped forth and curled my fingers about his rough hand, knowing he saw plain that so much weighed and warred upon my face and in my eyes. My mate read me like an open book, knew me like no other, even when he thought otherwise.

Gentle and warm I held to his hand and reached for the nursery's door handle with my free one. "I wan' to see them," I spoke quietly, hushed so as not to disturb our children sleeping. He was right. Then again, wasn't he always if I'd just listen" I did need to see them.

He was careful with my hand, afraid to jar the arm he'd roughly treated. There was a war within my Jack, too. The Alpha, the possessor, the feral conqueror was always butting up against the Knight, the protector, the lover. Sympathy was still so alien, but I should try harder. He gave so much, took a lot from me and that which surrounds me I often wonder why he's stayed all this time.

I thought wanting to see the bairns as he'd wanted me to would bring him some relief, but there was none there. In his dark eyes I could see he felt this was but the first of battles. What we were fighting....Well....I decided to blind myself to that for now.

"You will be amazed, Manon," he whispered soft against my ear as we moved through and in, past the original nursery and into the nanny's room where the twins now slept. I gave a thought to storing the cribs and finding appropriate beds for them both amongst the warehouse spoils Miles brought for the brownstone's renovation some years back. And then, my sight feasted upon our sleeping stars. How they had grown in Summer!

Leaning in the doorway, my hand in that of my Ebon Knight's, I watched as little chests moved up and down with the even breaths of slumber. I marveled at their eyes tracking back and forth behind shuttered lids and wondered what they dreamt with so young of memories to cull from. "Oh, Jack," my whisper breathed against his shoulder and I rested my chin lightly there.

He seemed to grow taller with pride and joy and love, watching them sleep. "Our girl says I don't look right without m'wings." And my mate seemed to preen with the thought without a motion. He was the parent I never was, never would be. He would always be there to hold a hand, wipe a tear, and soothe a scrape or slight. His words would always be more right than mine when it came to them. He would be the one they turned to when things overwhelmed. A small part of me wanted to hate him for this, another strange concept, but I could not. It was what it was, and we were who we were.

Tilting my head in its rest upon his shoulder, I kept the twins and my mate in view. The love he shone with reflected back towards him and grew as the shine off my family nearly blinded me. "She be right. An', I miss them, as well. I miss ye arms about me as we fly. Oh, Jack. Do ye remember Summer?"

Flying....I don't think I've ever gotten used to the loss. Horses were close. The iron ones of the mortals even closer. Yet, sometimes the substitution leaves but bittersweet taste and I wonder on a decision made before my feet touched ground.

Whether it was the Dragon's doing, or the smokey palate of pushed back memories, I don't know, but I knew the fog was seeping back as I spoke to Jack of Summer. In my mindscape it was not just the 'Lands I saw, but a certain time and place when a youngling and a coyote played chase and tease amongst its meadows.

The vision of my mate and all that rose about us in the now was swiftly fading, and I was loathe to stop it from happening. Jack nodded to my words, kissing my brow, though, and I could still see clear enough to know he wondered if he'd ever be allowed peace with me, rest. Time to know our blood and what they would one day be. For him, for this, I wanted to peel back the clouds that were sweeping in again. "I remember Summer, Manon, but I have never known Spring."

"Spring?" It was a struggle to hold there, stay in the now. Our whispers pulling out into the nursery as I eased us from the twins' room and shut the door.

"Aye, Spring. You would remember. Do you not?" Some part, growing distant, realized Jack didn't want to leave the sight of our children. For a moment, something gripped at my insides and twisted. What if he didn't follow" Would I keep walking away, alone" How would I exist' Was this what the Dragon was waiting for, pushing me towards"

My Ebon Knight's eyes closed and I paused in the doorway between hall and nursery. The in-between. Neither here nor there. Something moved against the haze and I looked at my mate across the room, frowning. "Spring. Ye mean....Ye mean Manon." Give the lady a gold star! Perhaps she isn't as dense as she appears.

His eyes remained closed, but his voice broke through despite the quiet of its tone. "Manon."

The flavor of near resignation, the sorrow that was beginning to drop about him like a cloak shoved aside the remnants of obscuring mists and his trueness called to mine until I stood there as I am in Summer. The Maiden. Power behind my soft askance. "An' wha' would ye know, Crow" Wha' would ye know o' Spring" Wha' would ye 'ave me tell o' it?"

My truth stirred his own, though his eyes did not need to open to know it shone upon me. His came in the guise of feathers and rustling wings, and he finally opened those dark eyes to gaze upon me with longing. It was a look that always sends me reeling. I never feel worthy of how he views me when he looks at me like this. I always wonder what he sees. "Everything," he breathed.

It had started before Scottie and the bairns had returned to Summer. Returned to lands he was to rule and watch over, returned to ensure the safety of our children away from what seemed to ever-plague and follow me. After rediscovering one another and reclaiming some of our memories through the swiss cheese mine field of our mindscapes, for many mortal years we two struggled on an almost daily basis. He against the walls I kept up, me to keep them up so he might remain safe in ignorance. I had finally begun to open, to let him in to the deepest parts I once held in reserve so tightly. And then, as usual, it had to cease. Something came up. Something plagued.

He and the twins left Rhy'Din, left our home, and I was reduced to few and far between visits in a world I'd cut myself purposefully from too long ago to count. "Aye. E'erythin'. An'...." I ache to look upon this male. So much of him moves within what passes as my soul. He owns my wholeness, and, yet, I hold so much from him. Do I fear him knowing, fear he would not understand, fear he will leave me" I guess this, in part, is truth. Still, if not now, when" It was time.

Silently I moved back across the room to him, to his touch, to his strength. Fingers curling to capture his hands. '"Then, come an' ask an' I shall show ye wha' ye desire to know. All ye desire to know." I closed my eyes and took a deep, steeling breath. "Oh, Scottie."

As his feathered brow touched to mine, he whispered. "How badly did it hurt to Fall so far?"

How could I answer such a question' My breathing became slow and deep and I reveled in the energy he brought. Remaining like that for a time that stretched beyond its ticking boundaries, I finally whispered back the only answer that came to me. "Nae as badly as bein' Above an' worse than ye can imagine. Would ye truly know this, m'love" Be it shockin' to know I fear the tellin'" I fear ye knowin'?"

"You cannot shock me, Manon." He seemed breathless, he always did around me when we were like this. So close to our trueness. "Manon....I...." Words hung in the air unspoken. Gone completely from him was the animal of not an hour before.

I lifted a hand to cup his cheek and met his crow dark gaze, the one I wanted to drown in and never leave. "Ask, m'love. I wan' ye to know. I wan' to throw wide the doors so lon' kept between us." Perhaps this was why I'd been so compelled to do the Telling to Jodiah' This would not be the same, but maybe....Maybe with the aging knight it was a practice run" A chance to string it out so its completeness I could truly share with my Crow. To let him really know the Moon. Not just her silvery face, but the dark side no one sees.

"Please...." and he kissed the palm of my hand. "Show me. I want to feel it."

"Aye." I glanced over my shoulder to where our children slept. Time would pass where I would take him, eons of it, but it might be but short moments where we stood. Still...."But, nae here. 'Tis immersin', we be goin' deep, m'love. To places I dun e'en go any longer. Mayhaps we needs arrange a watcher for the bairns so we can be free to explore."

"Who?" Rightfully, he was stymied to think of any we could get. He knew no one in Rhy'Din these days. So, I assured him we could be calling on someone trusting and that we would figure it out. This was of import in more ways than even we two knew.

"Of Scottie and Sid"]